The success of “Blood, Bones, and Butter” is that chef and restaurateur Gabrielle Hamilton turns her “inadvertent education (as) a reluctant chef” into a memoire as much about food as it is about family dynamics and cultural criticism. That she does this with metaphors concocted as carefully as her handmade salad dressings leaves a pleasant finish on the palate.
The owner of the New York’s trendy though classic Prune, Hamilton has written regularly about food in such magazines as “Bon Appetite” and “Food & Wine.” She has also been anthologized in “Best Food Writing.” Her University of Michigan writing degree does her well in her first book as week.
Raised in the Delaware River valley of New Jersey, Hamilton came up in a house full of older siblings, with an artist father and a French mother who navigated a six burner stove like a practiced dancer. Her mother cooked rustic fare. “She instilled in us nothing but a total and unconditional pleasure in food and eating,” Hamilton says.
The petite blonde cut her restaurant teeth waiting tables at local eatery “Mothers,” before moving to New York and the cultural weight of cowboy chic at the Lone Star Café. Here she learned “working her (expletive) tables,” meant pocketing cash meant for the cash register, then splitting it with the bartender.
Once she learned her lesson, Hamilton embarked on the 1980s odyssey of cocaine and sleeping late. The lesson also soon landed her in jail.
Both ahead of and behind her peers, she eventually enrolled at Hampshire College, intent on regaining some semblance of middle class expectations. Her history kept nagging, however, so Hamilton returned to New York and restaurant work.
Soon came gigs in commercial catering kitchens, where she met plenty of “ever-interchangeable warm (bodies) in a rented chef coat who knew not one thing about what a homemade mayonnaise might be.” The scale of such operations showed Hamilton that what often passed as good food was nothing more than quickly concocted combinations of second-rate ingredients, dressed up with clever presentations. The sheer quantity of the expectations demanded such shortcuts.
Next came a four summers long stint at a Berkshire summer camp, where Hamilton served baked chicken and tater tots by the pan-full, but also insisted on local produce and dairy.
Of her mother-in-law, Hamilton says her eighty-year-old Italian mother-in-law “cooks eggplant that satisfies like meat, grows her own olives, peels apricots from her own trees, and sun dries tomatoes to make her own tomato paste.”
Hamilton makes a fine meal of "Blood, Bones, and Butter."
Sunday, April 17, 2011
In Which Brief Stories Are Told
Ferris State University English professor Phillip Sterling believes Northern Michigan is not easily categorized. Sterling, an accomplished poet, has recently published a collection of short stories, many of which take place in this area.
The prevailing narrative thread in his book of short stories, “In Which Brief Tales Are Told,” is the uncertainty between what is known and what is suspected. In each of the fifteen stories, narrators, some omniscient, some confined, unravel details that often leave as many questions as they answer.
Published as part of the Made In Michigan Series from Wayne State University Press, “In Which Brief Stories Are Told,” demonstrates Sterling’s poetic tendencies in prose narratives. Case in point is “The Small Bridge.” In the span of six pages, Will and his future/ former wife Joy move from an early encounter raking leaves to marriage, then onto divorce, all the while imagining their daughter Artemis, and how the failed relationship reveals their most intimate feelings.
The raking, “no more than stench of death and decay,” serves as an appropriate metaphor for their failed relationship, made only less so by the wonder of their daughter. Here, Sterling’s narrative veers to the heart of the matter, as we learn, “What should be said instead is how little they knew of each other at this point in the story.”
In “An Account in Her Name,” Sterling’s narrative approach is more traditional. A middle-aged woman returns to Northern Michigan to meet a banker about a savings account her long missing sister kept. In the unfurling of events, readers learn that the sister, a teenage lifeguard and swimming instructor at a public beach in Beulah, left a legacy of not only mystery but also insight
Edie, the lifeguard gone AWOL, worked hard at their father’s restaurant, a place he buys in order to move his family north, to escape the sinister possibilities of the city. His family is slow to buy into his dream, though Edie works hard to keep up appearances.
In the span of a summer, Edie disappears while returning North from her studies at Kalamazoo College, unleashing events that bring down the dreams of those around her, including her parents and her sister. When the sister, the story’s narrator, conducts her banking, however, the mystery is at once renewed and reduced.
The prevailing narrative thread in his book of short stories, “In Which Brief Tales Are Told,” is the uncertainty between what is known and what is suspected. In each of the fifteen stories, narrators, some omniscient, some confined, unravel details that often leave as many questions as they answer.
Published as part of the Made In Michigan Series from Wayne State University Press, “In Which Brief Stories Are Told,” demonstrates Sterling’s poetic tendencies in prose narratives. Case in point is “The Small Bridge.” In the span of six pages, Will and his future/ former wife Joy move from an early encounter raking leaves to marriage, then onto divorce, all the while imagining their daughter Artemis, and how the failed relationship reveals their most intimate feelings.
The raking, “no more than stench of death and decay,” serves as an appropriate metaphor for their failed relationship, made only less so by the wonder of their daughter. Here, Sterling’s narrative veers to the heart of the matter, as we learn, “What should be said instead is how little they knew of each other at this point in the story.”
In “An Account in Her Name,” Sterling’s narrative approach is more traditional. A middle-aged woman returns to Northern Michigan to meet a banker about a savings account her long missing sister kept. In the unfurling of events, readers learn that the sister, a teenage lifeguard and swimming instructor at a public beach in Beulah, left a legacy of not only mystery but also insight
Edie, the lifeguard gone AWOL, worked hard at their father’s restaurant, a place he buys in order to move his family north, to escape the sinister possibilities of the city. His family is slow to buy into his dream, though Edie works hard to keep up appearances.
In the span of a summer, Edie disappears while returning North from her studies at Kalamazoo College, unleashing events that bring down the dreams of those around her, including her parents and her sister. When the sister, the story’s narrator, conducts her banking, however, the mystery is at once renewed and reduced.
Monday, February 28, 2011
How The West Was Won
Revision as history is a dicey business, so when he announces at the end of his new book, “Strange combinations of forgetting and remembrance followed the death of Crazy Horse,” Thomas Powers acknowledges the uncertainty in taking up any long known but little understood story.
“The Killing of Crazy Horse” is Powers’ attempt to explain the 1877 death of one of the most iconic Indians in all of American history. Throughout his investigation, Powers remains steadfast in his purpose not to cast blame but to unravel what has long been hinted at but never before now publicly proven.
That Crazy Horse held a special place of disgust in the white world is easily substantiated. Present in 1876 at the Little Big Horn river in Montana, the Oglala chief was largely seen as the cause of Custer’s last stand. With victory comes the right to tell the story, but with defeat comes the insistence on assigning blame. This blame, though nearly universal in the annals of the government’s explanations about what happened at that Montana outpost, is less clear in Powers’ retelling.
The larger context of the story, however, reaches back beyond this single battle, pointing fingers at a host of characters, both Indian and white, who, through circumstance or conspiracy, combined to find Crazy Horse at Nebraska’s Fort Robinson on the eve of his death in 1877.
Powers is careful to describe the results as “the killing,” though many might conclude or suggest it was murder. What has long been understood is Crazy Horse’s position in the Sioux society. He was a venerated chief, a “shirt wearer,” and a celebrated warrior. What he might not have been was any more responsible for Custer’s death than any of the other Sioux present at the fateful battle in 1876.
The flashpoint that led to the killing of the Oglala chief was undeniably the death of Custer. Powers, as have others, however, demonstrates how Custer and Major Marcus Reno likely erred in their maneuvers to surround and defeat the Indians. Indeed, Powers points out, how Reno faded from involvement when the battle flashed. “About Reno even the word cowardice was being used,” we learn.
Regardless the blame at Little Big Horn, the circumstances surrounding the death of Crazy Horse point to an amalgam of Indians and whites whipped to chaos and brutality not simply by the death of Custer, but by indecision, uncertainty, and cultural clashes that had boiled over once gold was discovered in the Black Hills of the Dakotas, traditional Oglala hunting grounds.
Implicated in this confusion of personalities is Little Big Man, once Crazy Horse’s friend, but at the end his adversary, as well as General George Crook, a veteran of the Civil War who always thought his successes overshadowed by those of Sherman and Sheridan.
Without the published accounts of the mixed blood scouts, those who interpreted between Indians and whites, this story might never have been recounted. The diaries of Billy Garnett and James Bordeaux are most compelling.
“The Killing of Crazy Horse” provides an insightful look at one of the most well known but little understood moments of American history.
Good Reading.
“The Killing of Crazy Horse” is Powers’ attempt to explain the 1877 death of one of the most iconic Indians in all of American history. Throughout his investigation, Powers remains steadfast in his purpose not to cast blame but to unravel what has long been hinted at but never before now publicly proven.
That Crazy Horse held a special place of disgust in the white world is easily substantiated. Present in 1876 at the Little Big Horn river in Montana, the Oglala chief was largely seen as the cause of Custer’s last stand. With victory comes the right to tell the story, but with defeat comes the insistence on assigning blame. This blame, though nearly universal in the annals of the government’s explanations about what happened at that Montana outpost, is less clear in Powers’ retelling.
The larger context of the story, however, reaches back beyond this single battle, pointing fingers at a host of characters, both Indian and white, who, through circumstance or conspiracy, combined to find Crazy Horse at Nebraska’s Fort Robinson on the eve of his death in 1877.
Powers is careful to describe the results as “the killing,” though many might conclude or suggest it was murder. What has long been understood is Crazy Horse’s position in the Sioux society. He was a venerated chief, a “shirt wearer,” and a celebrated warrior. What he might not have been was any more responsible for Custer’s death than any of the other Sioux present at the fateful battle in 1876.
The flashpoint that led to the killing of the Oglala chief was undeniably the death of Custer. Powers, as have others, however, demonstrates how Custer and Major Marcus Reno likely erred in their maneuvers to surround and defeat the Indians. Indeed, Powers points out, how Reno faded from involvement when the battle flashed. “About Reno even the word cowardice was being used,” we learn.
Regardless the blame at Little Big Horn, the circumstances surrounding the death of Crazy Horse point to an amalgam of Indians and whites whipped to chaos and brutality not simply by the death of Custer, but by indecision, uncertainty, and cultural clashes that had boiled over once gold was discovered in the Black Hills of the Dakotas, traditional Oglala hunting grounds.
Implicated in this confusion of personalities is Little Big Man, once Crazy Horse’s friend, but at the end his adversary, as well as General George Crook, a veteran of the Civil War who always thought his successes overshadowed by those of Sherman and Sheridan.
Without the published accounts of the mixed blood scouts, those who interpreted between Indians and whites, this story might never have been recounted. The diaries of Billy Garnett and James Bordeaux are most compelling.
“The Killing of Crazy Horse” provides an insightful look at one of the most well known but little understood moments of American history.
Good Reading.
What Are We Fighting For?
As a precocious kid coming up in the 1970s, I was drawn to the editorial page of the morning newspaper, where I first discovered Gary Trudeau, with his irreverent but accurate portrayal of American narcissism in the form of “Doonesbury.”
Andrews McMeel Publishing has recently issued “40: A Doonesbury Retrospective,” a compendium of every strips published since the comic launched in 1970. Also included are brief chapters by Trudeau on his most significant characters, including Mike Doonesbury, Uncle Duke, Zonker Harris, and others.
At the beginning, Trudeau explains what the book is not. “It’s not about Watergate, gas lines, cardigans, Reagonomics, a thousand points of light, Monica, New Orleans, or even Dubya. None of that.” He is also sure readers will be “relieved” at this news.
Trudeau is confident readers are not interested in “decoding long-expired topical material.” He explains that the book is instead an attempt to show “how it felt to live through those years.” This coffee table sized read includes 13 percent of the 14,000 strips published.
His character’s and his comic strip’s history is all here, nonetheless. The strip began, as most regular readers will already know, while Trudeau was an undergraduate. His first character was B.D., inspired by a college pal. But when syndication came, he knew was necessary to expand his character pool, so soon after, between 1970 and 1974, came the additions of Mike Doonesbury, Mark Slackmeyer, Joanie Caucaus, and intrepid CNN newsman Roland Burton Hedley, Jr.
A quickly noticeable feature of the strip’s evolution is the development of the drawing style and coloration. The first few panels are black and white, the outlines suitably shaded, but less structured and less defined than those of later efforts.
That evolution is also evident in the character’s dialogue. Whereas Mike and B.D. are largely concerned at the outset with what college life might offer, whether there are enough girls to meet a mixers, or the power of campus protest, the acceleration into topics of national significance and lasting impact is remarkable for its historical significance.
Richard Nixon might not make an obvious appearance, but nonetheless, here are Mark, Mike, and B.D. handing out awards to “the men and women who made Watergate a reality.”
Just when it appears Trudeau and his imaginary friends might stay fixed on matters of national significance, however, they veer back toward the ordinary, such as when Mark’s father announces to his still sleeping son, “Yessir, tomorrow’s the first day of college and it’s time to shake down the old man for the upcoming semester.”
Trudeau's most iconic character, however, is Uncle Duke. Modeled on bombastic journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Duke is memorable, whether lambasting his CIA intern for launching a Predator drone, or praising his Samoan aide for mixing a pitcher of daquiris.
For a look back at who we are, check out "40: A Doonesbury Retrospective."
Good Reading.
Andrews McMeel Publishing has recently issued “40: A Doonesbury Retrospective,” a compendium of every strips published since the comic launched in 1970. Also included are brief chapters by Trudeau on his most significant characters, including Mike Doonesbury, Uncle Duke, Zonker Harris, and others.
At the beginning, Trudeau explains what the book is not. “It’s not about Watergate, gas lines, cardigans, Reagonomics, a thousand points of light, Monica, New Orleans, or even Dubya. None of that.” He is also sure readers will be “relieved” at this news.
Trudeau is confident readers are not interested in “decoding long-expired topical material.” He explains that the book is instead an attempt to show “how it felt to live through those years.” This coffee table sized read includes 13 percent of the 14,000 strips published.
His character’s and his comic strip’s history is all here, nonetheless. The strip began, as most regular readers will already know, while Trudeau was an undergraduate. His first character was B.D., inspired by a college pal. But when syndication came, he knew was necessary to expand his character pool, so soon after, between 1970 and 1974, came the additions of Mike Doonesbury, Mark Slackmeyer, Joanie Caucaus, and intrepid CNN newsman Roland Burton Hedley, Jr.
A quickly noticeable feature of the strip’s evolution is the development of the drawing style and coloration. The first few panels are black and white, the outlines suitably shaded, but less structured and less defined than those of later efforts.
That evolution is also evident in the character’s dialogue. Whereas Mike and B.D. are largely concerned at the outset with what college life might offer, whether there are enough girls to meet a mixers, or the power of campus protest, the acceleration into topics of national significance and lasting impact is remarkable for its historical significance.
Richard Nixon might not make an obvious appearance, but nonetheless, here are Mark, Mike, and B.D. handing out awards to “the men and women who made Watergate a reality.”
Just when it appears Trudeau and his imaginary friends might stay fixed on matters of national significance, however, they veer back toward the ordinary, such as when Mark’s father announces to his still sleeping son, “Yessir, tomorrow’s the first day of college and it’s time to shake down the old man for the upcoming semester.”
Trudeau's most iconic character, however, is Uncle Duke. Modeled on bombastic journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Duke is memorable, whether lambasting his CIA intern for launching a Predator drone, or praising his Samoan aide for mixing a pitcher of daquiris.
For a look back at who we are, check out "40: A Doonesbury Retrospective."
Good Reading.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Lord of Misrule
Winner of the National Book Award for Fiction recently, Lord of Misrule is an odd book. It isn't so much that the setting or the story arc are unorthodox; the story is set in a broken down horse racing world on the east coast and populated by characters with names like Medicine Ed and Suitcase. What makes the novel unusual, at least in contemporary fiction, is the narration. Where dialogue is concerned, dialect or vernacular has long been acceptable and at times preferable. But in narration, the deal with readers has always been that authors would revert to standard English usage. This is not the case here. The narration is rendered in half syllables, run-on sentences, and dropped suffixes. As well, the dialogue traffics in the relatively modern convention of not using quotation marks. I'm not sure the work isn't influenced by the style of Cormac McCarthy or Mark Twain.
In his slim treatise on the relationship between readers and writers, B.R. Myers, takes to task the new lords of fiction, criticizing McCarthy, Don Delillo, and others for their ventures into the ridiculous. I keep wondering what Myers will have to say about Lord of Misrule. I keep wondering what average readers will have to say as well.
In his slim treatise on the relationship between readers and writers, B.R. Myers, takes to task the new lords of fiction, criticizing McCarthy, Don Delillo, and others for their ventures into the ridiculous. I keep wondering what Myers will have to say about Lord of Misrule. I keep wondering what average readers will have to say as well.
The Golden Mean
In the early part of Anabel Lyon’s new novel “The Golden Mean,” Aristotle proclaims, “In the ideal state, the education of children will be the highest business of the government.”
That the book takes as its narrative arc the relationship between the famous teacher and his most notable student, Alexander the Great, offers a creative look into their well-known relationship, if not for a careful examination of his maxim.
Approaching middle age, Aristotle is summoned to Pella by his boyhood friend Philip, King of Macedonia. Along with his young and less than worldly wife Pythias, the philosopher embarks on a course that has long been considered a crossroad of history; the teenage Alexander and the aging thinker shadow box through their lessons, sometimes working together, other times at odds.
The novel is much more, however, than the simple amalgam of teacher and student. Aristotle’s heritage shades the story. He longs to return to Athens, to the Academy, where he can put aside the worry of daily life, the quotidian complications of maintaining his household, navigating the pitfalls of marriage, his young wife’s pregnancy, his king’s expectations, as well as his own desires.
This simplicity is not to be, however, as Philip leaves to expand his empire, expecting Aristotle to remain in Pella to provide some ethical stability and philosophical inspiration to his son and his mates. This maturing cadre of aristocrats challenges the old thinker.
For his part, Alexander suffers blackouts while in battle, committing atrocities on the battlefield he is later unable to recall. His behavior, recalled by others, clearly abhorrent, is a counterpointed by Aristotle’s own ignoble foray into battle. He serves with the medics, where he continues to develop his conclusions. He recognizes, “There is, too, the matter of purpose; can one say the soul is the purpose of the body? I feel a wooliness there, a gap in the teeth of my logic.”
Alexander and Aristotle find in each other their own aspirations, but also their own failures. Aristotle wishes for more worldly experiences, but knows these are fleeting, and because of his lineage traced from Socrates, he knows is constantly in pursuit of restraint.
This equilibrium is the golden mean, the balance between access and excess; the tipping point between mania and moderation. For his part, Alexander, raised by an ambitious father and a doting mother, wants for a more cerebral existence, but recognizes his inability to hold temptation at bay. Side by side, the two demonstrate both the height of human possibility, as well as the depth of human suffering.
“The Golden Mean” is Lyon’s first novel. Her writing blends an earthy diction with a
That the book takes as its narrative arc the relationship between the famous teacher and his most notable student, Alexander the Great, offers a creative look into their well-known relationship, if not for a careful examination of his maxim.
Approaching middle age, Aristotle is summoned to Pella by his boyhood friend Philip, King of Macedonia. Along with his young and less than worldly wife Pythias, the philosopher embarks on a course that has long been considered a crossroad of history; the teenage Alexander and the aging thinker shadow box through their lessons, sometimes working together, other times at odds.
The novel is much more, however, than the simple amalgam of teacher and student. Aristotle’s heritage shades the story. He longs to return to Athens, to the Academy, where he can put aside the worry of daily life, the quotidian complications of maintaining his household, navigating the pitfalls of marriage, his young wife’s pregnancy, his king’s expectations, as well as his own desires.
This simplicity is not to be, however, as Philip leaves to expand his empire, expecting Aristotle to remain in Pella to provide some ethical stability and philosophical inspiration to his son and his mates. This maturing cadre of aristocrats challenges the old thinker.
For his part, Alexander suffers blackouts while in battle, committing atrocities on the battlefield he is later unable to recall. His behavior, recalled by others, clearly abhorrent, is a counterpointed by Aristotle’s own ignoble foray into battle. He serves with the medics, where he continues to develop his conclusions. He recognizes, “There is, too, the matter of purpose; can one say the soul is the purpose of the body? I feel a wooliness there, a gap in the teeth of my logic.”
Alexander and Aristotle find in each other their own aspirations, but also their own failures. Aristotle wishes for more worldly experiences, but knows these are fleeting, and because of his lineage traced from Socrates, he knows is constantly in pursuit of restraint.
This equilibrium is the golden mean, the balance between access and excess; the tipping point between mania and moderation. For his part, Alexander, raised by an ambitious father and a doting mother, wants for a more cerebral existence, but recognizes his inability to hold temptation at bay. Side by side, the two demonstrate both the height of human possibility, as well as the depth of human suffering.
“The Golden Mean” is Lyon’s first novel. Her writing blends an earthy diction with a
Sunday, November 14, 2010
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.”
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.”
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