Collection

Turn of the century Worcester Mass in pristine portraiture by William Bullard - not only a great record of people of color living there around the turn of the 20th century, but a pretty remarkable testament to photography itself at that stage (some of the images are stunning in detail and clarity) and a trove for history or costume enthusiasts. Certainly a wonderful sort of neighborhood genealogy; the detail regarding who is who is stellar. (You can exit the slide show for a bit of background, but I'd recommend NOT scrolling down to the comments section. Just enjoy Mary E. Price's glorious traveling ensemble, Edward Perkins' garden, or the many joy-inducing kids' portraits.)

When we were freaking out about Trump's election a year ago, my brother and I clung to certain things. Awareness that we were less likely to suffer, and still have more power by way of this privilege, than others ... the ignorance we still had to some extent back then (though little faith in that famous "pivot" they used to go on about, even as they prognosticated Ivanka would save us all). And infrastructure. Trump's dedication to infrastructure looked GOOD, so we invested in the idea of his investments there. He's a real estate guy, it was something to get behind, right?

Well, if this has anything to do with his administration, hope may yet have reason to spring eternal. And this click isn't even political at all, actually! Go forth, if only because architecture is pretty durn cool, and apparently can be made to smell really good, too. Mmm, Douglas fir. 'Tis the season!

The click beyond: NOVA's recent look at the earthquake-readiness of China's Forbidden City. Engineering is extraordinary, but replica "re-enactment" experiments are the stone cold bomb diggety!

Dr. Art Evans, entomologist, is a regular part of my evening commute. And a favorite part!  This week, he did a segment on an internet CREATURE sensation. The clickbait vibe reminded me of the keywords I chose for this (failed :() flash fic post at Hallowe'en.

The historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.”

The Atlantic looks at the brain science studying the debilitating effects of power. Per Spock: "Fascinating!" He must've had a toe holder ... or all of Vulcan culture was a toe holder ... !

Also fascinating, but in more of a car-wreck kind of way, is the second time this week I have witnessed The Atlantic using the term GALS and mentioning a "lady problem" in a political piece. The byline is a woman writer, and it seems apparent that this is a gendered sort of informality - because, you know, girlies talk like that. Either that, or you can't expect journalistic standards out of GALS.

In my entire life, I have never known a friend or coworker to use this term except in sarcasm. Most often, it's been a comedic prop, this word. See also: 'lady' - which is a queasy joke for a lot of us in my generation, because it is so often wielded by oily guys who think they have a way with The Ladies.

These words are diminutizations. They're inappropriate to a serious piece looking at an important dynamic, and they chip away at the very power of the feminine vote by subtly dismissing it using joking terms. It also erodes the influence of reportage which has set a certain standard of reliability, and negates an article which clearly involved a lot of research and legwork - there are interviews, there are stats and links and sources. There are conclusions, too. And there are "gals" and a "lady problem" (not in quotes used in the article, but in the writing of the reporter herself).

Collection

Well, NPR is trying to make me fall in love with them today.

This story may only be exciting for ME, as a sufferer, but as we get into the warm-and-itchy season of eczema, I'm interested in research and treatments. I've heard of nemolizumab in a rash (har) of ads for a drug for psoriasis, and even wondered why psoriasis seems to get all the attention. Well, it seems it has been looked at for eczema too. For now, I'll stick with my old standby, but I'll keep an eye open as this progresses.

A little splotch of history

"How much would you expect to pay for ALL THIS ... mold?" As astonished as I am that developer-of-penicillin Alexander Fleming's mold was preserved at all, the price tag astonished me just a little more. The writing here is HILARIOUS, it's a fun piece - give it a click ... and discover the many luminaries who have also owned a piece of the mold.

Other projects that were vying for Lego production included depictions of the Addams Family Mansion and the Large Hadron Collider.

Plastic Figures. Legos! Legos immortalizing just a few of the women of NASA!

Eclectic Music

I often have reason to recall the time I went to a music store in California and bought Billie Holiday, Judas Priest, and Leonard Cohen CDs. The clerk smiled something about me buying gifts, and I said no, these are all for me - pretty sure I got a gleam of respect for the breadth.

It may be a reasonable sample to illustrate just how wide-ranging my tastes are. When I was younger, I'd say, "I grew up in a house with a dad who loved classical, original Broadway musicals (circa 1940s and 50s), and used to wake us up with Switched-On Bach at top volume. My mom was into country and church music. My brother was a punk rocker."

I mean, yeah - of course the elastic broke on whatever bag it was that should have contained my musical tastes.

But I think there's a lot more to it than that. I am intensely easy to bore. Always was. But ...

I'm also easy to interest, if the right odd thing comes along. I still recall the ease with which I could become utterly absorbed in staring down the pattern of the pebbles and mica flecks in the asphalt on the playground, when they had me playing the outfield in kickball. You can get a LOT of absorption-time in when you're not the popular kid, and just what falls in front of your eyeballs (when your eyeballs are perfect and young and can focus or defocus with alacrity).



There was a time in my life I spent almost entirely with musicians. I was still in college, but dating a TOWNIE (gasp - but then, an awful lot of the frat boys were entitled, molest-y jerks), and he was in a band. The music scene where we lived in the Midwest was pretty tight, and very talented, and it was a big interbreeding soup of interesting people I still miss and think of often.

But as dynamic a crowd as we were, we were predominantly white, and pretty much centered on a certain docket of Acceptable Music. Oh sure, they felt it was varied - and I did too, as far as I had forgotten my dalliances with the Dead and disco and the soundtrack from Breakin'. But I can recall the extreme prejudice with which, say, Beloved Ex regarded rap.

Rap and hip-hop (a term we really didn't know, honestly - rap was a blanket for an awful lot of Black music) were NOT music, he felt. All he/we saw was guys posing with their arms crossed. Maybe the unfortunate white-suburban perspective on Flava Flav. Scratching.

Scratching, and sampling, were just STEALING. That wasn't music - it certainly wasn't creation.

And this from a man who was a musician himself. His feeling sprung from a common theme amongst our friends - that "music" involves playing instruments.

Last night, I was struck (not for the first time) by the thought that ... not all instruments have strings, keys, or sticks ...

Episode 6
(No Empire Required)

PBS has been running a series - as so often is the case, excellently researched and peopled, with one hell of a soundtrack - called Soundbreaking. For almost anyone who cares about where music comes from creatively and practically, how it is actually made, its history and impact and the impulses that lead to new music and the ones that come from hearing it, Soundbreaking is immensely, essentially, worthwhile. And I'm not big on the whole "you HAVE to read this/hear this/see this" as a rule.

Last night's episode centered on hip-hop and rap quite a lot, and I was reminded of my periodic obsessions with Rakim, or Tupac, or Nas - of the enjoyment I got as a kid out of Run DMC - of an awful lot of music that wasn't supposed to be interesting to me.

And I realize, one of the million reasons I have never quite been able to lay claim to being a punk, or a goth, or a classic rocker or any one subcultural or pop-cultural thing that strongly associates with any music is that there is no music I'd be happy LIMITING myself to. Sure, I'm not the only person in the world who LOVES combinations like Grandmaster Flash and Warren Zevon and Southern Culture on the Skids (I once dated a guy who was both a huge KISS fan and also Color Me Badd - at the turn of the Millennium, no less, talk about past the sell-by date). But I'm actively, constitutionally incapable of committing to any one music above all others, because I have this stupid fear it'll define me, or I'll lose everything else.

Blame my family for raising me not only eclectic, but literalist. Bastards! :)

So last night, some old white woman bounces around her bedroom thinking, good gravy I am so wrong for this particular bouncing, and just incapable of caring.

I'm like Michael Bolton (not. that. one.).



There is something important, to me, in not accepting the music I'm supposed to be into - not limiting myself to the role of bland, frankly-past-middle-age (I do *not* wish to live to be 100, so I'm not in any sort of middle anymore) suburban woman. And I think, right now, reaching beyond boundaries is perhaps the best thing any American can do.

Where do you cross the lines, or blur them? Where can you bleed out of expectations, and understand a perspective that's not supposed to be yours?

Watch Soundbreaking and realize - or remember - one or two of the places you push your own envelope, break the bubble your everyday life leaves you in.

And maybe get a heck of a laugh at the bit with Sean Puffy Combs. Because that is a cackle-worthy damn DISS, y'all.

Videos

I can't say anything about this clip except that it's beautiful ...

... and reminds me of Danny and Annie ...



This is a rerun for this blog, but a worthwhile one, especially after yesterday's anniversary.

You Will Believe ...

... a Moai can walk!  Goodness, NOVA is so great.  Don't raise your kids without it, please!  Here is the show plus details on Netflix.

Image:  PBS

PBS Again

+Ulfberh+t ... now available on Netflix streaming.  Yayyy for NOVA!  I love PBS.  I love NOVA.  Seriously, put it in your queue and get your pattern-welded nerd on.

Woot!

NOVA - Earth From Space

Watch. It.

Watch Earth from Space on PBS. See more from NOVA.

NOVA // Neanderthal // Secrets of the Dead

PBS ran two specials in a row on Wednesday night, the last night of my recent work travels before returning home. At nine was NOVA's investigative piece about a find indicating cannibalism, which led into geological, genetic, and other avenues of research about neanderthal life.

 

Watch A Neanderthal Burial on PBS. See more from NOVA.

The NOVA episode goes into the science of discovery, the theories we've developed out of artifacts and their deployment, and a great reconstruction of a red-headed, blue-eyed neanderthal woman - not the dark, monkey-like object so many 19th century racist theorists would have liked to liken to certain peoples of color.  In fact, the overwhelmingly clear finding is that African genetics are by far the most "modern human"/homo sapiens to be found on the planet.  The caveman's genes are most highly concentrated in Europeans, so take that, uber-mensch.  (And, yes, once again too lazy to go umlaut hunting.  Sorry ...)

At ten, and the more challenging for me as I was well fed, highly head-ached, and extremely fatigued from some weeks' exertion, stress - and, oh yeah, travel (my personal idea of Hell), was Secrets of the Dead with Caveman Cold Case. SotD is always a bit pop-science and even sensationalistic, but as paired (clearly an intentional thematic repetition by PBS, and a good one) it was enough to keep my lolling head up almost through the entire program. Rather a feat, considering I'd been getting ready for bed till I saw the "up next" teaser after enjoying NOVA so much. Here for your viewing pleasure, is the whole 52-minute vid. Please make a point of finding the NOVA ep when it's available. Like all NOVA pieces, it's worth the watch.

 

Watch Caveman Cold Case on PBS. See more from Secrets of the Dead.

I will have to re-watch it myself, in fact, because with the best of intentions I seem to recall being horizontally smeared across my hotel bed through parts of the second show, like a five-year-old swearing "I am NOT tired!" and wanting "just five more MINutes, MOM!"

Frontline - "The Untouchables"

As disappointing a piece of Infotainment for the Underachieving as NPR seems fully to have become in the past few months, PBS is a blissful reassurance.  I'm one of the few non-addicts of Downton Abbey (this may come as a surprise given my histfict-nerdlery - but for those who know my contrarianism, it should be predictable).

Try as I might to keep this blog to the themes I've worked hard to construct, it's a simple fact that fifteen or so years in the financial industry, from the year we cheered when the Dow first topped 10,000 and I helped one of my managers literally write the book on "the Death Tax", to the period of increasingly giddy credit offerings when I worked for the guys saying, "Hey, maybe not?", to working outside the commercial mainstream but at the heart of the economy ... I've experienced the recent history of our greatest crises in ways few people have.

Yeah, yeah.  I'm "just a secretary."  Let it be said:  given that role and responsibility, I have had views pretty rare in this world.  My brain is still perfectly functional (wee and paltry as it may be).  Believe me, chickens.  When, in 2007 and 2008 I was recording secretary for the interdisciplinary Risk committee at one of the largest securities firms in the world, I was listening.  Even if I wasn't talking.  I saw this coming.  And that's only because I had good sense, too.  It hardly took rocket science to see the excesses in lending practices at that time.  Many people I knew who had nothing of the exposure I did knew it.  People aren't stupid, not entirely.

Greed just gets in the way.  For the key few who have the reins.



Al this is to say:  watch this.  Not only the usual magnificent reportage Frontline has traded in for so long, presented excellently - but also about the best editing I have seen in years.  Pay attention to what is said, followed by cuts to facts and findings.

And be outraged.  It's not too late.

Umlaut-less Otzi

I should thank JohnJayJay for reminding me, by commenting on my +Ulfberh+t post, that I have failed to point to NOVA's simply jaw-dropping special on Otzi, the Iceman.  Framed as a procedural exploration of a murder mystery, this absorbing episode of the superb series examines everything from Otzi's state-of-the-art gear and garb to his tattoos and last meal (ibex and grain, if you want to know without the laproscopic and laboratory imagery, which might in fact be a bit much for some viewers!).

Image via PBS, of course

If only for the bit about the copper ax, this is a must-watch for history, archaeology, and tech nerds.

Even so, I have to say with a very deep smile that, in the end, my favorite part of this show was discovering a few days later that my mom had watched it too, and reveling in discussion of how exciting it was.  This is the lady who raised me on these things, and I am forever grateful.  Thanks, mom!

+Ulfberh+t

Secrets of the Viking Sword - I may not be up for useful, interesting, nor witty-in-my-own-mind commentary, but y'all know:  I am geeking.  Good show!

Like you didn't know - from PBS, of course!

And Now for Something Completely Unnecessary

Oh, Peter Egan.  I love you even more than Tim Curry.  My crush is deliberate, undying. Don't you sit there in the UK and try to read on a PBS special about Egypt, hoping I won't recognize the marvelous modulation of your dulcet tones.  You utter babe you.

And, no.  It *doesn't* hurt that he used to look significantly like X does now.  But lookit that shot in the tux.

As my niece spells the sentiment:  osum.

(G-d Rot the/Thank G-d for) BBC/America

They have wiped countless hours of classic British television - including this - but BBC America was good enough to provide this little piece of daily delight:

David Bowie was the second "real" live concert I ever saw.  It was ... overwhemingly good.  Too good for snot-nosed kid I was.  Good enough, though, that the memory retroactively retrofits me to have deserved to see it, now that I can genuinely appreciate it (and it was, after all, only the Serious Moonlight tour - heh).  Bits of it maybe even THIS good.

I caught his towel.

I still have it.

*Squeeeeeeeeeeee*

The Facts of Life (Science)

Cuttlefish just never, ever, get less wonderful to watch.

And NOVA ain't half bad either.

Teledonia

I've talked about teledons and my love of PBS - for Nova, or history, "Secrets of the Dead", archaeology, whatever. I actually Netflick up History Channel specials and other things - most recently backing up a recent Terry Jones, and a History Channnel pairing of bits of "Barbarian" ... erm, history.

Of course I just love Terry, and he's looking fit and well in his take, but for my money, as little as I like whig historianism, it doesn't follow that ax-grinding (hee) is necessarily my thing moreso just because someone flips to the other side of the blade. Questioning conentional wisdom, I feel is necessary; but nanny-nanny-boo-boo-ing it I don't see. Yes, the juggernaut reputation of "Roman civilization" needs to be considered, and explored. But entirely contradicting it is no more enlightened than traditional dismissals of "Barbarian" cultures. And repeatedly complaining that Romans exposed their babies and watched death-for-entertainment ... rather misses the fact that, actually, people throughout the world - and throughout history - have done the same things, unfortunately.

Barbarian law NEEDS to become a part of historic scholarship. It needs to be acknowledged, the accomplishments and attainments of Barbarian culture deserve a place in general understanding, and the wall built around them by millennia of propaganda DOES need to come down.

But standing on the wall taunting with an outrageous French accent, as popularly effective as it probably is, shortchanges a depth of consideration ...



And this brings me to Clancy, narrating an American take on the subject.

Oh, my.

Clancy Brown, Clancy Brown: I love you, I always have, I watched that show you did with Billy Zane (and I am weird enough, I watched for YOU - and that magnificent head of hair of yours - not for him, even though he slightly resembles Mr. X). And I don't hold you responsible for your script.

But ohhhh. This script.

Oh, History Channel. Seriously. With the declamatory, and the ... well, defamatory. The Romans would have loved it, even the bit where they starved the Goths and bought their childrend for slaves with payment-by-dog-meat. Ehm.


I like clustering my themes in my Netflix qeue, but am glad my new copies of DS9 Season 4 are on the way momentarily - and that after The True Story of Hannibal (see also: Ben Kane), it'll be time for a stretch of actual movies again ...

Clovis Brownie Points and A Heckuva Game of Croquet

My incidental reading today appears to be archaeology themed - and I like it. Long before I ever knew a jenya-wine archaeologist personally (or, at least, before he *became* one professionally), my folks brought us up PBS archeaology shows and National Geographic, right along with Scientific American (so cool) and all the REST of the PBS we slurped up, nerds that my family so blessedly, wonderfully are. I still remember an article in NG, showing the bone of an ancient man, and explaining how it taught us how he had lived, how old he was when he died, how tall he stood, and what diseases he might have had.

Now we have "millet wasn't typical of the local diet, so we got an invader here, son" - which I just think is so incredibly cool. Little creepy - I can admit to slight neuroses going a little beyond the old-fashioned injunction to wear clean underwear in case of an accident (and don't eat anything you'd be ashamed of having found in your gullet after you're DEAD!) - but overall, just kind of cool.

Was this bashed-in collection of skulls an indiction of an ancient battle? Well, we have the non-indigenous diet indicators, no signs of healing on some pretty impressive wounds, and no signs of ritualized burial.

I'm going to say, "Battle, Alex; for two-thousand."



Oh. And I'm also going to say: Clovis points ARE cool. But ... I'll give it to the crescents, yeah.

Eostre

At this time of year, my wee slew of PBS channels offer lots of nice, juicy programming about the Holy Land, the history of Christianity, European studies of the Church, and Jesus. I love these things; Biblical archaeology, even at its most tenuous, makes such peaceful entertainment. Right now, I'm enjoying "Jerusalem: Center of the World" for nothing even remotely like the first time, and almost glad "Big Bang Theory" got bumped by basketball. Just the silly plinkering harp music is the ticket right now.

There's little about this stuff that engages me spiritually (if anything at all). But it reminds me of when I was little, and the Old Testament was the most fascinating series of stories in the whole world.

Plus, they show so much of that antiquities-montage stuff I enjoy so much, with arts and artifacts punctuated by anachronistic imagery, sometimes recreations (LOVE those), and the most wonderfully incongruous people and professors chosen to be the talking heads. Yummy.

Search Me

My post today on NHK news has become one of the top hits for searching the phrase "Bearing up, holding on" and I am actually a bit embarrassed at that ... There's little someone as ingorant and remote as I can say which is of any relevance to Japan right now. For those who end up here, please accept my apologies. However, here is a link for Japan 7 Days which might be more worthwhile for you. I could not find the actual video, unfortunately. (So my first post's first sentence, advising finding NHK online won't get you to Japan 7 Days, though there is a lot of coverage other than that show.)

NHK News

If you have the access (and, being online, you do), NHK News is the best outlet by a huge margin for clear and straightforward coverage of the developments following Japan's earthquake and tsunami. It has been the only source I've seen that explained coherently exactly the geography and consequences of the Daichi and Daini nuclear facilities' failures in Fukushima Prefecture - and, of course, being domestic to the events, coverage is extremely deep, and affecting. NHK doesn't have competing priorities right now; their coverage is deliberate without being completely detached, it isn't hurried, yet it is immediate in the best sense of the term. NHK is also coming to me through one of the three channels provided to me by my region's outlets for public broadcasting. One more reason to preserve this institution (which also provides a conduit to BBC News, feeds from Belgium and France - and, yes, even Al Jazeera in English ... which I can't bring myself to watch, but which I actually am glad is made available to me - it's something I might learn from, if I weren't quite so skittish about the source itself).

NHK has brought me, for a couple years now, cultural programming, and this PBS station has included much Japanese scripted entertainment as well, and this past week it has provided genuinely impressive reporting on the ten thousand tragedies of this catastrophe. Right now, I'm watching "Japan, Seven Days". "Bearing up ... holding on: we'll see you again," says the remarkable woman so professionally, but personally, bringing me to tears right now.

Human beings are wondrous in their beauty sometimes.

I've Signed

... have you?