Dad.

Father of the Delta blues, Charlie Patton was a true homegrown talent. Born in 1891 (there is debate over this, with some musicologists suggesting he was born earlier, that is 1885 earlier) on the Mississippi delta. He moved with his family to the Dockery Plantation at the turn of the century. A couple of other real cool cats found out about the Patton magic, maybe you've heard of them: John Lee Hooker and Howlin Wolf.

Music has to come from somewhere, and Patton learned his craft from local Dockery musician Henry Sloan. Blues wasn't invented yet but this guy had it going on. Two of Patton's future sideman, Son House and Tommy Johnson learned at Sloan's feet. Unfortunately there are no known Sloan recordings.

Patton's first real composition was "pony Blues". Known as a song writer and developer of the the delta blues style, he was comfortable playing many genres and toured all over the Southern United States. Toured is being generous. He was a Black musician in turn of the century times so he played plantations and beer halls.

Crowds came from all over to see the show, and a show it was. Way before the antics of Pete Townsend or pyrotechnics of Hendrix, this guy played the guitar below his knees and behind his head wowing the crowns who had never seen anything like him before. There were no amps or PA systems then, but his voice was as legendary as his playing. He could blow out candles at the back of the hall.

Patton moved to Holly Ridge Mississippi with his partner, fellow musician Bertha Lee, where he lived until his death in 1934. He has also been known to go by the name Elder J.J. Hadley.

No smoking.

So we all know the Incas built some pretty good rope bridges. As engineers period they are up there. Now they didn't get far with no wheels, but rope bridges they did OK. The largest of these spanned 200+ feet over the Apurimac Canyon.

The cool thing with these rope bridges including others built in South and Central America was the commitment to regular maintenance. Locals would rebuild and tighten main sections of the bridge on a fixed schedule, prolonging the useful life and keeping harmful accidents at a low level.

Far, far away in Northern Ireland, we see the bridge builders craft displayed in the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, near Ballintoy. This amazing little bridge actually spans the ocean between Ireland and tiny Carrick Island.

Area fisherman erected the bridge as an easier way to get their catch to land (thought they would have had boats though). This bridge shows up in local lore and seems to have been around off and on some 300 odd years. The current version is all safe and has safety measures installed so its pretty much for tourists. It's still a harrowing 20 metre walk on a shaky bridge.

Sparkling sugar.

In one of many attempts to find out a little bit more about the history of rope I stumbled upon a short science piece making the rounds at all the news services. Seems scientists have discovered if you peel Scotch tape off it's roll in a vacuum it emits x-rays.

The article doesn't have any background, that is to say, what got the scientists unfurling tape in a vacuum anyway. Maybe it was a slow day, who knows.

Researchers at UCLA found that peeling Scotch tape off a pane of glass "ejects enough radiation to take an x-ray image."

The phenomenon is called triboluminescence and was first written about by Sir Francis Bacon in 1620 when he noted "It is well known that all sugar whether candied or plain, if it be hard, will sparkle when broken or scraped in the dark." Sounds like they played around with Lifesavers back then a bit. But that's just the idea. Many substances emit mild radiation when rubbed scraped and scratched.

The researchers above are thinking of using the energy to power portable x-ray machines. I'm sure someone else will come up something real fun to do with it.

In case you want to follow up, here's one link to the story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081023/ap_on_sc/sci_scotch_tape_surprise

Gotta look up again, shit.

Just a shorty tonight, but in a rope-y theme. Seems the Peruvians had a thing for rope and what to do with it. Take the Rope Bridge of San Luis Rey. Built in 1350 across the Apurimac River, it was made of hand woven rope and spanned 148 feet.

The cables were twisted and then added as components of a larger cable until the core span was as thick as man's body. The bridge even had a device to self tighten the ropes as they stretched installed on one side.

So well made was this magnificent bridge it lasted 500 years. A lot longer, actually, than many cast iron bridges.

If you are intrigued check out Thorton Wilder's 1927 novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, or if you prefer, find one of the several film adaptations. The most recent features Robert DeNiro and Kathy Bates.

Sorry readers, I tried to find at least a drawing of the orinal bridge but all I could dig up was endless DVD box art.

Look up, way up, and I'll call Angie and Fiddle

Doing research into expedition artists (the folk who paint and sketch the things that explorers go looking for before cameras were useful) landed me on quite few web sites devoted to things that fell from the sky.

There is a long history of objects pummeling the earth. Pretty much from ancient times onward man has seen stones, cinders, toads, fish (quite a few actually) and especially since air travel is common, the odd plane part and frozen poop.

And then there is meat. Seems that meat has fallen lots of times. Lets see starting in 1851 near San Fransisco troops reported seeing pieces of meat, apparently beef (how did they check?) falling from a cloudless sky.

Sampson County, North Carolina reported that in the same year meat as well as liver, brains and blood fell from the sky. No mention as to what cut of meat it was. Again in 1884 meat fell from the sky in Chatham County.

In 1869 on a farm near Los Nietos, California, more meat came down. This time in strips.

We move now to Bath, Kentucky when in 1876 cubes of beef (what else?) landed on the Crouch family farm.

Every meat fall occurred on clear cloudless days. Think I'll use the grocery store.

Topsy

Oct 17, 1909 Cozy Cole was born. Landmark drummer who played with the likes of Wilber Sweatman and Jelly Roll Morton's Red Hot Peppers among others.

This guy was cool. Never one to put the drummer way in the back, he often put drum solos in unexpected places and actually charted a song with a drum solo in it "Topsy Part 2" in 1958. This wasn't the era of Led Zeppelin, this was Les Paul and Mary Ford / Sinatra country. He had a stint with jazz violinist Hezekiah Smith, better known as Stuff Smith in the late 30's.

Always a ground breaker he joined the CBS radio networks band in 1942. His inclusion as an African American musician in those days was quite something.

Take a walk

So we're all in agreement then that the crafty Egyptians made the first real rope (that is to say made from fibres and not a bunch of vines braided together) and no doubt begat the pyramids. China came next around 2800 BC with rope made from hemp.

Then there is a big gap of almost a thousand years. I'm doing my best to find out what the hell went on. Might even have to buy a book. Anyway, rope shows up again in Europe in the Middle Ages. Seems they had a lot of exploring going on and boats and slaves to tie up.

To be able to make rope they had to use real long buildings called rope walks. Some were as much as 250+ metres long. The British Navy required rope to be 1000 feet long. Thats over 300 metres. The strands were laid out side by side and twisted together. Shortere pieces could be made of course, but they needed to be spliced together and would bind in the blocks and pulleys.

So to be called rope, the cordage needs to be at least an inch in circumference. Anything smaller is called cord or twine, and the smallest stuff is yarn or thread.

Doink Doink

Today, or pretty close to it, (Oct 18th actually) marks the 50th anniversary of the video game. Robert Dvorak Sr and that crazy accordion player, William Higinbotham, displayed Tennis for Two at a Brookhaven National Laboratory lab open house.

William Higinbotham, a senior scientist at the Los Alamos research facility that developed the first atomic bomb was a key player in organizing scientists to ban the use of the bomb. He never felt good that he was remembered for helping birth the video gaming industry and not for trying to prevent nuclear proliferation.

Spud nik

It's October already and I feel terrible that over three quarters of the year has slipped by without celebrating you know what. Come on, this is an event we all should be involved in. Family, friends, co-workers. Make some time for the potato.

2008 is the International Year of the Potato. So says the United Nations, and they ought to know. We pay how much to keep them running?

According to the official website http://www.potato2008.org/ (you'll love the logo) we owe everything to Lake Titticaca. Peru actually. There may be some argument from Bolivia. Those damn Bolivars. It's a potato.

I won't repeat the potato lore amply abundant on the web site but I do want to tell you about a neat little potato product called chuño. Dating back over a thousand years it's a freeze dried potato food eaten by the Incas. Small potatoes work best for this stuff. Once dug up they are laid out over night to freeze for at least a couple of days. They are laid out in the sun during the day and walked upon to squeeze out the moisture. Finally, they are frozen for a few more nights. And voila! a portable food that looks remarkably like crap. But hey, they did walk on it first.

And just so you feel real bad here are a few potato celebrations we all missed. In September the Spokane Valley Fest was the site of the launching of a potato shaped balloon. Thuringia Germany had their annual potato festival where the celebrated potato dumplings. And finally to cap a month choc a bloc with activities France hosted PotatoEurope 2008. Billed as Europe's "most significant potato industry convention". Lucky bastards.

Tied up.

Ah, there's nothing like a good obsession to keep you focused and on task. Especially when it's one that's both entertaining and informative. Way more fun than crazy recluses or beer swilling wack jobs.

Tonight's topic, lucky us, is rope. Binder of fair maidens and securer of ships at harbour. And unfairly under reported.

So then, to the beginning, rope's dawn. Earliest known rope makers seem to be the Egyptians. They left hieroglyphics showing a rope making process around 4000 BC. However evidence exists that some very rudimentary braided rope was around thousands of years before that. In fact the Lascaux Caves in France (famous for the cave paintings) produced some fossilised 2 ply braided rope, circa 15,000 BC. Rope being a pretty handy thing doesn't surprise me. Probably used it to keep the visitors out.

The Egyptians needed the rope to help in the building of their cities and monuments. It was no doubt made from plant matter, very possibly reeds or palm fronds. Because they didn't really have an effective way of twisting long strands at that time, and rope making by hand just didn't meet the demand, most ropes were a series of ropes tied together.

It would take medieval craftsman to move rope making forward. Next time on Rope- Twisted History.

Look up, way up, I'll call Rusty and Jerome . . .

According to Harvard astronomer Tim Spahr, a small asteroid will burn up in the earth's atmosphere tonight. Damn, all the good cataclysms happen after my bed time.

Actually it's asteroid 2008 TC3 and it's on track to burn up over Africa. Lucky bastards. So scientists have complied this list of asteroids, 5681 of them, of which a mere 757, or 10% or so are big enough to cause us any trouble. Ah science has a way of taking the end of mankind and the start of the next ice age and making it all sound like comparing gas mileage on mini vans. And just to make us all feel better the chance of an object 1km in size or bigger striking the earth is about 1 in every half million years. What a load off. So all we have to do now is figure out when the LAST one hit.

So it got me started thinking about other hits and misses. One of the best known impacts is the Barringer Crater near Winslow Arizona. Also known as Meteor Crater it was formed about 50, 000 years ago by an object about 50 metres across. Interestingly enough it is the only privately owned crater on earth. The Barringer family own it. Just goes to show you that being at the right place at the right time . . .

In the less drama but more of them category we have the Henbury Meteorites Conservation Reserve in Australia's Northern Reserve. Actually a crater field of about 15 impacts ranging in size from as small as 7 metres across to the big one at 180 metres. Locals had known about the area for a long time but interest flared when a 92 kilgram meteorite crashed in neighbouring Karoonda in 1932. That woke 'em up.

On the other side of the world in Kaali Estonia we have the Kaali Craters. A series of 9 impacts produced craters as large as 110 metres across and 22 metres deep. The date of impact is sketchy but it's believed to be about 100BC.

And in Saudi Arabia we find the Wabar craters. Actually Harry St. John Abdullah Philby found them in 1932. You may remember a famous commie spy, Ken Philby? His Dad. Again this is an impact field with craters larger than 100 metres. This one is a new one, having occurred within the last 200 years.

Sleep tight.

People's Painter

There are few jobs that have built in positives AND negatives. There is no wiggle room when it comes to either. No matter how hard you try, you are always balancing in between the two. Cops have it, news anchors, men and women of cloth and political cartoonists.

Boris Yefimov died yesterday at the age of 108. That's right 108! He witnessed the revolution, civil wars, 2 world wars, the end of the Cold War and the new cold war. Eclipsing all others he was easily Russia's best political cartoonist.

Close shaves were common in Soviet Russia. Stability and common sense meant anyone in the public had better trod a careful line. Boris came to fame during the Second World War satirizing Hitler and the Nazis. Stalin loved poking fun, but his shrewd political instincts told him that this was good propaganda read by leaders and rank and file alike.

Vistors to Yefimov's apartment were treated to amazing stories told with and startling accuracy for someone born in 1900. Stalin scared the shit out of him. In 1947 he received a call from him, the "boss". This is one call you don't shout from the shower that you'll call him right back.

Seems Stalin read all the papers and regularly called editors suggesting stories, changes to headlines and the occasional reminder that his staff may stop by and pick up a colleague for a ride around the block. In this instance he was trying to get the focus on an American military buildup in the Arctic.

Yefimov had promised, the day before, a cartoon on the subject and it had not yet shown up. A regular propagandist for Izvestia, Stalin was well aware of the calibre of his cartoons. Anyway, Uncle Joe was on the line and he wanted to know where his cartoon was. In fact he wanted it by the evening edition, barely 2 hours away. Yefimov said he was convinced he was dead. So much to do in such short time. He DID finish it but was surprised to find out that Stalin had re-wrote the cartoon's caption, using red crayon to scrawl over his original words before submitting for publication.

Born Boris Fridland in Kiev of Jewish parents he didn't really get off to a good start with art classes, but doggedly kept drawing and copying his favourite cartoons. Encouraged by his brother Mikhail, (who became a journalist) he entered art school. But civil war broke out and he and his brother thought it prudent to adopt less Jewish sounding names. He chose Yefimov, and Mikhail a Kolstov.

Boris followed him to Moscow and got his first political cartoon published in Pravda in 1922. The rest is history, a lot of it.

For today, I'll sign off and go see what fodder exists for modern cartoonists. I suspect there is plenty of it.