Things you were shockingly old when you learned

Berlin being an island city meant that people who wanted to avoid conscription would move there which fed into the artistic and squatting scenes.
I think otherwise everybody of age in Germany needed to spend a year or 2 in the armed forces.

Just learned today that all North American horses are immigrants (their prehistoric forebears on the continent having been driven to extinction).

― I'm Calling My Loyer! (Old Lunch), Wednesday, August 2, 2017 8:14 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yep, and native American horse culture has only existed since the 18th century.

I thought there were supposed to be dwarf versions of the horse in some parts of the Americas but nothing large enough to prompt the development of the wheel. Though that would be odd if you have the llama etc further south which i would have thought might be a draught animal of a sort, though limited in size much more than a shire horse.

Also interesting to think about non-Western history as a continual flux thing instead of the static continuum that it seems to default to in the Western mind. So the introduction of an element as pervasive as the horse must have really changed things. Like how a tribe would be able to provide for itself and its mobility etc and therefore what areas it would live in. Isn't there an extent to which tribes with horses drove previously predominant tribes back out of what had been their traditional areas?

Yep, Western viewpoints tend to imagine other cultures as having been static and unchanged for as long as they existed, when in fact all cultures are constantly changing and developing. THere's quite a lot about that in Yuval Noah Harari's 'Sapiens' which everyone seems to be reading at the moment

More here: http://www.equitours.com/views-from-the-saddle/article/the-horse-and-native-american-culture/

I remember at perhaps nine years old asking my parents, "why don't people just go _around_ the wall?

Co-sign, I don't know if I asked my parents and I was considerably older than 9! When you look a map and see just far east Berlin is then it's no surprise the Red Army got there first.

was really haunted by the ending of Ivan's Childhood, where it cuts to real Red Army Berlin footage and you see Goebbels + family + kids corpses etc.

the Yuval Noah Harari book looks interesting actually, might check it out.

it's a good fun read. lots of 'I didn't know/didn't think about that' moments

Idk why that would be common knowledge about horses, tbh. On the other hand, I need to admit that I didn't realize that about the Berlin Wall vs Inner German Border, which should be common knowledge, at least for someone who remembers when the wall came down.

xpost It certainly seems to align with my current reading topics. I shall look into it.

Also learned recently that there's apparently no consensus for what caused the extinction of the megafauna (e.g. horses, mammoths, giant sloths, camels (!!!)) in the Americas. I guess I thought they just froze to death or something but nope.

I guess it isn't common knowledge but I am shocked to have only learned about it in my dotage. It seems like the kind of thing that would've come up.

One theory I've read on the Asian/American megafauns extinction is that because they evolved on separate continents to humankind, they didn't learn how dangerous we were quickly enough. Whereas the African megafauns evolved with us, and knew to stay the fuck away.

There's more than one theory but calzino's is one of the most agreed one. Megafauna in Australia, America etc died out pretty much as soon as humans populated the landmass, mostly cos they didn't know to run away. This is why some of the last megafauna to die out were in places like Siberia and Tasmania, which were either too inhospitable or too remote to be reached early on in human prehistory.

Also - people brought alien diseases and other animals (dogs etc) with them from other landmasses that wouldn't have helped

There was a book i read at the start of teh Millenium when i was researching a thesis I never finished that talks about Europeans bringing various environmental things with them when they expanded into the new world. Ecological Imperialism by Alfred Crosby.
Those included various vermin, plants etc. Which themselves reformatted the ecosystem.
I think he also talks about the ancestors of the Australian Aborigines causing extinction with existing eco0system as they arrived how ever many thousand years ago that was. & probably goes into the arrival of teh Native Americans ancestors as they arrived from Asia.
So interesting book but may carry its own prejudices. But what was in it was interesting.

Also (not to turn this thread into Archaeology Corner) just learned that there was a completely random and isolated prehistoric human settlement in Chile which predates mankind's first foray into the Americas via the Bering Strait by at least a thousand years, apparently with little real consensus of how they even got there. I'm guessing...time travelers?

ah that's really interesting. Wouldn't mind hearing more about that. Is there an Archaeology Corner or human migration thread?

I don't know! I'd like to read more from people who know more than I do about this stuff. But this is the place, anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde

I was always confused about the Berlin Blockade and Gen. Marshall dropping care packages into West Berlin. "What, were there three other walls?"

In a way, yes, I guess.

Add me to the list of people who didn't realize west Berlin was an enclave until well into my 20s. I guess I just assumed that east and west Germany were split right through the middle of Berlin (and never bothered to check that against a map). Pre-wikipedia thinking, I think.

JUst found out that Sonda Andersson bassist with Live Skull and Rat At Rat R is the cousin of Glenn Branca. Have loved at least Positraction for about 28 years so surprised I hadn't heard that before now.

i was pretty old when i learned that too

I too

I envy the fortunate children who are taught such wisdom from birth.

"Timmy, know that mama loves you and will always take care of you. Also, A is for apple. Also, know that bassist Sonda Andersson is Glenn Branca's cousin. Also, a dog says woof."

"What, to everyone? Or just Glenn Branca?"

The Dave Stewart of 'It's my party and I'll cry etc' isn't the Eurythmics Dave Stewart.

Guy from Arzachel, Egg & Khan isn't it?
& Batrbara Gaskin was in Spirogyra

David A. Stewart... no, hold on, that is Dave Stewart from the Eurhythmics, at one point the guy from Egg etc was the more famous Dave Stewart.

I saw the Eurhythmics one at a Nauman exhibition at the Tate Modern once. Seemed like an interesting person a total dick. I think at the time he had been buying up some 90's YBA garbage and was often talking up Damien Hirst as the best thing since Picasso.

I only learned recently that when I am driving down the road and come across a sign that says "accident investigation site ahead" that means there is a place for you to pull over if you get into an accident. For years I thought it meant that there had been an accident so terrible that they had to put up a permanent accident investigation sign.

The eighties has-been twat in Nathan Barley is supposed to be Dave Stewart, isn't he?

I can't think of Dave Stewart anymore without thinking of that character.

there's a half-man half-biscuit song that starts 'quick, run, hide, here comes dave stewart. he's got that look in his eyes, that "let's do a project" look'.

something something 'third-rate swiss agit-prop'

(think it was a peel session track that was never recorded)

http://halfmanhalfbiscuit.uk/peel-sessions-and-other-one-offs/mars-ultras-youll-never-make-the-station/

In The Garden is still a great lp anyway. Not sure about after that.

But was thinking about that monkey hour Nathan Barley thing. Wondered if that was a Popul Vuh reference or is Affenstunde a wider idea in German thought?

The night we met I got home about 11.30pm. I felt so inspired by him, by his ideas, by his raw nerve, I wrote a song called 'Damien Save Me' - from mediocrity and from people who don't share their emotions. The next morning I went up to the studio and put it all down on tape: 'Damien save me and be my guide, sooner or later we're all gonna die, when we were walking through the streets, everything you said was bitter sweet . . . Cut me in half and I'll let you see, what this whole wide world has done to me.' When I played it to him he just said, 'Wow', and kissed me.

dave stewart on his friendship with damien hirst. Even the fictional version of him couldn't be a bigger twat!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Stewart#Music

XP that is fucking appalling

If that would have been a transcript of Speer and Hitler presented at Nuremberg, he'd have gone to the gallows. I wonder if he flogged his Hirst pieces before their value completely plummeted along with his rep!

David A. Stewart (born 1952), English musician and record producer best known for his work with Eurythmics
Dave Stewart (keyboardist) (born 1950), former member of Egg, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Bruford, now works with vocalist Barbara Gaskin
Dave Stewart (trombonist), bass trombonist and music teacher based in London
Dave Stewart, drummer with the group Camel
Dave Stewart, guitar and vocals with Steve Hillage's band

... there's a band in the making.

to give damien his due, chopped in half and tanked is a pleasing description for what happened to the eurythmics and dave stewart's solo career respectively

Dave Stewart (keys) and Dave Stewart (gtr) both played with Steve Hillage, hopefully, for Steve's sake, not at the same time.

which dave had the hit with colin blunstone?

keys

the egg man

I can't remember this, but my partner said Dave A gave her a really shitty look of disapproval because we'd brought a nipper to a Bruce Nauman exhibition. But I'd dread to venture a kids at art exhibitions discussion on here after how the kids in pubs thread went!

Well, I took Amber and Alice to the Spencer Tunnick exhib in the Baltic Centre, so ner.

Anyway, Dave S wrote another song about when Jack Nicholson phoned him, called "It's Jack Calling"

Whereas Dave S wore a PIL t-shirt on his appearance on top of the pops.

Anyway, Dave S wrote another song about when Jack Nicholson phoned him, called "It's Jack Calling"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY5P5F3IYoQ

The nobbly bits on pavements help visually impaired people judge where the kerb is.

OK thats a worthy one! what'dye think they did?

OK, I've just found out what RT means - re-tweet - I thought it meant Russia Today. I'm right naive, me.