IN THE WAKE OF THE ENDEAVOUR AND HOKULE'A

 

This charmingly chapter-noted memoir begins "It was Bob's dream to sail across the ocean." 

It was a crazy dream. This was couple who had never sailed across an ocean, who were approaching middle age, where at least one of them was terrified of drowning, and who were living in a dream house on Hawaii. But, as Linda Collison writes, "One day I woke up and found myself onboard."

The boat was Topaz, 36 feet long, a fiberglass sloop that was not as roomy as a single-wide trailer, and which needed work.  A lot of work. And while they were working, the couple embarked on a different adventure, grabbing an opportunity to crew on the replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour.

It took courage.  This whole book, in fact, is a testament to courage.  That a couple should actually pay to sleep in an 18th century-style hammock, and climb the ratlines at night, then throw themselves over futtock shrouds to clamber onto a greasy maintop and then climb and climb on an almost invisible topmast, gripping almost unsubstantial lines to sidle out on a greasy yard to work on a heavy, wet sail, is courage of the maddest kind. Yet they loved it.  They learned a lot.  And it was supremely poetic.

This was because they planned to sail from Hawaii to Tahiti - in the wake of Cook. It was a reverse, in a way, of the great Captain James Cook's final voyage in the Resolution.

It was also to be a voyage in the wake of Hokule'a.

Launched in March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, this double-hulled replica of a wa'a kaulua (pahi; waka hourua) still sails today, but is probably best known for its 1976 pioneering voyage from Hawaii to Tahiti, using traditional navigation techniques.

Well, Linda and Bob did not venture into the wide blue Pacific without such aids as radio and GPS, but Linda's reminiscences are redolent with her deep knowledge of what went before - that in their time Polynesian navigators were the greatest the world had ever known. 

The tupuna - ancestors - were skilled sailors who burst from Southeast Asia into the Pacific well over 3000 years ago, to explore as far east as South America, and as far south as the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, to colonize a myriad host of islands, carrying their animals and plants with them to establish tropical paradises on what had been barren volcanic uprises, and creating a vast trading network that was the Old Silk Road of its time. 

Their navigation methods were remarkable.  At a time when Europeans were just start to experiment with fore and aft sails, pahi powered with lateens were criss-crossing the mighty Pacific, for days and weeks out of sight of land. The navigators did it with intense observation -- by watching currents and swells, the movement of star patterns, the flights of birds, the formation of clouds, the colors of the water, and the drift patterns of seaweed.

And also by knowledge of islands unseen -- the backsight of the departure point, the position of the destination island, and the compass point of a reference island.  

The stars were reliable beacons.  Linda grasped this, writing, "At night, the stars were like neighbors' porchlights.  Familiar. Observing their path over several hours I could grasp how the traditional Polynesian seafarers used them as moving signposts."

That word "moving" is very significant. Linda herself noticed a strange phenomenon, where it feels as if the world is moving, and the boat is standing still.  As she writes, "Sometimes I have the illusion we are standing still, that everything above and below and all around is moving but we are not."  It took the GPS and the chart to convince her otherwise.

Yet, or so modern Polynesian voyagers tell me, this is how the ancients envisaged the voyage.  Anchored by the compass point of the unseen, yet vital, reference island, the sea and attendant stars and islands moved in a great arc around the canoe, until the destination island was raised and reached.  And, until that moment, the pahi lay still.

Knowing this magic, it is no wonder the tupuna and their marae are still revered. 

Something else Linda discovered was "the vast wealth of time" of Tahiti.  It leads to a kind of "happy indifference," where there is no ambition to do anything at all.  In Tahiti, it is called fiu (pronounced, rather appropriately, phew): as the locals say, "'Je suis Fiu' est une expression souvent entendue en Polynésie Française, difficile à traduire simplement, il exprime une sorte de lassitude."

Difficult to translate?  No, when you think of the tupuna and what their navigators and seafarers accomplished.  Their era, for some unknown reason, was drifting to an end by the time of the intrusion of Captains Wallis and Cook, which is why the invasion by Europeans was so successful.  It was as if the ancestors were resting on their laurels.  They had done their work, and it was time for fiu. 

It was a lassitude that gripped Linda and Bob as well -- but they wrenched themselves out of it, and voyaged back to Hawaii.  

And so their adventure came to an end -- to be memorialized in this book, and their photographs. 

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN revamped

 

I had fond memories of the 1960 film - mostly because of the magnificent music.

The theme was an earworm, that lived in the brain for days, and was never forgotten.

So I decided to watch the remake, mainly to hear that theme again, but also to see what might have happened in the meantime.

The original was set in Mexico.  A small village is attacked by a local bandit and his gang, and the villagers hire seven men to defend them and put the thug and his comrades into the ground.  

It had an all-star cast, led by Yul Byrnner, the man who made baldness sexy.

There was Steve McQueen, and Horst Buchholz, and Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, and James Coburn.  And, indeed, they were magnificent, in a rough kind of way. It was the horse opera that was to be the model and guide for a whole raft of horse operas after that....

... including the remake, made in 2016

That was the one I watched, out of pure curiosity.  Quite apart, of course, from the music, which I found strangely lacking.

This one also has an all-star cast.

• Denzel Washington as Sam Chisholm, a bounty hunter from Kansas.
• Chris Pratt as Joshua Faraday, a drifter and trick-shooter.
• Ethan Hawke as Goodnight Robicheaux, a Cajun former Confederate sharpshooter.
• Vincent D'Onofrio as Jack Horne, a deeply religious mountain man and hunter.
• Byung-hun Lee as Billy Rocks, a knife-wielding Chinaman.
• Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Vasquez, a Mexican outlaw and gunslinger.
• Martin Sensmeier as Red Harvest, a Comanche warrior.

Please note there is only one Mexican character in it.  It is also set in the frontier United States, not Mexico.  In fact, the influence of modern politics was quite fascinating.

There was the overriding image of the typical American cowboy -- who was, in fact, Mexican, not United States American.  That is why cowboy words -- lassoo, rodeo, honcho -- are Spanish. However, it is this rough kind of frontier hero, hard on the outside, tough on the inside, and yet with a tender heart somewhere in the middle, that is the stereotype lauded by a certain MAGA crowd. 

This was not something I remembered from the original film.

The characters were different, too -- though one, played by Ethan Hawke, did suffer from same nightmares of past killings that Robert Vaughn did in the first version.  The Comanche warrier was a novelty, particularly as he was on the side of the cowboys, in a contrast to those many, many cowboy vs. Indian films. And a Chinese fellow, too.  Another novelty (actually played by a Korean).  Were the writers and producers trying to make a point?

The plot has a much more complicated message than simple good vs. evil.  It is rabid capitalism vs. hardworking ordinary folks.

These folks are trying to establish a community of godfearing villagers on land that is unfortunately supposed to be goldbearing, when the capitalist arrives.

The capitalist, played with enthusiasm by Peter Sarsgaard, is Bartholmew Bogue. Naturally, he wants the land, and is happy to slaughter all the villagers to get it.  In his estimation, it is only natural.  As he says, 'If God did not want them sheared, why did he create sheep?'  And, being rich already, he has an army at his command, the so-called Blackstone Rangers.

Well, the magnificent seven kill off the first 22 rangers they find in the village (the bodycount is really impressive), and the message is sent to Bogue, who gives them seven days to give up and give in, before his full army arrives to wipe all opposition off the ore-bearing earth that he wants  so much.

It's classic stuff, in the mode of 'High Noon.'  Preparations are made, and the magnificent seven, plus willing (though largely incapable) villagers, take their positions.

The climax is much as one would expect, with the interesting addition of a Gatling gun, which threatens for a while to put the whole story out of balance.  But Chris Pratt, as Joshua Faraday, destroys the gun and restores the balance, in what are the best few minutes of the movie, by far.  Indeed, Chris Pratt was the stand-out actor.  He really jumped off the screen.  The others seemed less enthusiastic.  

All in all, I was not surprised this remake got mixed reviews.  "Mildly diverting," ran one, according to Rotten Tomatoes.  

But the horses did really well. 

ANOTHER TRUE CRIME

 

Like In the Wake of Madness, this is set on a whaler, in the Pacific

Years ago, when I was researching in the New Zealand Archives in the Auckland office, a volunteer sent me two huge files, both of court records from the Bay of Islands.  "It's worth looking up a murder trial in 1886," she said, "but be prepared to be shocked."

McGilp was the name that was given to me -- Constable Alexander McGilp.   He was the sole arm of law and order in the Bay of Islands, with one man from Auckland to help when the riotous Yankee whalers were in port, an extremely efficient fellow, with a nose for crime.  A natural detective.

He was the first to be shocked.  And he did something that policemen both then and now are not supposed to do -- he leaked his report, along with all the gory details, to the press.  Which led to the most notorious trial of the decade, the Petrel Affair.

And years later, after a great deal of research into archives, court records, and the sensational newspapers of the time, the true story of a horrible series of crimes has been written -- along with the highly unexpected solution.

Available on kindle from Amazon. Paperback out soon.

FOOD TO CELEBRATE

 

It's out of print, as coffee table cooking books tend to be

But nevertheless, when friend Bernadette loaned me her copy, I devoured it cover to cover.

It's a most extravagant book, in the gorgeous Nigella Lawson style, replete with feasts and banquets for eight or more, but I still found lots of great hints.

People tend to avoid looking at her recipes, being convinced they are based on cream and butter, but in fact not so.  There are a plethora of sweet things, but lots of meat-  and vegetable-based meals, too.

There are parsnips roasted in vegetable oil and drizzled with maple syrup.  Can't wait to try that!

Her roast potatoes are amazing. Parboiled, they are dredged in semolina, and roasted in oil, goose fat, or duck fat until crunchy.

I was really taken with this semolina idea.  In the past, it has been the ingredient, with milk and sugar, in a nursery pudding.  Sweet, soft, and comforting.  Not just toddler food -- I was once at a very fancy restaurant, being hosted to a banquet, and the dessert was semolina pudding, topped with half a poached pear.  I was assured it was gourmet grub, and indeed it was tasty, if somewhat unexpected.

But I had never thought of semolina as a substitute for flour.  I tried it out with fish, dredging my fillets of blue warehou in semolina before stirfrying with vegetable oil, onion, and bok choy, with a dash of chili, and a pour of soy sauce. Just a slight crunch on the fish, and a sauce that was just the right consistency,  Delicious.

Nigella does attend to fish -- by recommending that each portion should be served on a base of a half avocado, rocket or mesclun, baptised with a dash of good wine vinegar and a squirt of lemon juice.  I tried it, accompanied by a few of those little crunchy roast potatoes. Superb.

Brussells sprouts, once parboiled, can be roasted with cubes of pancetta and a can of chestnuts.  She adds a generous drizzle of Marsala, something that does not normally belong in my kitchen. A idea for the future.

But I did try her cauliflower cheese, which Bernadette particularly recommended.  The cauli is broken up, parboiled, put into an ovenware dish, and covered with a truly delicious sauce.  A roux of butter and flour (I will try semolina next time), milk whisked in, and then scads of strong grated cheese stirred into the mixture once it is the right thickness.  When thick and bubbly - and smelling divine - it is poured over the cauli, and then the dish shoved into a hot oven for about twenty minutes. A scatter of more cheese on the top gives it a nice appearance.

It was amazing.  If vegetarian friends are visiting, it would serve as the center of a wonderful dish, particularly if accompanied by those crunchy potatoes, and perhaps peas. 

Or even rocket and avocado.

An inspiring cook book.  Highly recommended.

 

A new outing for Aussie detective DS Walker

Some time ago I reviewed Patricia Wolf's debut novel, Outback, and liked it a lot

It introduced DS Walker, an appealing character with an interesting past. An investigative star in the Australian Federal Police, he left the department just before a police corruption scandal broke, and has been reassigned to somewhere quiet and secluded -- the Queensland outback, where unexpectedly violent things happen.

I liked Outback  a lot, something that made me a bit nervous.  Too often a debut that I liked has been followed by unsatisfactory sequels.  As I observed to a librarian, it's as if the author is so surprised by the success of their first book that they lack ideas for the next one or two, and so reach into the desk bottom drawer where rejected manuscripts lie.  A bit of rewording, and voila.

So, was it going to like that in the case of Patricia Wolf?  Certainly not.  To my relief, every book is as good as the last, a rating that includes this one, the  fifth in the series.

There is action aplenty. First, Walker is faced with a hanging man. It looks like suicide, but as acute as ever, he deduces very quickly that it is not.  The man was murdered, and then strung up.  But by whom? And why?  And, for that matter, who the devil is he? 

Interesting enough, particularly when he finds a rather similar cold case in the books.

This is followed by a much more sensational murder, the vicious beating to death of a cricketing hero. Because of the media frenzy, Walker is swiftly sidelined by the homicide detectives in Brisbane -- but, being Walker, he prods at the mystery, snagging details that could be vital clues. 

A real page turner, this one. Walker and his Vietnamese offsider are terrific characters, very easy to engage with. Their detecting skills are so admirable, in fact, that the finale chapter describing the murder as it happened is not at all necessary.  That I will read more of the DS Walker books is a given.

And Patricia Wolf definitely earns her place as a top Australian thriller writer, alongside such stars as Chris Hammer and Gary Disher. 

A RELIGIOUS WHALING WIFE WHO DID HER UTTER BEST

 

 

This story is about Lydia Beebe of Nantucket

Lydia Abby Beebe was the daughter of Lemuel and Mehitable (Conant) Jones, born October 12, 1837. Her husband John A. Beebe was born March 19, 1830 in Nantucket, the son of John M. Beebe and Patience (Allen, second wife) Beebe. The couple were married in July 1857, in Nantucket.

On September 9 John sailed off on his first command, the Governor Carver of Westport, and did not return until June 28, 1860. Then, on October 13, he was off again, as captain of the Brewster of Mattapoisett. Lydia did not see him again until June 30, 1863, so it is little wonder that she sailed the next voyage, Brewster, 1863-5: as she penned in the journal she kept on board, ‘I have not felt for a moment since I started on the voyage that I wished I had not come, I believe this is where I ought to be with my husband in the six years of our married life we lived together about six months and I trust now we shall never be separated again till death parts us.’ 

So it seems that the reason Lydia sailed with John is devotion.  Her motive, however, was quite different.  Lydia Beebe was religious to an extreme.  She was a trad wife, even at sea. She sailed determined not only to convert her husband (a tough proposition) but every man on board his ship.

Her journal on the Brewster is complete and remarkable, because it is mostly a recounting of her earnest attempts to convert the officers and crew to Christianity. While the men on board (not excluding her husband, Captain John Beebe) were a rough and untutored bunch, to her optimistic mind they presented a fallow field. ‘I want my husband and all these men to love and fear God,’ she wrote, and painstakingly recorded her efforts and failures to reform these unlikely subjects. 

‘I had quite a talk with John about Salvation and my prayer is that he may feel sincerely the need of a Savior’s love and take his yoke upon him,’ she wrote on December 13, 1863, and then over the next three days recorded on a rueful note that the reformation of her husband was proceeding no further, because he had taken refuge in the hold  —  ‘only seen him at meal time.’

‘I had quite a talk with Mr. Keith on the subject of religion,’ she recorded on February 14, 1864; ‘he thinks it is about impossible for a man to live his religion at sea but I cannot agree with him for nothing is impossible with God.’ It is fortunate that she never had a chance to read young Marshall Keith’s very private journal. A large part was devoted to complaining about the scanty ‘grub’ and ‘the old woman’ who, he said, ‘slept with the key to the pantry under her head.’  (He also described his wet dreams.)

It was an eventful voyage, to say the very least.  Off the coast of New Guinea, the ship fell in with great shoals of whales.  Swiftly, all the oil casks were full to the brim - but John could not resist killing more. oil was fetching  $2.65 a gallon in the New Bedford (because of a war, in this case the Civil War), and so John ordered the provisions thrown overboard, to free up their casks to hold more oil.  All that hard bread and salt pork and beef, gone.  How the men felt about it was undescribed.  They were all too busy to complain.

John wrote about it later, though - with a sense of wonder.  The hard bread, he said, didn't sink.  Instead, it floated, a strange something to behold. 'The biscuits would float on top of one another,' he mused in print, and the contents of each cask would cover nearly an acre in area. It was a novel sight to look upon. The molasses went down to sweeten the home of the squid and the octopus, while the salt beef and pork, flour etc., became food for the sharks.'

Then fresh water went the same way.  Then at last, the whales vanished, and John set course for home.  But that was not easy, either.  First, they had a close encounter with the Confederate raider Shenandoah (this was the Civil War, when the Southern raiders were chasing and burning every whaleship they could find), and then they had an even closer encounter with a coral reef.

The bow was jammed and the stern was free.  At any instant, the ship would have broken in half.  Any other master would have thrown oil overboard, but not John Beebe.  Instead, he had all the casks shifted aft, and the Brewster was levered free with the boats, kedge anchors, and a lot of sweat and swearing. 

Against all odds, they set on their homeward path again. Tragically, though, they called at the port of Surabaja, Java, and a plague of Asiatic cholera invaded the ship.  Four men died, and many - including Lydia - fell gravely ill. Then, on the homeward passage, they were struck by a storm, and the ship began to fall apart. As they rounded the Cape of Good Hope, the men who were fit enough were set at the pumps, both by night and by day.

Lydia had a sort of reward for her ordeal - when they arrived at the island of St Helena, John took her on a jaunt to Napoleon's tomb.  When they got back to the ship they found that a full mutiny was in progress -- a rebellion that John put down with his fists and a pistol.  

The Brewster finally arrived home in November 1865, on the verge of sinking. And, believe it or not, Lydia sailed again.

Lydia’s second diary, kept on the Xantho,  is incomplete, beginning January 1, 1867, six weeks after sailing, and ends June 25, 1869, five months before the end of voyage, no reason given.  John retired from the sea at the end of the voyage, and served Nantucket in various official capacities before retiring to Wellesley, Massachusetts, in 1891. He died there 4 May 1907, and she followed him to the grave almost exactly three years later, April 8, 1910.

Nantucket Vital Records; marriage notice, New Bedford Mercury; Beebe’s history, Evening Standard, Nantucket, December 5, 1905, p. 10, article headlined Blubber Hunters; Starbuck, pp. 550-1, 578-9; Lydia’s journals, NHA; Keith journal PPL, PMB 577.

A WAR GONE WRONG

 

The best analysis of the War with Iran to date is in Maritime Executive

It is written by Brigadier Jonathan Campbell-James, a one-time senior military intelligence officer, and it is on pages 28-29.

"To defeat an enemy like the IRGC," starts a particularly pertinent paragraph, "you need the resolve and cunning of a lion, and you need lawyers and diplomats who understand the negotiators sitting on the other side of the table.

"The U.S. has plethora of those with profound understanding of Iran and its ways as well as a deep well of U.S. citizens of Iranian origin to draw from, but they were not deployed or were put on mute for this negotiation. "

And yet, strong, intelligent, wily negotiation is essential.  As the wise brigadier stresses, Iran has an overwhelming ambition to establish Persian national dominance and religious evangelism over the Middle East, and it is extraordinary that this was not factored into the MoU.

There is one thing on the bright side.  The Iranian people themselves are turning away from this fundamental religion, resenting its restriction, severity, and unfairness. But, the war is largely negating this advantage.  Because of the threats from the U.S. and Israel, they are fired up instead by a sense of nationalism.  They have become fervent patriots.

As Campbell-James says, "The Islamic regime is about the most hated government in the world; the population is turning away from religion, but patriotism and national pride still prevail when faced with foreign interference."

As he concludes, "In the final analysis, strategy can only be effective if based on a deep understanding of the threat. Waging war without clear strategic objectives is a set-up for failure. It squanders human life, wastes money, and is ultimately counterproductive."

DISTRUST OF AI AND HATRED OF DATA CENTERS

 

Sixty-five percent of New Zealanders DO NOT WANT data centers

This, according to a recent news item in Wellington's Stuff, is out of synch with the rest of the world, where an average of 49% of measured populations is reasonably happy with them.

As the very pertinent article goes on to state, data centers are the most visible part of the AI goldrush, and Kiwis are, to put it mildly, sceptical of AI.

Kiwis are environmentalists, on the whole.  The wonderful landscape of the country is to be treasured, and to be kept as pristine as possible. AI and the attendant data centers are viewed as resource greedy and environmentally destructive.

There is plenty of evidence for this. AI gobbles whole libraries, turning millions of books into degradeable bytes (or whatever the right word might be), while data centers chew up enough power to keep a whole town alight, and demand rivers of fresh water. 

There are about 20,000 of these greedy beasts worldwide, and currently New Zealand has fifty-six of them.  More are planned, and the backlash is growing. When a conference of data center leaders was held in Auckland this past week, a protest was mounted.

The Green Party has called for a twelve-month moratorium, in imitation of what is already happening in New York (which already has a moratorium in place) and Texas, where a hold is being put on 1800 sites.

The argument for data centers is that there is a huge global demand for the kind of computing that AI can provide, and New Zealand should hop on the gravy wagon to get a share of the profits from selling data created here.  The problem is -- will the profits stay here, or land in the techbros' pockets?  The dire suspicion is that the second option is what will happen. 

So the other argument is that they are needed for our economy and national security.  But are those vague goals a good excuse for domestic power bills lifting by at least six percent?

And how do we make sure that our personal data does not flow out on the same current? When it is considered that AI companies use pirated books and casual written conversations to build up their databases, the suspicion becomes a valid one. 

As the founder of a local tech company observes, these huge data centers are not being built for New Zealand or New Zealanders. Instead, we are effectively giving away renewable energy, and driving New Zealand businesses and New Zealand workers away. The more we and our government depend on giant AI companies, the more we send our data and money offshore, for little return.  So why feed the monster?

Americans, take note. Over forty percent of data centers, plus leading labs, like Anthropic and OpenAI, are sited in your country.

TINA - THE UNMISSABLE FILM

 

Somehow, I missed this wonderful film when it was in the theaters

But luckily, I was able to pick it up on Netflix.

I haver never seen a Samoan made or inspired film without loving it.  Thus, I expected a lot when I started watching Tina, (with a macron over the A, it being a Samoan word that means "mother"), and was not disappointed in the slightest.  Instead, I was enraptured.

Written and directed by the talented Miki Magasiva, the story features a Samoan music teacher, Mareta Percival, played by the equally talented Anapela Polataivao.  She works at a decile one school in Christchurch, New Zealand, where decile one is the lowest grade, staffed by dedicated teachers who are working with often disadvantaged children, who often come from the poorest homes.

Stricken with grief when her daughter is killed in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, trapped in the CTV building when it collapsed, Mareta becomes incapable of work, or any kind of normal life. Then, when her unemployment benefit is threatened by her failure to apply for any jobs, she is forced to turn up for an interview at a prestigious Christchurch secondary school, for the position of substitute teacher.

To her disgust, she gets the job. To have a sturdy, middleaged Samoan woman in puletasi (lavalava or sarong with matched top) walk into a white, upperclass, snobbish college is hilarious, and with typically impish Samoan humor, the writer makes the most of it. 

"You must be the first Polynesian to enter these prescincts," comments the loftily superior senior teacher

"Well," says Mareta after an eloquent pause. "Congrats."

The atmosphere threatens to descend into mutual contempt - but then Mareta discovers a musically talented girl, Sophie (played by newcomer Antonia Robinson), who suffers from depression and scarring, evidently from the same earthquake.  Mareta's motherly instincts surface, as to her surprise she finds that these teenagers are as desperately in need of guidance and love as the children in the decile one schools.  To get Sophie to sing, she founds a choir, though very much against the school's traditions and rules.

The evolution of the choir is simply wonderful  Despite the opposition of the school board, the teachers, and the school rugby team, it flourishes, while at the same time the teenagers learn Samoan ways and traditions.  They wear white to sing at a Samoan church, and they learn (most reluctantly) to wear a lavalava.

The singing, mostly in Samoan, is sublime. Off-screen, it was led by Tuilagi Dr Igelese Ete, who was the choirmaster for the Lord of the Rings and Moana. The last item, the choir's entry in the finals of the "Big Sing" competition, is utterly awesome, as the students themselves would say.

The film debuted at the 2024 Hawaii International Film festival, to an ecstatic reception, thoroughly deserved.  Released in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Cook Islands and (of course) Samoa, it continued a run of huge success.

If you haven't seen it, do.  Highly recommended

AI and book destruction

 

New Zealand bookstore receives mysterious orders

The store is in Newtown, Wellington, and is called "Bookhaven."  It stocks mostly New Zealand books, many of them non-fiction dating from the 1970s and 1980s, and some of them Maori editions.

Business was as usual until suddenly massive, multiple-copy orders for outdated non-fiction books came racing through from a Canada-based operation. The owner, Annemarie Thorby, smelled a rat, as the cost of shipping alone would make the purchases cost-ineffective.  So, was it a AI enterprise, aimed at data-mining?  Where the actual books were destroyed? She feared so, and cancelled the orders.

Interviewed, she said:

"One order was for 71 books, and we physically can't handle that.”

The buyer wanted books with ISBNs (a unique code used to identify a specific book, edition, or format) from the 1970s and 1980s, she told RNZ’s Midday Report.

“They were local non-fiction niche books, so New Zealand local history, a tourist pamphlet on Waitomo Caves, Māori language books, New Zealand cookbooks, biographies, political cartoons, very niche - the local anglers club.”

With postage and tariffs there was no way the buyer could turn a profit, she says.

“A $10 book could end up costing $40, so ridiculous. It had to be something else. That's when we did some sleuthing and contacted AbeBooks, their little online forum.”

These kinds of odd orders were happening around the world, she says.

“Tens of thousands of books being bought by this one company to go to a warehouse in the USA. It was India, it was Europe, it was us, and it wasn't just us in New Zealand, there were other bookshops.”

AI companies are buying these books and training their large language models, sometimes destroying books in the process. It's the only way for them to do it, she says.

“They're not recycling, they're devouring them, they're destroying them. One of the quotes from the Anthropic court case was, Project Panama - so this is from the company, from Anthropic - Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world.”

Annemarie Thorby, according to Techspot, is perfectly correct.  This massive buying of non-fiction books from that era is going on all over the world.  AI firms are buying up these older books -- ones that can be guaranteed free of any AI content, which apparently degrades over time -- to train their models, and destroying the books in the process. 

The outfit that is creating this immense database is known as "ISBNdb" and is employing firms such as ABE books to make purchases ranging from 1000 to a million books from secondhand bookstores.

And these books are often rare.  Yet they are treated with no respect at all.  The spines are ripped off and the loose pages run through scanners, then shredded. 

What are the AI companies carrying out this wholesale process?  The names are kept secret in an atmosphere of strict confidentiality.  But the name of Anthropic crops up all the time