Dawn is breaking everywhere. Light a candle, curse the glare

I promised to shut up at least through Candlemas, but. Happy Imbolc, y’all.

This is a post about Afghanistan, cross-cultural collisions, and one reason why the region should have been so famed for currents of hidden knowledge. Anyone who isn’t interested doesn’t have to click on the LJ-cut for the post linked behind the asterisk.

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Draw the curtains, I don't care. and that is the end of that stupid song quote

"The truth about something always seems nearly clear until you settle down to
write about it." —Peter Levi, The Light Garden of the Angel King





For all of the fascinating footnoted topics re Afghanistan in Levi's book, it
is some unfootnoted ones that are likely to occupy me in web searches for a
while, such as: "The native stock of Afghan vines was used for the foundation of the
Californian wine industry."

Here is the first yield, from a 2006 obituary of Dr. Harold Olmo:

"Primarily an academic, Dr. Olmo was also an adventurer. Setting out from
Davis in 1948, he traveled 7,000 miles, by ship, plane, train and mule and
on foot, to find the origins of the vinifera grape vine, the source of all
the world's best wines.

"In the mountains on the border of Iran and Afghanistan, he found what he
considered to be the original vinifera vines growing wild. He brought seeds
back to California and in Leon Adams' words, 'began the ages-old evolution
of the wine grape over again.'"