A Regular Family Business Part Deux

I have touched more on family here than I think I intended. But, why that train is rolling, let's just ride for a while. There is something interesting when you start looking at your family tree. I have mentioned before how in just a few generations you are directly related to more people than populated England in the 16th century. The idea that from all those strains you take your name from one, and hang some sort of cultural, ancestral, and /or genealogical identity on that is rather odd. I am sure it happens to others, but my case is really interesting since the only side of my family that has not been in America since the opening of the 17th century is the side I get my surname from.




Granted, that side also connects be to crazy people like Alexander "Bokhara" Burnes and Robert Burn(e)s. Their grandfather is my Great^7 Grandfather. We were the lucky younger children who, instead of inheriting land and titles moved to the United States. Interesting side note, while on a trip to Vancouver, B.C in order to get engaged, my girlfriend and I had left the aquarium and was walking through stanley park, where a lovers of Robert's poetry society had erected a statue of the bard. Seemed rather fitting that I proposed to my girlfriend but the statue of my cousin and in a fell swoop soon remove all of her ancestry and replace it with my last name. This idea of who you are just gets more and more ridiculous, doesn't it?

While we are picking and choosing a new system arises when one goes to university. Especially when one goes to university and stays for as long as I have. You get an academic genealogy. Your faculty family tree can go directly through mentors/advisors and without giving you something like a name that people can hang your identity on for you, you get the benefits of all those academic ancestors who have studied before. Phd-comics has a neat little comic that highlights this phenomenon:

See how troubling something like this can be--and this from February 9, 2011. But I have talked to some people about having people that are their advisors serving on my committee and that making us academic cousins. So, there is something to this. After all I have been told that the Germans take this very seriously and refer to their advisors as "Doctor-Father." Not sure if that changes to Doctor Mother in some cases. Come to think of it I know several people who refer to their advisors as a Mother----ahem, that's not what we are here to discuss. 

Mine is something of an interesting case, again because I think so, because it's geography parallels by real ancestry. Without getting too technical or deep into the politics of how this works, I will run the circle for you. I am currently studying at the University of Oklahoma. I received a Master's at Lamar University where my mentor--Dr. Jim Westgate--my doctor father if you will-- still works. Jim studied at the University of Texas-Austin under Drs. Ernie Lundelius and the recently passed Wann Langston, Jr. (top right)  Wann studied at the University of Oklahoma under John Willis Stovall. (above left). Wann and John named Acrocanthosaurus atokensis in a 1950 publication. If you remember in an earlier post I talked about my family living in Atoka at this time and working their fields that were within walking distance of the Acrocanthosaur find. (If you don't remember it's the earlier post Dino Dynasties)

I am on the left, Dr. Jim Westgate on the right, and
 an academic sibling Jordan Mika. 

Something to think about. Your academic ancestry can be direct or even branch out if you so choose. But, be warned, if one of your academic Aunts's doctor-father was someone of imminent note, and you bring that up in casual conversation, it could do you harm--especially if your new forced family members like to use your extended advisor-in-law's books for their classes. 

Which is sillier? To mark who you are because of so many random decisions along the way, or mark how you think because of some random decisions along the way? Truth is, they are all interconnected in ways that are probably past the point of comprehension. Sure, there are no academic genetics that help structure your actual being, but if you stay in long enough, you will pick up on and adopt certain things which your advisor does. It is likely, that what they do is in some form a piece of what they inherited from their advisor and so on. So, while your non academic evolution as a person, as an individual with a surname might be considered standard under the Darwinian model, it sure looks like Educational Evolution still follows Lamarckian principles. 

Keep sticking your neck out. Remember, you are building on knowledge that your advisor built on before, and with each passing academic generation the bar is raised even higher. Driven by that inner "need" to know more, answer more questions, graduate, and eventually take on a young grasshopper of your own, who, if you've done your job right, will have a longer neck than you. 

This has been either the best analogy or the worst parable ever.

Welcome to how my brain works, 

Cheers.

A Regular Family Business

Here is something that I have shared with close friends. It is so much fun that it should go out on the record. I have traced as much of my family tree back as I can find at this point. Writing and coursework have gotten in between me and finishing. Not to mention records locked away somewhere in Dublin. Every single line of my family has been in the United States since the early 17th century. All, that is, but one. That one happens to be the one that gives me my last name.

But that is not the fun part. My great-great-great grandfather was born in Ireland, and at some point made his way to America.

But that isn't the fun part either.

His son--my Great-great grandfather lived and worked in Oklahoma. I mentioned how close his place was to the locale where the Acrocanthosaurus fossil was discovered and so you have seen the below image before.

Now, here is the fun part. Living the in Indian Territory on either side of the turn of the 20th century creates characters not even found in books. Three brothers came with all kinds of stories. It was told that when James was a kid he would throw silver dollars in the air for Frank James to shoot. Absolutely no way to prove that, and given the storyteller capabilities that flow through the tree it's doubtful, but fun. 

The Burnes Brothers (L-R George Washington Burnes 2/22/1876-7/10/1965; James Benjamin Burnes 12/2/1872-2/21/1955; and Robert Eli Burnes 2/8/1870-12/24/1924

You can image how excited I was to get to see that photo. I have requests in with friends who are better at photo editing than I am to try and get this out to its finest. Now the first thing that went through my mind when I saw this was That's amazing and one of the coolest photos I have ever seen. 

Below is the second thing that went through my mind.                               

Something that makes this even funnier is that I have always said there were certain characteristics in Daniel Day-Lewis' Butcher Bill persona that sounded like my father. Further still, the University I studied geology when this movie came out was located quite near the locale of the Spindletop Gusher. (Lamar University-Beaumont, TX, where I subsequently graduated with a degree in History minoring in Geology, Anthropology and Earth Science and an eventual M.A. in History) Turns out the producers of There Will Be Blood rented some of the century old oil rig platform/setup for use in the movie. Of course it is only there at the blowout scene and is covered with oil, but it is still a claim to fame. 

Now,  have brought the bloodline back to Oklahoma for my PhD. I live a couple hours from our old homestead. So full circle, I suppose. 

Suiting Up

 

         With the beginning of Fall term, "Suiting up" usually refers to those lucky individuals who are on cushiony scholarships to play a game. This brief aside will not be about that.  This short entry will entail the suit.

        Now that the weather has cooled off enough to wear a suit, I am back into mine on a daily basis. Funny thing about it cooling off enough to wear a suit, when I have photos of desert field work being done in a suit. There are stories of Raymond Dart wrapping fossils in his jacket and waistcoat in the field to bring them back home.

       Most modern experiences with suits go something like this: You are dragged to the mall (if you have one) or some other department store as a child in order to purchase an ill fitting suit of clothes for Easter or fancy dress occasion, deaths, weddings, etc.  The thing fits in exactly no places and you hold your breath for a week hoping you don't grow enough that the trousers leave you looking like Jethro Clampett. You probably only wear the suit that one time, you avoid eating or drinking while wearing the suit and generally take all care in the world not to treat it as normal clothing lest it lose its "suitiness." Unless of course you are under the age of about 8 and then all bets are off and you have your coat off rolling around on the ground wrestling with some other ringbearer or honorary pallbearer over the little redhaired girl from your class.

       Fast forward to owning a real suit. Well, not that far. Your next suit is probably not much better. Usually it will come from the same department store, and more often than not, from the same elderly clothing attendant that smells of old spice and death. You will get the one that closest resembles your body type, and are off looking like either like an overstuffed bag of lettuce, or a standard circus/revival tent following an elephant/choir stampede. The most thought you give to tailoring is getting the legs hemmed, IF they were not already prehemmed to some existing length that, at least within the world of Dillard's can vary anywhere from 1 to 2 inches up to different colored trouser legs.

       You will still treat it as the one item of clothing that while wearing you will do as few things as possible so as not to "ruin your suit." And everyone knows they sew the pockets for a reason so don't undo it the whole thing will come apart. I actually know someone who's mother told them that. Either way it still only comes out once and awhile and you hate it, and why wouldn't you, it's ill-fitting, uncomfortable and just all around blah, and if you wear it more than twice a year it bursts into flames or unravels into a massive ball of static and twine at your feet.

       Suits are made for more than walking around in. Find a style you like, find a men's clothing store, go in, get measured, and fitted and get a decent suit. Be prepared to upsize your trousers. Just like women's clothing, jean's have fake sizing to make you feel better about yourself, this is called "vanity sizing" (Really, look it up.)  If you wear a 34 inch waist in Levi's or Tommy or whatever it is you wear, you will not, I repeat NOT be squeezing yourself into a 34 inch trouser. Be honest with yourself, sizes are number and they vary, get something that will fit no matter what the tag says or what you think you wear, or what you wear in jeans or t-shirts. Holding on to that "I wear this size" mentality in a Men's clothing store will end up with you looking something like this...

      There are alternatives, with suits you still get what you pay for. I will harken back to the field work example. Once upon a time suits were the norm, and they took a beating. Everyday wear that was used.  Even today some suit pedants will tell you, don't unsew the pockets it will cause your jacket to lose shape, or carrying a bag strap on your should will wrinkle your lapel. If you don't buy something to use it, why buy it in the first place. (Show pickups are just one example). I cycle to work, I roll my jacket up and stick it in my saddle bag, it doesn't get wrinkled or ruined in the time it takes me to get to work, and here is a secret, if a suit fits well, even if it is wrinkled (modestly) the wrinkles will fall out within about 5 minutes of wear. I also have stuff in the pockets inside and out, even have a pocket square (that breast pocket is a real pocket too, I even carry my sunglasses in it).

       Once you get suit that actually fits you and not a store mannequin, you will never look at clothing the same way again. They should quickly become your favorite clothes, and why wouldn't they? They are tailored for you. Do things in them, if a suit is restrictive get rid of it and get another one, if it looks like you are wearing your dads, you might be able to get away with a tailoring, but probably best to start over. I have gotten the "You bike to work, in your suit?" A couple times already. Asked for the genuine concern from their mother's incessant "you'll ruin your suits" mantra. So with Fall coming on take the time to get some real threads and don't be afraid to suit up, you'll be glad you did.

Dino Dynasties

The title, borrowed from Katherine Rogers' book, is a segue into a bit of rewritten familial ahistory on my part. The Sternberg family began collecting fossils with Edward Drinker Cope, and led to a family of vertebrate paleontologists. A son found the famous "fish within a fish" fossil. Many of the sternbergs finds were near where they lived.
 
I only mention them to begin this aside into my little piece of "what could of been."



My great-great grandparents lived in Atoka, Ok. My great-great grandfather was born in Leonard, TX farmed a huge swath of southeastern Oklahoma and is buried in Atoka County. I have no idea where my great-great grandmother is buried, but that is not the point.

The point is, if James Benjamin Burnes had taken time out of his busy schedule of surviving he may have found this:

Arcanthrosaurus atokensis.  It is entirely possible that he would have found nothing as well, but when you come across things discovered within walking distance of a past family farm, in a formation named after a town that my great grandfather's brother lived in the thought does cross ones mind. There were hundreds (probably not that many) of other people that lived there, and they would have been equally likely to find the fossils, but their descendants are not writing pointless what if blogs on the internet.

My background is Eocene mammals, so it isn't quite as heartbreaking that atokensis isn't our family crest fossil, but the idea still is a fun one. Besides, James Benjamin as a young man cuts quite the paleontological figure.

My Summer of Stephen

The summer is coming to a close, for me at least.  I have (officially) completed my Master's Thesis in History studying the History of American Conservation via the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., USA. I also begin my next course of study at the University of Oklahoma in the History of Science, specifically the history of Museum Collecting, and more specific than that, hunting for museums, and fossil expeditions.

I completed the writing portion of my graduate studies back in March. Edits and bureaucratic fecalities took a toll to generously allow me to only graduate this coming Aug. 18. In between correspondence and moving I took up my reading list. I had set out to make 2012 the year of the biography, with ideas of reading about individuals that I looked up to or respected as professionals in their field. I suppose "heroes" is as good a word as any.  I ended up following a narrative thread through one individual much farther than I had intended. That individual is Stephen Fry.

I have been aware of Stephen Fry for many years, mainly as one of England's "national treasures." I began to follow his works and words with more intensity when he released a documentary called Last Chance to See with Mark Carwardine. Fry as cohost and non-naturalist brought a child like wonder to the natural world that I have not seen in many years. Further research indicated that Carwardine contacted Fry to reprise Douglas Adams' role int he original Last Chance to See. Fitting, given Stephen and Douglas were great friends in life. Incidentally there is an hour long reading where Douglas recounts some of the original travelogue. Poisonous snakes and antivenom are the highlights.


Back to Fry. Working backwards from Last Chance to See I began to find Fry nearly everywhere. I absorbed the series A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster, his works in Blackadder, and even joined twitter for the shear joy of reading Fry's tweets.  I followed his English Cab across the United States in Stephen Fry in America and followed the depths of depression and mania in his Secret Life of the Manic Depressive. He hosted a one off on Gutenberg and the Printing Press, another which I finally watched last night on Wagner, and the brilliantly executed Planet Word. Stephen Fry and Brian Blessed, quite worth seeing. Even though Fry only wrote the preface/introduction to the accompanying Planet Word Book, it is still worth a read. As I am writing this I am watching his interview on Bigthink.com, and Fry and Laurie Reunited.  

Working on a Master's thesis quite limits the amount of things that you can read outside of your chosen research topic.  I did however want to read his two autobiographies, badly. I have always enjoyed biographies, autobiographies and memoirs more than any other type of literature. They are the windows into the minds and sometimes souls of people that you want to emulate, or most definitely not emulate as the case may be. They are what can connect "common" people with those that are "famous."

I picked up both Moab is My Washpot and the more
recent Stephen Fry Chronicles with all intent of reading them. I ended up getting them on audiobook and listening to them both as I drove the length of Texas multiple times in order to find a place to live, a job, and other amenities in Norman, OK.  Let me back up a bit. I hate--HATE books on tape. I suppose they are just called audiobooks now, but the point remains valid: I hate having someone read a book to me, they never put he emphasis where I think it should be, or where I would have put it had I been reading it myself. But, I bit the bullet and decided that the 8 hour drive would be better spent listening to books on my "To Read" list than scanning 236 radio stations or listening to 37 Dire Straits repeats on my ipod.

Luckily for me Stephen Fry also read these books. This is an acceptable substitute in my mind, after all, who else better qualified to read a book, besides the author? I was not disappointed. Gaining an insight into what make Fry tick, his troubles with addiction and acceptance were extremely interesting. The mundane details of boarding school and public school life were also of interest to someone raised in the United States. Chronicles ends just before A Bit of Fry and Laurie takes off. I hope that there is another work in progress picking up where that one left off. How great would it be if Hugh Laurie would get on the wagon and write his own. Doubtful, though, given how private Hugh keeps his life.




I picked up two more audio treats as well. Stephen Fry's English Delight and Rescuing the Spectacled Bear. The former follows some of the more intricate and completely obtuse evolution of the English language. The latter is a Peruvian diary followup to A Bear Called Paddington. Which everyone should read, similar to the story of Winnie the Pooh or Smokey the Bear, Paddington is the "face" of a species. A species that is in ever growing danger of extinction. Rescuing is also a neat little aside into Peruvian political and natural history.

My latest addiction as it were has been the show QI. Stephen hosts the show with comedian Alan Davies in a perpetual Ed McMahon role receiving pointed barbs from Stephen throughout the show. When the show was first marketed I thought it was simply a game show, and armed with that knowledge I vowed never to watch it. I hate game shows with almost the same fierceness as I loathe books on tape. With all the work before me in graduate school it was easy to ignore it. The downside is that I missed a lot of brilliant banter in real time. The upside is that I know have 8 seasons or so to catch up on.

Somehow I came across a youtube clip of the "best of" QI in which they were discussing the giant tortoise and eventually what it is "they say at the acropolis where the parthenon is..."(if you google that you should find a great video.) That would be a perfect way to end.  However I must confess one small thing at this point, I have not yet read any of Stephen's fiction. Although I hear it is well received, I haven't actually read any fiction in probably two years or so.  Well, that may not be entirely true, we listened to Jurassic Park on one of the trips to or from Oklahoma, and I devoured Gideon Defoe's Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientist before the Aardman production was released.

The Mighty Nimrod

Frederick Courtney Selous is a name synonymous with hunting, adventure, conservation, and Africa. At least in some circles, that is.  Born in 1851 in Regent's Park, London Selous became one of the greatest white sons of Africa.  His life epitomizes that of the regal English birth, with his father one time chairman of the London Stock Exchange and his mother a published poet.  The family was in all ways quite well off, but he felt the call of the Dark Continent at the age of 19.  He would travel back and forth from Africa to London to attend to business and family matters as well as meet at the Shikar Club which he co-founded in 1909.  For all other considerations he lived, worked, studied, and died in Africa.  His brother, Edmund, became a noted ornithologist and poet, in fact many of Frederick Selous' poems and collected works reveal a depth of character that many take for granted.  Selous loved Natural History and exploration from a young age and studied any living thing that he could. During his expeditions and hunting safaris he collected many of the first specimens to come out of places such as Namibia and Sudan.  He also hunted big game across Europe and North America, but he will always be remembered as Africa's Great White Hunter.


More than this and more than being the nebulous grandfather to Indiana Jones, Selous was one of the world's first conservationist. His motives may not have been as pure as today's, but the influence is still there nonetheless.  In 1881 he noted that elephants were growing more scarce south of the Zambezi River. The decline was so serious that it had become impossible to make a living hunting the area. A testament to his planting of conservationist seeds, the Selous Game Reserve in southeastern Tanzania is named in his honor.  The area was originally established as an unnamed hunting reserve in 1905, but due to the swarms of tsetse flies humans rarely took the opportunity. Fighting in the First World War on an advance against a German force outnumbering his men five to one Selous took his field glasses to look over a protective embankment and was killed on January 4, 1917 by a German sniper's bullet. He was buried under a nearby tree in part of that original game reserve that would bear his name five years later.  Sixty-five years after his death the reserve was designated a UNESCO world heritage site. The world could now celebrate the diversity of wildlife and undisturbed nature that Selous had enjoyed all his life.

Nimrod was the mighty hunter in the book of Genesis, and some legends will cite him as the source of the Tower of Babel. Whose to say, there are references to The Mighty Nimrod all over the Ancient World. The moniker works for Selous only in the hunting aspect of things. However, Selous did have many powerful and prominent men as friends. Among them he counted American president Theodore Roosevelt, The world traveling adventurer/scout Frederick Russell Burnham (also known as "The King of Scouts" and "he-who-sees-in-the-dark), and the wealthy if not likes Cecil Rhodes.
Selous aided Roosevelt's post-presidency safari, although it was officially led by R. J. Cunninghame.  Burnham fought in many of the United State's Indian wars, and, under the belief that the west was growing too tame for his taste took his talents to Africa.  Rhodes, had more money than God and always managed to piss off the locals. Who knows what Selous thought of Rhodes ethnographic designs, but the two went about their own business and upon his death Rhodes left a substantial fund of scholarship for specific individuals the world knows today as Rhodes Scholars. He also left land to the South African country near Table Mountain that became the University of Cape Town and the other part becoming the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden. Perhaps Rhodes was the tower building Nimrod to Selous' hunting one. There numerous books on Selous, including many written himself, but for a one shot wonder, I recommend The Mighty Nimrod by Stephen Taylor.

The Greatest Adventurer of All Time

       





Now, I would be completely remiss if I did not include the following man of action on the list. Not all of the men behind the movie actually lived, you see. H. Rider Haggard's pen brought to life the greatest man of adventure to ever grace a page: Allan Quatermain.  I have a complete collection of all of Haggard's work, and I love them all, but if you are scrapped for time you may just want to devour King Solomon's Mines, and She. Fair warning, however, you may decide to read them all.  Quatermain came on the scene in 1855 searching for King Solomon's Mines. The book, by the same title, is commonly considered the first of the "lost world" genre of literature.  Haggard, being child 8 of 10, was sent by his father to what is now South Africa to take an unpaid assistant to the secretary for the Governor of Natal.  This was not an uncommon practice for families in England. Since only the eldest child would be the inheritor, the remaining siblings were left to their own devices, usually in one of England's colonies. His time is Africa not only influenced his writing, but left a cause that he would champion for for many years. His work in agriculture reform is mostly overshadowed by his life as a novelist, but he worked throughout Britain's colonies and dominions attempting to change archaic land use practices and make colonial (and sometimes native) farming, ranching, etc. more profitable.

The downside to such popularity of a character that has fallen out of copywright is that he can be used in any way anyone with a camera and an idea see fit. The latest Allan Quatermain and the Temple of the Skulls, is, well, it is.  There have been popular portrayals of Quatermain, some better, some worse, some story lines have been switched, twisted, or created to work the character in.
Hal Lawrence first played Allan Quatermain in the 1919 feature by the same name. Quatermain made the screen again in 1937 portrayed by Cedric Hardwicke.  Stewart Grander in 1950 and John Colicos in 1979 searched for King solomon's Mines and King Solomon's Treasure, respectively. In 1985 and 1986 Richard
Chamberlain offered an 80s style rebirth to the character. There was a television movie in '86 which starred Arthur Dignam. Quatermain retired back to the books until 2004 when Sean Connery brought the character back to life in an extremely loosely based rendition of Alan Moore's Graphic Novel The League OF Extraordinary Gentlemen. 

I liked the movie based solely on this character, but seeing all the major players in all the literature I read was very exciting, only to have it spoiled by Tom Sawyer showing up. I heard that he was introduced to the film so Americans would watch it. I am not sure how tre that is, but given what is popular in theatres these days, I am not surprised.

The best movie rendition of the book, although many scenes were simply made up, was the 2004 made for tv versions of King Solomon's Mines.  Patrick Swayze played the lead in one of his last roles before his death.  The cast of characters generally fit the feel of the stories, and Allan's aging angst.  The Temple of the Skulls is four years old now and I just found it in a 99 cent rack at the video store. I looked it up online and was not impressed, now I may change my mind when I actually get time and desire to watch it, but as it stands, not so much.

I will end it saying that I too put my foot in his boots.  I was Allan Quatermain one year for Halloween and it was great fun. More so that the party lasted late into the evening and I did not have enough time to remove all the white/grey from my beard before going to work the following morning.  If you haven't read Haggard's work, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. The movies are fun, but leave a lot to be desired.  Following the stories and the number of times this book has been required reding in boy's schools, a nightly reading with your son would most likely be an enjoyable memory for you and him.  You should read it to your daughter as well, if only to make her the coolest girl in jr. high and high school in the future. For that matter, many books have used different takes on the story, but one of my favorites is The Medusa Stone is written by Jack Dubrul. Not as much to do with an all out search for the mines as many other stories, the mines are more a character in the book, than a mere location.

Haggard did not pull Quatermain out of the ethereal. Allan Quartermain was firmly based on a living individual who lived a life quite unpralleled by the rest of us mortals. I suppose that makes him Indiana Jones' Grandfather, but having this man in your family tree would explain a few things. I will explain more about this man soon, his name was Frederick Courtney Selous.