Frank Norris, Decadent Humorist: The 1897 Version of The Joyous Miracle

The once-popular Joyous Miracle is now a distinctly minor short story in the canon of Frank Norris. First given separate publication in England and the United States as a Christmas giftbook in 1906, it was then being recycled for its earning potential as a seasonal offering; for it had already appeared as an 1898 Christmas piece in McClure\u27s Magazine under the title Miracle Joyeux. Norris\u27s contemporaries held it in high regard: for example, the New Orleans Times-Democrat found the McClure\u27s version a charming sketch and praised its author for succeeding with a difficult-to-handle theme-difficult because its featured character was the son of God, and therefore a risky venture in fiction. Later, in 1909 when the California journalist Will Irwin wrote his introduction to a collection of Norris\u27s short stories entitled The Third Circle, he ranked it with the title story and The House with the Blinds as among Norris\u27s most impressive early efforts. Since 1909, however, no one has characterized it thus; nonspecialists who teach McTeague and A Deal in Wheat are most likely not even aware of its existence

The dynamic geophysical environment of (101955) Bennu based on OSIRIS-REx measurements

The top-shaped morphology characteristic of asteroid (101955) Bennu, often found among fast-spinning asteroids and binary asteroid primaries, may have contributed substantially to binary asteroid formation. Yet a detailed geophysical analysis of this morphology for a fast-spinning asteroid has not been possible prior to the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. Combining the measured Bennu mass and shape obtained during the Preliminary Survey phase of the OSIRIS-REx mission, we find a notable transition in Bennu’s surface slopes within its rotational Roche lobe, defined as the region where material is energetically trapped to the surface. As the intersection of the rotational Roche lobe with Bennu’s surface has been most recently migrating towards its equator (given Bennu’s increasing spin rate), we infer that Bennu’s surface slopes have been changing across its surface within the last million years. We also find evidence for substantial density heterogeneity within this body, suggesting that its interior is a mixture of voids and boulders. The presence of such heterogeneity and Bennu’s top shape are consistent with spin-induced failure at some point in its past, although the manner of its failure cannot yet be determined. Future measurements by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will provide insight into and may resolve questions regarding the formation and evolution of Bennu’s top-shape morphology and its link to the formation of binary asteroids

Evidence for widespread hydrated minerals on asteroid (101955) Bennu

Early spectral data from the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission reveal evidence for abundant hydrated minerals on the surface of near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu in the form of a near-infrared absorption near 2.7 µm and thermal infrared spectral features that are most similar to those of aqueously altered CM-type carbonaceous chondrites. We observe these spectral features across the surface of Bennu, and there is no evidence of substantial rotational variability at the spatial scales of tens to hundreds of metres observed to date. In the visible and near-infrared (0.4 to 2.4 µm) Bennu’s spectrum appears featureless and with a blue (negative) slope, confirming previous ground-based observations. Bennu may represent a class of objects that could have brought volatiles and organic chemistry to Earth

Our Frame of Reference in the Twenty-First Century

Several months ago I began to wonder, what could I possibly say in this address that members of our Association had not heard before? How to begin after a full dinner, with an audience of slightly drowsy, cropful scholars who share so many of the same articles of faith regarding theory and practice? What had Mary-Jo Kline not at least touched upon in her magisterial Guide to Documentary Editing? What had we not discussed since the mid-1980\u27s when I attended my first ADE annual meeting in Providence, Rhode Island? What kindly advice had G. Thomas Tanselle not thundered; which comic note or chord had that rascal John Simon not sounded? Novelty was possible if I recounted my experiences with the textual remains of Anne Bradstreet, Charles W Chesnutt, and my pet figure Frank Norris. But these seemed rather narrow topics to inflict upon an audience so various and, at this hour, so near to the gate of the kingdom of Nod. Interest might be stirred did I suggest that we jettison the sobriquet of editor so that we might end the ongoing ordeal of having to explain to others special kind of editing we do. Good Lord, how many times do we have to go through that? But, should my modest proposal trigger a riot, the ADE treasurer would be hard pressed to pay for the broken crockery, bent flatware, and my medical bills. Finally, a bit of documentary evidence having to do with Norris suggested a solution. I recalled his response to a like situation: he decided to speak on nothing----absolutely nothing at all. That was the actual subject of a formal presentation he made when a student at Berkeley. It occurred to me, then, that my only hope for finding the-road-less-traveled-by lay in likewise testing the wayward path of irrelevance. Thus I cast my lot; and, in short order, real life provided a portion of my script, truth having once again trumped fiction and pointed the way that I should venture forth

The Transformation of Social Institutions in the North American Southeast

Corporate institutions, which transformed in the American Southeast over some 14,000 years, include social heterarchies and hierarchies that arose within the institutional contexts of descent groups, ritual sodalities, and social houses. The strategic and tactical actions of competitive and cooperative agents contributed to differing expressions of organizational changes through a variety of forms, including feasting, feuding/warfare, inalienable goods circulation, indebtedness, monumental constructions, mortuary events, processions/rogations, strategic marriages, and additional ritual and social practices. The nexus of social institutions that evolved along these pathways served as a catalyst for social changes, including the ways through which social institutions became transformed. Such social processes inform archaeologists of the agency, organization, and practice of people who not only invented and manipulated cosmologies, ideologies, institutions, and resources to achieve varying degrees of inequality, power, and wealth, but also those who resisted the efforts of aggrandizers. The author’s arguments focus on aristocratic social actions and actors, and the practices that enabled them to gain power and wealth through exclusive and restrictive corporate institutions

Craters, boulders and regolith of (101955) Bennu indicative of an old and dynamic surface

Small, kilometre-sized near-Earth asteroids are expected to have young and frequently refreshed surfaces for two reasons: collisional disruptions are frequent in the main asteroid belt where they originate, and thermal or tidal processes act on them once they become near-Earth asteroids. Here we present early measurements of numerous large candidate impact craters on near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) mission, which indicate a surface that is between 100 million and 1 billion years old, predating Bennu’s expected duration as a near-Earth asteroid. We also observe many fractured boulders, the morphology of which suggests an influence of impact or thermal processes over a considerable amount of time since the boulders were exposed at the surface. However, the surface also shows signs of more recent mass movement: clusters of boulders at topographic lows, a deficiency of small craters and infill of large craters. The oldest features likely record events from Bennu’s time in the main asteroid belt