Zane Grey Wrote Here

I'm cheating just a little, because I wrote about this historic house on my other blog, HistoryLosAngeles. That was more on the history of the home, but this is where the man actually wrote: a second-story office and library that includes this fireplace. (Did you know his real first name was Pearl? Pearl Zane Grey?)

There's a lot more to the space--the picture below (from Unreel Locations) gives a long view of the room. In that one, the fireplace is to the far left, just before the end of the room. The entire area is 3000 feet (the house is 15,000 sq. ft)--two or three times the room most apartments and homes have. The ceiling beams are so massive that they dwarf the space below, and it doesn't look huge--rather, it seems downright cozy. So yeah, I could get some work done here....

Of course, that was back in the days when cutting edge technology was a manual typewriter--and they've got a couple of those in the house, just for show. Actually, I think lined writing pads suit the environs better, don't you?

I'm gonna create a new category for this: Writing sites. Just great places to write. If I get desperate I'll take pictures of Starbucks or Coffee Bean and post them.

Celtic Languages: Cornish

There are 300 fluent speakers of Cornish--the Celtic dialogue of Cornwall--left, and they're working hard to ensure the language doesn't die. So says Henry Chu of the Los Angeles Times on July 25, 2009. He quotes a native speaker relaying a folktale:

"Y'n termyn eus passys, 'th era tregas yn Selevan den ha benyn yn tyller cries Chi an Hordh. . . . "

Which sounds a lot like "In termenus passeus thur trigus 'n sleven..." You can hear it on the
Times site--just go to the insert.

The Cornish language was saved from near-death in the early 20th century, when scholar Henry Jenner gave a speech before the Celtic Congress, which was dedicated to preserving Celtic Culture. They had not accepted Cornish as a Celtic language, but all assembled spoke either Welsh, Irish, or Breton--all indisputably Celtic tongues. Jenner gave the speech in Cornish, and everyone understood. Ta-da!

Since Cornwall is in the utter south of England, and just north of ancient Gaul (France), it makes sense that their language, like Irish and the others, would share common words--enough to be mutually comprehensible.

Scholars like Simon James and Peter Berresford Ellis are in agreement on this much, at least: that Celtic was an Indo-European language (as were Latin and Greek and Sanskrit) that broke into several separate languages. The "Gaulish" tongue is largely lost--we know only a few hundred words. The language of Celtic Iberia is likewise a mystery. But several places managed to hold onto their language, like Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and yes--Cornwall.

Parts of Brittany also hold onto a Celtic language: Breton. The history of that tongue is unique. Although Brittany was considered part of ancient Gaul around 2,000 years ago, the Roman conquest and subsequent Romanization of the area did it damage--how much is up for debate. Many folks fled to southern England when the Romans moved in, and took their language with them.

Five hundred years later, migration moved in the other direction. Invading Anglo Saxons drove a lot of folks from Cornwall back to Brittany, with their version of Celtic-speak. The Breton language to day is derived from that--from Cornish--and not from ancient Gaulish.

Spinning at the Ren Faire

Ha! I knew I had pictures of spinning somewhere! This is from the 2006 Renaissance Faire near Irwindale, CA. The lady--she seems too demure to be called a wench--is holding a spindle in her right hand.

In the first picture, she's wrapping the spun thread around it. The spindle is actually upside down; when she gives it a flick and lets it go (as described in the previous post), the weighted end will be down and the little hook--which appears to be at the bottom now--will be at the top.

In fact, that's exactly how the spindle is positioned in the second picture. The reason that I went with a different picture to begin with is that it just seemed very rude to chop the lady's head off when she really did not do anything deserving of such a fate.

In the second picture, you can also see the distaff tucked in her belt--or maybe pocket. This stick holds the prepared wool. In the 21st century renaissance, the wool is all even, sparkly white, and lovely. In Ye Real Olde Days, the clumps of wool were not so nice looking.

Why am I writing about spinning? Well, this is what women did in Gaul and in almost all European lands. Spindle weights are found all over Europe, as are weaving looms or the remnants of looms. And where there's looms, there's got to be thread, which implies spinning. Some of the looms are over 5,000 years old. The stone weights are a little harder to date, I think, because stones can only be dated in context with other goods found near them--they're not organic, so no radio-carbon dating.

If you're writing about a woman in Gaul, or in any pre-Renaissance setting, she probably spent her day spinning. Even the wealthy.

Spinning Thread

You've heard the Carl Sagan quote: "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."

Well. In the days before the Renaissance, say, 1400 A.D. and previous, in order to have a dress to wear, you must first domesticate sheep.

Then sheer them, clean and prepare the wool, and spin it into thread. Then gather a lot of thread together, fasten some of it to a loom, and weave the rest crosswise through it, until you had a length of cloth. Then and only then, could you think about fitting that cloth onto your body for warmth and modesty and decoration.

For thousands of years, women spun thread All Day Long. Every day. They spun thread while they watched the babies, talked with their friends, walked around, looked for food. They stopped spinning long enough to stir the stew or skin the rabbit for dinner, and maybe they stopped while they slept (but they still dreamt about spinning, I bet).

It must have been as natural as breathing, for thousands of years. If you didn't spin, you had no clothes. Simple as that.

This picture shows a Greek woman spinning thread, and it sits outside a display showing a dozen weights that fit onto the spindle. Those weights held the spindle down. (The spinning wheel didn't come along until the 14th century or so.) The long wooden stick with fuzzy wool is called a distaff. A woman tucked the distaff into her belt or someplace handy, and plucked clumps of fiber from it, twisting them in her fingers to make thread.

Periodically, she gave the spindle a flick, like you would a toy top. As it spun, the new thread spun. The weight kept the spindle from swinging erratically, and when it touched the ground--when you'd spun out a few feet of thread, iow--you wrapped the new thread around the spindle and flicked it again.

If you ever go to a Renaissance Faire or something similar you'll see it. Fingers get very clever, and the process goes quickly--especially if you have to do it day and night. Just keep grabbing and twisting those fibers together into thread, and the spindle with its weight will keep twirling and stretching the thread out just so.

I wonder if spinning was stress-relieving? and if a woman developed carpel tunnel syndrome or got arthritic...yowch. Let's hope someone else stepped in before she had to run around naked!

Gonna be an odd sort of day...

You know it will be good and bad when this is the first thing you see when you get up, and it makes you laugh till you cry.

On the plus side, the first thing waiting in my email box was a request for sample chapters from an agent. Go, me!

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.