The latest claim of surprisingly early archaeological material in the Americas comes from Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico. The paper (Ardelean et al 2020) contains a wealth of excellent information and analysis on (non-human) ancient DNA, paleo-environment, and local geology, but unfortunately, the archaeology component is very underdeveloped. Simply put, the paper as presented does not provide…
My encounter with pseudo-archaeology
There was a used bookstore downtown, in a barely renovated nineteenth century warehouse. It was five floors of dense, rickety shelves, piled high with jumbled paperbacks in various states of decay. To say that they were sorted in any kind of order would have been a gross exaggeration, but there was a certain thematic geography…
The old man’s typewriter
We used to have neighbours in our old building, a very nice older couple. This was many years ago. The husband was starting to have trouble remembering things and getting around on his own. One day, he had to move to an assisted care facility. A while later, his wife also moved away, maybe to…
On the origin of doom scrolling
Biella Coleman recently asked whether the phrase “doom scrolling” existed before COVID. Certainly, doom scrolling itself has been a popular past-time since scrolling has existed, and doom page turning was around much before that. Perhaps there was even a form of doom scrolling (or more properly, unscrolling) before pages were introduced as a technology, but…
Summer post: Dark Side of the Moon is a rough draft of Wish You Were Here. Prove me wrong.
I see a great deal of debate online about whether Dark Side of the Moon or it’s follow-up, Wish You Were Here, is the better album. The debates are fierce and extended. I have seen little discussion though, of just how similar they are to each other in structure and content. I see them as…
