History

My Favorite Cave

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The aurochs is an extinct form of cattle that overlapped with humans for tens of thousands of years. It lived in Europe, North Africa, and western Asia; the last one died in 1627. We domesticated it: Our modern-day beef cattle and dairy cows are descended from the aurochs and some of them bear a deep resemblance to the extinct animal. (Picture a bull in a bullfight, but make the animal taller and even more muscular; this would have made a bullfight a bit more even.) The reason for the extinction of the aurochs is the all-too familiar one, and it can be summed up as: Humans have enjoyed beef for a very long time.

Early modern humans, homo sapiens, showed up around 100,000 years ago, and we really started to leave a mark on the landscape around 40,000 years ago. This is deep in our prehistory, and no one knows what our Upper Paleolithic ancestors were thinking. It just appears that thinking is something they were doing.
Read More

I’m My Great-Great-Great-Great … Grand-Who?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“Happy Father’s Day, dad.”—Me

To the best of my knowledge, there are no murderers in the part of the family tree that leads directly to me. I have done my best to maintain this streak of successfully not murdering anyone, but if I am ever accused, I will not be the first person named Mark Aldrich to be charged with murder.
Read More

Les Paul & The Last Word

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Les Paul was born 100 years ago today. Even if you do not remember or can not name any of his couple dozen hit songs, if you are listening to music at this moment, you are listening to his influence, no matter what style of music you have on. He invented multi-track recording in the 1940s, for instance, so unless you are listening to a monaural recording on an acetate disc from that era, you are listening to a multi-track recording.

It is true that multi-track recording is one of those things that someone was going to invent out of necessity, but Les Paul is the man who responded to that necessity.

He also invented the solid-body electric guitar and the amplification system for it, so if you are listening to an electric guitar right now, you are listening to Les Paul’s influence. And you might even be listening to a Gibson Les Paul model guitar—Gibson started selling a model based on his design in the early 1950s—Eric Clapton played a Les Paul while he was with Cream. “Sunshine of Your Love?” That’s a Les Paul.
Read More