Big Business Is Doo-Doo (And Not In a Good, Fertilize-the-Crops Kinda Way)

I've heard it since the 1960s, and some of you may have heard it since the 1930s: Big Business is no friend to the worker. This is a Commie attitude, but it's also true – it can't be denied. The goal of any big business is to hire as few people as possible to do as much work as possible for as little money as possible. If the Big Business model is to be realized in its purest form, there should also be no benefits to go along with any job, other than the privilege of having it in the first place: no sick days, no insurance, no overtime, no paid holidays or vacation (in fact, no time off at all), no breaks, no limits to the hours worked daily, and no compensation for injuries received on the job. After all, if you work hard enough for your pittance, the quality of your character and your own native intelligence should shine forth and cause you to advance in the ranks until you become prosperous, right? After all nepotism, cronyism, and pure greed never factor into the equation at all.

But that's old news. All of that has been said before, and much better, by others. I've got my own argument for why Big Business is doo-doo. It comes from an experience I had at Borders, the big book chain that bit the bullet back in 2011. Prior to the sinking of that ship, we were engaged in rearranging the deck chairs, and at that point the doo-doo had become so thick, we were slipping and falling into it.

Things had become particularly nasty in 2008-2009. A new CEO had been hired, and though he resembled Mister Rodgers, he was actually the malignant doppleganger of that guy. He decided that we had to become relevant to our venders (the publishers who provided us with our product) by turning selected titles into bestsellers. (Personally, I think we would have become more relevant to them by paying them what we owed them, but that's just me.) The best way to do that, according to him, was to recommend these titles to absolutely everyone who came through the front door, regardless of what they were looking for.

So we all had to sit through training films on the computers in the back office to prove we could sell these select titles to people. In the films, a Borders employee would pose as a customer and ask the other Borders employee (posing as herself) for a book. Invariably, the sort of book they wanted was exactly the sort of thing we were promoting that month. We all electronically signed our initials at the end of these programs to indicate that were were enlightened as to the technique of selling books people didn't want and hadn't asked for.

One month, our selected title was in the Zombie Classics series. I don't recall the exact title, but for the sake of argument let's call it Jane Zombie. So, here I am at the information desk, answering phones and desperately trying to think up ways to insert the subject of zombies into the conversation without sounding like a nut case. A guy walks up and asks, “Do you carry the Chilton manuals for car repair?”

In the old days, I would have said Yes and walked him back to the car repair section, then helped him find the title he needed. Under the new regime I was obliged to say, “Yes sir, it's called Jane Zombie. It's the story of an undead governess who eats brains and repairs cars.”

Okay, I didn't actually say that, but I was sorely tempted.

That CEO eventually utilized his golden parachute and quit the company, moving on to another field where his techniques at mental torture might actually advance national security (or so I imagine). His methods for saving Borders from destruction did not work (because, as I mentioned earlier, they did not include the method of paying our bills). Borders went down, and a good many people drowned or died of hypothermia. Another Big Business success story (at least for the executives who managed to squeeze fat “retention bonuses” out of the dying carcass).

I'm not trying to say none of that crap goes on at the small/medium business level. There are plenty of self-made men and women out there who will bite your head off if you ask for any time off, who can't afford to offer insurance, or who may fire you because you're good-looking and that may threaten their marriage (or hire you for the same reason).

But the funny thing about good workers is that they really are hard to come by. Smaller businesses tend to have bosses who interact with the workers and who are involved in daily operations on the ground level. They notice who is competent, and reliable, and honest. Big businesses are managed from an extreme distance, they don't know or care who works for them unless the margin moves perceptibly, which it may do for any number of reasons. If there are hundreds of small businesses operating in a given town, you have choices where to work. If there's only one, and it's Walmart – god help you.

Here, let me recommend a book that may help you with your plight. It's about a zombie governess who eats brains and earns extra income through stock investments.

Once again, I have plundered Ernest Hogan's stock of wacky illustrations, which somehow always seem to fit the tone of these posts. I have probably used some of them before, but that's just a bunch of tough noogies. 

Mucho Mega Music from Michael

Michael Levy has some wonderful news about his re-re-release, and some fabulous links for you to follow. Check out every single one of them, and don't forget to write reviews!

Third Time Lucky!

I am pleased to announce the re-re-RE release of my second compilation album, "Musical Adventures in Time Travel"...phew!

Trying to compile a suitable selection of the best tracks from my lyre albums has proved to be a task which almost needed the invocation of Apollo to achieve. It all began earlier this year...

At 23 tracks, the first release was far too long to fit onto the physical CD of the album (manufactured on demand by Reverbnation) and I grew to hate the album artwork I somewhat too hastily came up with!

In the second release, I loved the album cover -  "Alcaeus of Mytilene playing a kithara while Sappho listens" by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1881".Tadema does through art, what I intend to do through my music! However, at 22 tracks, I still could not squeeze them all into CD format, and since its release, I had recorded my new extended length single, "Orpheus's Lyre: Lament For Solo Lyre in the Just Intonation of Antiquity" and my audio producer, Dominik Johnson also came up with an amazing new mix for my other extended length single, "Ancient Lyre Strings", both of which I wanted to include in the final compilation...ARGH!

Therefore, in the third and final release, I edited the compilation to my favourite18 tracks. These include the track "Realm of the Ancestors" -  for possibly the first time in 3000 years, a unique duet of lyre and harp, featuring the wonderfully delicate harp accompaniment to my spontaneous lyre improvisation, provided by the talented folk harpist, Rebecca Penkett

In my endless quest of seeking musical perfection, my final version of "Musical Adventures in Time Travel", now includes all my extended length singles, including a track which only exists by pure serene serendipity...

"The Battle of Thermopylae - Paean For Solo lyre", another of my recently released extended length singles, was originally nothing but a random rough recording I did whilst improvising in my experiments to try and imitate an electric guitar pitch-bending "whammy bar" on lyre - using my right hand wrist as the said "whammy bar" on the top string above the  bridge, during some wild strummed sections!

I uploaded the raw audio file to Mediafire for possible future use and then completely forgot about it - for 3 years!! It was only whilst I was providing Dominik Johnson with the Mediafire URLs of my raw audio files for mixing in compiling "Musical Adventures in Time Travel", that purely by chance, I happened to accidentally copy and paste the URL to my frenzied lyre whammy bar improvisation, instead of the track I actually intended to send Dominik to mix!

The result is a bit rough and hissy compared to the other tracks in the compilation, but it sure ROCKS!!! Here is a video I recently uploaded to my Youtube Channel, featuring a clip of this piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FmEEJWUyBk 

The Rocky Road To Musical Perfection!

My second compilation also demonstrates the ruthless, relentless refining process I have put myself though over the last few years! My arrangement for solo lyre, of Dr Richard Dumbrill's interpretation of the 3400 year old Hurrian Hymn Text H6, started out as a now virtually viral, lo-fi Youtube video (recorded back in 2008 with my then suitably "Bronze Age" webcam!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viMbnj_Ei2A

I eventually recorded a better quality version of this arrangement, which I bravely attempted to mix myself on my chunky old desktop, which then featured in my early experimental album from 2009, "An Ancient Lyre" - the only album I have ever been bold enough to attempt to produce from scratch myself!

Later in 2009, thanks to the now sadly defunct Myspace, I became acquainted with the awesome music production skills of Dominik Johnson, who masterfully re-mixed the raw audio of the recording - this then featured as track 1 from my first compilation album of 2011, "Ancient Landscapes".

In my new version of the Hurrian Hymn, now forming track 1 of "Musical Adventures in Time Travel", this time, I recorded my arrangement on my new hand-made lyre, using strings made of wound silk (made by ancient string technology expert, Peter Pringle) for a unique, truly ancient timbre - these strings provide almost the nearest match in tone to the unpolished strings of either wound gut or natural fibre which were generally used on the actual lyres of antiquity.

In this new arrangement, I also tuned my lyre in the wonderfully pure-sounding just intonation of antiquity, and for the repeat of the theme in my new arrangement, I experimented in the ancient Mesopotamian percussive lyre playing technique (using a small wooden baton to hit the strings, rather like a hammered dulcimer).

In the production of this track, Dominik also somehow managed to create a haunting natural reverb, authentically sampled from an actual Iranian cave -the relentless quest of seeking musical perfection!

This final arrangement of the Hurrian Hymn is currently being used in support of the exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum - "Mesopotamia - Inventing Our World" (CDs of "Musical Adventures in Time Travel" are also available to purchase from the Royal Ontario Museum Shop). Below is a video featuring a clip from my new arrangement of the Hurrian Hymn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sERSOCMD2cM 

The physical CDs of my compilation album "Musical Adventures in Time Travel" and indeed, of absolutely every other one of my many releases, are available to order, anywhere in the world, from my Reverbnation Store. This epic new compilation album is currently available from iTunes, Amazon, and lossless audio or 320kbps quality MP3s of the album are available to download from both CD Baby and Bandcamp.

NB! Any new reviews of either this new album or any other of my releases on either iTunes or Amazon would be utterly, amazingly appreciated - many thanks!!

Maybe It Takes More Oomph

We have some interesting examples of continental rifts in the world, as well as spreading ridges in oceanic crust – and since these are both examples of diverging boundaries, geologists are justified in assuming that similar processes are involved in rifting. But that's a hypothesis. Observations of the process of rifting in the real world are revealing that continental rifts are more complicated.

One reason may be that oceanic crust is denser, but thinner than continental crust. The difference between them is demonstrated when the two types of crust are driven together. Continental crust is fat and buoyant, so the immense pressure pushes the thinner, denser oceanic crust beneath the continental crust (subduction). Water vapor that subducts with the oceanic crust allows it to melt at lower temperatures than it normally would, and the partially melted stuff rises through the continental crust above the subducting slab. As it rises, the reduced pressure allows it to melt further, where it also melts some of the surrounding continental rocks. It may pool between sedimentary layers, forming plutons, sills, and dikes that cool underground, or it may extrude onto the surface and form volcanoes. That's what can happen at a converging zone. But at the other end of that zone is a rift.

Oceanic rifts are ongoing projects – upwelling convection currents in the mantle inflate and stretch the crust above, causing fractures. Magma squeezes through fractures, forcing the crust apart even further, and forming spreading ridges. You might think that the magma would cool and plug the holes – something that happens quite often when magma extrudes onto continents. But the plug is temporary. The centers of those new dikes are weak, and they fracture from the pressure of the uprising heat, allowing more low-silica magma to flow into the new fracture.

Silica is sticky stuff. Magma with a higher silica content is less runny. At oceanic rifts, the runny, lower-silica magma is a lot less likely to clog up the dikes and vents through which it is welling. That low-silica magma actually cools at higher temperatures, and water is present to speed that cooling. But when magma cools, it shrinks, and fresh hot stuff can well up around it, gradually forcing the rift zone apart. You can actually observe the whole, extrude-shrink-extrude-again process in the nifty pillow lavas that form around oceanic volcanoes as magma hits the water, instantly cooling to form a shell, which bursts at its weakest point and forms a new blob when more molten rock is forced into it. (If there was a cable channel just for watching pillow lavas form, I would sign up for it.)

Oceanic rift zones seem to last as long as the upwelling convection currents that drive them (a phenomenon called slab pull may also be involved, with the weight of the dense continental crust being subducted into the mantle possibly pulling the plate from the other end). But continental rift zones may require more oomph to keep them going.

This oomph could be a mantle plume (as is the case with the caldera below Yellowstone), or an upward convection current combined with a mantle plume (as is the case with the rift zone in Iceland.) But Yellowstone is considered a supervolcano rather than a rift zone, and Iceland is a comparatively small chunk of continental rock. There's a continental rift under way in Colorado and New Mexico, but it's pretty low key when compared with the poster child of continental rifts, The African Rift.

Theoretically, the African Rift is doing the same thing that the Arabian Gulf is doing, forming a basin as the crust spreads apart that will eventually open up to form a new sea. The Atlantic Ocean formed that way when Pangea broke apart. Since spreading ridges in oceans are faulted all the way down to the mantle, you could expect that a continental rift would also have faults that run that deep. Evidence for that can be found in low-silica volcanic rocks in the Southwest U.S. Arizona even has a shield volcano, the sort of volcano one would usually expect to find above a mantle plume forming an island chain (like Hawaii). Yet the volcanoes along the U.S. Rift are not all of this type. Likewise, the volcanoes that have formed along the sides of the rift zone in Africa are a grab bag of different types, anything from volcanic vents and relatively flat volcanoes, to giant composites like Kilimanjaro.

What this suggests is that sometimes low-silica magma is reaching the surface along these rifts (often creating extensive sills and dikes along the way), and sometimes it's mixing with the continental rocks it encounters on its upward journey and melting that stuff, introducing more silica into the mix and building composite cones at the surface, or cinder cones, or volcanic domes, or even creating plutons that cool underground.

Besides the silica ratio, another thing that determines the size, shape, and explosiveness of volcanic features is the amount of volatiles in the mix – gases. High silica/low gas mixes produce volcanic domes that extrude almost like toothpaste. Low silica/high gas mixes produce cinder cones. An intermediate mix can produce a composite volcano, like the one above Flagstaff, Arizona (far inland from where you would expect to find such a structure). The super-volcanoes of the Western U.S., Yellowstone and the Valles Caldera, are very high-silica caldera volcanoes that fractured the crust overlying them with expansion caused by heat, which allowed gases to escape through the cracks, widening them further and causing a collapse. The collapse of that surface material into the caldera produced titanic explosions. The rhyolitic tuff (fused ash) of Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico was created by an explosion from the Valles Caldera. Compare all that complicated stuff to good ol'oceanic rifting, and it just seems like such a straight-forward process in comparison.

Continental rifts seem like a lot more work. Maybe that's why continental rifts sometimes seem to just stop. The rifting had some oomph when it started out, but the upwelling current shifted, or the plume stopped, or the older part of the craton, where the crust is too thick to be rifted, moved over the whole bubbling mess. (The tectonic plates, including continents, move gradually but steadily over the upper mantle.)

One failed rift is the North American Mid-Continental Rift (extending from Lake Superior to Oklahoma), which seems to have pooped out about a billion years ago. At that time, we were part of the supercontinent Rodinia, which split up about 750 million years ago. Two other supercontinents formed and broke apart after that. Eventually, North America will collide with Asia, and the rifting will start somewhere else.

But regardless of what happens in the future, the African Rift is happening right now, in some ways that were predicted, and in some ways that were not. It will continue to be a fascinating example of what happens when continents are pulled apart.

In Search of the Roman Whammy

Michael Levy poses an interesting question in his new blog post – follow the link and let him know what you think!

Did the Romans Invent the "Whammy Bar"?

New blog just posted on my website, about a fascinating potential new musical discovery from a detailed painting of a Roman Kithara found in Herculaneum, which seems to amazingly show the 1st century CE equilvalent of a pitch-bending "whammy bar!"

Here is the link to this new blog:

http://www.ancientlyre.com/blogs/did_the_romans_invent_the_whammy_bar

Your thoughts and comments to this blog are most welcome!

Let's Just Suck That Pesky Carbon Out Of The Air With Our Giant Vacuum Thingee

There has been a lot of talk (and study) recently about the concept of carbon sequestration, the idea that CO2 gas could be pulled from the atmosphere and stored in sedimentary layers underground, or even under the seafloor. Some very smart geologists are working on this problem, and we may see an attempt to implement the idea within the next few decades. But I'm always curious when I hear about these sorts of projects, because I wonder just how much non-geologists understand about faults and fractures in the Earth's crust, even the non-geologists who have a financial stake in what their geology experts tell them.

Okay, maybe especially these guys, since money folk and bureaucrats tend to be people who think in terms of deadlines and progress reports: this phase of the project was completed on schedule, this other phase is over schedule, the cost breakdown is this, etc. They're thinking weeks ahead, sometimes decades ahead for some aspects of a project. But geology is often reckoned in millions, even billions of years. What's even trickier is that, despite this immense time scale, geology can also change suddenly and catastrophically, in a matter of seconds. Thirty feet of sediment can be deposited by a flash flood, tons of volcanic ash can hurtle toward a town at 100km an hour. And in the case of carbon sequestration, the problem is that faults move.

CO2 is heavier than the mix of gases that make up our atmosphere. If a large amount of it is suddenly released, it will flow and pool almost like water at ground level. It is invisible and odorless, so it overtakes unsuspecting people and animals and suffocates them before they realize that anything is wrong. Eventually it will mix with the other gases and be reabsorbed into the atmosphere, but not before killing every oxygen-breathing creature in its path. Villages next to lakes that have formed near the continental rift in Africa have suffered from accidents like this from gases generated by volcanic activity under the lakes, releasing the CO2. So when geologists are trying to advise people about where sequestered CO2 could safely be stored, they have this possibility in mind.

Yet the geologists can only advise, very few of them are in a position to make the final decisions about whether a project will go forward and where it will happen. And when it comes to faults, we're mostly engaged in guesswork. This became very plain to me when I recently toured Kartchner Caverns, in Southern Arizona, with the head geologist for the State Park Service. He said that they could see where a few of the faults in the landscape were by looking at the mountains and valleys on the surface. But once they went underground, they found many more faults and fractures that could never have been seen without the benefit of a cave system.

Improved seismic monitoring has proved that the Earth's crust is constantly moving, shrinking, expanding, fracturing, dissolving, collapsing, and getting pulverized, thanks to the titanic pressures of the surrounding rock and the heat generated in the mantle. What appears to be motionless to us on the surface is actually dynamic.

So theoretically, tons of CO2 could be stored somewhere, a fault could move, and gas could escape and suffocate people and animals. So they have to find a place that seems relatively stable, but they also have to find one that isn't too close to human habitation, because no place on the Earth's surface is 100% guaranteed to be stable. Storing the gas in the ocean floor, where the immense pressure of the ocean will keep it dissolved in those sediments, is a safer bet, but then you have the added cost and difficulty of getting it down there.

So where will the gas end up? If they get to be too good at pulling the CO2 out of the atmosphere, will people say, Whoopie! We can generate as much CO2 as we want! Will it trick us into keeping old technologies that are causing problems?

If the sequestration process works, it may have an interesting side effect – it may cause calcite to form when moisture enters the soil. In Arizona, moisture reacts with CO2 in the soil to form CaCO3. Who knows, maybe a whole new generation of caves will sport formations resulting from reactions with the CO2 we placed in overlying beds.

That alone might make it worthwhile . . .

Michael Levy in the American Harp Journal

More wonderful news from Michael Levy:

I have been featured in the American Harp Journal!

A quick bulletin to let you all know that I have finally been featured in a full length article in the American Harp Journal - a PDF of this fascnating article by Diana Rowan, entitled "The Universal Lyre: Three Perspectives", can be downloaded here - enjoy!

Arizona Geology Magazine, 2013 Issue

The 2013 issue of Arizona Geology Magazine is now online, covering a variety of topics. Check out the link!

Another Live Gig, With Roman Cuisine

Check out Michael Levy's Calendar section on his blog for the date of his next live gig – I'm sure he's just kidding about the stuffed door mouse . . .

My next live lyre gig at the British Museum!

I have just this minute confirmed another last minute live lyre gig at the British Museum! I will be providing live lyre background music, to set the mood for the a three-course meal inspired by Roman cuisine from "The Classical Cookbook" by Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger.

With its subtle mix of sweet and sour flavours, its fragrant herbs, cheesecakes and red wines, the cuisine of the ancient Mediterranean is sure to whet the appetite of every modern gourmet.

Sample authentic recipes, translated and adapted for modern dining. The authors will give a short introduction to the dishes, painting a vibrant picture of living, wining and dining in the ancient world.

£35, includes glass of Prosecco on arrival, booking essential

Booking: bmrestaurant@benugo.com or Tel. (+44) 020 7323 8990

Full details about this event can be found here and also in the "Calendar" section of my website. 

Hope to see you all there...I hope someone saves me a suitably stuffed door mouse! 

Politics – I'm Gonna Have To Put You Down

I have a confession to make. For the last ten months, since the 2012 presidential election, I have been relentlessly searching the web for articles using some particular keywords: polls were right, Republicans were wrong in 2012 election and Mitt Romney lost.

I'm a Democrat, so you may think I've been doing this surfing because I want to revel in the defeat of my enemies. But ten months of gloating would not be reveling, it would be crazy. And the “enemy” in this case is a group that includes many people I care about, both friends and family. So Mitt Romney's gut-punched expression as he conceded the election did not give me the satisfaction you might think it would. It puzzled me.

The puzzlement only grew as the days went by. I could understand why voters were fooled before the election – I was confused by the conflicting polls until my brother turned me onto Nate Silver (I eventually discovered Sam Wang at Princeton, too). Silver averaged polls together, so his numbers were more likely to be close to how people were really planning to vote. I also felt very suspicious of Rasmussen and the “Unskewed Polls” guy, because their weighting seemed more like wishful thinking to me. I had engaged in just that sort of wishful thinking myself, back in 2004, so I could spot it a mile off. What I couldn't fathom was why Romney had been fooled.

A lot of people are blaming the conservative media for his inability to see the numbers, as well as the people in his campaign who should have used the scientific method to see where the numbers really stood so they could plan their campaign accordingly. But Romney was a man who presumably had experience running big companies, and a state, and the Olympics. His shtick was that he knew how to delegate and he knew how to keep an eye on things to make sure they were really going the way they were supposed to.

Then – BOOM.

So I started searching the web. I wanted to hear what he had to say about it, what his campaign guys had to say, what columnists were writing about it. I found a lot of spin, a lot of anger, a lot of gloating. I also found a lot of doom predictions, Republicans saying that the country is going to descend into anarchy and destruction, and Democrats saying it's the Republican Party that is actually suffering that fate. Several articles were about how the Republican Party will have to change to be relevant in the 21^st Century. Many of them were thoughtful and smart, written by Democrats, Moderates, and Republicans. Ten months ago, I thought I might actually witness the transformation of a party.

Ten months later, I know that's probably not going to happen. Congress is shaped in a different way from the Presidency. Those folks aren't going to stop their destructive behavior until we vote them out. In fact, even that won't help until we outlaw campaign contributions and gifts to members of congress. I don't know if that's ever going to happen, so after ten months of looking for answers, I realize I am now starting to chase my tail.

Don't get me wrong – it was fascinating to dig up stories from different viewpoints. I feel like I learned something. And I enjoyed the hunt. But the razzle-dazzle of the election has worn off, people are no longer talking about trying to evolve, politicians from gerrymandered districts are openly talking about destruction and obstruction as if they were legitimate tools for governing, and I'm starting to lose sleep over the whole mess.

The bottom line is this: though I was fascinated by the articles I read about those misunderstood poll numbers and the guy who thought he was going to be President, after ten months of reading them, I'm still puzzled. I now have a pretty good idea why the Republican Party has taken its current shape. I think Fox news and the Republican Pundits have a lot to apologize for, though to them all this anger is pure gold. The angrier their audience is, the more money they make. But I still don't know why Romney was surprised by his loss, why he actually seemed to believe that he was a shoe-in. So I finally had to cobble together the best answer I can.

My answer is based largely on my experience. I'm a low-income, working-class woman with a science background, slowly pursuing a degree in Geology with very little money to spend and even less time. I'm also a science fiction author, and inclined to see things from odd angles. Though nine of my books were published by NAL/ROC, I never earned enough income as a writer to quit my day job – and I have worked for guys like Mitt Romney. They are smart, they are educated, they have power and influence in their communities, and they often see themselves as hard-working nice guys. They think they see the world as it really is. They don't realize that they're from another galaxy. Their experiences are so different from mine (and probably yours) that they are blinded by them. A man so blinded will write an acceptance speech for an election even when the numbers should have warned him that he is losing.

So – no more Mitt Romney lost and Republicans were wrong in my searches. Six months from the 2014 elections, I'll see what Sam and Nate have to say about the polls. I'll be inclined to believe their calculations, even if they aren't going the way I want them to. I'll put my politics down and work at my job, study my geology, do my hiking, tend my garden, and live my life. I hope you will too, even if we're on the opposite side of the argument. Short of voting and spending our money where we think it ought to go, that's most constructive thing we can do as American citizens.

Wherever you are Mitt Romney – that goes for you, too.

UPDATE, OCT 2013: my plan to get on with my life was blown to smithereens by the Shutdown.  Now my search keywords are polls who do Americans blame for shutdown (though technically that should be whom do Americans blame, but apparently most of us don't know that).  Fox pundits are wearing sh*t-eating grins and referring to the Shutdown as "the Slimdown," which is my clue that Boehner and his allies do not plan to end it -- ever.  As for the default that's looming, I see it this way: the guys who don't get to drive the bus have decided to wrench the wheel away from the driver and crash the bus.  

The unreality bubble in which the GOP existed prior to the 2012 election is still there, stronger than ever.  So politics, when I put you down I didn't expect you to turn around and pick me up by the scruff of my neck.  But you did, and now you're shaking me like a rag doll.

Dang.       

Once again, I stole a bunch of art from Ernest Hogan. Don't rat me out.

Free Concert and Authentic Roman Food! Be There Or Be Square!

Michael Levy has a couple of live concerts coming up in September – see the links below!

Live lyre concerts in September...Live lyre concerts in September...

I am pleased to announce that I will be performing 2 live lyre concerts this September, both within a week of each other!

All the details, dates, prices and venues can be found in the "Calendar" section of my website:

http://www.ancientlyre.com/calendar

I will be performing a free lunchtime concert at Brecon Cathederal in rural South Wales on Monday 2nd September at 1pm, and on Saturday 7th September from 7.30pm, I will be performing at a Roman Extravaganza evening at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire - featuring authenitc Roman food, prepared by ancient food expert and author, Sally Grainger...

Hope to see you there!

“The SUPERMAN Movie Bugged Me” Bandwagon

I am one of those rare creatures, a girl who loved superhero comic books, including SUPERMAN, back in the 60s, when most SUPERMAN fans were boys. Girls who liked comics were more likely to read ARCHIE and MILLIE THE MODEL (I liked those too – I contain multitudes). I am aware that this makes me a nerd, possibly even a dweeb. But I'm not necessarily a purist – I'm willing to entertain alternate visions of my favorite heroes. So when I agreed to go see the Superman movie with some friends, it was with an open mind.

I actually ended up liking it more than they did. In fact, I would give it three stars. But that's mostly because I liked the guy who played Superman; I liked his character, and I think future movies about him could be quite entertaining. What bugged me about SUPERMAN was the way the Kryptonians were handled in the story.

Now I'm really venturing into nerd territory. Yes, I am actually going to kvetch about a bunch of imaginary people and how they were misrepresented. Here's my main complaint: these folks are presumably an older race, very advanced both technologically and socially, and yet they apparently cannot survive unless they're on their homeworld. This despite the fact that one guy goes somewhere else and develops superpowers.

Not buying it.

And yet, I can see how this might be the case if the script had managed to make a few points. (NOTE: writers of scripts are not always or even usually to blame for story problems – studios always are, since the buck stops with them.) Way back in the 60s, some guy on an iconic TV show made the point that superior abilities breed superior ambitions. In the case of the Kryptonians, this could mean that they've reached a pinnacle in their development and would like to maintain that high position. I would assume they have the know-how to select for attributes they consider to be superior when engineering their children. The fact that they would even consider engineering their children in the first place suggests that they are a race that focuses on their achievements as a group rather than on individual freedom and the pursuit of happiness. It's a control-freaky kinda attitude, and I can accept it as an interesting possibility.

But something would have to drive them to be this autocratic. Long-term war could be a factor, though they made the point that they had never encountered another race in their space travels (except for us, and we look exactly like them – sheesh). So they must have been fighting with each other all this time. A long-term conflict between bitter enemies with their kind of intelligence and abilities would be truly epic. The losers in this conflict might all have been killed and/or dissenting opinions stifled. They could have pursued that angle, and it would have fit in with the idea of a bunch of hardliners chasing after Kal-El and going all world-engine on his ass. And maybe that was what they were trying to convey, but they failed.

So here's what I would have done differently. I would have cut out most of the special-effects-ridden conflict near the end and replaced it by salting backstory throughout the rest of the movie. They had an interesting plot device (also a REAL device) in the old starship that Kal-El discovers, and it could have helped to do that. He's been raised as a human by a farmer in Kansas, and that's the most important point of the story – it explains why he's so full of possibilities while the people he came from are so severely limited in their choices.

And that brings me to the other major stumble in this movie. I loved the special effect of the tornado, but I don't believe that farm dog would have huddled in the car while his masters ran off to the overpass. One whistle would have called that dog. And I also don't believe that a farm wife would sacrifice her husband to save the dog. I DO believe a good farm dog has value, both emotional and monetary, but the scene was unbelievable and clumsily contrived.

I won't even get into how many millions of people must have been killed in that attack on Metropolis, or the dopey heat-ray-vision, I-can't-bring-myself-to-kill-the-bad-guy scene. Both of Kal-El's fathers would have agreed: the response to the deadly force represented by Super Bad Guy needed to be as swift and decisive as possible.

I also believe that the people of Earth would feel very paranoid and freaked out about the fact that they were attacked by aliens. It would be hard to go back to Business As Usual. And as was so beautifully illustrated in The Incredibles, there would be law suits. Another good reason for Superman to have a secret identity.

So – it was a mixed bag. And they could have done a much better job. With the amount of money and know-how the Movie Moguls have at their disposal, it's pretty scandalous that they can't handle the most important (and most low-tech) component of a movie: the story.

Too bad. Maybe they'll do better next time.

I didn't even try to get the rights to any images from the SUPERMAN movie.  Instead I just stole a bunch of art from Ernest Hogan.

Gila: the Life and Death of an American River

It's easy to get the wrong impression about rivers in Arizona, even if you've lived here for many years. As a desert dweller, you cross so many dry river beds on the highway that you think every river in Arizona, except for the Colorado, is dry most of the time. Sometimes it takes a geography class to teach you that the story of Arizona rivers is more complicated. That's where I first heard of the Gila River. So when I found this book, my curiosity was piqued.

One thing you can't doubt, no matter where you live, is that water is highly political. This will become increasingly obvious to everyone as the 21^st Century progresses, and groundwater disappears. This process is well documented in Gila, The Life and Death of an American River, by Gregory McNamee. You may choose to see it as the diatribe of a conservationist about the destruction of one desert river, but the proof of his arguments can be found in the ruins and canals of ancient tribes in Arizona. Like us, these people suffered from too much success. They irrigated fields with river water, which led to the concentration of mineral salts in their soil, until they had to abandon those fields.

The story of a river is also the story of the people, plants, and animals that live alongside it – and this book does an admirable job of telling it, from the formation of the Gila River, to its discovery by various tribes and immigrants, to its mismanagement and destruction by modern men, and finally to the current signs of hope for its recovery. In these pages you'll find out why the slaughter of beavers may have been one of the two most damaging things ever done to Arizona rivers (the other thing being the construction of large dams, behind which tons of sediment are currently piling).

It may seem that the story of one desert river is irrelevant to anyone but the people who live alongside it, but reading this book may change your opinion about that. All over the world, people are beginning to realize that the way we manage our water resources must change, drastically. Reading this book will inform you in that argument, and possibly give you some ideas about what can and should be done. At 232 pages, it's a well-paced and punchy read, and makes my yearly list of top ten recommended books.  We've got it at the Heard Museum Book Store, so come in and see us.  You will be dazzled.