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Cardiac vagal control and theoretical models of co-occurring depression and anxiety: A cross-sectional psychophysiological study of community elderly
- Hsi-Chung Chen,
- Cheryl C H Yang,
- Terry B J Kuo,
- Tung-Ping Su,
- Pesus Chou
- … show all 5 hide
In order to elucidate the complex relationship between co-occurring depression and anxiety with cardiac autonomic function in the elderly, this study examined the correlation between cardiac vagal control (CVC) and pre-defined, theoretical factors from the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).
Three hundred fifty-four randomly selected Chinese male subjects aged ≥65 years and living in the community were enrolled. CVC was measured using a frequency-domain index of heart rate variability.
Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the flat tripartite model of HADS provided a modest advantage in model fit when compared with other theoretical factor solutions. In the flat tripartite model, there was a significant negative association between anhedonic depression and CVC. In contrast, autonomic anxiety showed a significant positive correlation with CVC. In the hierarchical tripartite model, negative affectivity was not directly associated with CVC; instead, it had positive and negative indirect effects on CVC via autonomic anxiety and anhedonic depression, respectively. As scores for negative affectivity increased, these specific indirect effects diminished.
Among competing models of co-occurring depression and anxiety, constructs from tripartite models demonstrate fair conformity with the data but unique and distinct correlations with CVC. Negative affectivity may determine the relationship of anhedonic depression and autonomic anxiety with CVC. Separating affective symptoms under the constructs of the tripartite models helps disentangle complex associations between co-occurring depression and anxiety with CVC.
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- The pre-publication history for this paper can be accessed here:http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-244X/12/93/prepub
- Title
- Cardiac vagal control and theoretical models of co-occurring depression and anxiety: A cross-sectional psychophysiological study of community elderly
- Open Access
- Available under Open Access This content is freely available online to anyone, anywhere at any time.
- Journal
BMC Psychiatry
- Online Date
- July 2012
- Online ISSN
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Additional Links
- Topics
- Keywords
- Cardiac vagal control
- Co-occurring depression and anxiety
- Heart rate variability
- The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale
- Tripartite model
- Authors
- Hsi-Chung Chen (1) (2)
- Cheryl C H Yang (3)
- Terry B J Kuo (3)
- Tung-Ping Su (4) (5)
- Pesus Chou (2)
- Author Affiliations
- 1. Department of Psychiatry and Center of Sleep Disorders, National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
- 2. Community Medicine Research Center & Institute of Public Health, National Yang-Ming University, Shih-Pai, Taipei, 112, Taiwan
- 3. Institution of Brain Science and Sleep Research Center, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 4. Division of Psychiatry, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
- 5. Department of Psychiatry, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan


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Hello again!! So I have finally decided on what we can do for GrimmIchi week! I want to thank Rosie-chan17 and Arisu-Ami-Chan for helping out with the brainstorming! The list of days is as follows!
Day 1: Feudal Japan
Day 2: Victorian/Steampunk
Day 3: New Years
Day 4: Hanami; for those who don't know, this is flower viewing, for when the sakura in Japan are in bloom, though is specific regions I believe it is used for flower viewing in general for when season flowers blossom.
Day 5: Autumn Equinox; this is when people go to visit graves. It's my way of respecting Ichi's mom and any other deceased characters that we miss. Though it can be interpreted any way you choose.
Day 6: Christmas
Day 7: Halloween
So here are the days I've decided on! I've just tried to get the fall and winter holidays that I feel are most celebrated and some dress up days in here. I figure for the June GrimmIchi week we can spring and summer holidays with some beach days and camping! I think I've done a pretty good job here, tell me if you think we should move stuff around or change something! Just in case you're wondering, I split Christmas and new year's because sometime they are really similar, so I didn't want two similar things one right after another. Remember GrimmIchi week is the 24th-31st! Have fun everyone! I'll work on getting folders ready for each day's submission!

subset: commoncrawl


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5,000 - 10,000 downloadsAdd this app to your listsTweets por @Appszoom
News, line-ups, ticket info, listings, reviews, photos, and the eFestivals forums are all speedily accessible from within the app.
Please note that this is an interim app, with many changes and improvements to come in future versions.
minor changes to reflect website changes.
minor changes required for the app to work with the new website.
v0.65 & v0.66
minor tidying
fixed screen orientation issue
fixed javascript pop-up issue
minor screen tidying.
This is the first public release of an official eFestivals app.
(50 stars)
Annoying pop up advert and forum view does not have an option to jump to the first page.
(50 stars)
Horrible UI
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Updated regularly and great insight into a variety of worldwide festivals. Amazing app for festival goers.
(50 stars)
Feels like it's just not right, but it is pretty much just the site off the net
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But can you add a quick link to line-up and rumours please? I use this the most but can only access it by going to the main website.
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I've long been jealous of the iphone and ipad ap, finally the android version makes an appearance. Easy to use and full of essential festival information as well as the full forum at hand. Essential if you enjoy the festival season both in the uk and abroad
(50 stars)


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Background Courses (all programs)
A graduate student must achieve a grade of at least C on each course taken for nondegree purposes, that is, courses taken for background preparation, certification, or personal enrichment. A student will be required to repeat each nondegree course in which a grade of D, U, F, WF, or NF is assigned except that, with approval of the student's advisory committee, repetition of a course will not be required if a student's cumulative grade average on all courses (degree and non-degree) is at least B (3.0).
Probation for Unsatisfactory Performance (all programs):
A graduate student is required to maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least "B" (3.0) on all courses. When a student's cumulative average on courses falls below 3.0, but not less than 2.0, the student will be placed on probation. If the cumulative average falls below 2.0, the student will be dismissed.
If the term average, on all courses presented as part of the hours required for graduation, during any semester is less than 2.0, the student's record will be reviewed and may be placed on probation.
Dismissal for Unsatisfactory Performance:
A graduate student will be dismissed from the graduate program if any one of the following conditions occurs:
- Two consecutive semesters of probation and recommendation by the student's advisory committee. Summer semester is not included as one of the consecutive semesters if no courses are taken during this term in which a grade of "A" through "F" is assigned.
- More than three semester hours of "C" in 6000-level courses, presented as part of the hours required for graduation (only MBA students admitted 2006 Fall and later).
- Two "F" grades in courses presented as part of the hours required for graduation
- Two consecutive semesters of "No Progress" grades assigned in thesis or dissertation courses and recommendation by the student's advisory committee.
- "D" or 'F" in a 6000-level course (MBA students only)
- Grade less than "B" in the repetition of a Nursing course as the course may be repeated only once (Nursing students only)
- Two "C" grades in the Ph.D. in Exceptional Learning program (Ph.D. EDU students only)
- One "F" in a course in the Ph.D. in Exceptional Learning program (Ph.D. EDU students only)
A student who has been dismissed for unsatisfactory performance may request reinstatement, provided he/she produces evidence of extenuating circumstances that would prevent dismissal. The request must be approved by the department chair, director of the student's graduate program, the dean of the college, and the Graduate School Executive Committee. The decision of the Graduate School Executive Committee is final.
M.B.A. Requirements
MBA students may not repeat a course in which a grade of "C" or better was received. MBA students who are required to take prerequisite business courses must have a 3.0 average at the completion of these courses. This policy applies to all courses used to satisfy the MBA core requirements whether the course is graduate or undergraduate. A grade of "C" in any such course must be offset in another course (of equivalent hours) with a grade of "A"; however, the "C" grade does not carry forward to become a part of the three -hour "C" restriction applicable to the hours required for graduation.


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The Byre Cottage
from £63 /night help Price for guests, Nights approx:
from £63 /night help Price for guests, Nights approx:
Estimated nightly price based on a weekly stay. Contact the advertiser to confirm the total cost.
Barn / 2 bedrooms / sleeps 4
Availability Your dates are available
Barn / 2 bedrooms / sleeps 4
|Key Info
The Byre Cottage is an inspiring place to stay, converted by Giles it is ecolocally conscious and includes natural elm in the kitchen, a smart modern bathroom and has a light and airy feel. The cottage has vaulted ceilings, a wood burning stove and solid oak flooring. High quality superking beds will ensure a relaxing holiday. There is a west facing patio in the enclosed steading courtyard.
Only 4 miles from the sea and award wining sandy beaches it is the perfect place to stay and enjoy nearby castles, bass rock, North Berwick and Plenty of golf! The 43 miles of coastal walks will exhaust old and young and Edinburgh is only 25 mins away by train from the local train station just down the lane.
|Sleeps up to 4, 2 bedrooms
|Nearest beach
|Gullane 8 km
|Will consider
|Long term lets (over 1 month)
|Car advised
|Nearest Amenities
|8 km
|Nearest travel links
|Nearest airport: Edinburgh 50 km, Nearest railway: Drem 800 m
|Family friendly
|Great for children of all ages, Suitable for people with restricted mobility
|No pets allowed, No smoking at this property
Features and Facilities
|Log fire, Internet access, DVD player
|Central heating, TV, CD player, Telephone, Wi-Fi available
|Kettle, Toaster, Iron, Hair dryer
|Dishwasher, Cooker, Microwave, Fridge, Freezer, Washing machine
|2 bedrooms, 1 bathrooms of which 1 Family bathrooms
|Double beds (2), Single beds (4), Cots (1), Dining seats for 4, Lounge seats for 4
|Linen provided, Towels provided, High chair
|Secure parking
The East Lothian region
Officially the sunniest and driest area in Scotland, with more hours of sunshine than anywhere else in the country, you'll have all the time you need to make the most of a visit to Scotland's sunshine coast.
East Lothian & Beyond
East Lothian is one of Scotland's best kept secrets.
With a unique microclimate that offers more sunshine than most other locations in Scotland, it is rich is rolling farmland, cliff top walks, beaches, golf courses, rambling cycle routes, historic houses and castles, charming villages and seaside town - in fact everything you might want for a relaxing holiday or a short break in the country.
Stately Homes and Castles
Tantallon Castle, to the west and just a few miles to the other side of North Berwick, is one of Scotland's best! Originally built by the dreaded Douglas family in the 14th C, it sits on top of a cliff and has never succumbed to storm, only to guile.
It may feel like a million miles away, but it's only minutes from Edinburgh by car, train
North Berwick
With over 40 miles of magnificent coastline, golden beaches, rolling countryside, spectacular cliffs, award-winning tourist attractions and the world's finest selection of links golf courses, East Lothian combines the best of Scotland in miniature!
About East Lothian
From the excitement of Musselburgh Racecourse to the awesome sight of Concorde, in all her glory; the award-winning Scottish Seabird Centre to the impressive clifftop fortress of Tantallon Castle, you'll be spoiled for choice.
There really is something for everyone!
The area is home to a rich variety of wildlife and thousands of seabirds arriving each year to nest on its islands and coastline.
Charming towns and villages invite you to browse in art galleries, museums and gift shops.
East Lothian is the ancient home of golf. You'll find some of the great links and parkland courses of the world here, including the world famous Muirfield Links.
Known as the garden of Scotland, you can savour delicious fresh local produce, as well as seafood specialities in East Lothian's delicatessens, restaurants and cafes. Look out for the farmers' markets in Haddington and the quarterly Food Festival at North Berwick, where you can try some of the best food and drink to be found in East Lothian. And don't forget to sample Scotland's national drink at the five star Glenkinchie Distillery.
Beaches and Walks
There is plenty of golden sand in East Lothian. Probably the best beaches are Gullane, Seacliff, just past Tantallon Castle on the other side of North Berwick, Yellowcraig, near Dirleton and Freshwater Haven, in which the action in Robert Louis Stevenson's book "Pavilion on the Links" is set, just the other side of Muirfield golf course.
Boat Trips
There are two boat trips available from North Berwick harbour; to Fidra (the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's "Treasure Island") and to the Bass Rock. The Bass Rock is a paradise for ornithologists who will see gannet, guillemot, razorbill, puffin, shag, kittiwake and fulmar. You should go. It is a volcanic rocky crag and one time prison, standing guard on the southern coast of the First of Forth. A trip round it will take about one hour by boat piloted by the Marr family (Tel 892838). If you arrange it in advance you can land on them both.
Edinburgh - Scotland's Capital City.30 minutes drive is Edinburgh, Scotland's capital city, reflecting the history; culture and personality of the nation.
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25 Feb 2015
"Perfect place to get away"
Place was cosy, beautifully presented and in a wonderful spot. Thanks Giles! Hope to be back again soon.… More
26 Oct 2014
Lovely cottage and perfect base for great beaches and city. Extremely comfortable and relaxing surroundings. The cottage has everything you need.… More
4 Jun 2014
"Modern cottage in peaceful setting, very well positioned for our golfing holiday."
Close to train station and only 20mins from Edinburgh. Well positioned for great golf courses in Gullane and Longniddry!Very enjoyable stay with some nice eating places!… More
30 Apr 2014
"An excellent cottage in a great location"
My family and I really enjoyed our week in the Byre Cottage. It is comfortable and spacious and in a lovely courtyard setting. The cottage is well placed for visiting the many local attractions and be… More
2 Mar 2014
"Heerlijke cottage"
Samen met mijn partner 1 complete week hier gelogeerd. Het kost even moeite het adres te vinden want het ligt helemaal aan het einde van een weggetje en dan heel goed zoeken! Je zit midden in de natuu… More
25 Feb 2014
"Lovely cottage, beautiful scenery and great location"
We had a fantastic time here with our two young children. Cottage was comfortable, warm, well equipped, spacious and so on. The location was perfect for Edinburgh, surrounding towns and villages and t… More
20 Oct 2013
"Perfect! What more can I say."
The property is set in a beautiful peaceful location. A great base to explore the local and surrounding areas; Gullane, Dirleton, North Berwick, Haddington, Dunbar ... and further afield. The local tr… More
15 Sep 2013
"Gorgeous cottage handy for both Edinburgh and the seaside."
This cottage exceeded all our expectations. Beautifully decked out, all the extras were there that make a difference- dishwasher tablets, soap, washing powder fot that unplanned load of washing and bo… More
18 Aug 2013
"Wow, we'll worth the drive"
Great base to explore the beautiful coast of North Berwick and Dunbar and stunning castles. Beaches beautiful and empty. Great base for exploring Edinburgh too, walking to the station at Drem was eas… More
28 Jul 2013
"Byre cottage"
Lovely quiet unique accommodation at a reasonable price. V clean with all the amenities you could ask for including some outside space (we had a barbecue). Loads to do nearby at north Berwick (less th… More
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Giles L.
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Calendar last updated:15 Apr 2015
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Friendly staff and good vegan foodPosted on 06 / 28 / 2014
We stumbled on this place while walking around Takayama around lunchtime.
Two different lunch options were available. The basic and the premium.
The basic is priced at 1000 yen and the premium at excellent value at 1320 yen.
The premium lunch set included a range of vegan small typical japanese dishes including Salad, Hoto noodle soup (the local noodle type), pickles as well as some desert thing that I have no idea what it was (but it was good!). The lunch came with a caffeine free coffee and tea.
The place is run by two older Japanese women who were incredibly friendly, and did not speak English. However, we all got by with pointing, hand gestures and the English menu.
There are also store goods available.
Overall the food was overall quite good. The noodle soup was the stand out item.
Well worth the wander, if in the area, particularly as it is the only fully vegan operation in the area as far as I could tell. I would visit again, however it is closed on Sundays and Mondays, the only remaining days I am here.


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Seafood Stir Fry
6 Jun 2011
|Asparagus spears
|3 1⁄2 Ounce, trimmed (100 Gram, Small, Thin)
|Sunflower oil
|1 Tablespoon
|Fresh ginger root piece
|1 Inch, cut into thin strips
|1 Medium, shredded
|2 Medium, julienned
|Sweetcorn cobs
|3 1⁄2 Ounce, quartered lengthwise (100 Gram)
|Light soy sauce
|2 Tablespoon
|Oyster sauce
|1 Tablespoon
|Clear honey
|1 Teaspoon
|Cooked shellfish
|1 Pound, thawed if frozen (450 Gram, Assorted)
|Cooked egg noodles
|1 Cup (16 tbs) (Fresh, For Serving)
|Cooked prawns
|4 Large (For Garnish)
|Fresh chives
|1⁄4 Bunch (25 gm), freshly snipped (For Garnish)
1. Bring a small pan of water to the boil and blanch the asparagus for 1-2 minutes. Drain, set aside and keep warm.
2. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan (skillet) and stir-fry the ginger, leek, carrot and sweetcorn for 3 minutes.
3. Add the soy sauce, oyster sauce and honey to the wok or frying pan (skillet). Stir in the shellfish and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes until the vegetables are just tender and the shellfish are heated through. Add the blanched asparagus and stir-fry for about 2 minutes.
4. To serve, pile the cooked noodles on to 4 warm serving plates and spoon over the seafood and vegetable stir fry. Serve garnished with a large prawn and freshly snipped chives.
Recipe Summary
Difficulty Level:Easy
Course:Side Dish
Method:Stir Fried
Preparation Time:5 Minutes
Cook Time:15 Minutes
Ready In:20 Minutes
Rate It
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Seafood Stir Fry Recipe


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Empyre Watson Yellow & Grey Stripe Banded Bikini Bottom
Item # 190391
50% Off Last Marked Price
Stash Points: 97
What is this?This is the number of points you get in The Zumiez Stash for purchasing this item. Stash points are redeemable for exclusive rewards only available to Zumiez Stash members. To redeem your points check out the rewards catalog on thestash.zumiez.com.
The Empyre Girls Watson banded bikini bottom with grey and yellow stripes is a great swim bottom for for a day in or near the water.
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Mélange: A mixture; a medley; odds and ends; a motley assortment of things, . . .
"In geology, a mélange is a large-scale breccia, a mappable body of rock characterized by a lack of continuous bedding and the inclusion of fragments of rock of all sizes, contained in a fine-grained deformed matrix."
However you look at it, St. James Church in Lower Jemseg, New Brunswick, is a mélange. Its architecture is a mixture of features and influences that somehow combine to make a charming and coherent building. Geologically, it can also be considered a mixture, though of course it is one produced by human agents rather than the immense forces that generate a mélange under natural conditions.
Even visitors with no knowledge of geology will immediately recognize that materials in the sturdy outer walls were derived from a variety of sources. Below and beside the windows, large blocks of dark purple sandstone contrast with various paler shades in the smaller blocks. The buttresses are armoured with wedge-split granitic rock, while rounded granite fieldstone can be seen in places in the walls. And then there is that soft, pale carved stone around the windows and the doorway. What are all these stones, and how did they get here?
The stones were pulled together through human expediency and opportunity. Jemseg, on the low-lying east bank of the lower Saint John River valley, is not a place endowed with wonderful bedrock, but the local geology is varied. Some of the stone came from nearby sources, but a bit of it travelled what might be called an unreasonable distance.
Constructed in New Brunswick's great burst Anglican church construction in the latter part of the 19th century, St. James Church dates from 1887 and was consecrated in 1889 (general information about the church can be found here). This stone building is quite different from most of the churches built in this phase, which are wooden and "gothic". Its form is also crudely gothic, but leavened with a dose of what might well be Scandinavian influence, particularly in the shape of the tower.
Although this church may seem like an old structure to those of us who live in western Canada, it is relatively recent in the history of Jemseg, a place that was first settled by Europeans in 1659 and that served as the capital of Acadia in 1690-91, some 325 years ago. Settlement occurred so early here because the junction of the Jemseg and Saint John Rivers was desirable as a trading post location. Both waterways are readily navigated, and Jemseg is higher than the marshy islands and moose pasture immediately adjacent to the rivers.
And although 1659 seems like the dawn of time in terms of European settlement in Canada, the stones that form the church are of course far older; the oldest stone is literally as old as the hills that form the west side of the valley some 20 kilometres below Jemseg. This stone is the remarkably tough and beautiful granite that forms the edges of the buttresses and corners of the church. It shows remarkably little wear from its long exposure to the elements there.
The granite quarried in the Hampstead area from the 1830s up to the mid 20th century is commonly referred to as Hampstead Granite or Spoon Island Granite. It was used most commonly for monuments and grindstones, but this church demonstrates that it could also be incorporated into structures (though I suspect that it was rather difficult to work with in this role). Geologically, the Hampstead Granite is part of the Early Devonian Evandale Granodiorite (roughly 400 million years old), an intrusion of 20 square kilometres that consists of "light grey to pink, medium-grained, equigranular, hornblende-biotite granodiorite varying to monzogranite" (Government of New Brunswick industrial minerals summary).
Granitic intrusions are bodies of rock that cooled slowly from the molten state, often associated with the melting of crust that occurred as the Earth's crust was deformed near plate boundaries. In this particular case the granite was formed near the meeting of two tectonic zones, the Gander and Avalon zones, during the growth of the Appalachian Mountains. The Early Devonian in this region is associated with closure of an ocean during the Acadian Orogeny, one of the several intervals of intense deformation, plutonic (deep) igneous activity, and metamorphism that resulted in the development of the Appalachians (see here for a substantial discussion of the Acadian Orogeny in this region, a topic far too complex to be explained using my meagre knowledge of structural geology and tectonics).
Following a mountain-building interval, the new steep slopes and high elevations are subject to greatly increased rates of erosion and sediment transport. In this region, the Devonian orogenic deformation was followed by a major interval of sediment deposition during the Carboniferous, roughly 360 to 300 million years ago. Carboniferous sedimentary rocks, many of them formed in rivers, swamps, and floodplains, cover eastern New Brunswick and the rest of the Carboniferous Maritimes Basin.
Most stone in the walls of the Jemseg church is clearly Carboniferous clastic rock: broadly speaking it is "sandstone", though much of it is "dirty sandstone" that could be more properly called arkose or even greywacke. I am not sure what formation was its source, though from its very mixed quality it is likely the most local of the stones incorporated into this structure. The bedrock underlying the village would be of this sort, so some of the stone could have even been quarried here, or perhaps across the river where the land is a bit higher. The variety of stone, however, suggests that much of it was collected as loose pieces. Since the pieces are angular they were not transported by water or ice; they are regolith that had been frost-wedged from the bedrock beneath.
It is unfortunate that the builders of the church did not cast slightly farther afield for sandstone: the Rainsford Sandstone (Minto Formation) used in the walls of Christ Church Cathedral in Fredericton has excellent colour and consistency, and the remarkably tough Grindstone Island Sandstone (Boss Point Formation) used in the cathedral's buttresses is among the best sandstones anywhere. The former was quarried on what is now the Fredericton Golf Club, while the latter is from the upper end of the Bay of Fundy; clearly both of these stones would have been a bit dear for the builders of this parish church.
What the sandstone in St. James Church lacks in construction quality, it makes up in geological interest and variety. Walking around the building on a sunny day, you can pick out a great range of features in the buff, golden, chocolate brown, brick-coloured, or rust-red stone: angled crossbeds from the interior of a river sandbar, rusty ironstones that might be associated with overbank flooding on an ancient floodplain, microfaults that cut across the stratification, and a dirty sandstone with admixture of angular and rounded rock fragments from those older granites.
Although the church's builders were content with local sandstones, the fine stone that makes the window arches and other carved features has come from very far away, and travelled here by a circuitous route. This is Caen stone, a yellowish limestone of Jurassic age (about 167 million years old) that formed on ancient seafloors in what is now northern France. Caen stone is fine-grained, oolitic, and of very consistent texture. As it is readily carved, it has been used in French buildings for many centuries, and also can be seen in major structures elsewhere such as the Tower of London, Canterbury Cathedral, and the Old South Church in Boston.
In St. James Church, why does such an elite material appear directly adjacent to the lowly local sandstone? Certainly it would have cost a substantial amount to ship this stone from France to New Brunswick near the end of the age of sail, but that cost was not borne by the builders of this church. Rather, the stone window frames and door arch here are "remnants": this Caen stone was part of a large batch shipped to Fredericton several decades earlier for the construction of the cathedral, and presumably the leftover stone had been in storage waiting for just this sort of use. So it was shipped downriver the 50 kilometres from Fredericton, for a fraction of the cost of receiving stone from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
As is the case for some other wonderful carving stones, Caen stone's softness limits its ability to stand up to long-term weather exposure in tough climates. In Jemseg this stone has clearly suffered badly over the years, to the extent that some of it has been patched and much of it has been painted.
For the final piece of the geological story, a close examination of the church's walls reveals a few interlopers: between the angular blocks of sandstone are occasional pieces of rounded sandstone and cobbles of grey or pinkish granite. These materials are similar to the other sandstone and granite in the walls, but geologically they have travelled through yet another process. They have been to "finishing school", in the form of erosion, transport, and redeposition.
Some time in the relatively recent past these cobbles and small boulders were picked up from the bedrock where they had resided for several hundred million years. Perhaps they were transported by glacial ice, or maybe bounced around in a river system for a while, before being deposited in a place where people would gather them, such as in a gravel pit or in one of New Brunswick's famously stony fields (the old story is that farmers often complained about "growing rocks", as each spring the snow melt revealed a new crop of stones that had been elevated to the surface by the frost).
This blog post started out as a simple set of photos of the stone in this lovely church, but like the rocks in the fields it also grew. That is the fascinating thing, when you start to look into the geology and history of many old stone buildings: the linkages radiate outward in every direction, in ever-expanding circles. It is remarkable that a small church can store so much of the past, but all stone buildings, whatever their size, hold within them many stories – the history of the people who built them, the history of the people who quarried and transported the stones, and the geological pasts of the stones themselves.
In addition to the variety of sources linked in the text above, I also consulted print publications including:
Gregg Finley and Lynn Wigginton, 1995, On Earth as it is in Heaven: Gothic Revival Churches of Victorian New Brunswick, Goose Lane Editions.
William A. Parks, 1914, Report on the Building and Ornamental Stones of Canada, Volume II, Maritime Provinces, Canada Department of Mines.
If you wish to find it, St. James Church is located along NB Route 715, at 45°47'9.29″N, 66° 5'42.37″W.
© Graham Young, 2015
Playground for a Polar Bear's Picnic
The Churchill part of the Hudson Bay Lowlands is replete with strange and obscure little corners. One of the strangest is this "playground that time forgot," hidden away behind trees and boulders near the shore road between town and the airport. I assume that it was built back in army days and served for the entertainment of children who lived on the base. It is in the same area as the "golf course," which always seemed a humorous name since this area of bog, boulders, and stunted black spruce is as far from a golf course as you can get, this side of the continental slope.
You might note that my photos of this playground are limited in their viewpoint and angles; these were constrained because I was shooting from the vehicle. When we arrived here we had just been surprised by an immense polar bear as we photographed roches moutonnées along the road, and it didn't seem to be worth pursuing better photos if it meant that I might serve as the primary protein for a polar bear's picnic.
Although it feels abandoned, someone seems to be maintaining this place at least in a basic way, so maybe it receives the occasional visit from children when the bears are absent. Or maybe the bears like a good seesaw.
The ancient teeter-totter and roundabout would, in all likelihood, not be considered acceptable in a city playground that adheres to modern safety standards. But given the frequent visits from Ursus maritimus, these are probably relatively minor issues if you are considering the overall safety of this particular pleasure park.
Happy New Year!
© Graham Young, 2015
Dead in a Ditch
Silurian Stromatolites in the Grand Rapids Uplands
On the long drive northward from Winnipeg to Grand Rapids, I always look forward to seeing one area not far beyond where the road rises onto the Grand Rapids Uplands. After the monotony of the "great bog" north of St. Martin Junction, the curves and slopes make a very welcome change. When I first visited Grand Rapids 20 years ago, this area had been freshly burned; it was a blackened waste similar to the one that followed the larger fire north of Grand Rapids in 2008.
The ever-changing appearance of the burn is also a great relief to the monotony, as over the years we have been able to watch saplings grow into trees, scorched trunks slowly replaced by a new forest. The regenerating plants attract wildlife, and we have seen deer, foxes, and a variety of birds there. One fall day, we even had a lynx pad across the empty Highway 6 in front of us – a rare sight indeed!
The reality of constant landscape change was brought home last autumn as I again drove over the southern end of the Uplands, this time with Dave Rudkin and Michael Cuggy. We were surprised to see that, in a place where there had been roadwork in recent years, the ditch had since been stripped completely bare by local floodwaters. What had been gravel the previous summer was now a gleaming white dolostone pavement. It didn't appear to extend very far but it did look interesting, and we made a mental note of the location as we zoomed past. Somewhere to stop on the return drive from William Lake, if time and weather permitted.
Remarkably, both time and weather did permit on this occasion. After parking on the shoulder, we stepped down into the beautiful dry ditch. And there we saw a world of stromatolites – nothing but fossilized microbial mat structures covering the full extent of the bedding plane. How could it be that an ancient seafloor was entirely covered with cyanobacteria, those single-celled organisms that used to be called blue-green algae? Aren't stromatolites supposed to be rare in any rocks that date from after the end of the Precambrian, their growth limited by gastropod grazing and seafloor burrowing by other creatures? And where are the snails and the other varied marine invertebrates, which can be seen in so many of the Paleozoic limestones elsewhere in this region?
Like the nearby burn, the ditch itself also tells part of our Earth's story of ever-changing environments. This dolostone exposure may be small in area, but it represents a very interesting interval in geological time. In Manitoba's sedimentary succession, stromatolites are very widespread in some parts of the Early Silurian Interlake Group. Some of the stromatolite-rich intervals were traditionally assigned to the Inwood Formation, but it has since been recognized that stratigraphic correlation of this unit is difficult, and former "Inwood" rocks are generally placed in the Moose Lake and Atikameg formations.*
Regardless of the technical correlation issues, the blooming of Early Silurian stromatolites in the Manitoba part of the Williston Basin was probably related to global patterns of extinction and evolution. The Early Silurian was the time immediately after the Late Ordovician mass extinction, the first of the "big five" extinctions in the history of life. During an interval about 443-445 million years ago, many families of marine life became extinct, some of them members of groups familar to fossil collectors: trilobites, brachiopods, and bryozoans. This extinction was associated with a glaciation on the South Pole, in a place that is now the Sahara Desert (I kid you not; you could look this up!). In Manitoba, fabulous Ordovician life forms such as the giant coral colonies in Tyndall Stone, and our beloved Churchill giant trilobite Isotelus rex, were replaced in the Early Silurian by . . . not much at all.
The post-extinction faunas around here are, as might be expected, not very diverse. But their lack of diversity can be compensated by remarkable abundance, such as in the nearly monospecific assemblages of the brachiopod Virgiana decussata, which can be seen near Churchill and along the riverbank near Grand Rapids. These stromatolites are also remarkably abundant: they were clearly the dominant life form in this area's warm sea when the sediments we see were being laid down. Perhaps these stromatolites did so well because the water was too salty or too hot for gastropods and other invertebrates to thrive, but stromatolite blooms also occurred in other places following mass extinctions, to the extent that their abundance may actually be a diagnostic character for marine ecosystems that have been greatly disturbed.
Cyanobacteria are always with us, and maybe all it takes is the removal of grazers for them to return to Precambrian-like dominance. Which makes me wonder: how will the stromatolites do during the next few millennia? Not too well, I hope.
But enough of these morbid thoughts. In the present day, Dave, Michael, and I admire the ditch stromatolites. At first glance these are monotonous, but upon inspection they show considerable variation in size, shape, and surface texture. We snap a few photos and then it is back into the truck, wheels crunching on the gravel as we accelerate onto pavement and toward the "great bog." Homeward.
* See Bezys and McCabe, 1996, Lower to Middle Paleozoic Stratigraphy of Southwestern Manitoba.
© Graham Young, 2014
Portage Chute
Churchill River, Manitoba: August 24, 2014
Heading south from Churchill, the helicopter follows the river for the first 30 kilometres above its mouth. Then we head off overland, taking a straight-line shortcut instead of duplicating the river's long dogleg. "Overland" is, perhaps, a bit of a misnomer, since the surface we pass over must be at least 20 percent open water, with much of the rest consisting of bog and moss, but as far as I know "overtundra" and "overmuskeg" are not words. Anyway, we fly low across this strangely-coloured otherworldly landscape for many kilometres, before rejoining the river's course.
Coming over the steep bank, we can see that the river is still broad, but it is very different from the estuary you see at Churchill. Here the water rushes over its bed, with many treacherous shallows, boulders, and long stretches of rapids. After a stop to survey the cliffs beside Bad Cache Rapids, we are picked up again for the hop to Portage Chute. One hundred and twenty-five kilometres from the Town of Churchill, this will be the farthest we go during our several days of helicopter work in August, 2014. Around the steep rapids of Portage Chute we can see no landing place (the name "Portage Chute" apparently means "falls requiring a portage"), but a little way downstream a flat platform of bedrock extends from the cliffs on the river's northwest bank. It is a perfect natural helicopter landing pad, and Frank quickly sets down. Once he gives us the all clear signal, we pile out and gather the packs, tools, and shotgun (never forget the shotgun, as there is still a risk of meeting polar bears even this far inland).
Portage Chute represents the beginning of Ordovician geology for this part of the Hudson Bay Lowland. South and west of here, everything is Precambrian for hundreds to thousands of kilometres. In fact, the granitic rock on which the helicopter rests is Precambrian in age, while the limestone cliffs beside us are Ordovician (Portage Chute Formation, Bad Cache Rapids Group, Katian [Upper Ordovician, in the range of 450 million years old]). We are standing on a great unconformity, one of the most spectacular geological contacts in the world. Our feet are on a surface that was eroded for more than a billion years, starting in a time when there was no complex life on this planet, while our hands can reach out and touch bedrock that was deposited as carbonate sediment on an ancient tropical seafloor during a time when marine life was reaching the peak of its first great diversification.
It is a magical place for a geologist, but it is also spectacularly beautiful, and for a few minutes I just stand there drinking it in. Not only is the exposure of the unconformity here almost too wonderful for the average geologist to believe, but it extends as far down river as I can see. In fact, Precambrian rock makes up the riverbed all the way to Bad Cache Rapids, some 20 kilometres away, while the Ordovician cliffs extend much farther than that!
Those Ordovician cliffs are also special for a paleontologist, because their mottled limestones hold wonderful examples of the fossil assemblage that has been sometimes called the "Arctic Ordovician fauna." This biota includes a great variety of groups, and it is notably defined by receptaculitids, large gastropods such as Maclurina manitobensis, and cephalopods. In just an hour or so on the site, I am able to collect very good examples of all of these, and also corals (Calapoecia, Catenipora, Manipora, Palaeophyllum), brachiopods, and parts of trilobites; a rich haul!
The Arctic Ordovician fauna is widespread in central and northern North America; its best known occurrence is in the Tyndall Stone (Red River Formation, Selkirk Member) quarried at Garson, Manitoba, but it also occurs in places as widespread as New Mexico, Montana, the Canadian Arctic islands, and Greenland. The name "Arctic Ordovician fauna" was proposed by Dr. August Foerste in the 1930s as a shorthand for those Ordovician fossils in central North America that do not belong to the "Richmondian fauna" typical of the Cincinnati Arch area, and the concept was expanded upon by Dr. Sam Nelson in the 1950s.
Interestingly, Nelson carried out his early field research in 1950-51 along this same river we are visiting today, and his publications list a great variety of fossils from this very site.* This place is so inaccessible that I doubt anyone has done serious fossil collecting here since Nelson's visit more than sixty years ago, which probably explains why there are so many fossils for us to find! With another hour or two working through these scree slopes, I'm sure we could easily equal his total of 46 species from the upper part of the Portage Chute, without even bothering to go down river to other sites such as Bad Cache Rapids. Still, the hour of collecting has given me a very good set of samples to take back to the Manitoba Museum, and perhaps we will return next summer for another visit.
Listening to the deep rumble of the water as it rushes past over the rapids, I consider Nelson's traverse of this river with considerable admiration, since he did the great majority of it by canoe or on foot (he had to walk along this particular stretch of rapids). But now it is time to wrap up my fossils, and get them labelled and bagged before they go into the back of the AStar. Our fieldwork is ridiculously easy by comparison with Nelson's, and I especially appreciate the padded seat as I nestle in by the window for our return to Churchill, with thoughts toward plans for a shower and a hot meal back at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre.
Still, miles to go, and all that tundra, river, and coast to contemplate. Will we see any bears this evening?
* See Nelson, S.J., 1963, Ordovician paleontology of the northern Hudson Bay Lowland, Geological Society of America Memoir 90, 152 p.
© Graham Young, 2014
The Raft of the Medusa
There is really no way of knowing what the media, scientific or otherwise, will grab onto.
A week ago, at the Geological Society of America meeting in Vancouver, I presented a descriptive talk that may well have been the simplest I had ever given to a scientific audience. We had just listened to a series of presentations, many of them by students and postdocs, which incorporated considerable amounts of "big science": sophisticated imaging techniques, chemical analyses of fossil preservation, or multivariate statistical studies of large numbers of specimens.
When I got up in front of the same audience, I was a bit worried because I realized that my talk could have been just as easily presented in 1914 as 2014: I was describing a single specimen, illustrated with photographs. Nineteenth century Natural History, really. But it was such a strange specimen that it seemed worth presenting, and as it turned out, the reporter from Science News thought so too (here is his short article, freshly out).
Those of you who visit this page occasionally will know that I am, perhaps, obsessed with the topic of jellyfish fossilization. In addition to ongoing detailed work on Ordovician-age jellies from the William Lake site in Manitoba, I have been collaborating with my colleague James Hagadorn of the Denver Museum to figure out the global fossil record of medusae.
Jellyfish are rarely fossilized; many things have been published as fossil jellies, but few of those actually are preserved medusae. So we have been working through the world literature of all papers published describing "fossil jellyfish." As we have studied the literature, James and I have determined which museums hold collections that need to be examined, and when the opportunity arises we will go and spend a day or two on a collections visit. When necessary, we will borrow material for further study: some of the fossils are easily interpreted, but others are problematic.
The presentation in Vancouver was about one of the specimens we had found in the huge collections of the Field Museum in Chicago. Preserved in a slab of the Carboniferous Mecca Shale from Indiana, it looked like a blob of pure white quartz sand surrounded by thinly bedded black shale. Except this was a sand blob with tentacles.
Spending many days with the specimen, photographing it in every possible way (double polarized photography is our friend!), we were able to recognize many features that allowed us to identify it as a chirodropid cubozoan (a group of box jellyfish still abundant in modern oceans). It is the same age as the box jellies in the well-known Mazon Creek Lagerstätte of Illinois, and it is very similar to the Mazon Creek box jelly Anthracomedusa turnbulli, but preserved in a very different way. We explained its unusual preservation in this manner: A body of pure quartz sand is very unusual in the middle of a black shale bed; this resulted from sediment rafting by the jellyfish, a process analogous to ice rafting. The medusa apparently stranded on a beach, ingested sand as it attempted to free itself, and then was washed or rafted into a lagoon where it was buried in anoxic mud.
The scientific manuscript describing this remarkable fossil is almost complete. Maybe this publicity will motivate me to get it out the door and move on to the next batch of "fossil jellyfish"!
© Graham Young, 2014
Vancouver Rain. Again.
October 17, 2014
Why does it seem to rain every time I go for a walk in Vancouver? There has been precipitation on every day I have spent there on recent visits, even if it is sometimes just what the Irish would term a "grand, soft day."
For those of us who live elsewhere, this could be looked at as fair recompense when the place is so unfairly blessed with topographic splendour. But maybe it is also a gift from the weather gods, an appeasement that permits us to remain contented with our own climates and locations. Maybe Vancouver rain is specially arranged for the visitor's benefit, with the warm coastal sun scheduled to re-appear minutes after the departure of our flights eastward. If you, like me, are "looking forward" to a prairie winter, then it would be simply unbearable to think that Vancouver could ever get a string of autumn days of perfect crystal clarity, as well as those mild winter temperatures. Far better for us to always see this place in the rain, and to think that the residents must be miserable on account of the constant drizzle and mist, which are surely interrupted only by the occasional downpour.
Anyway, the rain does give vibrancy to the colours of plants and stones, even under such a flat grey sky. And I didn't really mind getting a bit wet, since I was headed to the Vancouver Aquarium to commune with the jellyfish and comb jellies . . .
© Graham Young, 2014
Travels on the Churchill River
In late August, I had what could be called the trip of a lifetime: I was invited by colleagues at the Manitoba Geological Survey to travel with them to examine sites up the Churchill River, far from the more accessible Hudson Bay coast. With several days of helicopter time, we were able to visit many sites along the river and its tributary creeks. It was a tremendous experience to spend time in such a remote, stunning, and almost unspoiled landscape.
I returned with a wealth of fossil specimens for the collections of the Manitoba Museum, and also with a wealth of photographs. I have every intention of sharing a sampling of these, but circumstances have conspired against me as I have been fully occupied with other matters. Now that I have a bit of time, I am beginning the posting process.
If you are interested, the first batch of photos, providing a general overview of the Churchill River, can be found on my Museum page here.
More to come!


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5.0 out of 5 stars The best of the best of the best.
Despite its familiar theme, FALLING ANGELS is a book about doing what is right and morally correct versus doing what truly makes one happy. The narrative moves forward, always in the first person, from the mouth of each major protagonist who commits his or her own brand of "against the grain" behavior and/or scandal. FALLING ANGELS seems to suggest that moral...
Published on July 5 2005 by Sharon Parker
3.0 out of 5 stars A preview of better things to come
I was very relieved to find out that "The Virgin Blue" was written before "Girl With a Pearl Earring," and "Falling Angels." "The Virgin Blue" is wildly uneven, not merely because the writing is split between two different eras, the modern era of Ella Turner and the Sixteenth Century world of Isabelle Tournier.
The more compelling story, by far, centers on Isabelle...
Published on July 31 2003 by Chris Vallancourt
Most Helpful First | Newest First
5.0 out of 5 stars The best of the best of the best.,
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
Despite its familiar theme, FALLING ANGELS is a book about doing what is right and morally correct versus doing what truly makes one happy. The narrative moves forward, always in the first person, from the mouth of each major protagonist who commits his or her own brand of "against the grain" behavior and/or scandal. FALLING ANGELS seems to suggest that moral structure are inventions of man, the things that keep us in order. And simply put, such inventions are not natural. The better "angels" of our nature strive to do what is deemed correct, because this is the way we are "brought up." Yet the psychological, physiological and genetic codes of humans are not abstract. They are in constant conflict with moral structure. If we fail to recognize this, we let society cast us as "failures," even if we aren't. Chevalier doesn't preach, and the grisly details of the scandalous portions of her story take place mostly "off camera," vividly residing in the imaginations of the reader. I like this. But the true mastery of "Falling Angels" is the abrupt change of pace that occupies the last third of her novel, a portion which carries the momentum of a locomotive. A cast of thousands, mostly nameless, gather for a pivotal event that proves devastating. Chevalier delivers a big "set piece" filled with thousands of activities going on at once -- and the surprise is -- even though they're told from different points of view, the reader is never confused. If you're looking for another great book to read, might I suggest the ever-popular CHILDREN'S CORNER by Jackson McCrae? It's funny, horrifying, jaw-dropping, heart-warming, exotic, shocking, disturbing, and a rollercoaster of a ride.
4.0 out of 5 stars An bit of an Academic Response,
Sarah Hamilton (Edmonton, AB) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
The first drawback of anything Chevalier writes is that her writing skills are good. Not excellent, just satisfactory. What makes up for this ,however, is her methodical research and her ability to draw you into the world of Edwardian London. Other reviewers are saying "she discounts the suffrage movement" and "puts too much emphasis on the morbid", which are valid criticism, but I believe they are also a bit shallow, from my experience in this field of study (and I have lots of practical experience in this field of study), Chevalier immerses you in this world. The suffragettes are incredibly important to us now, but back in 1905, the criticisms of their political activity was harsh. Women were told "you can vote...when your work is done", and that they'd drop the issue as soon as they go bored with it. And its should be noted the Victorians were OBSESSED with protocol. Chevalier does a marvelous job immersing you in her subjective world...if you are looking for an objective account, I suggest you buy a history book instead. For those of you historiophiles who enjoy a well researched historical fiction, pick up this book.
1.0 out of 5 stars A Different Drummer,
HeyJudy "heyjudy" (East Hampton, NY USA) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
As far as FALLING ANGELS goes, I obviously am very much at odds with the majority of this website's reader-reviewers: I hated this book! I thought that it was a cheat, on many levels.
First of all, it was short. It only took me about an hour to read.
For the most part, it was a book about the stylized and self-conscious Victorian ritual of mourning among the upper class English; and the better part of the book was nothing more than a detailed report on cemetery and crypt design, on mourning clothes and mourning jewelry and mourning stationery and mourning time schedules.
Author Tracy Chevalier uses the term "mute" in the context of mourners with no further explanation. Were mutes, then, paid mourners who filled out a funeral, and kept silent during the service?
Her greatest insult, however, was to the women's suffrage movement. According to her telling, the suffragettes were little more than a group of bored women, slightly hysterical, who viewed their political goals as a silly game. I have read many books on the women's suffrage movement and I never have come across this interpretation anywhere else. She has slandered a movement that moved the cause of women into the 20th century.
I didn't care for Chevalier's earlier fiction, GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE--I didn't even like the movie it was made into, which bombed at the box office. I far preferred the competing novel, GIRL WITH PEARL EARRING, which was published at that same time as BLUE.
I will not be reading Chevalier's future work.
4.0 out of 5 stars Okay, so we all like a bit of morbid drama now and then....,
Jennifer R. Wright (Texas) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
Tracy Chevalier plays upon wonderful funereal imagery to depict a turn of the century Madame Bovary who is destined to ruin herself (and everyone around her)in her search for "self". This novel contrasts a status quo married family with the hopeless Kitty, a woman searching for something more while she already possesses more than she can appreciate in her own family.
Kitty and her family are much like Flaubert's Charles and Emma Bovary in contrast to neighbors M. Homais and family. This is a great psychological novel about finding balance. I was as mad at Kitty as I was at Emma Bovary and Anna Karennina for not waking up and realizing what a nice child she had, what a patient husband (if not passionate), what a nice house!
This novel is:
+High on sublime imagery that works exceptionally well
+Quick and tragic
+Faulknerian in its use of multiple veiwpoints (very nice touch for a turn of the century novel)
+Awesome in character development--I love little Simon just like I loved Victor Hugo's gamin,Gavroche.
5.0 out of 5 stars I agree with another reviewer,
By A Customer
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
I agree with the previous reviewer in that Chevalier is one of the few authors whose books I'll pick up, just because her name is on the cover. I've read all of hers, and while "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is top on my list, "Falling Angels" is second. But I can understand some people's hesitation, especially if they got half-way through this excellent read, for while the first half is gentle and warm, the story turns dark. But then, the essence of drama is conflict, right? And we can't expect Chevalier to always do the same thing. The fact that she's written as many "different" books as she has is testament to her talent.
But aside from her name and excellent premises, the best thing about Ms. C. is her writing style. It flows like water, effortlessly, like something written by McCrae (think "Bark of the Dogwood" or possibly some of Min's novels.) By all means, read this book, but don't pass up "Girl with A Pearl Earring" as it is her best effort.
Also recommended: "Girl With a Pearl Earring," Empress Orchid, "Bark of the Dogwood.
5.0 out of 5 stars Personal Journal Reveals Hushed Secrets / Private Thoughts,
Erika Borsos "pepper flower" (Gulf Coast of FL, USA) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
The popularity of "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (book and film), plus a review of *this* book by an acquaintance, convinced me, "read this book" ... read anything by this author. From the first page to the last, this book held my attention. I read it in one sitting, cover to cover, over several hours, unable to put it down.
I was intrigued by the first entry in the book ... a rather risque confession by Kitty Coleman, that she had 'swapped husbands' at a New Year's Eve party, to show she was 'open-minded'. Furthermore, she questions her up-bringing, deemed "too much education for a woman" by some, during the Victorian era. It dawns on Kitty that her dissatisfaction with her marriage and life in general has a lot to do with inability to communicate with her husband on things that are *most* important to her. While she has a good life by the standards of the times, she is restless and dissatisfied -- she is looking for an outlet. Right from the start, this novel hooks the reader. It is from this major personal conflict that many "secret" events unfold, which later affect the lives of most of the characters in the book. This reader gives high praise for the subject matter and creartive writing ability of the author. The setting alone, where major events occur, unfold, is outstanding -- a graveyard, where two eleven year olds first meet and become "best friends". The technique of writing from the viewpoint of the first person, through the eyes of the person experiencing the event or recalling how they felt at the time, is perfect. It is unique, creative and highly effective for the subject and the era in which the events occured.
Another outstanding feature of this book, is how the two families who are the main characters meet ... they both have graves in a famous cemetery, that are next to each other. Each makes a negative judgement about the selection of gravestone marker for their loved one ... this is so human, so real, such a fascinating a way to begin a story. After the two eleven year old girls become 'best friends', they befriend the grave-digger's son, Simon, who shows the girls the different 'angel' grave markers throughout the cemetery. The girls often come to visit the cemetery, view the angel markers and speak with Simon. They accompany the maid, who is sent on errands to town. However, besides errands, the maid has a personal agenda, she is having a romantic affair with one of the gravdiggers. We also learn, later, that Mrs. Kitty Coleman is also meeting someone at the cemetery. She has developed an intellectual relationship with Mr. John Jackson, the manager of the graveyard. This intellectual relationship gradually develops into a physical romantic affair. Along the way, Kitty discovers a "cause" which consumes much of her energy, the suffragettes. She dedicatea her time and energy to this one means of "freeing up women" from the limitations imposed by society ... this cause .... and her romance with Mr. John Jackson, eventually becomes her undoing. The book is worth reading to discover the means by which this occurs ...
This one event has a major impact on the lives of most of the characters who provide journal entries in this book. One major life event in one family, leads to another totally unexpected crisis, that impacts the second family featured in the book, the Waterhouse family. The manner in which the author weaves the cemetery into the story ... from the highly worth the read. Learning how the lives of these two families intertwine, as they become "backyard neighbors" is fascinating. Most highly recommended. Erika Borsos (erikab93)
5.0 out of 5 stars I agree,
By A Customer
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
I agree with the previous reviewer in that Chevalier is one of the few authors whose books I'll pick up, just because her name is on the cover. I've read all of hers, and while "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is top on my list, "Falling Angels" is second. But I can understand some people's hesitation, especially if they got half-way through this excellent read, for while the first half is gentle and warm, the story turns dark. But then, the essence of drama is conflict, right? And we can't expect Chevalier to always do the same thing. The fact that she's written as many "different" books as she has is testament to her talent.
But aside from her name and excellent premises, the best thing about Ms. C. is her writing style. It flows like water, effortlessly, like something written by McCrae (think "Bark of the Dogwood" or possibly some of Min's novels.) By all means, read this book, but don't pass up "Girl with A Pearl Earring" as it is her best effort.
Also recommended: "Girl With a Pearl Earring," Empress Orchid, "Bark of the Dogwood.
4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing Study of Women and Their Times,
B. McEwan "yellokat" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
I like novels set in Victorian England as well as those with female heros, and so was drawn to Falling Angels right away, simply because of its time and place. But the other draw was the primary setting for most of the action, which is a large cemetery in a neighborhood of well-to-do middle class homes. I have always enjoyed cemeteries (so long as I'm not mourning someone who is buried there) as interesting vehicles for gaining an understanding of social history and for feeling my humanness. Some tombstone incriptions amaze me with their heartfelt honesty, and because the emotions expressed are so congruent with my own -- even when the person in question died decades ago. It makes me realize that there really isn't much difference between us in the end. And that is, I believe, the main appeal of this novel. All things happen in the fullness of time -- the tragic, the beloved, and the blessed. And the core substance of life doesn't really change much from era to era.
I also enjoyed reading about the sexual byplay between the adult women characters, their husbands and the other men they meet. While some of the action seems to be "typically" Victorian, other scenes are surprising for the time. For instance, there are actually incidents of spouse swapping (most certainly called "wife swapping" at the time), which surprised me given that I have come to think of the Victorians as sexual prudes. And, of course, there is the obligatory punishment for the woman (Kitty Coleman) who steps out of the traditional role to grab a moment of joy for herself.
Also alluring are the characterizations of the daughters -- Lavinia, who seems true to the spirit of the era and is, in other words, the sort of Victorian lady who faints and fumes and, generally, portrays herself as the fair flower of womanhood; her younger sister Ivy May, who is quiet and the "nice girl" who finishes last in the end (literally); and Maude, the girl who is too smart for her time and also ends up paying a price. And, while Maude and Ivy May pay obvious prices, the cost to Lavinia of languishing in her socially accpetable role is also quite high. The three girls challenge readers -- female readers anyway -- to place themselves in their shoes and think about the choices that we would make, given the social constraints and rewards of the time.
Overall, this is a thought provoking book that encourages the reader to reflect on her/his humanity and the ways that all of us are connected, now and forever.
2.0 out of 5 stars Is This a Family Novel or a Literary Experiment,
Totally Anonymous (Private) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
I really didn't like GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, but I thought I'd try another Tracy Chevalier book and, since I love reading books set in both Victorian and Edwardian England, FALLING ANGELS seemed perfect.
On the morning following the death of Queen Victoria, intelligent but plain Maude Coleman meets beautiful but shallow Lavinia Waterhouse at the cemetery where both of their families have plots. The five year old girls become fast friends and their lives become intertwined unto death.
FALLING ANGELS is quite different from GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING in more ways than the fact that it does not explore the world of art. Where GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING had only one narrator, Griet, FALLING ANGELS has several and they take turns telling their stories in short, choppy chapters. One of the ways in which both books are similar is the fact that Chevalier never goes inside the mind of her characters...she fails to gives us her characters thoughts, and this, I think, is a very grave mistake. It distanced me from Griet and it distanced me from both Maude and Lavinia and the other characters that populate the pages of FALLING ANGELS.
It's puzzling to me as to why Chevalier would write so many interior monologues yet fail to let even one character reveal his or her thoughts or emotions. Instead of using the third person to help us "know" each character, Chevalier uses it to give us expository information...something that, to me, smacks of the work of an amateur, not a woman who's just written her third novel. It might have been an experimental device, but if it were, I think it's an experiment in technique that failed.
In addition to the above, the first half of the book, which seems to be developing into a family drama simply doesn't coalesce with the second half, where it veers off into something quite different. It seemed as if Chevalier were trying to weave disparate stories from loosely connected characters into one lovely tapestry of a book, but the tapestry just never came together and simply unraveled, instead.
Like GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING, FALLING ANGELS is rich in description, something that seems to be Chevalier's forte and something I would expect, given the fact that she was, for many years a reference book editor. In GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING we were treated to a tour of Delft during Vermeer's lifetime. In FALLING ANGELS, we're given a guide to Edwardian England. I liked the description in both books, but lovely description doesn't make a compelling story.
I am going to give Chevalier yet a third chance, something I rarely do with any author. I've recently purchased her latest book, THE LADY AND THE UNICORN. The beautiful tapestries at the Musee National du Moyen Age de Cluny in Paris are among my favorite "artistic treasures," so I really couldn't resist a book woven around them. I just hope Chevalier gives us richer characterizations than she did in FALLING ANGELS.
I would recommend this book only to people so in love with Edwardian England that they simply can't get their fill.
5.0 out of 5 stars Anglophile female study in grave setting,
dikybabe "admeyer" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
Ce commentaire est de: Falling Angels: A Novel (Paperback)
I was fascinated by this book. Chevalier's talent at presenting a story line via first person narratives is showcased here with turn of the twentieth century London as its base. The characters who tell us their stories are sectioned into the years 1901-1910, from the mourning of Queen Victoria to the mourning of King Edward. And their mostly upper middle class status sets the tone, a little rivalry between families whose grave sites end up side by side. Interestingly enough, the daughters of these two couples, the Waterhouses and the Colemans, become true friends. And from their day of first meeting as they gather in the cemetery in remembrance of Victoria, the girls, quite opposite in nature, are drawn to one another, despite their mothers' obvious distance.
The whole plot centers on the trips Maude and Lavinia (Livy) and her little sister Ivy May make to the cemetery. It is their center of recreation. And it is there that Jenny, the Coleman maid who escorts them on their excursions, becomes entangled in a life-changing affair, while Maude and Livy become best friends of a most unlikely mate close to their age, Simon Field, the gravedigger's son. Simon's class rank is so far below that of the girls, of whom Maude's family ranks higher than Livy's, yet he is the best pal of these young girls. And it is Simon who will go to heroic measures to assist the girls in their hour of greatest need.
The psuedo liberation of the upper class' sexual mores is an underlying theme in Kitty Coleman's life. And it is Kitty who becomes embroiled in the Suffragette movement of upper class women, adding color and suspense to the plot.
Each voice of the various characters rings true to the person speaking, balancing the points of view of several generations and class ranks starting with the very strict and Victorian rank of Mother Edith Coleman, who wishes to control the behavior of her son's wife as well as his household. The spoiled and seemingly lazy Kitty contrasts dramatically with the straight laced Gertrude Waterhouse, who finds Kitty's rank a point of competition, yet who comes to truly mother Kitty's only child, Maude. For Gertrude is the ultimate modern housewife and mother. And each woman's "At Home" days conveniently conflict with one another, therefore eclipsing their chance at real socialization. On the other hand, with cricket as the draw, their husbands, Albert and Richard, strike up a cursory friendship that deepens with time.
As Maude and Livy age, they face the erosion of Maude's family, although when real tragedy strikes they experience a time of growing apart as they mature.
The servant class spokesladies of the Coleman cook, Mrs. Baker, and the housemaid, Jenny Whitby, flesh out the Edwardian times and the life of an upstairs/downstairs relationship.
Typical to Chevalier's writing in her other novels, she masterfully builds the tension and suspense that makes the reader want to keep going. Therefore, this is an easy, fast read. And I do recommend it, particularly if you like to feel a part of a plot with characters who speak directly to you.
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Falling Angels: A Novel by Tracy Chevalier (Paperback - Sept. 24 2002)
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Free beer at Estabrook grand opening
The beer is free for a while. They'll tap a keg to open the Estabrook Beer Garden on June 20. Opening ceremonies begin at 5:30 p.m. and the keg is tapped at 6 p.m. with free beer while it lasts.
Expect to hear some German music during the occasion. The Estabrook Beer Garden, 4600 Estabrook Drive, between Hampton Avenue and Capital Drive. »Read Full Article
Five singers declared winners in local Met Opera auditions
Five singers were selected by judges to advance to the next round at Saturday's Wisconsin District Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Countertenor Kangmin Justin Kim, mezzo-soprano Corrie Stallings, soprano Caitlin Ruby Miller, tenor Ian D. Koziar and tenor Joe Shadday will compete at the Upper Midwest Regional in St. Paul, Minn. The five vocalists also won $2,000 each. »Read Full Article
'Belle of Amherst' best when profiling Dickinson's poetry
Walt Whitman may have rightly claimed that his poetry contains multitudes, but Emily Dickinson can stake an equally valid claim to being America's greatest poet.
She is also the hardest one to know. Harold Bloom once wrote that no poet "seems so separate from us as Dickinson," adding that "we have no accurate approaches to her." »Read Full Article


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- WorldView-2 (0.46m)
- WorldView-3 (0.31m)
- Pleiades-1A (0.5m)
- Pleiades-1B (0.5m)
- QuickBird (0.65m)
- IKONOS (0.82m)
- SkySat-1 (0.9m)
- SkySat-2 (0.9m)
- SPOT-6 (1.5m)
- SPOT-7 (1.5m)
- Other Satellites (2m-20m)
- Engineering and Construction
- Defense and Security
- Energy
- Environmental Monitoring
- Media and Entertainment
- Natural Resources
- Tourism
IKONOS and GeoEye-1 Photos of World Trade Center and Memorial
A pair of satellite images depict the World Trade Center as it appeared prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as the memorial site that exists in the same location today.
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