Post #236 November 23 2020 “Og, Grog and the Origins of Story” Over a number of posts in the past, I’ve had a lot of fun with our prehistoric guys Og and Grog and speculating how storytelling might have begun. Recently, I read an excerpt from a book called Ancient Bones (authors: Madaleine Bohm, Rudiger Braun and Florian Breier) that seems to shed light on this interesting subject. The gist of their analysis is that speech, and thus language, may have started with gestures, like our primate friends the chimps, bonobos and orangutans. From gestures, they theorize, speech and later language evolved. Abstractions and concepts came after that. It’s not too hard to imagine storytelling evolving from these humble beginnings. We seem to be hardwired to tell each other stories. Perhaps story evolved from Og and Grog relating to their tribemates how a recent hunt went down: We detected the game, we stalked it for days, we surrounded the game, we killed it and now we share the spoils. Look at the structure: you’ve got a hero and a problem, complications, rising action, an apotheosis or high point and a wrap up with a moral and lessons learned. Sounds like a story, right? Here’s what the authors of Ancient Bones have to say: There is some indication that the evolution of the hand had a significant influence on the development of speech. You can deduce this indirectly by observing our closest relatives, the great apes or by watching children as they acquire language, using hand gestures to indicate what they want long before they say their first words. For humans, gestures are an important component of expression. They both precede and accompany speech. Chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans are also capable of communicating with gestures. The vast majority are just simple orders, such as “Give me that!” “Come closer!” “Groom my fur!” “I want sex!” or “Stop that!” All these gestures serve to start or stop a specific behavior. Michael Tomasello from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig have been searching for the origins of language for the past two decades. It seems that it all started with gestures, centered around self-interest and then, sometime in the story of becoming human, gestures were added to share experiences, intentions, interests and rules. Communication originated when early humans started pointing to things to show them to others. For example, an early hominin may have pointed to a vulture that was circling overhead, over a recently killed animal. At first, pointing gestures would have helped coordinate communal activities such as hunting or child rearing. Later they evolved into more complex signs for concepts, such as a fluttering movement to indicate a bird or cradling the arms to indicate a baby. According to Tomasello, sounds were then added to augment and expand this language of gestures. This corresponds with American psycholinguist David McNeill’s idea that gestures are basically nothing more than thoughts or mental images translated into movement. Having the hands free was a necessary part of the evolution of speech—and integral to communication as we know it today. And I would add to the origins of story itself. Think about that next time you read a story. It all may have begun with Og and Grog gesturing and grunting at their tribemates about how the hunt went down, so many millions of years ago. The next post to The Word Shed comes on December 7. I’ll be skipping a week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Have a great Thanksgiving and I’ll see you then. Phil B.

Post #235 November 16 2020 “The Eureka Gambit is Now Underway!” Starting the first draft of a new novel is always a time of great anticipation, some anxiety and, for me, a good bit of determination to just plow ahead and get the job done. Toward that end, I have started The Eureka Gambit as planned on 2 November 2020. Below is an excerpt from the opening scene: Chapter 1 Wolf’s Lair Rastenburg, Germany September 23, 1943 (from the diary of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Reichsminister of Propaganda) “I asked the Fuehrer whether he would be ready to negotiate with Churchill…He does not believe that negotiations with Churchill would lead to any result as he is too deeply wedded to his hostile views and, besides, is guided by hatred and not by reason. The Fuehrer would prefer negotiations with Stalin, but he does not believe they would be successful…whatever may be the situation, I told the Fuehrer that we must come to an arrangement with one side or the other. The Reich has never yet won a two-front war. We must therefore see how we can somehow or other get out of a two-front war.” Dasht-i-Kavir Desert, Iran Lat. 35 North, Long 53 East November 26, 1943 0235 hours It was past midnight in the Iranian desert, some one hundred and fifty kilometers from Tehran. A convoy of trucks waited patiently alongside a cleared landing strip in the desert hardpan. There was a sound of distant aircraft. Suddenly, landing lights blazed on, outlining the crude runway. Then, one after another, three Junkers Ju-290 transports bearing no markings made bumpy landings on the strip, a location their maps called Alpen-Eins. The landing lights went out immediately and the scene was then illuminated by lights from the trucks. The aircraft taxied one after another in swirling dust and freezing cold to a stop alongside the convoy. The lead aircraft, part of the Luftwaffe Special Operations squadron, opened its forward doors and a steady stream of soldiers emerged, making their way carefully down the portable ladders to the ground. The flight of the KG200 squadron had taken nearly ten hours, from a secret airfield in the Crimean Peninsula, near Simferopol. The aircraft were loaded with squads of Einsatzgruppen soldiers from SS Battalion Friedenthal, as well as ample supplies of clothing, weapons, ammunition and rations. SS Sturmbannfuhrer Otto Skorzeny hopped down from the ladder and stood to one side, lighting up his favorite Turkish-brand Sulima cigarettes, while the men and their equipment were offloaded from the transports and placed carefully but hurriedly aboard the trucks. Skorzeny watched the operation, rehearsed scores of times before, with a critical eye. The night air was freezing cold and a stiff wind had fetched up. He fingered the fencing scar along his chin; dry air always made it itch terribly. It had been a long, cramped, bumpy trip from the KG200 airfield, but it had come off without incident. Skorzeny felt a strange mixture of pride, anxiety, and grim determination as he watched. He knew he’d received a great honor from the Fuhrer in being selected again for such a mission, a mission so the Fuhrer had said, that was critical to the Reich. Coming on the heels of his daring rescue of the Duce, Benito Mussolini, at the Gran Sasso hotel in Italy, the Fuhrer’s decision to mount Operation Long Jump, with he, Skorzeny, as commander was a singular honor and a sobering responsibility. In the privacy of his own thoughts, Skorzeny had given the mission less than a fifty percent chance of being successful. But so much was at stake and he had always been a dedicated soldat, determined to carry out his orders to the end. The operation involved nearly a hundred men in all, organized into three detachments. Their targets: Josef Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, all meeting in two days in Tehran for the Eureka Conference. Abwehr intelligence had only confirmed the details two days ago, giving Skorzeny the final green light to depart from Simferopol less than twelve hours before. A husky lieutenant came up. It was Hans Eisler, White Detachment commander. Eisler was huddling with his back to the wind to light up a cigarette of his own. He was tall, solidly built, with a blond crew cut and a deep scar along his left chin, the result of a parachuting accident only last year. The SS Obersturmfuhrer had unusually big hands and feet, which often came in handy in field operations. His men called him Der Bar…the Bear. “Herr Sturmbannfuhrer, we’re getting the uniforms out now…see, they’re in those crates.” Eisler indicated with his cigarette several wooden crates now being laboriously slid down a loading ramp. Skorzeny nodded approvingly, knowing how many operatives had died obtaining the Soviet Red Army uniforms and insignia. “Have your men get into them right away. And hurry—” Skorzeny looked around their makeshift desert landing site. “We’re exposed as hell around here. The sooner we get underway, the better.” Eisler acknowledged the orders. “At once, Sturmbannfuhrer. It’s still hard to believe, isn’t it, that we were able to obtain this gear on such short notice. Gymnastyorka, I think the Russians call them. Scratchy, ill-fitting rags, if you ask me. Most of the tunics are too tight.” “A lot of brave men died to get those, Eisler. They may look ragged and fit poorly, but with any luck, they’ll get us past the checkpoints. That’s all that matters.” Eisler said, “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it immediately.” The commander of White Detachment hustled off to hurry his men up. Skorzeny appraised the operation with an analytical eye, missing no detail. He had trained these men hard, for weeks, after the Fuhrer’s orders. First at the old hunting lodge at Friedenthal, near Oranienburg. Then later at special training camps in the occupied Crimea. Infantry and engineer training had come first, but each man had to be familiar with the handling of mortars, light field artillery and tank guns. It was essential that each man be able to ride a motorcycle and drive a car and a lorry as well as troubleshoot problems with a variety of specialized vehicles. Even these stolen American Lend-Lease ‘Deuce and a Half” Jimmy trucks, Skorzeny chuckled. Other training included days of sports like football, riding, parachutes jumps by the dozen, special courses in languages and surveying, tactics…the training had gone on for weeks, stretching into months. Skorzeny was proud of his men, volunteers all. Only a few had washed out of the training, most of them due to injuries and disease. He knew he could count on their devotion and maximum effort in Operation Long Jump…the riskiest and most complicated special mission the SS or the Wehrmacht had ever undertaken…and one vital to the war and the future of the Reich. Okay, so that’s the excerpt. Tell me what you think. I have an extensive 40-page outline that I am writing from and after six days of work, I’m at page 30 of what will probably be a 200-250- page story. So, a pretty good start. And I’ve already altered some scenes in my outline, to accommodate my storyteller’s sense that these changes are needed. I use the outline to keep me on track as far as the general flow of the story goes, but I’m okay with deviations if the story seems to need it. This story is a bit of a departure for me, as I have been working in the world of science fiction for the last few years. I have done this type of what-if? historical novel before, in fact three times, with The Eyeball Conspiracy, The Peking Incident, and Final Victory. This is not a new type of story for me, and it’s kind of refreshing to do something different. That said, I have probably another 4-5 months of writing ahead to complete the first draft. I expect this to occur in March 2021. After that, comes editing, re-writing, moving scenes around and general cleanup to complete the book. I’m tentatively targeting to have The Eureka Gambit available for upload by Memorial Day, next year, which means 31 May 2021. We’ll see. The next post to The Word Shed comes on November 23. See you then. Phil B.