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Frank McCourt died a few days ago. Have you read his books? (Angela’s Ashes, ‘Tis, Teacher Man.) What I liked about Teacher Man is that it shows Frank’s journey from incompetent teacher to masterful teacher. To my delight, Reader’s Digest has just published one of my favourite chapters from the book. Here you go:

I was in my third year of teaching creative writing at Ralph McKee Vocational School in Staten Island, New York, when one of my students, 16-year-old Mikey, gave me a note from his mother. It explained his absence from class the day before:

Dear Mr. McCort, Mikey’s grandmother who is eighty years of age fell down the stairs from too much coffee and I kept Mikey at home to take care of her and his baby sister so I could go to my job at the ferry terminal. Please excuse Mikey and he’ll do his best in the future. P.S. His grandmother is ok.

I had seen Mikey writing the note at his desk, using his left hand to disguise his handwriting. I said nothing. Most parental-excuse notes I received back in those days were penned by my students. They’d been forging excuse notes since they learned to write, and if I were to confront each forger I’d be busy 24 hours a day.

I threw Mikey’s note into a desk drawer along with dozens of other notes. While my classes took a test, I decided to read all the notes I’d only glanced at before. I made two piles, one for the genuine ones written by mothers, the other for forgeries. The second was the larger pile, with writing that ranged from imaginative to lunatic.

I was having an epiphany.[continue]

Tags: Frank McCourt

From Science Daily: Babies Understand Dogs, Bark-matching Study Finds.

New research shows babies have a handle on the meaning of different dog barks – despite little or no previous exposure to dogs.

Infants just 6 months old can match the sounds of an angry snarl and a friendly yap to photos of dogs displaying threatening and welcoming body language. [continue].

From Reuters: Vinland Map of America no forgery, expert says.

The 15th century Vinland Map, the first known map to show part of America before explorer Christopher Columbus landed on the continent, is almost certainly genuine, a Danish expert said Friday.

Controversy has swirled around the map since it came to light in the 1950s, many scholars suspecting it was a hoax meant to prove that Vikings were the first Europeans to land in North America — a claim confirmed by a 1960 archaeological find. [continue]

From The Telegraph: The bay of pigs: swine swimming in crystal clear water in the Bahamas. Is photos. Go look.

From The Independent: World’s oldest bible published in full online.

The oldest bible in the world was displayed in its entirety for the first time in 150 years today after researchers digitised its four sections kept in cities thousands of miles apart and placed the reunited text in cyberspace.

The Codex Sinaiticus, which was written some 1,600 years ago on more than 800 pages of animal skin parchment, is available on a free website following a collaboration between four institutions in Germany, Russia, Egypt and Britain, which have held different parts of the ancient book after it was bought on behalf of the Russian Tsar in the mid-19th century. [continue]

Continue Reading »

From the Beeb: Coffee ‘may reverse Alzheimer’s’.

Drinking five cups of coffee a day could reverse memory problems seen in Alzheimer’s disease, US scientists say. [continue]

From culture24.org: Experts hold summit to unravel mystery of rebel Roman fortress in Norfolk.

Last week (June 25 2009) a summit was held at the University of Nottingham to discuss new revelations on the mysterious Norfolk town of Caistor St Edmund.

A buried Roman province which caused sensation when RAF pictures of the site appeared on the front page of The Times in 1929, Caistor was adjudged to have been a densely-occupied urban area, abandoned by the Emperor of the struggling empire in 5AD.

New research, though, suggests such theories could be flimsily inaccurate. Using a Caesium Vapour magnetometer – a virtual grid survey device which resembles a cross between a calculator and an iPod – an expert team discovered a theatre, traces of Queen Boudicca’s rebel Iceni tribe and strong signs of activity in the area through the Iron Age and up to 900AD. [continue]

From ansa.it: No Etruscan link to modern Tuscans.

The current population of Tuscany is not descended from the Etruscans, the people that lived in the region during the Bronze Age, a new Italian study has shown.

Researchers at the universities of Florence, Ferrara, Pisa, Venice and Parma discovered the genealogical discontinuity by testing samples of mitochondrial DNA from remains of Etruscans and people who lived in the Middle Ages (between the 10th and 15th centuries) as well as from people living in the region today.

While there was a clear genetic link between Medieval Tuscans and the current population, the relationship between modern Tuscans and their Bronze Age ancestors could not be proven, the study showed. [continue]

From Wired.com: Make Like a Dolphin: Learn Echolocation.

With just a few weeks of training, you can learn to see objects in the dark using echolocation the same way dolphins and bats do.

Ordinary people with no special skills can use tongue clicks to visualize objects by listening to the way sound echoes off their surroundings, according to acoustic experts at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Spain.

Two hours per day for a couple of weeks are enough to distinguish whether you have an object in front of you, Juan Antonio Martinez said in a press release. Within another couple weeks you can tell the difference between trees and pavement.

To master the art of echolocation, all you have to do is [continue]

From smithsonian.com: Via Aurelia: The Roman Empire’s Lost Highway.

At first glance, it didn’t appear that impressive: a worn limestone pillar, six feet high and two feet wide, standing slightly askew beside a country road near the village of Pélissanne in southern France. A lot of people pass by without knowing what it is, Bruno Tassan, 61, was saying, as he tugged aside dense weeds that had grown over the column since he last inspected it. Tassan was showing me a milliaire, or milestone, one of hundreds planted along the highways of Gaul at the time of the Roman Empire. The inscription had worn away ages ago, but Tassan, a documentary filmmaker and amateur archaeologist, was well versed in the artifact’s history. This particular stone, set in place in 3 B.C. during the reign of Augustus, was once a perfect cylinder, set along the nearly 50 miles between Aquae Sextiae (Aix-en-Provence) and Arelate (Arles). It’s one of the last standing, Tassan said. [continue]

From the Telegraph: Michelangelo signed fresco with self-portrait.

Restorers claim that a bearded man wearing a blue turban in the Crucifixion of St Peter bears a striking resemblance to portraits and bronze busts of the artist.

It’s an extraordinary and moving discovery, said the Vatican’s chief restorer, Maurizio De Luca. The self-portrait is one of three knights on the left-hand top corner of the fresco who wears a lapis lazuli blue turban. His features are very similar to other known portraits of Michelangelo. [continue]

From the Beeb: From bush to bike – a bamboo revolution .

On the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia, next year’s crop of bicycles is being watered by Benjamin Banda.

We planted this bamboo last year, he says, and now the stems are taller than me. When it’s ready we’ll cut it, cure it and then turn it into frames.

Mr Banda, is the caretaker for Zambikes, a company set up by two Californians and two Zambians which aimed to build bikes tough enough to handle the local terrain.

Co-founder Vaughn Spethmann, 24, recalls how it all started with a game of football. [continue]

From physorg.com: Computer recognises archaeological material and fake Van Goghs.

People find it very easy to recognise a face, even under very different circumstances. For a computer, on the other hand, it is extremely difficult. Dutch researcher Laurens van der Maaten has developed a new analytical technique which enables the computer to better interpret the content of photos and images, but also of data.

The ‘proof of the pudding’ of his technique for automatic image analysis is a system for the automatic analysis and recognition of archaeological material such as pottery, Roman coins and glass from the Middle Ages. Van der Maaten has also successfully used the technique to distinguish forgeries and paintings by contemporaries of Van Gogh from paintings by Van Gogh himself. [continue]

From Reuters: Rome catacomb reveals oldest image of St Paul.

Vatican archaeologists using laser technology have discovered what they believe is the oldest image in existence of St Paul the Apostle, dating from the late 4th century, on the walls of catacomb beneath Rome.

Vatican newspaper Osservatore Romano, revealing the find on Sunday, published a picture of a frescoed image of the face of a man with a pointed black beard on a red background, inside a bright yellow halo. The high forehead is furrowed.[continue]

Tags: catacomb, St Paul, Vatican

I love it when Mirabilis.ca readers send me notes, and that’s why there’s a contact form on this site.

I used to post my email address on the contact page, but I got tired of crap sent by social media marketing types. People wanted me to review books and blog about them, try their coffeemakers and blog about them, test their software and blog about it, advertise their conferences and blog about them… and on, and on, and on. Argh. I thought I’d stop that if I kept my email address of the site and switched to form instead.

So, the form. Right at the top it says: Please don’t send me press releases, or requests for advertising space on this site. I will not promote your product in any way.

What part of that is so hard to understand? I thought it was pretty clear. But no, marketing types go to the trouble of finding the answer to my challenge question just so they can send me stupid notes saying I know you said you didn’t want press releases, but THIS product is different! And I want to say No it isn’t, you idiot. What special kind of stupid are you?

How can I make it easy for readers to contact me while keeping these annoying marketers out of my life?

Tags: advertising, marketing, social media

Years ago I on CBC Radio I heard Mudanin Kata, an album by David Darling and the Wulu Bunun people of Taiwan. The moment that show ended, I raced to the web to order the album. Every time I hear the first two songs on the album, I think that I must find a way to tell you about this amazing music, and find a way for you to listen to it.

So here it is.

I don’t know how good your computer speakers are, but on my laptop the first song sounds less than impressive; the second (Lugu Lugu Kan-Ibi) is much better on laptop speakers.

I’ve just noticed that Amazon also sells this CD, and allows one to buy individual songs from the CD. One of their editorial reviews says:

This one-of-a-kind collaboration matches field recordings of the Wulu Bunun’s ancient a capella songs with the modern ambient leaning music of cellist David Darling, who took the present-day field recordings and added musical accompaniment to the songs for the first time. Darling does a masterful job merging his moody studio-recorded string arrangements into the polyphonic singing of this indigenous Taiwanese tribe. Of particular note is the song Pasibutbut, which is reputed to be inspired by the sound of humming bees. While most of the songs are a simple folk tunes about everyday life, this one starts out with a singer hitting a low sustained note with others coming in at intervals to create eight-part harmony that goes on for several minutes. Sometimes Darling structuring the songs, which may only have a single verse, adding instrumental breaks, but on the above song he comes in at the top, finishing off the song in the same circular polyphony with which it was started. –-Tad Hendrickson

Do you like it?

From discovery.com: Models of Earliest (Camel-Pulled) Vehicles Found.

Some of the world’s first farmers may have sped around in two-wheeled carts pulled by camels and bulls, suggests a new analysis on tiny models of these carts that date to 6,000-5,000 years ago.

The cart models, which may have been ritual objects or children’s toys, were found at Altyndepe, a Chalcolithic and Bronze Age settlement in Western Central Asia near Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Together with other finds, the cart models provide a history of how wheeled transportation first emerged in the area and later developed. [continue]

Today I am obsessing about oboes, and wishing I had one. How hard can it be to play the oboe, after all? I’m good at woodwind instruments.

Listen to the oboe in this video and you’ll hear why I’m tempted. And anyway, an oboe would be more convenient than a cello (my other musical temptation).

From the Telegraph: First Europeans were cannibals with taste for children.

Early Europeans were cannibals with a particular taste for the flesh of children, archaeologists have claimed.

The claim has come after bones of the ancestors of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens who first settled in Europe around 800,000 years ago were unearthed in the Atapuerca caves in northern Spain.

A study of the prehistoric remains has revealed that human flesh formed part of the diet of early man and children and adolescents in particular were regularly killed and eaten. [continue]

From the Wall Street Journal: A New Way to See Ancient Athens.

As building locations go, it is unmatched. What could present more of a challenge than to design a major new structure to stand at the foot of the Acropolis, revered as one of the great architectural achievements of western civilization.

That new structure is the Acropolis Museum, which after more than 25 years in the making finally opened to the public last weekend. Braving the blazing sun and heat, thousands thronged immediately to its gates, eager to be among the first to explore the museum’s vast collection of sculptures and artifacts from ancient Greece. [continue]

Tags: Acropolis

From the New York Times: Flutes Offer Clues to Stone-Age Music.

At least 35,000 years ago, in the depths of the last ice age, the sound of music filled a cave in what is now southwestern Germany, the same place and time early Homo sapiens were also carving the oldest known examples of figurative art in the world.

Scientists say that this bone flute, [continue]

Thanks to Peter B. Nelson (from Pine Island, MN) for telling me about this article.

You should watch this video if you’ve got a dog, if you’re thinking of getting a dog, if you’ve ever trained a dog, or if you ever might train a dog. It’s also perfect for parents, teachers, and pretty much everybody. You’ll see.

Related

• Dog Star Daily – Ian Dunbar’s website

From the Jerusalem Post: Huge Roman-era cave found by Jericho.

An artificial underground cave, the largest of its kind in Israel, was discovered in the Jordan Valley during excavations by the Haifa University’s Department of Archaeology.

Prof. Adam Zertal, who headed the dig, assessed that the cave was used as a quarry in the Roman era. Various carvings were found on the cave’s walls, including some of crosses, leading to the notion that the cave might have also hosted an ancient monastery.

The cave, sprawling over four dunams ten meters under the face of earth, is located some four kilometers north of Jericho. It was discovered at the end of March 2009 as part of a Haifa University dig which began in 1978, and is the largest man-made cave ever uncovered in Israel. The cave’s main hall is supported by 22 pillars, on which are engraved 31 crosses, a zodiac-like symbol, roman numerals and a Roman legion’s pennant. Judging by the findings, Prof. Zertal dated the cavern to around 1 CE. [continue]

From the Beeb: Students unearth Saxon nunnery.

Archaeologists believe they could have found the first-ever excavated Saxon nunnery, on a dig in Gloucestershire.

The annual dig, by the University of Bristol, has unearthed remains of a Saxon building in the grounds of the Edward Jenner Museum, Berkeley. [continue]

From the Guardian: British ‘Searaser’ invention promises green power revolution on the waves.

Alvin Smith had his eureka moment not in the bath, but in the swimming pool. ‘I was swimming round the pool, making little waves, and it struck me how much power there was in the displacement of the water,’ he remembers. ‘You think of a 500-tonne boat: a wave comes along, lifts that whole boat, and then drops it down again. You must be able to harness some of that, I thought.’

His subsequent invention would have made Archimedes proud, and should be making the renewables industry very excited.

Dubbed ‘Searaser‘, it consists of what looks like a navigation buoy, but is in fact a simple arrangement of ballast and floats connected by a piston. As a wave passes the device, the float is lifted, raising the piston and compressing water. The float sinks back down on the tail of the wave on to a second float, compressing water again on the downstroke. [continue]