The Merovingian Bestseller

I've always been interested in anthropology, archaeology, and genetics. I enjoy sifting through the articles written by Dienekes and Razib Khan. They take important research and boil it down to a few statements that are more easily digested by hobbyists like me.

I've been reading about a group of scientists who did a genetic study of nine sarcophagi excavated from the Merovingian necropolis in Jau-Dignac et Loirac (7th–8th century AD, Aquitaine, southwest France). These individuals were grouped together, and so imagine the scientists surprise when they recovered five distinct haplogroups: J, H, K, X2 and W from eight of the individuals that rested together. Talk about a family melting pot! From Dienekes:

The presence of perinatal remains in one sarcophagus was particularly striking because access to this type of funerary structure during this period was generally reserved for older children. Moreover, we demonstrated genetically that the perinatal remains were not related maternally to two women found in the same sarcophagus (whereas the maternal relationship between the two young women could be determined), and we proposed different possible explanations for this unexpected observation.

Oh, what a great book could be written as to why these mostly unrelated people were buried together! Who could best write such a book? Colleen McCullough, for a grand sweeping saga? Ken Follet, for a tale woven around Merovingian stonemasons? Elizabeth Kostova for a dark and spooky adventure? If you could select the author, who would you choose?

Books And Public School Libraries

To ban or not to ban? That is the question in Blue Springs, Missouri.

he book that spurred the debate within the Blue Springs School District is Hold Still, a novel about a young girl coping with the suicide of her best friend. Parents say that the book was part of an extra credit assignment in a freshman English class. Hold Still was pulled from the school library and curriculum last month after the parents of a 14-year-old girl learned she had read the book, which her mother describes as riddled with “F Yous” and her father says features “graphic sex scenes.”

Out of curiosity, I zipped over to Amazon and read the reviews. My take away is that even though it tackles tough subject matter, the book is simplistic and written for young teenagers.

When I was in high school, we had a big chunk of "no-no" books in our school library: The Catcher In The Rye, 1884, The Adventures of Huck Finn, Catch-22, etc. The only book I can remember the parents raising a stink about was a book entitled My Darling, My Hamburger by Paul Zindel. Of course, if there was a stink, we all HAD to read it, and did. Eh. It turned out to be much ado about nothing.

Questions of the day: What was your favorite "controversial" book as a teenager? What was the all-time worst book on your high school's required reading list?

Bonus question: Is it proper English to capitalize the first word after a colon if it isn't a proper noun? I'm winging it here. It doesn't look right to me either way.

Literary interlude: Ziggurat

The new girl sat at the computer in the corner playing Ziggurat, Panic!, and U-Turn. This was in the pine-panelled section of the Labyrinth, which is where the Minotaur had been hanging out lately, mainly because he didn’t remember ever having been there before, and he liked sleeping on the pool table.

The new girl was smaller than most of the others. Peanut-colored. Her shoulders shook. Her fingers twitched on the computer keys, making noises like munching rodents. Her eyes were filled with rhomboids of white, then blue, then red. Yellow. Then red again. Lots of red. And they were separated by two wrinkles that said to the Minotaur, Go away! I’m too busy for you!


It is true that the Minotaur was very strong and that his head was nearly as wide as his shoulders. But in fact he didn’t really look like a bull. He had no horns, no ring through his nose. He was just very, very ugly. His lips were fat and earthworm pink, his eyes were asymmetrical, and his eyebrows were like forests of black wire. The same with the hair on his head, and on his cheeks—which was indistinguishable from the hair on his body. He didn’t walk like a normal person; he lumbered. That was just the way he was born.

All of the other girls had run when they saw the Minotaur. The women, too, and the boys. Some of the men had tried to fight—not that it mattered. The end had always been the same: the Minotaur patting his belly, pulling a sucked femur from his slick lips. But no one had ever been too busy.


Read the rest of the text here.