last jobs I performed in showbiz was to re-create Arthur Godfrey’s playing for two songs in the Doris Day film The Glass Bottom Boat. His original playing was on the same track as his and Doris’ sung English, and Warner’s wanted a separated Music and Effects track so they could dub it for foreign DVDs. He was playing a baritone ukulele, which means the four strings are in the same tuning as the top four strings of a guitar. I took off the bottom two strings of my Godin Multiac Nylon, narrowed the eq to sound like uke, and wailed away on the Foley stage. Man, that guy played fast! It took me hours to match it, and I had to go section by section, editing them together





1492: The Prequel Decades before Columbus, Zheng He sailed from China with 300 ships and 28,000 men. His fleet got as far as Africa and could have easily reached America, but the Chinese turned back. What happened? By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Photographs by GUEORGUI PINKHASSOV





Chinese blood? Some inhabitants of the African island of Pate believe they're descended from Chinese sailors.

rom the sea, the tiny East African island of Pate, just off the Kenyan coast, looks much as it must have in the 15th century: an impenetrable shore of endless mangrove trees. As my little boat bounced along the waves in the gray dawn, I could see no antennae or buildings or even gaps where trees had been cut down, no sign of human habitation, nothing but a dense