Category: North Carolina

Against Me! is Saving Rock & Roll

3/15/2017

Anthropology is the biggest, baddest science on the planet. Humans, human societies, and human cultures are far and away the most difficult things one can try to understand: they're complex, chaotic, layered, and historically and environmentally contingent. They're a pain in the ass to study. They're also a whole lot of fun.

I've been meaning to write a post about Against Me! since the summer of 2015. That July, I took my daughter to see them in Grand Rapids, Michigan (you can see a photo of me with Laura Jane Grace after the show here). I knew next to nothing about the band at the time, but was blown away by what I saw and heard. I became an instant fan. Two of their albums went into heavy rotation on my walk-to-work soundtrack.

I never found the time to write the original post. I wanted to write about the binary oppositions/tensions/categories (life/death, male/female, etc.) I heard embedded in the lyrics, the influences I detected in the music, and the extraordinary energy I felt in that room in Grand Rapids. In case you don't know, Laura Jane Grace was born Thomas James Gabel, coming out publicly as a transgender woman in 2012 (you can get an outline of the band's history here). Listen to 2014's Transgender Dysphoria Blues with that history and context in mind, comparing it what you hear on 2010's White Crosses. If you just want to dip your toe in the water, listen to "White Crosses" and "Bamboo Bones" from 2010 and then "Transgender Dysphoria Blues" and "Black Me Out" from 2014. Compare "Because of the Shame" (2010) with "Dead Friend" (2014).

There is something amazing, unmistakable, and unfakable about artistic honesty. I've been listening to music, playing music, and going to concerts for much of my life. Against Me! is the real deal. Period.

Against Me! performing at the Throne Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina (3/11/2017).

I took my daughter to see them again last weekend, this time at the tiny Throne Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina. Because of that, I now "get" the appeal of the communal energy in live punk music in a way that I never did before. Near the stage all night, I was simultaneously shoved and supported, lifted up and pushed down. There were strange hands holding on to my shoulders and resting constantly against my back. Everything was moving, all the time. In the interconnected crowd, you can physically feel the ripples of energy because you're a part of it, as is everyone else. And once I got used to the culture, once the touch of strangers was no longer strange, it was exhilarating. Someone always, literally, had my back. I knew I wouldn't fall down because I could feel an anonymous hand there to hold me up.

As a person who grew up on hard rock and heavy metal, this sense of community was new to me. The crowds at the big concerts I went to as a kid (AC/DC, Metallica, Guns & Roses, blah blah blah) skewed hostile. To me, it seemed like most of the people there were angry and hoping to take it out on each other. You passed time before the show watching people get hauled out by security. I tried not to look anyone in the eye. I'm pretty sure the guy behind me at an AC/DC concert flicked his cigarette ashes on my hair -- I wouldn't know, because I didn't turn around for fear of getting punched in the face.

Being in that crowd at the Throne also helped me understand why there's so much bad punk music: because it doesn't matter. As long as there's a beat, the crowd takes care of itself. It does its own thing, even if there's no melody, even if there's not a catchy hook, even if the lyrics are a bunch of shouted garbage. This has always been a mystery me. I've watched a lot of documentaries about punk music, and I never "got" the appeal until I was in a crowd myself. That's anthropology for you. (See that? Participant observation -- get in there and experience it to learn about it -- this post actually is about anthropology.)

If you liked rock music in the 90's but have checked out, I urge you to check back in for a few minutes and give this band a try. Against Me! is bigger than the sum of its parts. The energy is there, but so is the music, so is the honesty, so is the bravery. It's not a sob story or a pity party. It's a force for good. It's gender, it's anger, it's tenderness, it's human, and it kicks ass. Rock and roll isn't dead.

Here are some videos I took of some of my favorite songs. The camera moves not because I'm unsteady, but because the whole crowd is in motion. Enjoy!

"Social Implications of Large-Scale Demographic Change During the Early Archaic Period in the Southeast"

11/1/2016

I've loaded a pdf version of my 2016 SEAC presentation "Social Implications of Large-Scale Demographic Change During the Early Archaic Period in the Southeast" onto my Academia.edu page (you can also access a copy here). Other than a few minor alterations to complete the citations and adjust the slides to get rid of the animations, it's what I presented at the meetings last Friday. I tend to use slides as prompts for speaking, so some of the information that I tried to convey isn't directly represented on the slides. There's enough there that you can get a pretty good idea, I hope, of what I was going for.

Travel Diaries: One of Those Days (in the Carolina Piedmont)

7/13/2016

Day Three of my Carolina Junket was one of "those" days: wrong turns, locked doors, and a quantity of frowns matched only by the abundance of miles that I drove. The North Carolina piedmont just wasn't that warm and fuzzy. I'll keep this post short in an effort to keep it from being too much of a downer. Let's just go with mostly pictures.

The Dragonflies of Wilmington

On the way out of Wilmington, I stopped at the Battleship North Carolina to finish my coffee. I had a lot of miles I wanted to cover, so I didn't actually take the tour. I took some photos of the dragonflies in the park, tried to avoid stepping in goose crap, and had a look at the outside of the ship. If you've never seen a World War II era battleship . . . it's pretty impressive. It's a porcupine with guns instead of quills.

The North Carolina.

I think this is an Eastern Pondhawk (Erythemis simplicicollis). Females and juvenile males look the same. Adult males are a dusty blue. (Wilmington, North Carolina.)

I don't yet know what species this is. It was of medium size and fluttered in flight. (Wilmington, North Carolina.)

You're not an alligator. I'm not scared of you.

The North Carolina Piedmont

Driving from Wilmington to Charlotte takes you across the flat coastal plain and into the Carolina Piedmont, the worn down foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The main artery is US 74/I-74, which in some places is labeled "Andrew Jackson Highway" and in others "American Indian Highway." I'm sure there is a story somewhere there, but I'm too tired to investigate right now.

Traveling through the Piedmont was a little bizarre for me. In some ways, it feels strangely homologous to the oh-so-familiar Midwest. There is a feeling of rural depression, where shifting economic demography has left so many towns, so many businesses, and so many homes in a sad state of decay. Where there is shininess, it manifests in the form of scattered McMansions and a veneer of chain stores and fast food restaurants. The towns I drove through reminded me of the northeastern Ohio towns of my childhood.

While the built landscape seemed familiar, however, the vibe did not. Places were closed, some people were rude (I'm looking at you, lady in the Albemarle McDonald's), and I just didn't feel the love. I'll try not to judge, but geez . . . the Piedmont was buzzkill. It seemed like "home," yet it felt like I was traveling through enemy territory. Strange.

The museum in Ellerbe that has an exhibit about Andre the Giant (he had a ranch nearby until his death) was closed.

I tried to buy some concrete statuary for my family. I walked around, I called out "hello!?" multiple times, but no-one ever showed up to take my money. Whatever.

This place looked pretty cool. It was closed.

Some Free Advice for Aviation Museums

I want to preface this section by saying that I support all efforts to preserve aviation history and tell the stories of that history to the public. I like air museums. I go to every one that I can. I've seen many.

I visited the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte. They have some interesting aircraft on display (some are unique), and there are a lot of staff on hand to answer questions. Those are the good things. Here are a few ways that the museum could be improved (I'm not picking on just this museum, these are common issues):

How does the F-14 end? Who knows . . . it just fades off into the eerie. At least we can be sure the tail isn't covered with a velvet painting of dogs playing pool, as surely the blacklight would have illuminated that. In the foreground is a torpedo-carrying anti-submarine drone from the 1960's. This is an unusual aircraft which I had never seen before. It would have been nice to see the whole thing.

Lose the Mood Lighting. For some reason, some museums choose to keep their display space relatively dark and use dramatic colored, directed lighting to illuminate the aircraft (the Kalamazoo Air Zoo does the same thing). I'm not sure what the rationale is, but I know that I'd much rather be able to actual see the aircraft in a normal white light. I want to see the scratches and the rivets and the details, not imagine the airplane is in the "Thriller" video. As long as we're shining purple lights on the planes, why not plug in a smoke machine and play "Kashmir"? I just don't get it. Turn the real lights on, please.

Fun Fact: the JT8D was a turbofan engine, not a turbojet engine. The distinction is relevant to the whole purpose of the display. Turbofan engines pass part of the air that is ducted into the engine rearward outside of the combustion stream. This results in lower exit velocities and lower noise. This is why it's important to commercial aviation.

Get the Facts Right. I'm probably at least slightly above average in terms of my knowledge of aviation history. I actually read the information that's provided about the aircraft I'm interested in, and it bugs me when I see something that I know isn't right (it makes me ask how much of the other information is also incorrect). Do some fact-checking, please!

Not only was I unable to see this Regulus missile as closely as I would like, but I was unable to capture the Pokemon that was dancing around the carriage. That's a joke, because I don't do the Pokemon Go, and I don't ever plan to.

Put Stuff Where I Can See it. I understand that there's never as much space as you want, and some aircraft are very large. The centerpiece of the Carolinas Aviation Museum display is the Airbus that was successfully crash-landed in the Hudson River. It's a great display (with lots of interpretive information), but the Airbus is huge. Putting it in the center means that all the other aircraft are arranged around it and you can't actually walk all the way around them. And some (rare early Cold War aircraft such as an F-102, an F-101, and a Regulus cruise missile) are displayed outside, hundreds of feet away from where you're allowed to be. That kind of sucks. There's a pedestrian Cessna indoors, but we keep a fascinating example of early nuclear cruise missile technology outside where I have to use my zoom lens to get a decent look at it?

That's it for my griping. I'm going to get a decent night of sleep and have a big smile on my face again for tomorrow. You're going to love me, North Carolina Piedmont, I swear!

Travel Diaries: Operation Bumblebee, the Allure of the Tiniest Shark Teeth, and a Mailbox at the End of the World

7/12/2016

I spent Day Two of my Carolina junket on Topsail Island, a barrier island in the Cape Fear region . I was drawn to Topsail (pronounced "Top-sul" by the locals) because of my enthusiasm for aviation history and for searching for tiny fossil shark teeth. Topsail Island may be the best place in the world to combine those interests.

Operation Bumblebee

Topsail Island was largely uninhabited before being seized by the U. S. government to serve as a the location of a secret Navy missile development program dubbed Operation Bumblebee. From 1947 to 1948, the Navy and John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab built and tested rocket-boosted, ramjet-powered missile prototypes on Topsail. (For those who aren't that into this stuff: a ramjet engine uses the engine's forward motion, rather than a rotating air compressor, to compress air. Fuel is ignited in the compressed air stream, producing thrust. Ramjets have to be accelerated to a high speed before they become effective.)

The goal of the Bumblebee program was to develop a ramjet-powered supersonic surface-to-air missile with a range of 10-20 miles. The Navy built facilities on Topsail to build and test missiles, and many of the structures associated with those facilities survive: the former missile assembly building houses the Missiles and More Museum; the concrete launch pad serves as the patio of the Jolly Roger Inn; the firing point control tower is a house; several of the photographic towers are also houses, while others currently sit abandoned. Missiles would be assembled in the assembly building, transported the short distance to the firing point, then fired over the water to be tracked along their flights via the photographic towers.

Map of Project Bumblebee structures (on display in the museum). Missiles were fired from the firing point and observed from a series of three-story concrete towers, most of which are still standing.

I didn't find all the towers, but I took pictures of most of the ones I did find. Going from south-to-north . . .

Tower 1 is now part of a residence. It's clearly marked. The portion to the right is the original tower; the remainder of the structure is a later addition.

The control tower is a residence.

Tower 3 sits abandoned. It was incorporated into a residence, but apparently the remainder of the residence was destroyed by Hurricane Fran in 1996.

I don't know which tower this is because I lost track of how far up the island I had driven -- it would have to be 6, 7, or 8, I think. It was used as a pier house. The pier is now destroyed, and the tower stands gutted.

A still shot of a missile being fired (photographed in the museum).

The Allure of the Tiniest Shark Teeth

I spent most of my morning on Topsail looking for fossil shark teeth on the beach. If you don't see the appeal in this activity, I'm not sure I'll be able to explain it so I'm not going to try. I like it. It's fun. It's relaxing. It's challenging. That's it.

Topsail Beach. Not a bad place to spend a morning.

I would guess that most people who hunt for shark teeth are in "bigger is better" mode. I have come to realize that I'm doing just the opposite: I'm looking for the smallest teeth I can find. Don't get me wrong -- if I lucked into a Megalodon tooth like the ones that started washing up here last fall it would be a thrill for sure. But it wouldn't take near as much effort as collecting these tiny little buggers that I spend my time actively looking for. Megalodon tooth? Whatever. Try finding the ones that look like they belong to sharks no bigger than goldfish.

The appeal of the small teeth to me is, I think, the "ah-ha" of locating things that everyone else has overlooked. Not to analyze myself too much, but I think the same appeal is also part of my approach to archaeological problems: I've always liked locating and using unspectacular sources of data that others ignore and finding ways to squeeze a little bit more out of less. It doesn't matter how many times others have gone back and forth across the same beach, there's still more information there to be found: the sexy discoveries in no way exhaust the landscape of data.

A tiny shark tooth next to a footprint in the sand.

Topsail Beach was the best shark tooth beach I've been to in the Carolinas so far (I've also spent some time at Edisto and Folly). Over the course of about four total hours of intensive searching I picked up 40-45 teeth (some very wave-worn and/or broken). That averages out to about one tooth every six minutes or so. That's pretty good in my book.

Today's winner of the Tiny Tooth Award.

A Mailbox at the End of the World

If you drive as far south on Topsail as you can, then go to the beach and walk as far south as you can, you'll soon be on a new part of the island. The southern tip of the island has been growing at a rate of about 100 feet per year. There aren't any houses there (yet), just sand, water, dunes, and plants. It was a nice place to be. And it has a mailbox.

The mailbox in the image above (taken by me, today) was back a few feet from the beach, nestled just inside the dunes. I'm not sure if this is the same installation shown in these photos from 2013, but it's clearly a different mailbox. There are notebooks inside filled with messages left by visitors. I wanted to read some, but I had to get out of the open before a storm hit.

Travel Diaries: Lizard Men, Escaped Whore Swamp, and Doing My Part to Fund Fiberglass Fantasy

7/11/2016

Day 1 of my Carolina junket is in the books. Here are some highlights:

The Lizard Man of Lee County

Given the wishes of at least one of my readers, and the graphic fantasies of some of my students last semester, the safe play would have been to blow right by Lee County, South Carolina, home of the storied Lizard Man. But, you know, you've got to eat lunch somewhere.

Case containing Lizard Man t-shirts and copies of the casts of the purported Lizard Man tracks.

I had a nice chat with Mr. Eddie Grant, Executive Director of the South Carolina Cotton Museum in Bishopville. It's a nice museum: I learned a lot about cotton agriculture and processing in the state, and the museum has lots of interesting technological artifacts related to the history of the cotton industry. The Lizard Man exhibit is limited to a single case displaying copies of the footprint casts, some t-shirts, and a sign from the Butterbean shed that was the location of one of the reported sightings. Mr. Grant told me that opinion in the town is divided between those who welcome the attention (and money) that the Lizard Man brings to Bishopville and those who think that the whole debacle makes the town look stupid.

I didn't do a scientific survey, but no-one I talked to believed in the Lizard Man or knew anyone else in town who believed in the Lizard Man. Here is a short video about the College of Charleston's 2011 Lizard Man expedition. There's a 2013 book by Lyle Blackburn that I could read, but . . . life is very short. Moving on.

Escaped Whore Swamp

Map dated 1822 showing Scape Ore Swamp as "Scape Whore Swamp."

More interesting to me than the Lizard Man was the history of Scape Ore Swamp, the purported home of the Lizard Man. While I was at the Cotton Museum, Mr. Grant showed me a map (dated 1822) that identified the swamp as "Scape Whore" swamp. He speculated that perhaps the name change was relatively recent. Messing around on my phone while I ate my lunch, I found this 2005 story by W. A. “Bubba” McElveen in The Sumter Item that investigated the history of the swamp's name. The name "Scape Ore Swamp" is apparently a time-mangled derivation of "Escaped Whore Swamp," a name that may have been bestowed either during the Revolutionary War or sometime earlier.

They built a new bridge over Scape Ore Swamp in 2007. It's not clear how much damage was done to the Lizard Man's habitat.

As reported by McElveen (quoting a 1965 publication by the University of South Carolina Department of English), the Revolutionary War version of the story goes like this:

“Scape ‘Ore Swamp, located near Bishopville, was originally named Escaped Whore Swamp by a group of Revolutionary Volunteers. These soldiers, part of Marion’s Brigade, surprised an encampment of British Regulars who were in the process of entertaining ladies of rather shady backgrounds. The British were captured and the Volunteers allowed the terrified women to flee into the Swamp.”

Whether that's the real origin of the name or not, it got me wondering how much we know about colonial-era prostitution and whether there's ever been an attempt to use archaeology to understand prostitution in the past. A Google search on "brothel archaeology" returns hits relevant to both the New World and Old World . . . but I'm sitting in a hotel room in Wilmington right now and it's almost eleven o'clock so I'm just going to have to let that one sit for now.

Scape Ore Swamp: it's called a "black water" for a reason.

Doing My Part to Fund Fiberglass Fantasy

Finally, some fiberglass surrealism.

I stumbled across what I later learned is called Grahamland: a work-in-progress fiberglass sculpture operation that is attempting to transform several acres along US 74 west of Wilmington into an amusement park. I'm for just about anything that breaks up the monotony of Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and BP stations along our highways. And I'll put my money where my mouth is: I pulled in and paid my $10 to walk around and take pictures.

I had a shot conversation with Betty Rose Dolce, the wife half of the husband-wife team that is Grahamland Amusement Fiberglass Art. I learned a bit more from watching this short (7:00) video. Apparently there will be a full-length documentary about Grahamland screened in Wilmington this November.

The beach ball woman emerging from the bank of the pond is a take on a Uniroyal Gal, the originals of which date to the mid-1960's. There is another statue at Grahamland that appears to be a Uniroyal Gal modified to be a cowgirl. I'm guessing Grahamland owns a Uniroyal Girl mold? If I had known what I was looking at while I was there, I would have asked Betty Rose Dolce about it in person.

I kicked myself a few minutes after I left because I didn't think to get a photo of Betty Rose Dolce with one of her creations. If you're reading this, Betty, I hope I can come back some day and see what you've accomplished.

Another Uniroyal Gal . . .

I don't know what this is.

North-going and south-going bulls.

North Carolina Junket: In Search of the Strange

7/7/2016

Thanks to my wife, I'm going to be taking a few days off soon to do one of the things I love the most: hitting the road alone with not much more than spare clothes. a toothbrush, and a little cash. In my opinion, wandering is the best way to learn about your world. There are interesting people, places, and stories everywhere. But they take some time, attention, and flexibility to find. I don't get those things in combination much these days, so I'm grateful for the opportunity. Cue the music:

Yes, I'll be driving a Camry.

This time around, I'll be in southern North Carolina and/or northern South Carolina. I'll probably stay within a broad corridor stretching from Wilmington to Asheville. The only destination I have planned is a stop at the Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte. I would be interested to hear about any interesting "off the beaten" path locations in the vicinity of U.S. 74, anywhere from the coast to the mountains. Readers of this blog won't be surprised at the kinds of things I'll go out of my way to see: small museums, junk yards, dinosaurs, aircraft, folk art, dragonfly habitat, and just about anything that can interpreted as the visible product of active imagination. If you have suggestions for the region, let me know!