Chapter 65

Our dinner terminated early and dad took mum home. The four of us walked to our place and I suggested that Henry and Sarah might enjoy an hour or so while Rachel and I took a walk. Henry looked wary and Sarah anticipatory. Rachel said nothing. We walked along King Street.

"You know what they'll be doing?"

"I certainly hope so. It should relieve some of Sarah's tension prior to embarking on her adventure."

Rachel mused a bit. "Have you ever heard of Olle Baertling?"

"No. Not at all."

"Apparently he's an important Swedish abstractionist. I'd not seen anything, but I came across a quote and have looked him up on the Web."

"What did he say?"

"'Non-figurative art is the manifestation of the creative power of abstract man'."

"That's very deep."

"Yes. So are his pictures and his sculptures. There's a book about him. I sent for it."

As a concrete-abstract painter during the 1950s and 60s, Olle Baertling (1911-1981) developed a personal pictorial universe, while also occupying a firm position among the "Salon des Realites Nouvelles" and Galerie Denise Rene in Paris. His work was highly influential on American Op artists and Minimalists like Donald Judd.

"If you're going to write about Williams, you'll need to know more about other abstractionists."

"Exactly. But I was thinking about it because you and I seem to know what we're doing, yet our siblings are somewhat adrift."

"It's us who are eccentric, not Al nor Sarah. I'll bet most college students aren't sure as to what they want to be when they grow up."

Rachel squeezed my hand. "As though you're going to grow up soon!"

"WOWCOW or Gelato Blue?" I asked.

"Gelato Blue. I love their sour cherry."

I ordered macadamia and we sat upstairs for a while. When they closed at eleven, we strolled home. Henry was gone; Sarah had put the bed linen in the washer; and she was reading.

"This is definitely lava," Henry said, holding a flattish object in his hand. "I forget what kind it is. It's not the ropy kind we get on Hawaii. Maybe it is A'a. But it is basaltic lava."

"The label says Timian."

"I know, but it might have originated anywhere south of Anatahan in the chain."

Anatahan volcano forms the small 9 x 3.7 E-W elongated Anatahan Island in the northern Marianas, about 120 km north of Saipan, the regional Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands capital.
The volcano is at the southern end of the 1500 km long chain of volcanoes formed by the Izu-Bonin-Mariana subduction-zone volcanic arc.

The island is only a tiny fraction (about 1%) of the volcano's entire volume, which rises 3700 m from the sea floor and has a basal diameter of 35 km. It is topped by a 5x2.3 km wide E-W elongated summit caldera. Its principal crater is a 1.4x1.2 km wide and 200 m deep pit crater in the eastern part of the caldera. The highest point of the island is on the western rim.

The first known volcanic activity occurred in 2003, when the volcano came back to life, and has been in a state of frequent eruptions since then.

"Over 300 kilometres."

"Right. And it's the end of a much longer chain. But it's interesting because of these scratches."

"It looks like the one in the archaeology pamphlet."

"Yes. I was wondering whether your dad might be able to identify it."

"Ask him."

"I'm nervous about doing it."

"No. Make an appointment to see him about this. It's archaeology and entomology. It has nothing to do with Sarah or taxidermy."

Henry went off, I just looked at the dozens of ceramic shards and the volcanic slab. Strange what these evidences of humanity amounted to. Much to my surprise my dad was with Henry when he appeared.

"I had to see what was up," he said. "These things might be important to the Museum."

Henry showed him the scratchings as well as the photo in the Bishop Museum Bulletin. "Hmm. Hard to know. Not a cockroach. Probably one of the Coleoptera."

"But it looks like eight legs," I protested.

"Don't worry. It's not a tick nor a spider nor a scorpion. And even the greatest make mistakes. In The History of animals Aristotle says that insects have eight legs."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. My guess is that he was in the Stoa with some students when the question of 'leggedness' arose. He lifted a hand and hit a spider on a column. 'Lo!' he said. 'We can count eight legs. Therefore each has eight.' Good pragmatic demonstration. If he'd killed a fly, he'd have counted six. Why should he have thought that arachnids and insects were different?"