Hello World

I'm just watching a video from a bodhran maker (Irish frame drum) named Hedwitschak who lives in Bavaria and likes pizza. The bodhran appears fairly late in Ireland but frame drums are world-wide. They probably wandered into Europe from the Middle East in the medieval era, as did so many other instrument types, but the chance is they had also been developed independently -- as they were in the Americas.

Yeah. I've been making that point in the current novel. The theme to the thing is "Ownership of History" by which I mean both artifacts (qua "antiquities") and meaning (interpretations of archaeological and folkloric heritage). A lot of this one is Greek identity, both the difficult relationship modern Athenians have with their long history, and the way the classical era, particularly, has been re-purposed to the needs of other cultures; from foundational to the origin myth of Western Civilization, to fodder for modern fringe groups.

But this is the balloon perspective. On the ground, the first Athenian my protagonist has a real conversation with she mistakes for a recent immigrant. Actually, he's from an Eritrean family that's been in Greece for a couple of generations.

And it turns out her own background is typically American. That is, dad is a hulking Swede from the Midwest, and mom a small, dark, mercurial and intense central European (possibly Polish) of one or two generations back. She moved sideways from research chemist to biochemist (as did the author of my favorite chemistry blog) when she decided the traditional (according to a neighbor of mine) whiskey-and-cigarette voice of the working research chemist was all the damage her lungs needed for this lifetime.

Dad is a session jazzman. He is a musician's musician, so deeply knowledgable about theory he ended up with an amateur's interest in mathematics (basically your Martin Gardner sort of stuff). He also has ongoing health problems and had to switch to an Ashbory to save his back. So now everyone calls him for that Paul McCarthy sound, despite the fact that he can get whatever he wants out of the Ashbory and Paul used a Hoffner anyhow.

Yeah. Once Penny started talking to me, she wouldn't shut up. The next big conversation I had with her, I asked if she maybe had a stuffed animal and would bring it with her to Athens in case she got a severe case of homesickness. She told me she hadn't even looked at a stuffed animal in years but she still had Fang, a very plump white bunny she'd basically gotten from her older sister.

"What older sister?" I asked. "I thought you were an only child." Turns out no. And the ideas spilled out from there. And it does make sense; we like to think of our heroes in terms of what they are now and what they do but we are all creatures of our heritage. She grew up in a family, she has an ongoing relationship with them, and it informs her present character.

Even though none of it may show up in the book. That's the thing, you know. You always know a bit more than you actually put on paper.