Finders Keepers

Each summer, my Mackinac Island backyard gives up a few archeological treasures. The site of a former blacksmith shop, the soil is rich with historical castoffs.
Though no one else is ever vying for these finds, Craig Childs’ book “Finders, Keepers” put me in mind of how tenuous is the relationship between searchers and their finds.
Childs, author of “Animal Dialogues” and “Soul of Nowhere,” trades on his experiences of the desert southwest to frame his thesis. However, what might appear obvious to some, namely that the dead do not continue to claim their castoffs, is not as obvious as Childs navigates the ethics of archeology.
“Spitting potsherds” as a youngster, Childs graduated to “unaffiliated backcountry aficionado,” and eventually backcountry guide. All the while, Childs was honing his finding skills, while developing his keepers’ ethos.
His conclusions are derived from his own experiences, as well as the experience of others, both those Childs applauds and those he loathes. One of the latter is Jack Haralson. An insurance salesman, Harelson was also an amateur archeologist, who once dug up “a 2,000-year-old sealed torso-sized basket, heavy with objects inside.” Among the objects inside is “a mummified boy who had been about four years old when he died, and below his leathery corpse was another mummy, that of a girl about ten years old.” Harelson kept the loot and buried the mummies in his backyard. For his pains, he spent eighteen months in prison and a $2.5 million fine.
On the other side of the equation are Emil Haury and Julian Hayden, also archeologists who explored the southwest, also discovered mummified remains, but who donated their finds to science. “The distance between these two ends of the spectrum,” Childs writes, “seems like forever, but it is not.”
Guiding a reporter, who is interested in the subject, Childs confronts the questions of ethics as they search for artifacts in the Arizona desert. “I did not want to force my own ethic on her,” he states. “We want to be the first ones to bridge the gap,” he says, “clearing the dust away and letting in light.” What he understands, however, is “if we opened it, the seal would be broken. It would be forever changed.”
This, of course, is the rub. “There is a difference between finding and keeping,” Childs warns. “The two are often lumped together in one action, but there is a blink that comes in between.” This blink is the territory where Childs finds questions that do not necessarily have clearly defined answers. “We have no single agreed-upon way of treating the past,” he reasons. “Behavior varies from person to person.” This variation can be problematic, causing either derision or adulation.
Childs suggests a direction, courtesy of James O. Young, of the University of British Columbia, who believes, “Artifacts ultimately belong to the cultures that made them…if they are proven to have had a genuine, substantial, and enduring significance to the people. If they aren’t so significant, it’s finders keepers.”

Princess Noire

By many estimations Nina Simone was the height of cool. She was also the height of narcissism, as well as paranoia and pride.
Simone, the classically trained pianist from Tryon, North Carolina who wanted to be a concert performer but instead became an jazz and blues icon, is the subject of Nadine Cohodas’ biography “Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone.”
A child prodigy born Eunice Waymon to enterprising parents in 1930s South, Simone caught her first musical break when she found the ear of a local white woman who agreed to sponsor the girl. Sent to another local white woman for piano lessons, Eunice progressed quickly. She regularly played her way through the heavyweights of classical composition as a child, demonstrating a keen affection for Bach.
From Tryon, Eunice made her way to Philadelphia, then a summer at the famed Julliard School in New York. Her goal was admission to the prestigious Curtis School of Music, where she intended to study classical piano, then go onto a career on the philharmonic stage.
What happened instead was a simple twist of fate. Cohodas provides a combination of speculation, hyperbole, and legend, retold by those who knew Simone best, to show the trajectory of her subsequent career. Rejected by Curtis, a now teenage Eunice Waymon earned money the only way she could, playing piano wherever she could.
Cohodas suggests the Curtis snub cut Eunice to the quick. “Over the ensuing half century that moment of despair would resurface, sometimes unexpectedly, with all the anguish of a fresh betrayal, and it would shape forever how she viewed her past.”
Over the next 50 years, navigating the civil rights movement, befriending literary luminaries such as Langston Hughes and Lorraine Hansberry, Simone earned a reputation as a champion of black rights, but also as a diva who could subject her audiences to both scorn and diatribe. She rarely started a show on time, and never missed a chance to speak out on race.
“Princess Noire” plumbs these musical and social depths of one of America’s most compelling voices.

Not For Profit

Martha Nussbaum makes an assertion in her new book that not all educators believe. Her premise is that liberal arts are necessary for a strong democracy, but the shift in the educational paradigm over the past fifteen years or so is toward outcomes that can be measured on multiple choice tests. This is antithetical to the notions espoused in liberal arts classes that counter the student should construct meaning from a variety of sources, presented with the idea that while bias is always inherent, prejudice is to be avoided.
As professor of Ethics at the University of Chicago, Nussbaum no doubt knows first hand the dilemma many students face in classes where the quest is for the right answer rather than for a strong argument. This dichotomy has long vexed educators and students alike, as we play at school, when what is valuable is shunted into a corner because it cannot be quantified.
Building her own argument on the work of Bronson Alcott, Rabindranath Tagore, and others, Nussbaum believes this marginalization of the arts is indeed a "silent crisis." Her remedy? A renewed investment in the arts and in the Socratic Method, which provides a student centered approach to education that is in keeping with the educational theorists she champions, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Johann Pestalozzi.
Nussbaum goes to great lengths to state that math and science are valuable commodities in the marketplace of education, but argues more vehemently that democracy, with its insistence on providing advantage for all, can only be bolstered with a vigorous infusion of art, music, theatre, history, and literature.

Shadow of the Wolf Tree

Joe Heywood has a good thing going, and in his new installment, Shadow of the Wolf Tree he keeps it going.
Conservation officer Grady Service and his military buddy Tree are after a bit of r and r on the banks of a remote upper peninsula river when their tranquility is blasted by the work of what appear to be militant eco-warriors. With the discovery of two long dead bodies, the brutal murder of an out state fisherman, and the prospect of a long forgotten gold mine, Shadow of the Wolf Tree quickly catapults Service back to the front lines of environmental law and order.
After recently losing the woman he loved, Maridly Nantz, the aging woods cop now finds himself pursued by his new partner, Tuesday Friday, a new mother and a state trooper. When he figures he has the expectations worked out, he finds his perspective turned sideways, providing for some tension that is neither professional nor imagined.
Tramping through the north woods once again, Grady Service makes his way along the trail of loose ends, piecing together the clues of more than one eco-mystery.
Along for the ride are a host of regular Heywood characters, including the lovable but despicable Limpy Allerdyce, perhaps the Yoop's most notorious game violator. Back too are many of Service's allies, including Captain Lorne O'Driscoll and Simon Del Olmo.
Before its conclusion, Shadow of the Wolf Tree finds Service in typical Heywood form, angling through a messy swamp of convoluted clues, intent on once again restoring order.

A Thousand Sisters

I can't think of anything clever to say about this new book by Lisa Shannon, save that it has captivated me and become the book I'm recommending to all who read. There is no new history here, as the catalogue of events leading up to the current situation in African Congo is well established. From the days of Belgium's Leopold to the current political configurations, Congo has long been what others dub "a vampire state." The corruption is equalled only by the resources that have long drawn outsiders to this heart of darkness.
Shannon nonetheless finds reason for hope in the stories of Congo's women. Subtitled "The Worst Place on earth to be a woman," Shannon's book chronicles her own odyssey of altruism as she organizes regular Run for Congo Women events around the country. She donates the proceeds to Women to Women, an international aid organization with outreach projects in Congo. Shannon's efforts are noble, but what makes the book compelling are the stories of the women in Congo who have endured years of brutality. In a place where there are no old people because no lives to see 50, Shannon manages to showcase the intersection of hope and despair played out in the daily lives of women like Generose, who lost a leg to marauding Rwandan militants. There is also Marie, a girl of only seven, who suffers from traumatic fistula because she was gang raped at five years old.
The power of Shannon's story is not simply the heartbreak of women like Generose and Marie, but in the resilience of others, who proclaim, "I feel somehow a person in life, a woman in life," because of the commitment of those like Shannon.
A Thousand Sisters is a book that belies clever commentary. Instead it encourages personal involvement.

Everything Old (and Classic) is New Again

Sometimes the best stories are the oldest stories. Such is the case with Zachary Mason's new collection The Lost Books of the Odyssey, a re-imagined version of Homer's original. Mason, a computer scientist and first time novelist, has hit the mark with this group of stories that take Odysseus from the shores of Ithaka to Ilium, and back again. Rather than wed his new tales too closely to the plot lines of Homer, Mason instead wanders wider as Odysseus makes his way to war and home again.
Mason's best bits come in selections like The Iliad of Odysseus, where the hero, instead of the fully formed epic manifestation of Homer's twin books, animated by equal parts hubris and heroism, shrinks from conflict. Instead of taking up his damaged men to make for Ithaka, this suspect character begins by wondering "whether all men are cowards like me." In quick succession, this Odysseus sneaks through the carnage of the battlefield, stealing away into the night in shame and anonymity. Not the quintessential character of high school classrooms, this new Odysseus is rather a more human configuration.
In Mason's rendering, the story also radiates in widely different arcs. There is no clearly defined point of reference. The collection rather shows Odysseus, whether running toward a challenge or withering in the face of adversity, as a still evolving character, quite a feat for a creation more than 3,000 years old.

Reflection

I've been home a week now, and am still reeling from the experience of my trip to Ukraine. I returned to school on Monday and was made aware that while I have been changed for the better by my travels and by meeting many new friends, my students did not change and they are basically the people I left back on March 15. This was somewhat of a let down, as I wanted everyone to change with me. This is of course impossible and I must simply revel in the wonder of what I've seen and what I've learned. I must acknowlege the power of the exchange I was a part of and work to keep that wonder and power alive in my own work. The week at home has solidified for me how important such opportunities are.
The final couple days in Ukraine were a marvel, as Halyna, Ievgeniia, and Anastashia and I traveled by train from Lutsk to Kiev, where we wandered the city for hours on a beautiful spring day.
Kiev was incredible. The architecture and the colors knocked me out. Everywhere we turned there were monuments, both new structures dedicated to the relatively recent independence of Ukraine, as well as those more historic, a result of Kiev being one of the oldest cities in Europe.
We saw Independence Square, as well as Saint Sophia's Cathedral, built in the eleventh century. We shopped for souvenirs and ate a hearty lunch. Through it all, the best part was sharing it with new friends. Halyna and Ievgeniia were wonderful hosts through my entire stay; they were there when I arrived and they were there to see me off at Borispol Airport. Throughout they helped me with the language, shared their families and friends, and made certain I was always where I needed to be and that I was comfortable.
Anastashia is hoping to be an exchange student in the U.S. this next school year, and I will be anxious to hear positive news about this.
Still can't believe it is over.