Note to readers: It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to advance the tale of the archæological site called Beit Bat Ya’anah and its inhabitants. 
The progress of Professor Einer Wayfarer’s efforts on that remote ridge in the Negev Desert to observe the seemingly out-of-place and elusive protégé of her controversial colleague Avsa Szeringka was temporarily interrupted by non-literary Three Star Owl activities: a busy fall season of pottery-making for shows, sales, and holiday shoppers kept me more in the studio than at the keyboard. Posting on my blog has suffered in general: there simply hasn’t been enough time to assemble both words and art for weeks and weeks. But things have relaxed somewhat now, and I’d like to get back to telling the tale. So far, all the action has occurred at the dig site, and only a few days have elapsed since Professor Wayfarer’s unenthusiastic arrival there.
This is the thirteenth episode in the series. To read the twelfth episode, click here. If you wish to catch up on the entire story in full detail, click here to start at the very beginning. At the end of each installment, there’s a link to click to continue on to the next one. If you need a less thorough reminder, or a basic intro to 
the fiction I post here, there’s also a brief summary of both What Happened at Beit Bat Ya’anah and its prequel The Ganskopf Incident in this post.
Now let’s take up the tale again, first by jogging the memory (caution mild spoiler alert for those who haven’t read the rest of the story yet), and then by a brief change of scene, with a look at Professor Wayfarer’s volatile European colleague Avsa Szeringka, who is the director of “the Institute” and who may be behind much of what has happened in the story so far.
Previously, we learned that Wayfarer was enticed to the remote archæological site “at the behest of her colleague and friend Avsa Szeringka (pronounced “zhə-RING-ka” with a zh like in Zsa-Zsa or French je), who had somehow herself managed to remain comfortably ensconced at the Institute near cool, gray Oxford,” by means of an imperious letter in expressive but convolute and ambiguous English, which is “not Avsa Szeringka’s second language, nor even her third.” This letter obliquely requires Wayfarer to seek out “an artefact” at the site, which she eventually realizes is actually a person: Dario, Avsa’s sleek grad student of uncertain linguistic and ethnic origins. While Wayfarer is making slow progress trying to understand who Dario is, his mentor is monitoring – if not manipulating – events from afar.
[Note: for anyone wondering about the prominence of hand-written correspondence in this story, now is a good time to remind you that the action takes place in the early 1980s, when email and cellular phones were just beginning to be used in universities and businesses. For participants in a remote desert dig, telephone access would be limited to weekend leave and payphones in town. For overseas communication, everyone would have relied on gummed stamps you had to lick, crinkly onion-skin air-mail paper, and postal delivery times measured in days, if not weeks, with letters being driven into town and mail fetched back to the site no more than once or twice a week, along with groceries and other supplies.]
Correspondence: considering two letters
Her silk-robed figure barely discernible from the rare antiques which furnished the damask-curtained, high-ceilinged room that functioned as both boudoir and office in her eponymous Institute near Oxford, Avsa Szeringka didn’t look up as her assistant placed the daily mail on the desk in front of her. It was the usual thick stack, arranged as Avsa required with the journals and manuscripts to be reviewed at the bottom, the routine business correspondence next, and any hand-addressed personal missives sorted to the top to be read immediately if they were from someone of whom she approved, or to be individually snubbed, if not. Bills she never saw; she had people for that.
This morning two envelopes interested her. She took them from the top of the stack and pushed the rest across the desk, disturbing the striped cat bunched at the corner of the Turkish leather writing pad. The tiger opened its mouth to complain, but nothing came out but a staccato fishy click, which Szeringka ignored, except to briefly bare her teeth back at the animal as she placed the two interesting letters in front of herself.
She considered them. They were both postmarked on the same date in Be’er Sheva, Israel, and they were each addressed with familiar but contrasting scripts. Unexpectedly, both packets were flimsy; neither could have more than one sheet of paper sealed inside. This was disappointing: she’d hoped to provoke heftier responses from each of her correspondents.
She reached a long-fingered hand towards one, but picked up the other instead, opened it and read it quickly.
“Avsa,” it began bluntly, “your ‘artifact’ is decorative but uncooperative and gives the distinct impression of preferring not to be handled, at least by me. This is an attempt to extend your metaphor accurately, and not prurience. Otherwise, the Negev is hot as hell, the living conditions are primitive, and the insect life is both appallingly forward and unanimously venomous: wish you were here.” Signed briefly, “E.W.”
Szeringka sniffed. The gruff humor of the message was hardly worth the postage to transmit it. If Einer didn’t have more to say, then it was clear that her dear friend and colleague wasn’t paying sufficient attention. Avsa made an impatient sound with her tongue. This letter required no answer.
She let it drop and picked up the other. Its external address was tidy and elegant, much more precisely written than Einer’s hasty American scrawl. She passed the unopened envelope briefly under her nose, noting a coniferous odor, faint but still detectable: she’d given him the fountain pen with the amber-scented ink herself, ostensibly a prize for some end of term academic achievement. Unperfumed versions of these showy trophy pens were coveted by their awardees, treasured carefully and displayed prominently on desks all over the Institute, and not, she knew, generally employed to write with. How like him to think so little of the prize, or of the inconvenience, as to bring an old-fashioned reservoir pen with him into the field, and actually operate it in the desert heat and grit. Avsa slid a fingertip under the envelope flap and, unfolding the page, read what he’d inked there.
When she had read his words twice – there were only a few – she stood and moved to the window, parting the heavy draperies a hand’s width. A blade of northern sunlight slid in, not gray at all but a sharp white ray of August, showing the many lines on the pale planes of Szeringka’s face in deep relief.
The lines at the corners of her mouth deepened. Yes, each of these letters was disappointing; the first, perhaps predictably, but the second, shockingly. Uncooperative, Einer had written about her student. Avsa had thought this must be irritable exaggeration, until she had read his letter.
She turned her head from the window and called out to her assistant in heavily accented English. “Wynn, tea! The osmanthus oolong whole leaf, I think, this morning. And a sheet of the official letterhead.”
Einer had said he preferred not to be handled. Yet that was precisely what his letter — that impertinent, rebellious tone in so few words! – required her to do. He had left her no choice but to handle this, and not gently.
Avsa Szeringka abruptly pushed back the floral drape wide, flooding the walls, the carpet, her dressing gown, her slippers, herself, with light. Really, it shouldn’t be necessary to strong-arm the stubborn creature: like it or not, he was going to have to take some responsibility in the effort. She strode back to her desk, pushed the cat off with animus, and while impatiently waiting for Wynn to arrive with both tea and stationary, began to calculate postal turn-around time to that stony armpit of the desiccated south while drafting stern and irrefutable points across the offending letter’s envelope. This time, wishing to be perfectly understood, she didn’t waste time with English.
Allison does not consider herself a wildlife artist,
but an observer who takes notes in clay.
More info...
Here’s the total lunar eclipse from the Phoenix area this morning, just before totality. The desert skies were clear, so that we had a wonderful dark sky view of the first half of the event. But totality began 
right at sunrise, so just as the whole moon was shadowed, it sank in a sky too bright to see the light reappear along the upper rim. Still, it was spectacular! Above, just digital zoom on a Canon Elph; below, digiscoped on a 50mm Nikon Fieldscope. (All photos A.Shock)
… “Ossuary: an archæology of resurrection” in the show Death and Rebirth at Maryville University’s Morton May Gallery in St.Louis. The show will be up until this friday, December 2. Click here for details about the show and about the Ossuary.
<< Detail (photo and piece, A.Shock)
Photo of an Ocellated Turkey, Chan Chich, Belize (A or E Shock) More photos here.
On our way home from our weekend getaway, E and I stopped at Montezuma Well National Monument. It’s one of our favorite places: a compact confluence of archæology, 
geology, and natural history. If you haven’t been there while visiting central Arizona, I highly recommend it.
>> Montezuma Well and beautiful fall color (all photos in this post either A or E Shock; click to enlarge)
As we were walking back to the truck, admiring the glow of the cottonwoods in the creek bed and dramatic clouds in a sapphire blue sky, I remembered to look down. It was a good thing I did: underfoot were a couple of spiders. Unaware of each other or of us, they were not going in straight lines as if to get from point to point, but were moving around deliberately, as if looking for eight lost contact lenses. Each was a moderately large animal, the size of an adult wolf spider. But they had round cephalothoraxes, and were black with lots of gray spiky hairs on 
their abdomens and stocky legs. I bent over for a closer look, and wondered if I were seeing tiny tiny tarantulas. Tiny for a tarantula, that is — they were still fairly large spiders, about an inch and a half from toe to toe.
<< on the go, places to be, females to find
We watched them for a while, got some pictures, and went on our way, hoping the squabbling tourist family on the trail behind us wouldn’t accidentally flatten the little guys through inattention.
Back on the highway in cell phone range, and uncertain if we’d really seen tarantulas, I consulted the internet and discovered this site: So You Found a Tarantula? (In case you ever need to know how to transmit a live tarantula through the US Postal 
Service — and apparently there are good reasons to do this — this is your site.) It solicited questions, specimens for ID, and generated answers about things tarantular, including citizen science and advice about tarantula husbandry.
>> “Do not get too close: I am assuming the posture that indicates I am willing to kick irritating urticating hairs off my abdomen at you.”
Through this post on the website of the American Tarantula society, Dr. Brent Hendrixson of Millsaps College is trying to increase what’s known about American tarantulas, which for all our familiarity with them from heebie-jeebie movies turn out to be poorly understood in terms of their systematics and life history.
<< Keen sandal for scale. Tiny tarantula is just to the left of the yellow leaf.
The website was fascinating, but it assumed you already knew you’d found a tarantula — it wasn’t set up to answer the question “Did I find a tarantula?” And we weren’t sure: aren’t all tarantulas huge hairy hand-sized horrors? Other tarantulas I’ve seen in the wild or in captivity were all enormous. If tarantulas we had seen, then they were “toy” tarantulas, the chihuahuas, the tea-cup tarantulæ of the arachnid world.
After a little more research on the Web I was still undecided about their tarantularity, and decided to email Dr. Hendrixson photos of one of our dinky dudes asking if we had seen tarantulas, and if so, what kind? Within minutes, I’d received an 
email reply from him: “Definitely a tarantula.” This was exciting! Better yet was the next part: “There are a number of ‘small’ species in Arizona and it turns out that this one is most likely undescribed (i.e., doesn’t have a name yet).”
>> Possibly, these were adult males wandering about searching for females’ burrows, where the ladies were waiting for male callers.
Sure enough, according to this website, there are 14 species of tarantula, all in the genus Aphonopelma, that live in Arizona: three in Maricopa, three in Pima, three in Coconino, etc. But in Yavapai County, situated between Coconino County and Maricopa County, no tarantulas have been scientifically described.
This doesn’t mean that we discovered an unknown, new species of tarantula (although it is a possibility). It’s just that biologists haven’t poked around enough tarantula burrows to know who answers the door in this location — it could be an already described species that also lives in an adjacent county. We’ll have to wait to see what science decides.
In the meantime, we can fantasize about eponymous lightning striking twice: first Thermogladius shockii, now Aphonopelma shockii? Well, of course not (that’s not how scientific nomenclature-giving works), but you can’t blame us for pretending. Nevertheless, I’m still excited about having spotted diminutive, un-named tarantulas in the wild, who are living their lives entirely unconcerned that no one has ever slapped a latinate moniker on their hirsute posteriors.
Bonus etymology
All American tarantulas belong to the genus Aphonopelma. According to Henry F. Beechhold, this name is derived from the Greek elements aphonos, “silent”, and pelma, “[sole of the] foot”. (I haven’t cracked Liddell and Scott on this one, so we’ll have to take his word for this.) I think it’s unfair of tarantulas — even tiny ones — to be pussy-footed; I’d rather be able to hear them coming. On the other hand, I once heard the click of a cockroach’s feet as it walked across ceramic tile, and that was fairly disturbing, so maybe, on second thought, silence is golden.
E and I managed a bit of a getaway northward this weekend. We’re back home now, unsure if we were gone a month or a minute. But I’ll be putting up some images from the trip to prove we were somewhere else, for however long it was. Here’s one from late Sunday afternoon, of yuccas and the Bradshaw Mountains:
I don’t usually favor the hectic clarity of unrepentant HDR editing — it can be used subtly to great effect — but the Arizona landscape is able to stand up to the full treatment. The heightened color and clarity imposed by all-out HDR supplies a fairytale quality that suits the country, as if the hopped-up postcard images filling the rotating metal racks in the tourist shops were really real. This photo was shot and edited on my iPhone.
I felt like a paparazza, drawing as close as I dared, trying to hold my proper camera with the big zoom steady in the failing light. But she was calmly perched out in the open, low on our back fence, mobbed by smaller birds. Hummingbirds orbited her, scolding, like cheeky electrons, but she ignored them. She looked at me, and looked away, bored. She might be the same one I took photos of last year in our big pine tree; maybe, maybe not.
<< tonight’s Great Horned Owl, Bubo virginianus (all photos A.Shock, Canon EOS xti)
She was clutching E’s rain gauge — you can just see its acrylic rim over the fence, one of her dark talons curved over it. Tomorrow morning I’ll go out to see if she left scratches in the plastic, like the woodpeckers do scrabbling for balance on the swinging hummingbird feeders.
I had been hearing the flickers, hummers, a couple of irate mockingbirds, the pair of thrashers who live in the yard, and even a gnatcatcher for a few minutes before it
occurred to me go out to see what the fuss was all about.
Flickering flicker. If you’ve ever wondered why this woodpecker species is called “gilded flicker”, you can see the golden coloration under the flight feathers and tail >>
The owl was overlooking a part of the yard where the cottontails have little cover but apparently there was no action, because after a while, she made a short flight into a small palo verde that has volunteered in the alley, and sat there for a while until it grew dark, looking around at her hostile avian entourage, glaring upward at a 
circling helicopter as if it were mobbing her too, yet still keeping a downward eye hoping for dinner.
<< On the palo verde throne, fierce-footed
When last seen, she launched towards the butte into the dusk, a gray blur against the graying sky.
Among the sculptural vessels I’ve made recently for upcoming holiday sales, a couple things stand out. This is one of them:
Feather Bundle Jar with Owl (13.5″ ht, stoneware 2011, photo and object A.Shock) >>
What you can’t see in the photo is the interior glaze, a fiery glossy red that contrasts strongly with the dry, dinosaur-green outside. The jewel-like red studs give a hint of what’s on the inside, however.
This piece will be available starting tomorrow at the Three Star Owl booth at Audubon Arizona’s Gifts from Nature event tomorrow and Sunday (12 – 13 Nov, 10am-4pm, click here for details).
I’ll also be offering functional pieces, including frog skeleton mugs, scorpion mugs, beastie pitchers, and ravenware, just for starters. As always it bears repeating: Come early for best selection!
And, they’ve pretty much taken rain out of the forecast for Saturday, at least — so really, there’s no excuse!
You probably found the bird already — it’s a kea — but if not below is a partially colorized version of the photo in the previous Spot the Bird post.
This big alpine parrot, its head partially obscured by vegetation, was one of the freeloaders who hang out near the line of cars waiting to pass through the one-lane Homer tunnel. This guy was on the Milford Sound side of the tunnel (Fiordland, South Island, New Zealand) and had been working the cars fearlessly (see photo below). In the Spot the Bird photo on the left, he’s deep in the shrubbery, pretending to be invisible.
Of course, we’d watching him climb in there, or we’d never would have found him.
(All photos A.Shock)
