Beautiful Bones

BONE APPRECIATION

Posted on by vlaw759

Several professions, including—but not limited to—doctors, trainers, physical therapist, dancers, and athletes are hyper aware of bones. But bones are important to everyone for simply living and functioning. So let’s show bones a little love!

Check out the rest of my October bone series: Bone Music, Bone Eating, and Fortune Telling Bones!

Metaphorical Bones

Basically, a metaphor is when the meaning isn’t what the words literally say. Writers are very aware of the value of metaphors, but they are more prevalent in our everyday lives than we might think. Bones are very useful this way!

bone appreciation
Skeleton authors are especially appreciative of bone-y metaphors

No backbone/spineless: lacking courage or willpower

Boneheaded: a stupid person, a dunce

A bone to pick with you: wanting to discuss a problem or grievance

Bone of contention: a point of disagreement, matter of dispute

Bag of bones: very thin, skinny

Bone weary: extremely tired, exhausted

Sawbones: a physician, especially a surgeon

No bones about it: to speak frankly or directly, no hesitation or evasion, to emphasize certainty

Funny bone: a point on the elbow, nerve close to the surface, which when struck produces a tingling sensation; sense of humor (as in, that joke tickles my funny bone)

Bare bones: essentials, basic elements, no details

Bone chilling: extremely cold, causing feelings of fear or terror

Boner: embarrassing mistake, an erection

And One Step Removed:

The original knuckle-dragger

Jawing: scolding, clamorous, or abusive talk

Knuckle-dragger: strong but dimwitted

Glass jaw: vulnerability physical (e.g., a boxer easily knocked out) or more metaphorical (a public figure’s vulnerability to destructive criticism)

Weak-kneed: lacking willpower, strength of character, or purpose, timid

Functional Bones

Functional can still be fancy!

Bones are absolutely essential for survival, movement, and health.

They protect internal organs from impact injury, especially the brain and heart.

They produce white blood cells to fight infection.

Bone marrow produces red blood cells to carry oxygen.

Bones literally hold up the body and keep it from collapsing to the ground. Your posture depends on your bones.

Certain types of bones store fat and then release it when your body needs energy.

Bones can also store necessary minerals when their blood levels are too high. They release these minerals when the body needs them. Examples include calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D.

Problem Bones

Very problematic bones indeed!

When things go wrong with bones, they can go very wrong indeed.

Arthritis. A painful condition where the joints wear down, causing inflammation in the joints.

Scoliosis. This is when the bones in the spine are no longer straight. Sometimes called curvature of the spine.

Cancers. Unfortunately, there are certain cancers that can form inside of your bones and impact your skeletal system.

Breaks. Bones can break — sometimes very badly. Although your bones can heal breaks on their own, people typically need medical help to help a broken bone heal properly.

Osteoporosis. Bone resorption disease characterized by thinning of bone tissue and decreased skeletal strength. It is the most common reason for broken bones among the elderly.

Healing Bones

Even bones need to rest

A broken bone can seriously hinder one’s ability to function, particularly a broken arm or leg. Fortunately, our bones can almost always heal themselves.

  • Bones repair themselves so quickly that you have a new skeleton about every seven years.
  • Arms are among the most commonly broken bones, accounting for almost half of all adults’ broken bones.
  • The collarbone is the most commonly broken bone among children.
  • Most broken bones heal on their own — blood vessels form in the area almost immediately after you break it to help the healing process begin. Within 21 days, collagen forms to harden and hold the broken pieces in place. A cast or brace only ensures the bone heals straight to avoid more problems in the future.

Fun Facts About Bones

This section is included because it is just so interesting—at least to me!

  • Technically, tooth enamel is bone, the strongest in the body.
  • The adult human body has 206 bones (some say up to 213), but infants have many more: 270-300 or so.
  • A 13th rib is rare — only 0.2% to 0.5% of people are born with it. This extra rib, called a cervical rib, can cause medical issues like neck pain, so people born with this extra rib often have it removed.
  • More than half the bones in the body are in the hands and feet. Each hand has 27 bones, while each foot has 26. Together, that’s a combined 106 bones.
  • The femur, or thighbone, is the longest and strongest bone of the human skeleton.
  • The stapes, in the middle ear, is the smallest and lightest bone of the human skeleton.
  • Bones stop growing in length during puberty. Bone density and strength will change over the course of a lifetime, however.
  • The upper arm bone is called the humerus, which gives the “funny bone” its name. In reality, anytime you bang your elbow, it’s the ulnar nerve causing the tingling feeling.
  • The only bone in the human body not connected to another is the hyoid, a V-shaped bone located at the base of the tongue. It anchors the tongue and helps you speak and swallow. It’s held in place by ligaments, muscles, and cartilage

Bottom Line: There are things about bones that anyone can and everyone should appreciate.

BONE SERIES: MUSIC

Posted on by vlaw759

In October, I think of bones. And what uses might bones have besides holding up human and animal bodies? This week’s blog is the first of my October bone series.

Wind Chimes

Archeological evidence of wind chimes dates back almost 5000 years. They were first used in Asian, Mediterranean, and Egyptian civilizations. In South East Asia, historians have found remains of wind chimes made from bone, wood, bamboo, shells, jade, and bronze in about 3000 BCE. Ancient peoples may have thought chimes warded off evil spirits. A more practical use in Indonesia was to scare birds from crops.

Wind chimes at Chandigarh

Different cultures attribute unique meanings to wind chimes:

Today, you can still buy bone wind chimes, for example, on Etsy at prices ranging from $30 to $300.

Musical Rasps (Omichicahuaztli)

Bone music from the omichicahuaztli
Close-up of the skull resonator, femur rasp and bone implement which Castañeda & Mendoza suggest is a shoulder-blade, from the Codex Vindobonensis 

The musical rasp originated in Mesoamerica. It consists of a dried, striated deer bone or human femur that is scraped by a smaller bone to produce doleful sounds for the accompaniment of funeral dirges. Musicians sometimes held them above a resonating chamber, such as a conch shell or a skull, to amplify the sound. Amazing, what people will do to make music!

Some might quibble over calling it music. According to anthropologist Walter Krickeberg, Nahuatl people may have restricted funeral ceremonies to a sung dirge and the bone music of the omichicahuaztli, which he argues does not qualify as music.

What is not in dispute is the use of these instruments prior to the Spanish invasion.

“Several commentators have noted that instruments similar to the omichicahuaztli have continued to be used in modern times amongst the indigenous peoples of NW Mexico and SW United States, such as the Tarahumara (Rarámuri), Huichol, Pima, Hopi…), in some cases as magic instruments for bringing success in hunting, in others as medicinal tools used by shamans to speed a person’s recovery from illness.”

Ian Mursell, MexicoLore

Flutes

Flutes, made of bone and ivory, represent the earliest known musical instruments, clear evidence of prehistoric music. Archaeologists have discovered several such flutes in caves in Germany, dating to the European Upper Paleolithic, products of the Aurignacian culture.

This Aurignacian flute began life as the radius bone of a vulture. Between 35,000 and 43,000 years ago, a craftsman carved five finger holes into the hollow bone, allowing people to make music.

The vulture bone flute was not alone in Hoel Fels Cave. Specifically, archaeologists have also found two flutes made of mute swan bone and one made of wooly mammoth ivory.

Flutes made of bone, horn, ivory, etc. are available today online.

Bones

bone music by William Sidney Mount
The Bones Player by William Sidney Mount, c. 1857

Mostly made of wood today, in their most basic form, bones are sections of animal rib bones—usually sheep or cow—between 5 and 7 inches long. Players hold them between their fingers, curved sides facing each other, and knock them together with flicks of their wrists. Experts can create a vast range of percussive sounds. You may have heard bones without realizing it.

In 1949, Freeman Davis, known as “Brother Bones,” recorded a version of the Jazz Age standard “Sweet Georgia Brown,” which became famous after the Harlem Globetrotters picked it up as their theme song three years later.

The bones have their roots in traditional Irish and Scottish music, and immigrants from those countries brought them to America, where they found a home in bluegrass and other folk genres. They’re similar to other clacking percussion instruments like the spoons, the Chinese paiban, and castanets.

Fun fact: Don’t confuse playing the bones with Bones playing! Nah’Shon Lee “Bones” Hyland, a former star of the VCU basketball team, plays for the Minnesota Timberwolves!

Jawbone (Quijada, Charrasca)

The jawbone as a musical instrument originated in Africa. It’s usually the jawbone of a zebra—or donkey, horse, mule, or cow—stripped of all flesh and dried to make the teeth so loose that they rattle around in their sockets. The jawbone came to the Americas along with the slave trade and was historically used in early American minstrel shows.

But it’s more than a simple rattle — players can create other sounds by striking the jawbone with a stick or rubbing wood across its teeth. Suz Slezak demonstrates several of these techniques here. Musicians use the jawbone throughout most of Latin America, including Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Ecuador, and Cuba.

Fun fact: Martin B. Cohen designed the vibraslap to sound exactly like actual jawbones but with sturdier materials. He patented his design in 1969.

Bone Guitar

Artist Bruce Mahalski and guitar maker David Gilberd teamed up to build a bone guitar that features about 35 skulls. Super metal, yes, but not quite bony enough. It’s still, at its heart, a guitar. As far as I know, no such instruments are available for sale!

Bottom Line: Your skeleton does more than hold up your body. Human ingenuity has led people to create bone music!

Writing From Your Experiences

Posted on by vlaw759
writing from your experiences; man standing by waterfall
As a writer, some of your best material comes from your body. Using all of your senses, every day will infuse your writing with rich details and believable depictions of events and emotions.

 

I’ll give you a concrete example. I love getting massages. In my story “Beautiful Bones,” published in the Connecticut Review, I conglomerated various massage experiences and settings to provide a detailed and sensuous description of a massage to accompany the recipients thoughts and anxieties before turning to magical realism at the end. I call this a case of direct application, in which a character is having the experience I drew upon to describe it.
writing from experience; leg massage

 

But consider the use of indirect application: you could just as easily incorporate many massage moves into the description of a sex scene. Or consider the case of a waitress whose partner offers a foot rub after a long day at work.

For any experience, try to note as many of your senses as possible.

What happens when you are angry? What happens to your heart rate, breathing, stomach? Do you blush? Go white around the lips? Does your body tense? Which part(s)? What happens to you voice—everything from pitch to loudness to speed of speaking. Now consider someone you know well: how do you know when s/he is angry? What are the visual and auditory cues?

 

Food and drink are more than taste!

In fact, eighty percent of taste is actually smell. When olfactory cues are absent, people can’t tell the difference between bits of apple and bits of onion. And then there are the issues of temperature, texture, and spiciness. How complex is the experience?

 

For writers, everything is material.

Whether it’s a walk in the woods, giving blood, taking a taxi from the airport to a hotel, the frustration of tax time, or just being bored out of your skull, pay attention and use your experience.

How has an experience shaped your writing?