Bald Head Research Articles

Status of nesting loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta at Bald Head Island (North Carolina, USA) after 24 years of intensive monitoring and conservation

A 24-year set of data from monitoring of a nesting beach at Bald Head Island, North Carolina, USA, was analysed in parallel with limited data from nearby rookeries to investigate trends in loggerhead turtle Caretta caretta nesting numbers. There was no statistical evidence of an increasing or decreasing trend in numbers of clutches laid per year, although a significant decrease in the number of turtles nesting and number of clutches laid per year was found from 1991. Remigrating turtles were larger and had larger annual clutch frequencies than neophyte turtles. Annual levels of nesting at beaches within the Cape Fear area were significantly correlated. The stable trend in number of clutches laid across more than two decades is discussed in relation to other factors affecting marine turtles in North American waters.

The return of the three wise men⇓

“This nonsense must stop,” said Hubert. “Martha won't do what I tell her to,” said David Millstone and he stroked his bald head. “You're her husband. Surely you can persuade her to attend counselling and stop drinking?” “You don't know what it's like being married to Martha.” “Is all not well in your marriage?” “You're lucky. You're not married to a bigot.” “I'll have Martha if you don't want her,” said Hubert quietly. “Sorry, what did you say?” asked David. “Let's focus on the main issue,” said Hubert. “The wait for an elective surgical outpatient appointment is 36 weeks. Before Martha was suspended it was four weeks.” “More targets. All you managers ever think of is targets.” “The inpatient waiting list is nearly two years. Martha must see patients again.” “I really think she must stop drinking first.” “She must start clinical work immediately. I don't care about the alcohol.” “But this is a clinical governance issue. Think about the risks.” There was a loud knock at the door, then the door swung open and Dr Carsington wobbled into the room with Mr Sturm on one side and Dr Urmston on the other. “How nice to see you, gentlemen. What can I do …

BLACKOUT: Utopian Technologies in Adrienne Kennedy's Funnyhouse of a Negro

In the second-to-last episode of Funnyhouse of a Negro, Adrienne Kennedy asks for the impossible. The oxymoronic effect of "a dark brightness" lies outside the realm of the technically possible. What combinations of lights, gels. and focus techniques might create "a dark brightness"? The requirement of "brightness" eliminates the possibility of "dark." This example is not the first time in her 1964 one-act that Kennedy requires the practically impossible. In her play, bald heads drop from the sky, black ravens fly around stage, walls appear out of nowhere and then characters walk through them. This is not to say that creative theatre professionals can't or won't come up with practical. elegant solutions to these staging problems. Indeed, Kennedy's impossible stage directions incite creative solutions, unique, unanticipated renderings of her imagined play in the material theatre. Nor is it to imply that the central work of theatre is to follow a playwright's stage directions as closely as possible. Creative solutions to impossible requirements include both "faithful" and "unfaithful" renderings. Rather, these impossible requirements highlight an impulse that lies at the core of theatrical representation: the impulse to substantiate or render the ideal. In the possibility that subtends that impulse is, I think, a utopic sensibility — a sense that something different or better could come out of current conditions.

Quantifying Rapid Changes in Coastal Topography using Modern Mapping Techniques and Geographic Information System

Innovative methodology based on a combination of real-time kinematic Global Positioning System (RTK-GPS), light detection and ranging (lidar), and open-source Geographic Information System (GIS) was developed to gain a better understanding of rapid changes in coastal topography. Improved spatial interpolation techniques were implemented to produce detailed topographic surfaces from lidar and RTK-GPS data. The methodology is demonstrated for two North Carolina areas: Jockey's Ridge State Park and Bald Head Island. The Jockey's Ridge study quantifies recent dune movement and identifies areas of elevation loss and rapid horizontal migration that threaten existing infrastructure. The Bald Head Island study examines pre- and post-nourishment beach evolution. The dynamics of beach topography, its geometric properties, and estimates of both eroded and deposited sand volumes were determined by combining lidar elevation data (1997–2000) with quarterly RTK-GPS measurements. Spatio-temporal analysis confirms the relative stability of the central ‘pivot point’ beach section and reveals that the beach changed its shape from convex west of the pivot point to concave east of the pivot point during the period of 1997 to 1998 and reversed shapes during year 2000. The pivot point also divides the beach into two sections that exhibit markedly different responses to nourishment. Although the entire length of nourished beach retreated, the analysis reveals that in the western section, all nourished sand off-shore was lost, whereas in the eastern section, significant sand volume was pushed up onto the beach, creating potential for recovery.

Seeds, and: Deluge, and: The Freedom of the City, and: Island of Miracles

SEEDS/Catherine MacCarthy (for Roger and Siobhari) My father's hands scatter grain, freckled, giant, as I stumble after him watching his palms cast from a jute sack this way and that as if he's performing a rite. And what I wonder about is how he measures out the ground and how he knows how thick and fast to plant as he paces forward and where exactly it lands? The Bible warns against stones. What about the birds already having a feast as they flock and lift treating our harrowed space as if it were Christmas? He's unconcerned about stones and it's important to cater for the birds. They'll soon have enough. As for the seeds I watch them sprout delicate ribby greens against the rainy earth and rise over months to a deep aquamarine that glistens and runnels under the breeze. Avid to catch the split second the colours change I play hide and seek vanish and appear, 54 · The Missouri Review eye to eye with ripening grain stilled by a tide shifting the field and close my eyes to listen as the harvest turns golden. Catherine MacCarthy The Missouri Review · 55 DELUGE/Catherine MacCarthy In the house next door are two small boys. They throw Beanie Babies across the fence and shout their names and call for someone to throw them back. I sit quiet with a book pretending not to exist as animals rain but they have climbed onto a ledge and spied a patch of dress through the lattice and red roses that bloom all round a gap in the hedge. Already there are lions, elephants, penguins, and several species of reptile looking sad. "Here's Amber," they holler undeterred. A striped cat lands at my feet. Two pairs ofbrown eyes observe. "Would you like to keep him?" They smile as I pick up the cat. Amber is soft, enough to take me off guard. More Beanies shower the fence. The boys are yelling and it's time for bed but from their incessant voices, I can hear that exhaustion is a deluge flooding the land, their parents are already drowned and I am beginning to understand what Noah in the ark must have felt: I am their only chance and my garden is the last high island left. 56 · The Missouri Review THE FREEDOM OF THE CITY/Catherine MacCarthy He slips out the back gate with a young woman, fair hair, pouting lips and long ethnic skirts, an old man with keys in his hand, his bald head turned to check the lie of the land, that one backward glance cautious as the bushy-tailed red fox whose eyes met mine in our garden after rain one November afternoon in a deluge of green between leaf fall and sunshine before he turned to light again high on the boundary wall. The Missouri Review · 57 ISLAND OF MSRACLES/Catherine MacCarthy Forty degrees. Not a soul on the beach. I began to dream of rain as we lay in our shuttered room, blood growing thin, of standing out in a field drenched to the skin, tongue out drinking as it poured down, of falling to my knees before the heavens. We sped north and east, the hot wind from Africa burning our heels, rose with the road, with our fear, the breath of an angry god through mountains above a ravine round Kera Pass, you could no longer steer and our bike was a trembling reed. I turned my face from the precipice as you steadied the wheel in that land of the mother goddess, and drove at full throttle. I could feel our lives in our hands, then mercy of the elements as we flew to the plain of a thousand springs where the gale ceased by the cave ofbaby Zeus, and we glimpsed the shadow of an eagle floating downstream. Catherine MacCarthy's first collection, 77f£s Hour ofthe Tide, was published in 1994, and her second, The Blue Globe, in 1998. "Word ofMouth," a third collection, is near completion. She was awarded Arts Council bursaries for poetry in 1994 and 1998. Her poems have been published in anthologies and reviews...

탈모(脫毛)에 대(對)한 문헌적(文獻的) 고찰(考察)

According to the bibliographic studies of Depilation, the following conditions were made after literary studies.; 1. According to the period, The depilation have been named variously, for example, Balta(髮墮), Balgu(髮去), Balrak(髮落), Mobal(毛拔), Yupung(油風), Dokchang(禿瘡), Guijidu(鬼?頭), Dokban(禿班), etc. 2. The cause of depilation was deficiency of kidney(腎虛), defciency of Qi of the lung(肺氣虛), excessive heat of blood system(血熱), deficiency of Qi and blood system(氣血虛), deficiency of blood system(血虛), and endogenouse cause of, etc. 3. The depilation is meaning fallen hair in head. There are multiform type in the symptoms of depilation; round shape, ellipse type & bald head. 4. The herbal treatment was used Yukmijihwaghwan(六味地黃丸), Palmihwan(八味丸), Singihwan(腎氣丸), Hwangigunjungtang(黃耆建中湯), Samultang(四物湯), ect. and external herbal reatment was Sineungyangjindan(神應養鎭丹), Bangpungtongsungsan(防風通聖散), ect.

Fire

Mister Cao's oolong tea from Guangdong was wasted that woeful Thanksgiving morning; special tea though it was, it was sipped wearily. As usual, we sat at our corner table at the Golden Phoenix, Mister Cao's restaurant, chatting quietly, when Mister Huy ran in as if chased by a ghost. "Undone, absolutely undone!" he yelled, waving the San Jose Mercury News expressively above his bald head. "Mister Bac has committed self-immolation."

Two Words

TWO WORDS/Mo//y Giles ROY GOT UPAT FTVE to start cooking for the firemen. He had been getting up at dawn for weeks now anyway, ever since the last seizure, but usually he just read his affirmations and practiced tai chi in front of the turned-off television set. Today he wanted to talk. He couldn't wake Jill; she needed her sleep, and as their marriage counselor had pointed out, she also needed plain and simple "time out" because Roy (and Roy knew this and was sorry) was driving her crazy. So Roy slipped out of bed and went to his daughter's room. Baby Tess lifted her arms and allowed herself to be carried to the kitchen, but she squirmed and covered her ears with her blanket the minute he opened his mouth, so Roy had no choice but to address God as he understood Him. Or Her. For Roy's God was a girl, about twelve years old, slim and lazy with lit, dewy eyes and sharp little teeth. She could be generous and fond one minute and casually vicious the next. He had felt Her sour breath on his neck since his childhood but had only named her God and honored Her as such since the diagnosis of his brain tumor six months ago. By trial and error he had also discovered, at about the same time, that the best way to treat Her was with extravagant respect. No matter how badly She herselfbehaved, She expected good manners from him. She especially liked to be thanked. Thank you, God, he said silently, sitting naked on the kitchen floor among the tumbled cookbooks with his palms turned up and his closed eyelids jumping as fast as his pulse,for all the people I've known who are up there with you now, including (he counted) mother,father, stepmother one, stepmother two and Leslie, poor Leslie. May they be filled with lovingkindness. And in the meantime, thank you for keeping me awayfrom them and letting me live with these beloved strangers down here a while longer. Thank you for the Zen Center, the Positive Center, WellSpring and Esalen. Thank youfor chemo and radiation and antidepressants and aspirin and medical insurance. Thank you for all the doctors, even the last one. He paused and passed one hand over his bald head, pleased as always by the plush resilience of skin over skull. Thank youfor giving me a nice round head. Thank you for making it the color of mozzarella. Thinking of mozzarella made him remember the lasagna he had promised the firemen. Thank you, he finished, palms tingling, eyelids twitching, Baby Tess poking at the dragonfly tattoo on his thigh,for helping mefind the right recipe. 138 · The Missouri Review He had spent the day before at the library, going through cookbooks. He had explained to the librarians that he wanted a recipe that was saucy and cheesy and rich, and it was astonishing to both him and the two helpful women how many so-called good cookbooks called for low-fat cottage cheese in place ofricotta, yogurtin place of white sauce, ground turkey or even sliced zucchini in place of sausage and beef. Some chefs used no salt; others relied on orégano only, and none gave directions for making the noodles from scratch. He had no luck finding the recipe he'd used as a boy, working alone in his father's bachelor apartment, but Martha Stewart, of all people, had a cookbook that offered a passable compromise, and ifhe combined it with recipes from four other books, he knew he'd have a killer dish, fit for firemen. "Roy!" Jill said, coming into the kitchen. "What are you doing?" She stopped. The marriage counselor had told her not to assign blame. "Are you all right?" she asked, her voice intent on softening. "Tm fine." Roy opened his eyes, flexed his palms and smiled. He always smiled when he saw Jill. She was so pretty and young and quick. Her eyes matched the blue of her bathrobe, the blue of the ribbon around her long, drooping ponytail. She was the best thing that had ever happened...

Intraseasonal Nesting Activity of Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Carettacaretta) in Southeastern North Carolina

Abstract Intraseasonal nesting patters were determined for loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting on Bald Head Island, North Carolina, one of the northernmost nesting concentrations along the east coast of North America. One hundred and twenty-seven nesting females were tagged with Inconel flipper tags and photographed, accounting for 83% of the 318 nests produced during the 1991 and 1992 nesting seasons. No female nested in both years. Nest production was similar both years. Most females (55.9%) nested once, 5.5% nested twice, 15.0% nested three times, 7.9% nested four times, 12.6% nested five times and 3.1% nested six times. The internesting interval averaged 13.7 d (range 10–18) in 1991 and 14.2 d (range 11–18) in 1992, and it was significantly influenced by seawater temperature. Intraseasonal nest site fidelity was signifcant; most multiple-nesting females (67.9%) confined their nesting activities within 4.8 km. Loggerheads in the northernmost part of their nesting range in the western North ...

On the tip of a chameleon's tongue

Mischievous small boys in comics who fire toy arrows with suction cup ends at the bald heads of middle-aged park keepers have a lot in common with chameleons, says Henry Gee.

Dune colonization in the Bald Head Hills, southwestern Manitoba

Dune colonization in the Bald Head Hills, southwestern Manitoba

Neurosurgery without shaving: indications and results

The objective of the investigation was to prevent the stigmatizing effect of a totally or partially shaved head with openly visible signs of a head operation, easing the reintegration of the patient into his daily life. After extended surface cleaning with a colourless, regular skin disinfection liquid (undyed isopropanol/dibrom/propylenglycol solution) the hair was combed apart from the incision line before draping.Wound closure was performed as usual, taking care to remove meticulously hair from the wound. To aid closure we made use of a 20% chlorhexidine jelly that holds the hair away from the incision. A neomycin ointment served for sealing the wound surface, no further dressing being used. After 215 cranial neurosurgical operations, among them 63 for tumours, 33 stereotactic procedures 18 shunt, 55 for torticollis and 46 other operations performed without shaving the hair, we saw one wound infection (0.5%). This percentage corresponds very well to our general infection rate of 0.6%. All patients very much appreciated the offered opportunity and the result. If the objective is to give patients a psychological advantage by preventing a partially bald head we think one can safely refrain from the shaving procedure without risking a higher infection rate.

Of Balloons in John Wideman's Fiction

Of Balloons in John Wideman’s Fiction Françoise Palleau-Papin (bio) Reading John Wideman’s books is as dangerous as letting a balloon explode in your face when you are least aware of it. As a matter of fact, so many balloons explode in his books that, as readers, we must beware the blasts that unsettle us every now and then. I would like to go through a number of passages in which balloons appear and try to see what it is all about. The excerpts are taken from Sent for You Yesterday, Reuben, Philadelphia Fire, The Cattle Killing, and some short stories. The balloon images that can be found in these works generally express the vulnerability of the human condition very vividly. In Sent for You Yesterday, a balloon is the metaphor for one character duplicating himself and viewing himself in two parts when he is high on drugs: He could see one part of Brother Tate anchored to the busted sidewalk of Finance Street but he could also see the sun-dimpled bubble of his bald head floating miles up in the sky, so high the string attaching it to his feet disappeared before it reached the pale balloon. Brother Tate wondered what it would feel like to cut the string, to snip the cord and watch the balloon jet away. Would the sun pop it, would the air rush out and the balloon zigzag, crazy as a chicken with its head cut off, across the sky? Would he be able to hear it sputter and hiss and squeal? Would it finally fall back to earth, land somewhere on Finance Street and some little kid pick it out of the gutter and stretch it and poke it and maybe put his mouth on the dirty rubber and blow it up again? (172) Although the character Brother Tate is the focalizer, his name is used as an external reference. The sentence goes: “He could see one part of Brother Tate . . .”; instead of using the expected reflexive: “Brother Tate could see one part of himself. . . .” This emphasizes the dissociation between the character and the image he has of himself as a balloon. What begins as a mild case of schizophrenia, in which the balloon-like head is separated from the rest of the body while the character gets an overview of himself, ends up as a playful meditation on the versatility of life and chance. Beware, beware, seems to say the balloon, I am not just an odd metaphor in John Wideman’s fiction, but a warning that something is at stake. Once this balloon metaphor has been used, it comes up again as a reference in the book, about a hundred pages further along, as “Brother” urinates on the sidewalk: [End Page 645] Brother remembers the time on the corner of Finance and Dunfermline when he felt like a balloon, when he held the string in his hand and a balloon with his funny face bobbed closer and closer to the sun. He wondered if it would pop. Wondered as he made a little river along the curb why the air didn’t rush out when the water rushed out. You pulled the plug and the water drained, and why didn’t the air leak out too? (178) Here the memory of a balloon gets entangled with the situation of the character who is urinating, and the phrase “he held the string in his hand” takes on a humorous double meaning. In the sentence “He wondered if it would pop,” the pronoun “it” is ambiguous, referring to the balloon but also to the body of the man, as the next sentence makes clear when Brother is wondering “why the air didn’t rush out when the water rushed out.” A metamorphosis takes place gradually, as the abstract challenge to the laws of physics takes on a reality of its own. Liquid and air follow the same outward movement so that a man urinating and a balloon’s deflation participate in the same annihilation, the same shrinking and shriveling into nonentity for either the balloon or the man: He feels his body going limp. All the air hissing away...

Patient suicide (physician unassisted)

The first time I met Hoke he was sitting in a bed in the cardiac care unit, bare from the waist up except for a diamond necklace. He was an obese man in his mid-60s. His wide bald head was surrounded by a fringe of long grey hair. Festooned with electrodes, wires, and intravenous lines, he sat dignified and stern and seemed to be in no mood for light banter. After introducing myself I asked him: “What were you doing when the chest pain started?” He fixed me with an intense gaze and replied: “I was giving a policeman a blow job.” I laughed, quite helpless to resist. His delivery was deadpan, professional, and hilariously funny. He looked quietly pleased. Many months later he told me that I had passed a crucial test at that moment. If I had not laughed he would have looked for another doctor. I learnt that this had been Hoke's third acute myocardial infarction. For many years he had been a successful florist in Washington, DC, but he had given up working since he was now virtually crippled by congestive heart …

The Last Mambo

Down Calle 19, past the Museum of Decorative Arts--less a shambles than most with its sand-blown Ionic columns and corbeled gate--I fight off memories of my sleepless night, the plumber's candle sputtering. The apartment I've rented is decorated with family photos in the bedroom; the hallway is dominated by an unlikely half-wall-sized painting depicting, from the vantage point of the patient's incision, four surgeons in white masks. The painting's humor seems to me peculiarly Cuban in its laconic expression of the patient's helplessness; in a country where everything--even the polluted air one breathes--is political, it has more than allegorical importance. This is my fourth visit here. In conversations I've had in the past three days, people express to me an anger I've not previously seen in Havana. Their frustration with their ongoing crisis is heightened by the fact that they have no choice but to submit to el comandante's surgery. It's a long walk from Avenida 16 to the paseo; halfway to my destination, my friend Arturo pulls up in a borrowed Suzuki hatchback. I get in. As usual, Arturo's talking nonstop Havana Spanish--I can't follow half of it. He speeds down Avenida de los Presidentes, takes a left on Fifteenth Street, then drops off the borrowed car at his friend's house and we walk to Arturo's flat. Though he's supported by the government, Arturo's digs are not impressive. He lives in a ten-by-twelve basement hovel lit by a dizzying fluorescent light. The windowless room is obsessively neat. On the wall is a 1960s-style poster of the Pucho Lopez band climbing a stone wall in Spain. Tapes are stacked in the cubbies. Guitar paraphernalia is stuffed in the doorless closet. Arturo's recently divorced. He has a three-year-old daughter who lives with her mother nearby. Mi esposa wouldn't stand it, he says. She wanted me home after I played at night. But there was always somebody to talk to. I'd get home five or six in the morning and it was completely crazy. We go outside, sit on the stoop, and wait for Manolito, the guitar player, who'll go with us to the rehearsal hall where they practice each morning. Arturo scrunches up on the balls of his feet and pulls off his cap to expose his bald head to the sun. He looks middle-aged. We talk a while about jazz. I'm surprised how much he knows about American music. He grew up in Santa Clara, a town that seems to breed jazz musicians. An FM jazz station from Key West pumps into Cuba the latest stuff, he says; Mike Stern, he says, I really dig Mike Stern. He leaves me on the stoop to search out milk for his little girl. Despite the fact that milk is supposed to be available for kids under seven, it and other foodstuffs are near impossible to find. Arturo, himself, suffers from ulcers; in the morning the pain's intense, and the food shortage contributes to his discomfort. I've brought him a pack of Winstons and a can of pineapple juice (available only to tourists). After he returns with the milk, he swigs down the juice, lights a Winston; the guitar player arrives and we're off to the Teatro Granma where Pucho's band is rehearsing. At ten in the morning, the rehearsal hall's stiflingly hot. Gradually, Pucho and the others wander in. Pucho chews a fat cigar. He's tall and black. He's got a long Fidel beard and wears an oversized Cambodian T-shirt. He sits at his Korg keyboard synthesizer to the right of the stage, facing the horns, raises two big fingers, and the players chug through an uptempo Night and Day. Actually, it begins as Night and Day and slips into salsa, layering the Cole Porter melody, played by Pucho on keyboard, above brassy riffs. The musicians, meticulous players, are inspired by two quarts of rum and at first seem joyful and mad. I sit in the front row and let the music carry me away. Pucho's a splendid keyboardist, shouty in a Jimmy Smith vein on jazz pieces and sweetly percussive in his Latin element. …

Day care for the child with cancer

Laughing and shrieking in the afternoon sun, the children unleash their pent-up energy on the playground. After a morning indoors, they are happy to shout without being shushed. One child, however, does not join in. She stands motionless, a colorful cap not quite covering her bald head. The right sleeve of her winter coat hangs limp and empty. She has osteosarcoma, a bone cancer, and after an absence of several months, this is her first day back at school.

Iris

by Kathleen Ann Goonan Iris Jekyll was on her way over. I knew because Evan told me so at the store. "She just left five minutes ago," said the old storekeeper as he slipped the half gallon into the bag. "Said she was headed up to your place." Gray winter light seeped around the monstrous jungle he kept in the front window, giving the top of his bald head an even glow. He frowned. "She was acting kind of strange, even for Iris." He shook his head. "I just don't know what's going on." I'll bet, I thought. Who doesn't know every little detail of what's going on in everybody's life around here? I watched his spidery, freckled hands slowly work the big round keys of the register. He turned the crank, the drawer popped out, and he handed me seventy-four cents. I slipped the change in my jeans pocket; the coat pocket had a hole which I never had fixed and never would. When I just picked up the bag and turned to go without saying anything, Evan couldn't take the hint. I didn't really think he would. I never said much, anyway, they all knew that by now. He raised his querulous old voice a notch. "Well, I wish she wouldn't come in here drinkin', that's the fact of it. That's the fact." 41 I hoisted my bag and left. The clomp of my heavy boots on the wide-plank floor mixed with the sound of those jingle things as I opened the door. Outside it was real quiet. The hush of damp winter was all around. Though it hadn't been predicted, I thought I smelled snow on the way. No cars. No one else was likely to pass the tiny crossroad for another hour or so. That's why I like this county. I don't have to mess with busybodies like Evan too often, and when I do I'm not inclined to give them much to go on. I took the back way and kept the old Pontiac at thirty-five. No rush. The low hills undulated by; it was too foggy to see the big mountains right behind them. White farmhouses sent up puffs of smoke which settled low and flat, making me even more sure about the snow. The tops of the bare trees pointed a million arrows upward, brown against the white of last week's unmelted fall. I went around the last bend before our house. The Kronig kids had left their bikes just about in the road. I wasn't going to wreck trying to avoid them the day they rolled onto the blacktop. Their sagging old house was a sight. But mine's not much better. Springhouse falling into the creek. Old barns leaning, twisting, and falling. I need to get out there soon with some lumber and tools. I've been thinking of selling them, though. I saw on TV a few months ago about how some people up north bought a barn and spent the whole day tearing it down for the wood. That'd be all right with me-let them do all the work. Iris' white Lincoln was there, spattered with mud. Why they bought it I'll never know. They practically need a four-wheel drive to get up the county road to their place, especially this time of year. I went through the screen porch and opened the kitchen door. Tony was there, in front of the stove, reading one of his everlasting books. I was surprised to see the cats there too. He had a low tolerance for them. I figured he hadn't noticed them yet. "Hi, Honey, he said. "Iris is here." "I know." I put the milk in the refrigerator . Beats me why we have to have one here in winter, with the rooms as cold as ice anyway. No, I know why. I just say that sometimes to annoy Tony. "How can a scientist be so stupid?" he'll ask nobody, running his hands through his hair. I knew Iris would be up in the...

'And His Bald Head Shone Like a Full Moon ...' : an appreciation of the Byzantine sense of humour as recorded in historical sources of the eleventh and twelfth Centuries

'And His Bald Head Shone Like a Full Moon . . . ' : an appreciation of the Byzantine sense of humour as recorded in historical sources of the eleventh and twelfth Centuries An accurate assessment of the details of social reality at any period of Byzantine civilization is a task fraught with difficulty for the historian and one to be undertaken only with caution, in view of the fact that the features of everyday life in the Byzantine Empire are generaUy shrouded in mystery, since its scholars, concerned primarily to display their intimacy with classical culture and artistry in archaizing language, seldom thought them worth recording for posterity.1 Vital for the appreciation of any civilization is an understanding of its amusements and occupations, and particularly of the ways in which the populace and nobility chose to be entertained, and in what modes, written or oral, pubUc or private. A n awareness of the role of humour, and the extent to which it played a part in the lifestyle and attitudes of the Byzantines as a whole, is especiaUy important for an understanding of their society, in which solemnity and dignity of demeanour were clearly defined ideals of behaviour.^ This study will confine itsetf to the eleventh and twelfth centuries, a period for which the historical sources present significant evidence for the Byzantine taste in comic relief, in an attempt to determine the role that professional mimic humour played at court, and the actual jokes and humorous situations, both deliberate and spontaneous, to which the Byzantines at court and in the street are shown by the historians of the period as having responded with laughter or with mockery, as well as the degree to which invective and abuse were, in general, integral constituents of Byzantine humour. It has already been clearly shown that by the eleventh century the formal facilities for public entertainment, which were characteristic of the early Byzantine period, were no longer a feature of the lifestyle of the populace: theatre was moribund well before the time of the Komnenoi, whUe chariot racing was no longer a mass spectator sport, and hippodrome games and performances had been metamorphosed into an pageant staged for the populace on occasions of imperial celebration, and comprised, as well as informal chariot-racing, 'Recent works on the social history of this period include Laiou, Observations on th life and ideology of Byzantine women, BF 9, 1985, 59-102 and eadem. Women; Mango, Daily Life; Michael Angold, ed., The Byzantine Aristocracy DC to XIII Centuries, Oxford, 1984; Kazhdan/Epstein, esp. 1-119; Magdalino, Literary Perception. For the social history of the later Komnenoi, see also Ferdinand Chalandon, Les Comnene, Jean II Comnene et Manuel I Comnene, Paris, 1912; repr. N e w York, 1971, 1-21, 200-38. 2 For previous work on this topic, see especially Kyriakis, Slapstick, 291-306; Guilland, Hippodrome, 289-307. 2 L. Garland acrobatics, and gymnastic contests, farcical humour andribaldslapstick of a kind unlikely to shock any but the most rigorously minded churchman. With the demise of the pantomime in Byzantium, the mime had to all intents and purposes passed into the hands of travelUng bands who performed at fairs and in noble houses, rather than in actual theatres, although jesters and mimic humour continued to fill an important role at court, while the carnival, with its opportunities for buffoonery and masquerade, become the primary amusement of the populace. The amenities provided for the enjoyment of the imperial family by the splendid palaces, imperial gardens and opportunities for leisure and recreation within the capital were noted by many visitors from the West during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, being praised even by those with Uttle cause to admire the Byzantines and their civilization,3 while formal entertainment, both public and private, seems also to have become almost entirely the prerogative of the imperial court and nobility.4 There was much scope at court for indulgence in entertainments and activities of varied kinds, and, apart from the respectable imperial occupations of hunting and polo, historians are at pains to list, whether for praise or blame, the pleasurable preoccupations of emperors from Constantine VIII (1025-8) to Isaac II (1185-95) and Alexios IV (11951203...

Wireworm Control, 1987

Abstract Test plots were established near Burley, Idaho. The crop was a garden bean seed field. Soil type was Portneuf silt loam and irrigation was by gravity flow. Insecticides were applied in a 5-inch band about 1 inch under the expected seed-planting level. The soil was opened with a ‘Rus-Ken’ opener and the granules were laid in a band inside the opener shoe. Sinner weeders behind the opener covered the material with soil. The beans were then planted through the treated area. Four treatments and an untreated control were replicated 4 times in a randomized complete block design. Individual plots were 4 rows wide (22-inch row spacing) by 25 ft long. Plant stand, “bald heads,” and subsurface damage to plants were evaluated 45 d after planting. Ten row-ft from each of the center two plot rows was dug up and inspected for wireworms and wireworm feeding.

Picture Bride by Yoshiko Uchida

374 Western American Literature out of this town,” Duane remarks. “I guess they think they can go fast enough to escape gravity and get in orbit somewhere else. But mostly they just turn around and come back.” Their return in Texasville seems rather unfortunate. ANN RONALD University of Nevada, Reno Picture Bride. ByYoshiko Uchida. (Flagstaff, Arizona: Northland Press, 1987. 216 pages, $14.95.) Among Japanese pioneer immigrants, most marriages were arranged by matchmakers. There was no courtship, no romancing; but an exchange of photographs helped in the decision-making deliberations. This fictional por­ trayal of such a marriage begins with a vivid description of one picture bride, Hana Omiya, age 21, as she crosses the ocean in 1917 to marry Taro Takeda, age 31, the son of a friend of a relative. Hana has only a teen-age picture of Taro. His already balding head startles her when they meet at the dock. After a Christian wedding, Hana survives few triumphs and many tragedies as she adjusts to a puzzling life in America. The story ends in Topaz (a World War II internment camp in the Utah desert) where Hana emerges to face an unknown future after a final tragedy. With dignity and compassion, the Japanese-American author gently steers the reader away from the stereotype expressed in May 1942 by Chase Clark, then governor of Idaho, when he said, “Japs live like rats, breed like rats, and act like rats.” Hana and Taro live in an all-white (though unfriendly), middle-class neighborhood in Oakland, California. They raise only one child. Hana fixes oatmeal for breakfast. She bakes cakes. But for dinner, she reverts to a menu of rice, bamboo shoots, broiled eel, and the notorious malodorous pickled Japanese radish (daikon). The reader familiar with earlier Japanese-American literature may be interested in the different portrayals of the immigrant woman as described by writers in the 1920s, 50s, and 80s. For example, in 1928 Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto, of Columbia University, wrote Daughter of the Samurai, a charming in-depth autobiography telling of her childhood, her arrival in the eastern United States as a bride, and her integration into white society. In an area where there were no other Japanese among the intelligentsia, she was a novelty and a curiosity, happily exchanging and sharing cultural ideas with her receptive all-white neighbors and friends. A generation and a war later, in 1953, Monica Sone (Kazuko Itoi) wrote in Nisei Daughter of her early life in Seattle, her later incarceration in Minidoka Camp (near Jerome, Idaho) during World War II, and her eventual relocation in the Midwest. In terms of the Japanese-American attitude of the day, Sone wrote with tolerance and resigned acceptance of how her family survived the years of prejudice. Sone interpreted her mother’ssocial blunders as embarrassing but humorous incidents. It was not yet a time for ethnic pride. Reviews 375 In 1982, illuminated by civil rights and women’s lib, Yoshiko Uchida wrote Desert Exile, in which she described the intolerable suffering of her family as victims of prejudice in an all-white neighborhood in Berkeley, and their eventual incarceration in Topaz Camp. Sone and Uchida, both born circa 1920, had immigrant mothers who were daughters of Samurai and whose marriages were arranged for them. Now, in Picture Bride, Uchida has written in a language today’s reader can more easily identify with. The beautiful Hana is a daughter of a Samurai, a composite of the author’s mother and other women who arrived before 1920 and survived the years of public misunderstanding. With insight, pathos, and deep understanding, the author, in her graceful, dignified way, dares to expose Hana as a long-suffering, independent, assertive woman who is frustrated and stifled as she struggles to adjust to a hostile culture that is blind to her sense of values. For the reader who does not wish to be drowned in historical detail, this novel is a welcome diversion from the ethnic oral histories and non-fiction books now on the market. SUSAN SUNADA Logan, Utah Antelope Springs. By G. Clifton Wisler. (New York: Walker and Company, 1986. 187 pages, $14.95.) This juvenile Western deserves praise...