Oldest Flute (so far) Found near Ulm

How old? Thirty-five thousand years. And it is unmistakeably a deliberately carved flute. The twelve pieces of it fit together to show a delicate instrument with five holes, carved from the wing bone of a griffon vulture. The finished mouth piece has a V notched into it. (The other end is missing)

Griffon vultures are now gone from Germany, but the species is not extinct. They thrive in Spain and in the Middle East.

The flute was found at Hohle Fels (which means Hollow Rock in German), a cave in the hills west of Ulm. This picture is from the ShowCaves site, and was taken by Jochen Ducheck. The cave entrance is right below the giant rock.

This is the same cave in which an equally ancient, headless, tiny, voluptuous, female-shaped carving made of mammoth ivory was found--here's my post on that. And here's another picture from ShowCaves showing an excavation near the entrance to the cave.

So. Musical instruments, lots of bones indicating successful hunts, and big-boobed statues . . . Obviously, around 35,000 years ago, Hohle Fels was party central. And that's not just mho--most of the articles, including this one from the New York Times, make some joke about Happy Hours. The Los Angeles Times story was headlined, "Germany's 1st nightclub?"

The same archaeologist (Nicholas J. Conard) that made this recent find also discovered the previous claimant to World's Oldest Flute as well--in the same area. I wrote about that on a HubPages entry, and included an interesting link to a sound recording of what that flute would sound like. Just in case you're interested. But those and other possible flutes were apparently not considered conclusive. Were the holes placed there deliberately, some nabobs of negativism queried, or were these very old bits of ivory just thin and deteriorating? Well, the vulture bone has lines--decorative, I'm guessing--as well as aligned holes, so I don't think the artifact could conceivably be anything BUT a flute.

1897 Lourdes Film

The World Digital Library has all sorts of online treasures, graphically searchable by continent or time line. Our own Library of Congress collaborated with UN agencies to compile it, making the world's cultural heritage (well, part of it) available to anyone. What have they got?

Ancient maps. The first printing of a letter from Christopher Columbus dated 1493. Photographs from all over the world. Recordings, including a bagpipe version of Amazing Grace. Manuscripts, including Christine de Pisan's 15th century book on etiquette and practical advice, translated into English in 1489 so that Henry VII's soldiers could benefit from her words.

Here's a film by the Lumiere brothers showing the procession at Lourdes in 1897. Neato!

Update on Looting

In the previous post I gave the basic story of how looters--who were digging up Native American artifacts in the Four Corners area--were arrested last week.

To be very clear, NO ADULT could possibly be unaware that what they were doing was a crime. While most of the artifacts came from federally-owned land, we now learn that some were dug up on tribal land. These people committed crimes for years and profited from them, making tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their actions show not only a scorn of law and order, but complete disregard for Native American sensibilities.

One of the accused committed suicide, leaving his wife to face charges. No one's cheering about that, but he committed crimes and so, charges were filed against him. Did that drive him to suicide? Do we not arrest people if they're liable to kill themselves?

Latest development? According to the Los Angeles Times, Senator Orrin Hatch grilled our Attorney General Eric Holder (pictured) over the display of force used in the arrests. Senator Hatch questions the used of 100 armed and body armored agents to arrest two dozen criminals in a remote area.

Huh?

The government finally enforces long-standing laws, sending four officers per criminal, and that's excessive?

"They came in full combat gear...like they were going after, you know, the worst drug dealers in the world," Hatch said.

My, how unreasonable. Dressing for the occasion, not taking chances when arresting those who have broken the law repeatedly. Hatch called it a dog-and-pony show. I think he's running one of his own.

Looters Charged with Looting--what a concept

Indictments have been issued against 24 people accused of looting Native American sites on public land (story in the Los Angeles Times)

Yay!

The crimes took place in the Four Corners area, and many of the folks indicted live in Blanding, Utah (pictured at right, and the picture is from city-data.com). But looting seems to go on everywhere in America. As the Times story says, "Archaeologists, Native American groups, and preservationists have long argued that the government has not moved aggressively enough to stamp out the plundering of artifacts." Soooo true. Often, the only steps taken (because no money has been allocated to do more) is to keep sites kinda secret, so that looters won't sneak in.

This time, though, investigators put a mic on an antiques dealer and--after two years--were able to catch the brigands who were allegedly fencing goodies, including a rug made with turkey feathers.

The article describes how the University of Utah used to pay people to bring in arrowheads and pots--up to the 1920s. That was 80+ years ago, but the sense I get from this story is that some experts blame the government for not convincing the public in this area that looting damages archaeological sites.

I don't buy that. While greed and stupidity go hand in hand, no one is so ignorant as to think that digging up a grave isn't doing damage. No one supposes that desecrating a grave is a good thing, do they? There's even a Wikipedia entry on Looting!

These jerks sneak around and work at night because they know they're breaking the law. The affidavits show that the thieves knew the authorities were after them.

Archaeologists estimate that 90% of the 20,000 archaeological sites in that area--San Juan County--have been looted. The criminals can get up to ten years in prison.

Thank You, James Poniewozik!

FOR ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTION!

Which is: If the Journalism Business Fails, Who Pays for Journalism? That's also the title of his June 8 editorial in Time Magazine.

Here's a quote: "If journalism is not a revenue producer, much of it could become like freelancing—but freelancing you can't live off of."

Poniewozik (I love that name) brings up some interesting near-future scenarios about who and what system might produce our news. I especially like the ideas about product placement and am rooting for Miles O'Brien (if you don't understand the reference, please go read the column. Really, it's good).

I'm not a journalist; never went to journalism school and have very limited experience writing straight news stories. But journalists are fellow writers, and thus I feel their pain. (I also worry that if the freelance market is flooded with out-of-work journalists, jobs for writers will be even harder to get. Selfish me.)

Recommended Reading for the Summer

The Berrybender Narratives, starting with Sin Killer: A Novel (Berrybender Narratives)

If you slurp up stories like a 10-year-old does an icee, you may finish these four books in a week or two. But take your time, keep them in the car, stretch them out--they're so worth it.

Larry McMurtry tells the story of the Berrybender family, a spoiled, clever, hedonistic pack of British bluebloods who dare the American west in the 1830s. Why? Because Papa wants to shoot exotic game. (Papa is the type who started naming his children Nine and Ten for convenience' sake, when all the good names were used.) The clan and their long-suffering servants meet up with Indians, trappers, and slavers. Some of them die or lose body parts or sneak off for healthy fornication; some Berrybenders you hate but they begin to grow on you. Historical figures like George Catlin, Kit Carson, Pomp Charbonneau, and Jim Bridger are part of the mix, drifting in and out of the Berrybender saga over a couple of years.

McMurtry is brilliant. He's done something I have never, ever seen or heard of before: he changes point of view five or six times in one page, hopping in and out of characters with wild abandon. In his skillful prose, it all makes sense. Reading becomes voyeuristic: the books are a quadrille, with all the dancers switching places, twirling around--yet to the observer, the changes are always graceful and entertaining.

Nick Magazines Closing Down

I'm reading a lot into this, but not doom and gloom. Nickolodeon and Nick Jr magazines are shutting their doors and about 30 staffers will lose their jobs--not to mention the multiple freelancers who lose another market.

Kids are not reading less--in fact, I think they're reading more than ever (thank you, Lemony Snicket and J.K. Rowling and all the rest!) But the idea of children watching the mailbox in anticipation of a glossy new magazine just for them, with their name on the address label, is just so quaint.

Why would a kid in 2009 look forward to getting a magazine when they can hop on the internet for all the stories and pictures they want, picking and choosing among many topics and printing out what appeals most to them? Ligers, shipwrecks, dreamy androgynous dudes--right there at your fingertips. It's all free, as long as there's a spare color print cartridge nearby.

Change is good. That's my mantra, when things-fall-apart-and-the-center-cannot-hold-and-I-need-to-get-to-my-happy-place-fast. Change is good. Really. Good and hard.

From a reader's point of view, it's a simple paradigm shift. Adults have habits--well, some of us do--of flipping idly through bound pages as we sip our lattes. Kids are forming new habits. Let's just hope they don't spill their strawberry fraps [please keep them from caffeine] on the keyboard as they're googling and clicking.

From a writer's pov, there's this little wrinkle of making a living. Hard to find internet markets that pay as well as print did--not that print paid all that well, or even all the time. In ten years I'll probably have it figured out, but right now it's dicey.

Romance Novel Sales Up!

Here's one sub-genre that's doing well during the recession, which makes sense when you think about it. According to this AP story, sales of romance novels rose 2.4% during the week of May 10th.

For a bit of contrast, sales of travel books were DOWN 16%. Mysteries? Down 17%. Ditto self-help books. Logically, you'd suppose folks looking for a bit of wish-fulfillment or escape would buy those as well, right? But apparently nothing beats soft core titillation. Duh.

Cheap thrills for tough times! Yeah!

However, I must say that the romance-reading folks interviewed for that article made me wonder about the point. One woman had just lost a child in a horrible game-playing accident; another is blind and looking for work. Financial strain, chronic illnesses, trajedy--was the journalist dared to find the women with the worst problems who then found solace reading romance novels?

I guess she's got to keep her job interesting too.

Journalism and Media

Back to what we read in the media and how it's in upheaval mode, which I blogged about a few days ago. In the article "Brave New Media" in the ASU Magazine, I read that 120 newspapers have shut down in the US since January 2008.

Tim McGuire of the Cronkite School at Arizona State U says:

"There's no question that corporate media is in trouble, but journalism is stronger than ever. It's the corporate media model that's under attach because the advertising model has gone bust. We've funded journalism on the backs of advertisers who wanted to reach the eyeballs of our customers. That model is broken, and we have to find another way to fund the journalism that we value so highly."

So it sounds like journalism is still valued, but no way to pay for it has replaced the old way? Where does that leave journalists who would like to practice their trade as well as eat and pay rent?

More interesting quotes from other professors at the Cronkite School:

• In the last 10 years, the market that television can reach has shrunk so much...we're constantly challenged to think of how to make what we're teaching relevant. (Craig Allen)
• Radio may be the one electronic medium whose current business model survives intact for the foreseeable future (Frederic "Fritz" Leigh)
  

Venus Figure is 35,000+++ Years Old

But I sure wish the archaeologists would dream up a new name for these voluptuous statuettes. Please. After all, calling it a Venus figure prejudges its purpose, doesn't it? It creates a context in our heads. And when looking at something that may be up to 40,000 years old, that's a big mistake.

I like what archaeologist Paul Mellars of Cambridge U says about the piece though. Rather than accepting it as a fertility symbol, he suggests: "These people were obsessed with sex."

This lovely piece of work, carved out of mammoth ivory, was found in a cave in Schelklingen, in southern Germany--14 miles southwest of Ulm. (Not that I know where that is, but you might.) The tiny statue was in six pieces when unearthed, and it lacks a head, feet, and a left arm. It is the oldest representation of a human being ever found.

According to the AP story, the left arm is still being sought, but the lack of head and feet seem to be part of the artist's intent. You can just barely make out the loop that indicates it may have been hung from a string or hook.

I hope it is OK to reprint this AP photo by Daniel Maurer, since it seems to be the only picture of this amazing object.

The particular cave, Hohle Fels, has been rich in ancient deposits, and this piece was found 9 feet below the current surface. Both Neandertal and homo sapiens used the cave and left debris, but the scientists are certain this is made by our homo sapien ancestors. Bits of worked bone and ivory, flint-knapping debris, and animal remains were found nearby.

Discoverer Nicholas J. Conard of the University of Tubingen in Germany also found carvings of an animal head, a bird in flight, and a half-human, half-lion figurine, all about 5,000 years younger than the headless female. That's from a Los Angeles Times story--Conard wrote about his work in the journal Nature, but the article is only accessible to paid subscribers.

Sarah Palin has a book deal

And I don't.

This is a new low.

Do you have a book deal? Admit it! None of us do! And does anyone want to read what the Alaska governor has to say about anything?

Apparently the publisher thinks so.

If the publisher is wrong, will it make getting published (a) harder or (b) easier for the rest of us?

Truly a no-win situation.

I'm going to go eat my sauerkraut and sausage now. Likely, the doomsayers are correct and life as we know it will end with a magnetic pole flip-flop on December 21, 2012. I predict that I will get a six-figure offer on the 19th.

Submerged Greek City from 2800 BC to be Excavated

Not sure if excavated is the correct word, since the site--a town named Pavlopetri--lies under 3 or 4 meters of water. Explored, maybe?

According to Science Daily, a team will soon be diving into and paddling around the sea off Laconia, Greece. There, the ancient town of Pavlopetri, dating at least from the Mycenaean Age, will be studied. Using equipment developed for the military (for what purpose, I wonder?), archaeologists hope to splash through ancient courtyards, tombs, and cist graves. Wow. All those things are still there, underwater, after 4800 years? Excuse me while I push my jaw back into position and wipe up the drool from the keyboard.

This lovely photo is from Laconia.org, and shows some of the harsh conditions and primitive accommodations that the archaeologists must accept during their grueling fieldwork, which will take place over three years.

Pavlopetri was probably once a port and trading town, so there should be much to discover. The archaeologist who discovered the site in 1967 is also participating! Among the things they hope to learn is--just how far back does Pavlopetri date, and why did it slip into the sea?

The Science Daily article hints that a bit more funding is needed--so far the University of Nottingham (here's their page on the site, and the first picture came from there), the Institute of Aegean Prehistory, and the British School of Archaeology at Athens have contributed financially. May I suggest someone get National Geographic or the Discovery Channel on board?

Because if I can't be on that beach--and I can't, 'cause I don't have a PhD in Archaeology--I would love to see this on my TV, sitting on a cushy sofa and eating Doritos.

Media Revolution

According to this March post by Clay Shirky ("Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable"):

The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing.

Guess what? The topic at this point is NOT newspapers.

No, the article is describing the revolution that followed the invention of Gutenberg's printing press in the 15th century.

Of course, the article draws the comparison: what happened when Gutenberg upset the status quo is what's happening with print media now: a revolution. The post describes how the profitable newspaper model worked for centuries, and why it has ceased to work. Who could have predicted that craigslist wasn't just a new internet fluke, but something that would transform industries? The old way doesn't work and the new paradigm (the format and funding for news collection and delivery 20 years hence) is not yet in place. My favorite lines of the piece? "You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!” has never been much of a business model. and Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism.

EBay Good for Archaeologists

If you haven't already seen the story in Archaeology Magazine, Science Daily, Yahoo, or a host of other sources, here's the deal. Ebay makes selling faux antiquities so easy that looting of archaeological sites has decreased.

Professor Charles Stanish of UCLA wrote the article called "Forging Ahead, or how I learned to stop worrying and love EBay." It's a really good article; click on one of the links above to read it in full. What follows is my quickie dissemination of his well-researched facts.

Looting works like this: some poor schmuck robs a grave or stumbles upon a treasure. Said schmuck wants cash--usually to do something frivolous like feed his children--so he sell his find to someone, who sells it to someone, and so on and on. The money's made in the middle; the finder gets little and the customer at the end pays big time.

Selling fakes is a little different. In the past, the fake had to be really good to get a high price from collectors. Naturally, high-end fakes cost more to make and involved skilled artisans.

So in comes EBay, where a low-end, cheaply-produced fake--in fact, a mass-produced ton of cheap fakes--can be shipped out regularly to hundreds of wanna-be collectors all over the globe. Why risk arrest and jail by stomping around old burial grounds at night if you can set up a pottery workshop and sell more goods that way? The finder/producer now gets more money, because he's producing more goods--all day, in a shed, with his friends and neighbors helping out. The only middleman might be the shipping/EBay shop in the nearest town. (I bet there's a shipping dock in the back of this bazaar!) Also, because so many cheap antiques are available, the market for looted goods is impacted. Their price declines. A real win-win scenario.

Thanks to the miracle of online auctions. Ah, technology!

Newspaper Dirge

The New York Times is about to shut down the Boston Globe, the Baltimore Sun announced it's laying off 61 staff members, and I spent 20 minutes discussing why we don't need newspapers with My Luddite Friend. I was playing devil's advocate to her defense, but the truth is I love my LA Times and would hate to be without it.

It's a book: Anachronistic Media and the Women Who Love Them ... It ... Whatever.

My Luddite Friend says we need local papers to inform us of things we wouldn't know, like an accounting scandal at a neighboring city.

"I'll see it on the local news," I say.

"Not a big enough story for TV," she says.

"Then why do I care?"

"Because you should know, as a citizen, that these things happen. You should know so you can demand accountability and transparency from your own city."

"But now that you've told me, I don't care. I'm not going to demand anything from my own city. If I wanted to be involved in local politics I'd go to city council meetings, but I don't."

We don't really talk like this. I've taken out all the "Well....'s," the "um's," the "Shit...never mind's," and all that.

My bottom line is that we're lazy. Give me the news with the least possible hassle. If all I have to do is push a button and sit through a few commercials, I'm fine with that. The LA Times is for browsing through during those dumb commercials. If a news story about an accounting scandal in a neighboring city makes the news, I'll probably flip through the Times during that segment, too.

For me, the newspaper is entertainment, not anything that's going to make me a better citizen.

Maybe we get the news we deserve.

Why Do We Read?

In case you missed it, the Los Angeles Times invited 13 authors to share their opinions on this burning issue, and put together a full-page replication of their answers. Since it's about the only part of the Sunday paper I read, here are my highlights:

• We read to free ourselves from the grind and the misery and big ticking time-bomb questions of life. . . . We all need contemplative time, time away, time in another world altogether. (T.C. Boyle, author of The Women: A Novel)

• Books have the power to be the light we are seeking at crucial moments in our lives. Reading helps us realize we are not alone, that we can change our circumstances and even achieve the impossible. (Gioconda Belli, author of Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand, a novel of Adam and Eve)

• The library was where I made my best friends. . . . books are ultimately about stimulating imagination and broadening a worldview. In my South-Central neighborhood, Dickens more than did the job. (Erin Aubry Kaplan, journalist)

• I read because it is one of the very few satisfying escapes from reality that isn't fattening and doesn't destroy brain cells. (Amy Koss, author of Side Effects)

And my favorites:

• . . . you're sitting right there, reading, and you're anywhere, everywhere. (Veronique de Turenne, blogger, who co-authored Port of Los Angeles: An Illustrated History with Ernest Marquez)

• [answering the question Why do we read?] . . . the world I found myself in didn't come up to my standards. I was 11 at the time. So I went to the library. . . Now, if my life doesn't come up to my standards . . . I still open a book. (Carolyn See, author of Golden Days and The Handyman)

Be So Good They Can't Ignore You

But you really have to see the drawing to appreciate the sentiment. Click on it. Go!

More on Synopsis Writing

Nothing interesting to say, but I don't want this blog to get stale.

Here's an update: I have rewritten both my one-page and detailed synopses. Like most writing, I whined through the hard part, then rolled around in the grass and revelled when the result begins to show promise.

What had I done wrong that required rewriting? Well, struggling to get all the plot twists in left me very little room for things like themes, motivations, and the like. According to Them That Teach, those things are very important in a synopsis.

So, the FIRST paragraph of the one-pager now states the major life issue confronting our fair heroine, and hints at the theme of the book. A lot of characters and twists got cut away to make room for statements about conflict and emotions. Do I really need to mention the names of her companions? No, but I do need to say that she's devastated by her losses. And I injected more of the tone of the novel itself. All good.

Recommended Reading When Your Battery Dies

There's nothing like a nonresponsive car...no lights, no nothing...on a day full of planned activities to bring you up short, is there? Creative swearing, while fun, does not solve the problem.

In the end, we can only be grateful that DieHard batteries are relatively cheap (compared to a new alternator), Sears is ubiquitous, and books are more fun than running errands anyway.

The book I buried myself in was
A Lion Among Men (The Wicked Years, Book 3). Book 3 tells the story of the Cowardly Lion, whose name happens to be Brrr.

Brrr is an outcast like Elphaba and Liir, but Brrr is difficult to warm up to. Really. He's not just flawed, but deliciously self-absorbed, smug, pompous, precious, the works. He's a self-pitying opportunist. His word means nothing. Maguire makes him worth reading about, though, with hilarious asides and descriptions that defy description. Here is an example, buried in the middle of the book, of an unimportant place:

The Wend Fallows...beautiful to no one but the stray hermit or mendicant. What streams there were flushed into the mighty Munchkin river, which fed Oz's largest lake, Restwater.

But--martyrs roasting on an open fire!--Wend Fallow was ugly as sin. A fuzzy sort of brown nap coated the hillsides, like a mold that has dried but refuses to stop clinging..."

Wonderful prose. Indulge yourself, before your battery dies, too.

More Books with MY Articles!

Yippee!
So if you want to read about ancient Troy, the Irish Famine, Wyatt Earp, crossword puzzles, sniffer dogs, the Vomit Comet, artificial sweeteners and various other topics, buy this book right away:

If, OTOH, you wish to become informed about Viagra, ancient methods of birth control, sperm banks, electrocution as a punishment, hangovers, whiskey, radio call letters, and 143 other topics, order this volume:

I don't get royalties, but how rare a thing it is to have a first edition with my name and bio under "Contributors." Heavy sigh.

Branding and Complaining

Aha! I am not the only person in a media-oriented city that is thoroughly sick of branding, thank you!

Dan Neil, who has raised auto reviews to a form of high art, includes an aside about branding in his column for the Los Angeles Times of April 10, 2009. He says:

Recently I began writing a column about advertising and marketing for this
paper, a process that has awakened my sense of the ludicrous,
chicken-salad-flavored fertilizer that passes for brand marketing in this
country.

I realize that I sound like a cranky old lady when I whine about trends I find foolish. But when Dan Neil elucidates on the subject, we have . . . gravitas. Breathe it in.

Of course, he's not complaining about branding per se, just the ineptitude of certain car companies' approach to branding. Still, it makes a swell quote and a decent blog entry for the day.

Synopses and Why I Hate Them

They are hard to write. Snivel. Really hard. Pout like Derek Zoolander and say it with me: really, really, really, really, really hard.

(Do you like the mug? I've seen them at a couple of places but you can order them here.)

I have read several articles on writing the synopsis. (A good one is here, at Kathy Carmichael's site.) My problem is that when the article/book/blog inevitably puts up their idea of a good synopsis--the goal, the golden cup, as it were--it sounds like marketing BS to me. It doesn't sound at all like a story I'd like to read.

In fact, these model synopses seem a perfect example of how NOT to write, overloaded with modifiers and clauses and commas.

For that reason I have a difficult time judging the one I must write and rewrite. I guess the synopsis is an acquired taste.

Carnac Museum

I just stumbled across this website of Le Musée de Préhistoire à Carnac which, unfortunately, is not in English. Still, the pictures at the site of artefacts and jewelry are lovely. And it's all just an excuse to show off my own pictures of Carnac anyway.

Here's the Neolithic page, and the Proto-historic, or Bronze and Iron Age page. Scroll down to see the pictures. Iron Age is "L'Age du Fer." This last page includes the Roman period as well. That center picture between the skeleton is a stack of axes, btw.

Large portions of the Carnac stones (there are three fields of them) are fenced off, so if you want to go, compare tours. Some, like Elderhostel, can get small groups in past the fences for a half hour or so.

Bog Body Poetry

If you are fascinated by bodies found in peat bogs--yeah, all those leathery, red-haired sacks o' skin that were once living beings just like us--then you will love Archaeology Magazine's blog entry, "The Poet and the Bog Body" by Heather Pringle.

The subject is poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, who grew up on a farm in Northern Ireland, where he and everyone else dug up and cut peat for heating fuel. Pringle closes the blog with one of Heaney's poems, which begins:

As if he had been poured
in tar, he lies
on a pillow of turf
and seems to weep

the black river of himself.

Click on the link above to read more; it's well worth it. The Nobel committee described his poems as "works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.".

Heaney's own website has more information, photos, and even some of his poems--including one called "Bogland."

Books with My Articles! I'm so proud...

Here they are, all out this year, with links to Amazon (if I do this right):

And just for good measure, the April 2009 edition of Boys' Life contains a profile I authored--about two scouts who won awards from the American Museum of Natural History.

Yay me...I wrote AND got paid!

Freelancing During a Recession

"Money is like dieting," says Money senior writer Donna Rosato. "You're shocked at how much you're eating when you start to keep a food diary, but it's not that hard to cut back once you are aware of it."

That comes out of an article on Mediabistro.com called "Follow the money"; if you're a member you can follow the link. Of course, the article is about how the economy is hitting freelancers and the people who pay them...or don't pay them, as occasionally happens.

Write everything down, and cut out the unnecessary parts. Just like joining WeightWatchers for your wallet. No dang fun.

I suppose it's good advice, but my personal preference inclines toward Hello Dolly: "Money (pardon the expression) is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around, encouraging young things to grow." or, "If you have to live hand-to-mouth, you'd better be ambidextrous."

To get back to the Mediabistro article, it carps about credit cards and paying down balances--the usual stuff. Here's some useful advice: Over the last six months, what three things were worth the money? Keep doing 'em. What three things felt like a waste? Stop. Yes, that I can accept.

Other items: drop the gym membership, re-examine your withholding or estimated tax structure, consider an FSA, and bring your lunch, instead of going out.

I have a better idea. Enjoy yourself, and move in with your kids when you run out of money. Really, they'll thank you for it one day.

Now I'll find out if my daughter ever reads this blog!

Rainbow over Paris

You must click here to see it, and scroll to the March 27, 2009 edition of Paris Daily Photo. Then do yourself a favor and click on the photo itself to see it in all its enlarged, enhanced, magical glory. Evening lights reflecting off the Seine, the fainter of a double-rainbow terminating at the Eiffel Tower...just breathtaking!

Opening Lines and Hooks

Hook 'em. It's not just for Longhorns anymore.

It's the advice writers hear at every conference, seminar, webinar, class, panel discussion, and club meeting. Hook 'em with the first paragraph, the first line. One of my how-to books says that "Jack Bickham, author of several dozen novels...claims you've got to hook the reader in the first twenty-five words." There's even a book available on Amazon called Hooking the Reader : Opening Lines that Sell

Here are some samples of this ubiquitous advice:

• What we want is that ka-pow! The horses out of the gate. The pop in the corn. The fizzle in the shanizzle. A writer should want to hypnotize the reader, make their blood pump, take their breath away. (from the Musetracks blog)
• The first line of a novel is like the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth: everything else follows from it. (from author Crawford Killian's blog) (Love this!)
• Start your writing with conflict if you want to guarantee sales, grab an agent or publisher, get paid a big advance. (from ISnare articles)

Jennifer Jensen (in an article titled "Write Compelling Opening Lines") gives some great examples of opening lines, like:

• It was one hell of a night to throw away a baby. . . (Julia Spencer-Fleming, In the Bleak Morning)


• Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time rolling on the ground with men who think a stiffy represents personal growth. The rolling around has nothing to do with my sex life. The rolling around is what happens when a bust goes crapola . . . (Janet Evanovich, Hard Eight)

There's also this gem, from Earl Emmerson's Fat Tuesday: "I was trapped in a house with a lawyer, a bare-breasted woman and a dead man. The rattlesnake in the paper bag only complicated matters."

Yes, those do compel me to read on. But is that the right tactic in every book?

I'm not saying that advice is all wrong. I guess my quibble is not with the advice, in fact, but in the rapacious manner that we writers, hungry for publication, suck it in. We think we must have dead bodies or life-or-death decisions in that first paragraph. But seriously, is that what a reader is looking for?

Glance at the opening lines of your favorite books. Do they conform to this idea of hooking the reader through shock and awe techniques? Chances are, they don't.

• Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much...
• When Mr. BIlbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.
• It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea. (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
• Along with teaching us that lamb must be cooked with garlic and that a lady never scratches her head or spits, my mother taught my sisters and me that it is a wife's bounden duty to see that her husband is happy in his work. (The Egg and I)

Maybe humor is the way to go.

I can picture a future writing seminar in which teachers mock the book opening that begins in the middle of a car chase, or where shots are fired, bombs blow up, or a man screams "I'm leaving you!!"--all as being so, well, early twenty-first century.

Indeed.com

Great site. Did everyone know about this BUT me?

Well, since no one reads this po' li'l blog, I won't bother to keep it to myself.

Indeed.com is a job-hunting site that allows me to put in a key word, then break down the results by pay level, location, part/full/contract/temp assignments, and even by type of writing.

Indeed.com must troll other sites constantly, because their jobs are from all over--Monster, freelance sites, writing sites, private companies, etc. Well, wonderful. Free sites that want to do all the work for me? I can live with that.

Recommended Reading

This book was soooo much fun, especially after a bunch of nonfiction. (Why is most nonfiction written by PhD's so dull?)

Anyway, great characters, great settings and history. Puts you right there in an Anne Rice sorta way, only the people are far more individual and differentiated. Full of surprises.

Reading Lies

Do you ever lie about the books you read?

I fudge. If I get more than a third of the way through I say I've read it. I've read the first half of The Horse of Pride three times but never finished it.

Well, readers in Britain lie a lot! This article about a survey in The Guardian says that 61%...SIXTY-ONE PER CENT!...admit to claiming that they've read a book when they haven't even cracked it open!

I'm too chicken to be that blatant. I hate getting caught in a lie more than I hate looking dumb. But I'm not a Brit.

However---11% of those folks in the survey said they'd written a book. They'd finished a manuscript, but not gotten it published. Wonder if they're telling the truth?

The paper published a list the books folks are most likely to lie about, and 1984 by George Orwell is at the top. 42% of the folks in the survey said they'd fibbed about reading it. How silly--it's a good book. It's not overly long. I can understand no. 2: War and Peace. That's a hefty tome, and I don't know anyone who's read it.

Some of the others on the list surprised me: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. Why would anyone bother to lie about reading that? And The Bible came in at #4, with 24% saying they lied about reading it. Um...doesn't that double your time in purgatory?

Writing Doesn't Pay

The Week Magazine asks, Is Writing for the Rich?

Good question. The answer according to The Week's Executive Editor Francis Wilkinson, is, yeah, more or less.

Although the world is full of more opportunities than ever for writers of every ilk (it costs nothing to start up a blog like this), few of those opportunities come with paychecks. As Wilkinson sums up: "movie stars, business executives, even accomplished authors all write for free these days. Why should some kid nobody’s ever heard of get paid?"

Ouch. We all know that, but why does it hurt so bad to see it in print?

Anyway, it's an interesting editorial, especially if you have friends or children who might want to become writers. Make them read this, and have them take dancing lessons. That way, they'll have a skill to fall back on, as my mother used to put it.

Here's the irony: You can read the editorial for free, online.

I don't subscribe to The Week anymore, even though it's my favorite publication. Why bother? By reading it for free, I help create the situation that keeps me from getting decent pay!

Enabling. It's what for dinner.

PicApp Drawbacks

I'm about to stop using PicApp, in spite of the fact that they have great pictures for free. I don't mind the obtrusive google-ad so much as the fact that the wrong captions come with the picture. I don't know enough html to figure out how to cut out or correct the caption, which seems to want to be the same for every picture visible on the blog. Very annoying.

Horses Were Domesticated 5,500 Years Ago

I actually know something about this topic, having written the entry on "Chariots" in the Encyclopedia of the History of Invention and Technology (coming late summer from Facts on File Books). I researched the earliest known instance of chariots: burials in Sintashta-Petrovka, east of the Ural Mountains--which sits in northern Kazakhstan.

What was in those burials? Racing chariots! Built to hold only one man. Those date back to 2000 BC, and it was thought that horses were domesticated about that time too, or just a couple of centuries earlier. (Earlier, heavier carts had wheels that were solid, not spoked. They were pulled by oxen, usually.)

But as these two articles, one from the Los Angeles Times and one from Radio Free Europe describe, new evidence has been found--in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan is the 9th largest country in the world--didn't know that. The picture above, btw, is of a man riding in Icic, Kazakhstan.

Anyway, archaeologists figure that the Botai culture of northern Kazakhstan domesticated horses around 3500 BC. The evidence? Horse milk residue in pottery, horse manure used as roofing material in pit houses, horse skulls with bit-wear-marks on their teeth. Oh, and 90% of the bones in the garbage piles belonged to horses, and the leg bones were more slender than wild horses' would be, suggesting they were being bred for speed.

And--hate to say it, but if those bones are ending up in the garbage, maybe bred for food as well?

The research is published in this month's issue of the academic journal, Science.

Olympic Site (UK) Finds

How fortuitous! The excavations in Stratford, east London--trenches and the like, necessary to construct the Olympic Park sports complex for the 2012 games--have turned up all sorts of nifty stuff. The rendering at right shows what the park parts of the Park will look like in future. For what it looked like six months ago, see below.

This Daily Mail article has pictures of a 19th century boat, a 4th century AD Roman coin, four Iron Age skeletons, and a 4,000 year old flint axe. The remains of a Bronze Age hut, likewise 4,000 years old, and lots of pottery were also found. The Discover Project website has more, including pictures of 1941 gun emplacements that were uncovered.

Confused? This press release from the Olympic Authority something-or-other gives the background of the site over the last 5,000 years. The place was the site of :a marsh/wetland for a coupla thousand years, then an Iron Age village, a Roman road, a channel dug by King Alfred to divert the river and thus divert marauding Vikings, a bridge crossing, a mill built or operated by the Knights Templar, a calico, porcelain, and eventually a petrol factory, then a sewer, and finally a Yardley cosmetics, soap, and lavender factory. Talk about multi-use facilities!

Since the construction requires that over 140 trenches be dug, I guess they were bound to find something. This is all pretty cool and I hope we hear more about it soon.

Watching a Wreck

Why is bad news so addictive?

I can pass on the story about the little girl who raised a thousand dollars for Recording for the Blind (hint hint) but the headline that screams "Chapter 11" draws me in every time.

So here is today's dose of gloom and doom, even though I swear I will think only happy thoughts for the rest of the afternoon: Reader's Digest has hired a bankruptcy expert and is considering ... yeah, Chapter 11.

The New York Post says that "the company faced a potential restructuring over the next 18 months as revenue and profit slump." Barron's has a story on RDA too.

Blago Gets Big Bucks

Blagojevich.

Six figure deal for book.

Blagojevich, who isn't worth the trouble it takes to figure out how to spell his name. A potty-mouthed liar who tried to sell the Senate seat of the new president. Six figures--for what?

To tell us one is born every minute?

Lascaux Cave fungus

Neolithic art and fungus are not good bedfellows. Or wallfellows.

The black fungus that is creeping across the 17,000-year-old murals of animals and hunters in the cave of Lascaux, France, causes great concern. So the Lascaux Caves International Scientific Committee and other international experts met in Paris for two days to discuss solutions.

Apparently a fungicide was applied (I prefer the words "smeared" or "glopped" but scientists like to use more clinical terms) a year ago, in January of 2008. No one but scientists have been allowed to visit Lascaux since 1963 (tourists actually visit a replica cave), so the cause is a bit puzzling.

An air-conditioning system installed in 2001 seems to have kicked off the first mold. More details about that and the fungal progression are available in this News24.com article.

In this AP story from WTOP.com, the Committee chief, Marc Gaulthier, blames global warning for raising the temperature inside the cave, which interferes with the air circulation and allows the fungus to grow. A couple of solutions are floated in this story, too, which other news pieces lacked.

FYI: Woo-hoo! New Publications!

Not that I get royalties or anything, but the first two books in a series of eight have been published. I contributed to them, and (nice surprise) I'm even listed as a contributor.

So--presenting the FYI books, edited and compiled by Ken Leiker. For now, you can only get them at Barnes and Noble online. (Don't know why Amazon is dragging its feet.)

In spite of the titles, the 150 questions in each book covers all sorts of topics. The animal kingdom, food and drink, sports, science--weird (bodily functions) and otherwise (space, meteorology, all that stuff), health, traditions, history, etc. Here are some sample questions:

• How many idiots owned a pet rock?
• Who gets the royalties when "God Bless America" is sung?
• Did some popes have children?
• How terrible was Ivan the Terrible?
• Why do we wear costumes on Halloween?
• How many First Ladies were crazy?

Those are my topics, btw, along with Typhoid Mary, castrati singers, the ancient Maya, mistletoe, red skies, and femme druids. I can vouch for the accuracy of the information !

I'll blog again--with links--when they get on Amazon.

Paris Daily Photo

Parisdailyphoto.com. Oh, what a lovely and easy-to-read blog! I'm adding it to my favorites over on the right as well. Each and every day, a new photo taken in Paris. Some are whimsical (fashion faux-pas, for example) and others show well-known monuments.

I'll add my own--this picture of the statue of St. Rita in the church of St-Germain-des-Pres. I took this in 2004 and assume that supplicants are still writing their prayers all over lovely Rita with their Bics, in spite of the paper thoughtfully provided on a nearby pillar.

St-Germain-des-Pres exists today (after about 1500 years) mainly due to Victor Hugo. It was badly damaged during the Revolution, turned into a gunpowder factory, and many felt it should be demolished. But Hugo had a passion for Paris' old churches and rallied people to rebuild and preserve it. Read more about the history of St-Germain-des-Pres here.

Time's Idea to Save Newspapers

I like it--charge per click, a la Itunes.

"Under a micropayment system, a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel for for an article or a dime fer that day's full edition. . . I suspect most [consumers] would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough."

The light bulb has flashed on but has not been implemented yet, so you can read Time Magazine's piece "How to Save Your Newspaper" online for free. And if you google the title, you'll get to see what all the bloggers are saying about the idea. But who cares about bloggers?

Walter Isaacson (the author) does. He is kind enough to include us in his idea: "magazines and blogs, games and apps, TV newscasts and amateur videos, porn pictures and policy monographs, the reports of citizen journalists, recipes of great cooks and songs of garage bands." Go, us!

The next article in the Feb. 16 2009 US edition of Time covers the new generation of readers that will be competing with Kindle in 2009-10: Plastic Logic, Pixel Qi, and Adobe AIR. Something on which to spend our tax refunds, oh joy.

I would love to have a Kindle, but the price of books for the device--given that there's no printing involved--still seems exorbitant. I'd rather go to the library.

As for the others, the Plastic Logic won't really be available until 2011 and the AIR's screen is to small for me. The Pixel Qi looks very promising but is not out yet. It all depends on how expensive the books and magazines will be.

Recommended Reading

Inkdeath !

The third book of the series starts out slow...about 200 pages of slow. Hang in there, it gets better--it always does. And if you're reading the third book then you made it through Inkheart and Inkspell, so how could you NOT read this?

I loved the Inkheart movie, btw, but since they tied up all lose ends so neatly at the end, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the sequel. Too bad. And while I love Helen Mirren, whose bright idea was it that she'd make a good Elinor (who is supposed to be fat) and should go charging around on a unicorn?

Bicycle Vandals of Paris

The rentable bikes of Paris get press coverage in every large city, because every large city wonders of fleets of bikes would work for them. Reduce air pollution and traffic? Yeah! But there are drawbacks.

A lot of cities (Los Angeles included) are simply not bike friendly. Here where cars rule, vicious violence against bike riders happen frequently. Things like deliberately causing accidents, slamming bike riders with hands or bottles, or spilling drinks on them. I wouldn't say it's common, but if you ride daily, it will happen.

Why? My guess is because you don't need to pass an IQ test or be sober to ride in the passenger seat of a car, from whence much of the violence occurs.

But in Paris, 42 million rides have been taken on the bikes--the velibs--provided by the city, in just 18 months of operation. Slide your credit card and go. Yay! Go green!

Sadly, half the original 15,000 velibs have been stolen or destroyed, and 1500 a day need repairs.

New bikes cost over $500, so the city is rethinking the system. Replacing all 20,000 bikes would cost $20 million, and at the rate they are being destroyed, that's about $10 million every three years. All per this BBC article, February 2009. And here's a YouTube video link called Velib Freeride.

And the vandals of Los Angeles, to whom storefronts and freeway signs are nothing more than fresh canvas for taggers, are probably thinking, "Eighteen months? Hell, we could destroy those bikes in eighteen days!"

The New York Times points out that their own proposed bike program has been put on hold.

Newsflash: Blogging Doesn't Pay

Yeah, like you didn't know. But as David Lyons wrote in a Newsweek column ("Time to Hang up the Pajamas," Feb 7, 2009): "that day more than 500,000 people hit my site—by far the biggest day I'd ever had—and through Google's AdSense program I earned about a hundred bucks."

Ouch! Lyons' site is The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, btw--no small potatoes. And "that day" was the day his identity was revealed.

He also quotes eMarketer analyst Paul Verna as saying, "People have not figured out a clear way to monetize some of these vehicles." (Hey, Ma! I'm a vehicle!), adding that the real issue is "the lack of a clear business model that can generate substantial revenues."

Bloggers with business models doesn't compute.

I blog for fun. I did the Adsense stuff but quickly realized that my monthly emails report no revenue. In that sense, they're not even worth the five seconds it takes to open and read them. I still blog. And you're reading it, though I don't expect you're paying anything to do so.

For the record, I know of one person who claims to support a family of four on blogging, and she's about the conduct an online class through The Renegade Writer. A class on blogging, of course, and on how to make money at it. Here's the link to the class, and I may poke you there.

Shipwrecks and brooches and cults, oh my!

Huzzah! The HMS Victory has been found! The flagship of the British Royal Navy sank Oct. 4, 1744 in choppy seas. Here's how the Independent puts it:

Laden with four tons of Portuguese gold, the pride of the British navy – and direct predecessor to Admiral Nelson's vessel of the same name – sank with all 1,150 of its crew. Only the shattered remains of its top-mast were found on a Guernsey beach as evidence of its terrible fate.

Until now. Odyssey Marine of Florida found the 100-gun HMS Victory ("the mightiest vessel of the 18th century") and its gold, estimated at 700 million pounds' worth in today's currency. (no wonder it went down. 100 bronze cannons and more than 100,000 gold coins [per the BBC]? That was one hefty ship!) A great deal of controversy surrounds Odyssey's intention to salvage the treasure, as reported here in The Independent.

But I'll see your 265-year-old shipwreck with a Saxon burial in Sussex--and raise you another Saxon grave! So there!

A couple of bright members of the Eastbourne District Metal Detecting Club were doing what metal detecting enthusiasts do when they stumbled across a pair of highly impressive 6th century Saxon graves. Spear, shield, male skeleton and bronze bowl, silver belt buckle, gilded brooches, and female skeleton. The two discoverers, Bob White and Cliff Smith, did NOT ransack the site, but called authorities so that the site could be properly excavated. Yay! Here's the BBC story.

Finally, a 4th century pagan cult mosaic was unearthed about 13 feet under a Catholic Church. 140 square feet of naked, carousing Romans! Read about that one here.

Amazon Break Through Novel Contest

It's time, it's time! If you're an unpublished novelist with a finished product on your hands, you can enter Amazon's Break Through Novel Contest! Grand Prize is a $25,000 advance and a contract with Penguin Books.

Go here, between Feb 2 and Feb 8. Sooner is better, because the contest closes once 10,000 novels have been entered. You will need a dynamite pitch of under 300 words (the first cut is made on the basis of that pitch, so it better be good!) and a completed novel. You'll need other stuff too (the first 5,000 words, a little bio) but those are the main things.

Go!