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August 31, 2005
Parody or Anti-Israelitism?
Tell me this is parody. Please. I think not, though.
Paper cups with Hebrew writing disturbed both employees and medical staff at King Khaled National Guard Hospital on Saturday. The catering subcontractor for the hospital coffee shops began using them on Saturday after their usual supply ran out.
(Of course, practicing the hermeneutics of trust we can know that it's not JEWS they hate, only Israelis. If Jews who lived in New Zealand and repudiated Zionism made paper cups, those cups would be would be welcome in Saudi Arabia? Maybe not.)
via Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:19 PM
Gilgamesh
Gilgamesh is a great place to start a course in the Foundations of European Studies. One can argue about the Mesopotamian relevance (though I don't - it's as reasonable a place to start as any) to "Europe," but the work is so very grand! One of the best things about it is that even callow first year students with backwards ball caps (well, until I ask them to remove them) is that though this story is really OLD when first written down (if he's historic, Gilgamesh is sometime around 2500 B.C.) it's as sophisticated as anything they're ever going to read.
One of the constant themes of my teaching is that they can't let time make them underestimate people -- just because they didn't have electricity doesn't mean they were "stupid" or "worse" or some such. Life was harder in physical senses, but I try to convince my students (in every class, every semester) that in psychic senses life hasn't changed. Life is hard.
“Gilgamesh, though he was king,/Had never looked at death before.” Isn't that always one of the difficulties of the callow young (though it's not at all clear that Gilgamesh is young, only heedless)? And then there's this:
All he had to give was being weak and rage
About the kings and elders and the animals
In the underworld that crowded sleep,
About the feathers that grew from his arms
In the house of dust whose occupants
Sat in the dark devoid of light
With clay as food, the flutterings of wings
As substitutes for life.
The priest and the ecstatic sat there too,
Their spirits gone, each body like an old recluse
No longer inhabiting its island.
Like shells one finds among shore rocks,
Only the slightest evidence
Of life survived.
Makes you wish you could read Sumerian and Akkadian, doesn't it?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:45 AM
August 30, 2005
And today . . .
This is the 2nd day of classes. Today I get to teach Greek Art & Architecture -- I'm passing out the list of Olympians for Thursday quiz purposes and telling them to memorize the orders for next week. Historiography meets for the first time this afternoon - what a fun seminar! Today they get to try to define Art, History, and Art History.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:40 AM
August 29, 2005
"Cheating" or Technological Generation Gap? I vote for the latter.
Department officials said that some problem sets from textbooks used in introductory graduate economics courses have answer keys online. At least one student found answers for a course taken by all first-year students, and apparently shared the information with classmates. Though the solutions were apparently available, David Mills, chair of the economics department, said students should have “known it was off-limits,” but that they instead “used it without the professor being aware.”Read the story. I disagree with the university's actions. The students should not have "known it was off-limits" AND the professor should have been aware it was available for their use. That's where the problem comes -- someone gave a test or homework without writing any original material and didn't bother to check the online resources pushed by the publisher. Bozo.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 12:14 PM
Back to class . . .
. . . for the new year. Let's see - I'm teaching Greek Art & Architecture, Art Historiography, and the shattered first-semester remnant of Western Civ. (which passes under the name of European Studies, lately). Shoring up fragments, etc.
I'm starting off my year by narrating Machiavelli's letter to Vettori* and the Great Conversation model of what-it-is-we-do-here. And I get to wear seersucker.
*the top google result when I was looking for a free text to post online for my students is an amusing blogospheric small world. Click and read for content and setting.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:06 AM
August 27, 2005
What I did this next-to-last morning of summer vacation . . .
I supervised 20 or so students in a Pulteney Park cleanup -- the photo doesn't show the brush piles. Everything is much neater now -- and I hope the students have a feeling of belonging to Geneva now. I got to narrate the foundation story -- Sir William Pulteney, the Pulteney Land Tract, Capt. Williamson, the Land Office, the Geneva Hotel (now the Pulteney Apartments and my own place of residence), and Pulteney Park. Just the way to start off the school year!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 1:51 PM
August 25, 2005
Block Scheduling - Does it Work?
The Washington Post has a collection of anecdotes about block scheduling in one Northern Virginia school system; the general impression is that this isn't a magic solution to our woes, either.
It's interesting, but no one expressed what I thought would be a serious drawback. Let's say Mary and Louise both take Latin I in 9th grade under a block schedule and Latin II in 10th grade under a block schedule. Mary takes Latin I in the 2nd semester and Latin II in the first semester. She would have the summer slippage, but she would also have 90 minute classes from January to December of one calendar year -- I think she would do pretty well. What about Louise, who gets stuck with Latin I in the fall term of her 9th grade year and Latin II in the spring term of her 10th grade year? Even if she's a good student that puts an entire calendar year between the two courses. No block schedule advocate (and there were lots percolating around Atlanta in the 1990s) even tried to convince me that this wouldn't happen regularly.
I think that would be an academic disaster for Louise. Mary - hmm. I think she'd benefit; how much is open to question.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:06 AM
August 24, 2005
Someone let the Manolo know . . .
O.K. - I'll email him.
Did you know that Converse will sell you a pair of Converses without laces?
This paragraph from the description makes me weep for America:
With a deconstructed upper and All Star embroidery, it's a unique look, too. Laces? We don't need no stinking laces!
There are two forbidden and one "don't go there" words in that sentence! I forbid my students the use of "unique" and "look" (n.). Nothing in art is unique - or almost nothing. When I say "unique example*" junior majors gasp and take notes rapidly. "Look" (n.) is appropriate to hairstylists, rather like "creme." I have had to forbid "cream" because all too often it was spelled with a final e. "Deconstruct?" Let's just say that no one under 25 should use it in public. They haven't read enough.
*implying, of course, that there must've been more but that we happen to know THIS ONE EXAMPLE.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:33 PM
How to blog, 2
Here's my leader.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:19 PM
How to blog
I'm showing someone how blogging works.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:17 PM
August 23, 2005
This Wireless Campus thing has gone quite far enough, thank you . . .
This whole Come-pay-tuition-here-we're-a-wireless-campus has gone quite far enough, thank you. They've wired the Bristol Field House with stations everywhere. I guess I could buy a pda with wireless and check my email from the elliptical thingamajig, but I'd rather not. Maybe surf the web while waiting for a squash court to open up?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:41 AM
Technology!
I do a lot of online shopping for 3 reasons. First, I live in Geneva, NY. Second, I've never really liked malls. Third, I love online package tracking.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:55 AM
He went to the LSE, after all
Kathy Shaidle, who wishes the Boomers would move on even more than I do, offers a quick summary of The Rolling Stones' political songs without even making an age joke. I'm impressed!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:41 AM
Lawyering Up for High School Sports
For the first time this season, Severna Park Athletic Director Wayne Mook required his coaches to record running times and player evaluation grades, then hand in that paperwork to him. It is an arduous process that many coaches find tiresome, but Mook instituted it for a reason: After a player was cut from the girls' lacrosse team last spring, the family hired lawyers to meet with the school.That's really the best part of this story (the rest is the sad tale of a lad who works hard but doesn't make it -- sorry to spoil the suspense).
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:29 AM
Evil Union Presidents and Mr. T. Talk!
I love reading about the Washington, DC, government schools -- they are a glowing example to us all. The former administration of the Washington Teachers' Union is on trial for embezzlement; in the trial of the former administrative assistant to the [evil] president the defense lawyer said about the [evil] president: "I pity the fool who has the nerve to ask this woman about her spending." Mr. T. Lives!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:20 AM
Practical Sharia
The practical implications of Sharia in northern Nigeria -- segregating busses, making women sit at the back, and forbidding them to take cheap and convenient motorcycle taxis.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:17 AM
August 22, 2005
War and the Rumors of War -- literally
He was then sent to Woburn Abbey, where he produced two rumours a day for inclusion in otherwise correct reports.A throwaway line about war service from one of those splendid British obituaries, this the Daily Telegraph on W.H.C. Frend, whose mid-20th century take on Donatism is considerably less respected nowadays (and considerably more driven by his Low Church anti-papist background) than the author conveys. Frend never met a heresy he didn't suppose was driven by economic or class reasons rather than theological opinon; that's a form of argumentation much like modern political controversialists assuming their opponents to be insincere in their beliefs and very annoying. Well-worth reading, though. He was an important scholar and a fine man.
Here's the Church Times version.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 2:02 PM
August 19, 2005
No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?
You know how they say there's no such thing as bad publicity? Yes there is. Read this story about an outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in a spray park and realize how happy the City of Geneva is that this happened across the county line and in a state park rather than in the contiguous city park. The AP story doesn't even mention Geneva. Whew!
I'm very glad that my sister didn't bring her children over a few weeks ago from Syracuse. I was going to suggest the spray park.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 3:44 PM
Weld for Governor - but of NY, this time
I don't understand New York politics at all.* How does William Weld expect to govern a state he's never really been a political person in? He was governor of Massachusetts, now he may run for governor of New York. The article discusses govenring MA, but never mentions governing NY. Not helpful.
*I mean this in the "bewildered" sense. They don't mind carpetbagging senators (cf. Hillary!), they don't mind a level of corruption that would make everyone outside Louisiana blush (omigosh - just read the paper!), they don't mind an insane finance system (the budget? What budget?). I just don't get it. I haven't been here long enough to have even the slightest sense of who can and can't get elected. I do have a feeling that Republicans can't get elected without the Upstate vote, but have no idea if that means they also have to be cross-endorsed by the Conservative party or not. Weld won't get that one, I think.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:19 AM
August 18, 2005
Further Tales of those wacky stars . . . .
A former personal assistant to Carlos Santana has filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the veteran rocker, claiming he was fired after his consciousness was calibrated and determined to be too low.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:09 PM
Artists! Make up your minds! No more of this "formerly known as" stuff.
"I felt like the 'P' was getting between me and my fans and now we're closer," Diddy said."During concerts, half the crowd is saying 'P. Diddy'--half the crowd is chanting 'Diddy'--now everybody can just chant 'Diddy.' "
via the Old Oligarch
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:51 AM
August 17, 2005
Future Law & Order Episode Here
Former child actor ties wealthy couple to anchor and throws them overboard.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 8:51 AM
August 16, 2005
Technology on Parade!
Here's a story about a really good use of web skills -- the searchable Korean Central News Agency!
"over 50 megabytes of hard-core Stalinist propaganda ... each article written in the unique and indelible style of the KCNA."Readers can get a taste of that KCNA style from recommended key word searches, such as "burning hatred," which turns up 18 articles. The targets of that hot wrath include Japan, Yankees, "U.S. imperialist ogres" and "class enemies."
"Human scum" yields 25 KCNA reports applying that epithet to President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and diplomat John Bolton. Rumsfeld also keeps company with Japanese officials in the "political dwarf" category.
Here's a search using "running dog". Delightful!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:28 AM
August 14, 2005
Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles
This is an interesting story in the New York Times about Frank Lloyd Wright houses in Los Angeles -- and the horrible shape they're in. There's a shocking photo of the Ennis House looking like it's about to slide down a hill. I recognize the house from some movies -- this really is bad.
The article spends a good bit of time discussing Los Angeles's non-preservation culture. That, by the way, is not a rock New York has to throw at anyone. New York is a byword for developer heaven among preservationists. Not that I'm in favor of saving everything, like some folk (gosh - there are people trying to preserve a 1950s gas station with plywood columns here in Geneva!), but New York wrecked first and regretted later until quite recently.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:35 PM
Snippy Spam Message!
One seldom reads the spam messages, but I had one left under a normal first name that I didn't delete on first pass. It had the nerve to say:
can you please tell useful info this website is dissapointing [grammar, spelling, punctuation sic]The nerve!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:06 AM
August 12, 2005
Iko Iko
Prof. Brannen turns every shining hour to good account and spends her drive from the beach back to Pennsylvania listening to the iPod. The last hour was a comparative study of versions of "Iko Iko." She's also dying to turn her hand to creating beach reading instead of scholarship. Ah, August and the life of the mind!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:42 AM
August 11, 2005
Charter school successes?
KIPP students are in school at least nine hours a day, compared with fewer than seven hours in regular public schools. Three weeks of summer school is mandatory. Students are urged to call teachers at home if they have questions about homework. Those who do not complete homework are disciplined. Good work and behavior are rewarded with points toward items from the student store and school trips, from which students with few points are excluded. Teachers are trained to be very active in their classrooms, involving all children in lessons and taking points off from those who do not pay attention.Is it much of a surprise that the KIPP schools seem to be succeeding? I don't think so, but more studies will be done.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 9:47 PM
Oral formulaic poetry, front page stories -- separated at birth?
Still the article from which the excerpt comes is worth reading. Why is meth the next heroin? Why is oxycontin the next whatever? Read it and weep.
via Radley Balko.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:49 AM
The Rice Genome Sequenced - fun for historians, too!
This article about the sequencing of the rice genome in the Washington Post is all about the wonders of science and feeding the poor and agribusiness. I'm delighted for scientists and the hungry and Monsanto, but all this genomics is going to be fun for us, too -- remember the crazy sheep dna project? Little snippets of manuscript may someday tell us how big the flocks and herds were in the past (and not just Europe -- writing on leather or using leather bindings is common.
The article makes it clear that rice was first because it's easiest, but corn and wheat are on their way. Won't it be interesting to work out how corn really developed? Agricultural genetics will tell us heaps and heaps about the past -- it's already doing so, but the river of knowledge will only increase. Yay!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:12 AM
August 10, 2005
Further Blogfinds, Antiquity
More, MORE interesting blogs! I dunno - having done the Carnivalesque thing I'm following up links and finding other blogs I should bookmark -- here's one:
Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean blog, subtitled "Posts on religious life among Greeks, Romans, Jews, and Christians in the Roman empire and on the social history of Christianity." This post talks about his main squeeze - which probably isn't what you're thinking. Go read!
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:25 AM
OK - let's try THIS -- Smaller Schools?
The New York Times ran a long article yesterday on New York's smaller schools experiment. This attempt at saving secondary education in America is predicated on school size (rather than class size).
The hope is that schools with fewer than 500 students will create a more intimate learning environment, improving attendance and achievement by making it easier to identify students' needs. Themes like peace and diversity are used to make school more engaging, even as the curriculums focus on basic requirements, not vocational training or electives.I think the "engaging" part isn't much use, but the size might help. Everything's anecdotal after the first year (the attendance records haven't even been reviewed to see if small school improve attendance) but the experiment will expand by another 50 or so schools this year. We'll see. The article sounds hopeful, and I have to admit that my predjudice is that surely 500 students is better than 3,000 -- but then I attended a small high school and spent a very discontented year teaching in a very large one.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:57 AM
August 9, 2005
Wine Chemistry
Here's a fascinating (and long - 5 jumps) New York Times Magazine piece called The Chemistry of a 90+ Wine. Here's a moment that expresses the difference between these folks and a Robert Parker, say:
''Chemical ecology says that a wine's flavor, color and fragrance are expressions of its ecosystem,'' McCloskey told me. ''Wine scientists thought grapes were more complicated than any other plant system. But we found out that Vitis vinifera produces a relatively simple list of flavors. Grapes are really rather primitive.''This article is all California all the time, but the same kind of thing goes on at the Cornell Cooperative Extension right here in Geneva -- and I got to meet several wine scientists who come over to teach the evening wine class at our Colleges. The still believe in things like terroir, but the chemists seemed to be in the majority. We saw lots and lots of charts -- but always in conjunction with a wine to taste.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 7:02 AM
Calm Pervades the Main Stream Media.
It's always nice to see some scepticism about a reported epidemic -- especially in the month of August --
Many dermatologists argue that melanoma, the most deadly of the skin cancers, is in fact becoming more common. And they recommend regular skin cancer screening as the best way to save lives. But some specialists say that what the numbers represent is not an epidemic of skin cancer but an epidemic of skin cancer screening, and a new study lends support to this view.There's even a reasonably calm story about finding dreaded snakeheads in a park in Queens in the same issue of the New York Times. What is the world coming to?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:46 AM
August 8, 2005
Neat Late Antiquity Blog!
I forgot this one in the Carnivalesque listings -- I came across Troels Myrup Kristensen's Towards an Archaeology of Iconoclasm sometime last month and had misfiled the bookmark. Kristensen is a graduate student at the University of Aarhus and the blog tracks the course of the M.A. thesis on early Christian iconoclasm of non-Christian (pagan, that is) art.
The Case Studies category is especially interesting -- and the pictures are even more so.
One of the interesting issues will be sorting out the dating accurately enough to be certain that what shows up is Christian iconoclasm rather than Islamic iconoclasm (something that certainly went on as well). It's also tricky to separate accidental damage from intentional destruction -- marble statues are inherently fragile (the qualities which makes marble easy to carve makes it easy to break). For instance, were statues damaged in earthquakes or shipping and then simply disposed of?
When we see faces that have been chipped away with bodies that have been allowed to let stand it's clear we're seeing something intentional -- but it's difficult to date except by careful attention to archaeological context.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:27 AM
August 7, 2005
Mass of a Joyful Heart
I am a professor at a small liberal arts college in the diocese of Rochester, NY. We are lucky to have Mass on campus each week that school is in session; this is truly an act of charity by the two priests of the Roman Catholic Community of Geneva, who offer 4 scheduled Masses in English and one in Spanish every Sunday -- our Mass makes a 5th English-language Mass 9 months of the year. I usually attend that Mass. I dress relatively simply (no jacket and tie); my first year I wore jacket and tie until some students told me that I made them feel uncomfortable and underdressed. Heaven forfend! I want to maximize mass-going, so dress down a bit.
This makes me the only person in the world who systematically dresses better for summer Sunday Masses than during the rest of the year. Of course, this schema also means that I get to get some use out of my seersucker and poplin suits (all things work together for the good, you know). That's because I get to attend Mass in a lovely 1910 Arts and Crafts Meets Gothic Revival church -- St. Stephen's (the link goes to my flickr photostream -- there are 4 pictures of St. Stephen's).
The music is usually pretty bad even during the school year. The organist is alright, but the selection is the typical round of St. Louis Jesuits and their ilk -- and I can't think about the Easter Vigil right now. Someone had the bright idea this summer of having us use the same mass setting all summer, printing it in fliers, and putting them in the pews -- so far, so good. The missa de angelis? Oh, puh-leeze! We're trying to sing the Mass of a Joyful Heart, by Steve Angrisano and Tom Tomaszek, copyright 1999, Oregon Catholic Press.
My grasp of music is analagous to those people who tell me, a professor of art history, "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like." I think that's a reasonably good starting point. I don't know much about music, but I know what sets my teeth on edge. A congregation attempting to sing the "Holy" in the Angrisano/Tomaszek setting sets my teeth on edge. After May, June, and July we're no closer to being able to sing it than we were at the beginning.
The music makes no sense -- every single "holy" is a different number of notes and the notes are not even (they use what I think are triplets at one point -- I don't think congregations sing triplets very well). The rest of it is banal. B-A-N-A-L. It doesn't sound much like 1999 -- it sounds much more like background music of about 1985. Does it make a difference that both of the authors are specialists in music for "youth"? I think so. Why, then, are we singing it at the Masses of an aging, small-town parish? I have no systematic objection to contemporary music (though in execution I have heard precious little that moves me), but can't we sing something written for adults?
In the end, I can say is that it has made seersucker and summer Mass less of a thrill than in previous summers. Only the combination of banal music and horrific interior at St. Francis de Sales' church (click, scroll down and look to the left) has kept me going to St. Stephen's this year.
Steve Angrisano's site.
Tom Tomaszek's site
further - the horrid triplets are in the "Lamb of God," not the "Holy." Today we had not only that mass setting, but TWO Bob Dufford, SJ, hymns. When I was a Protestant we never sang two hymns by Charles Wesley, say, on a single Sunday. Maybe I won't be so sorry to be going back to Mass at 4 p.m. and an open shirt collar after all.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:55 AM
August 4, 2005
Carnivalesque
What have people interested in things Ancient and Medieval been up to lately? Here are a few offerings -- some submitted by their authors, some by readers, and some dug up by your host - Michael Tinkler. all links open in new windows
To begin on a properly carnivalesque note, Anne Brannen at Creating Text(iles) tells us about Lewd Maygames and Riotous Piping in Barns
Item bicause the Saboth day is so fondly abused in going vnto Fayers and visiting of frendes, and acquaintances, and in feasting and making of good chere, in wanton dawnsing, in lewd maygames sometyme continuing riotously with Piping all whole nightes in barnes and such odde places, both younge men and women out of their fathers and masters howses, I charge all my parishes, within my Dioces, and charge the Churchwardens, Sidemen, and ministers to see that no such disorders be kept vpon the Sabaoth day, commonly called the sundayes, as they will aunswere vppon their othe.This entry is an entry from a series describing a summer research trip. We know that academic summers sometimes look like beer and skittles, but some of us travel around the world to go to ill-ventilated libraries and read documents in crabbed hands. I myself had a few posts using the word Carnivalesque earlier this summer, but I didn't get to go anywhere. No one even brought me a tshirt.
Natalie Bennett of Philobiblon took a less professionally focused trip -- she was cycling through Kent -- but when those inclined to think about the past go pedalling around high and late medieval buildings, they can't help but think. Those who blog can't help but type about architectural cycling.. She found that the villages and towns of later medieval Kent weren't quite what she expected.
Carl Pyrdum at Got Medieval offers Astonishing Tales of French Bureaucracy -- his first trip to the Bibliotheque Nationale as a reader. Woe! Footnotes!
Michael Hendry at Curculio offers a way to pass the dog days of summer for those of us who aren't travelling -- Latin Scrabble! Go comment and play at home!
It seems that many people who aren't reporting research trips are still thinking more lightly than usual. Jim Davila at Paleojudaica offers a list of lost books he'd like to see.
It's heartening to know that what once was lost can be found. the eponymous Glaukôpis of Glaukôpidos commented on the rediscovered Sappho poem and offered some alternative translations.
Two of my daily reads for keeping up with things found are Mirabilis.ca and David Nishimura's Cronaca. Both are constant sources for urls forwarded to my students with the subject line "look! someone just dug up another one of those things we were just talking about!" I recommend them both to your rss feed reader. When they go on vacation I miss them!
David Nishimura took a plunge into publishing original scholarship in late July, though -- he's been posting regularly on the Macclesfield Psalter situation. Because an article he and his wife have written is in festschrift limbo, he's posted it (with permission but without images). Ah, those double-medievalist marriages!
Michael Drout at Wormtalk and Slugspeak has an Update on the Crazy Sheep DNA Project (his use of the term "crazy"). For your less crazy medieval manuscript needs there's always Pecia -- nominated by a reader and also recommended on Cronaca last week. You have to be able to read French, but we can do that, can't we? And for archeology news, mainly in German but occasionally launching into other tongues, Archaeo-News-Blog.
Since I just used the word part archaeo-, I turn to archaeoastronomy - the term and Alun Salt's site. He speculated recently about which comes first -- addition or multiplication? The answer might surprise you, but for those who think I'm setting a math reading, there are pictures. I especially liked the aside "A lot of thought on numbers requires assumptions which we don’t even acknowledge existing."
Word parts and words - I know that's what hooked a lot of us on a past. Michael Gilleland at Laudator Temporis Acti had a nice post on augurium and auspicium.
Another Damn Medievalist at Blogenspiel speculates about why she loves the early stuff -- I concur. But to remind us all that a specialty in things old doesn't improve one's character, Dennis at Campus Mawrtius posts about an Italian human interest story I'd missed retired classics teacher as con man. Can't trust a man just because he has Latin and Greek. What is the world come to?
The past isn't always long ago and far away. Tony Badran at Across the Bay posts on Ethnohistory, Ideology, and Modern Politics -- what's an Amorite? a Canaanite? a Phoenician? Think it doesn't matter in modern Lebanon? Then you don't read Tony often enough.
Did you know there's a Beowulf movie? It's going to be about as horrible as you might imagine -- Grendel has a father, for instance -- but the costumes look like fun. The world premiere is going to be at the Toronto film festival in September. I'm sure we'll all buy it on DVD, no matter how horrible it is, just like I'm about to buy the director's cut of Alexander.
The next will focus on the Early Modern, but I haven't seen a host announced yet.
Further: you can also go read this -- about a blog I intended to include.
Further: The Über Carnival page at Truth Laid Bear
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 4:31 PM
August 3, 2005
Don't Trust Museum Labels
Prof. Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revoltuion trusts a label at the National Museum of Archeology in Lima. He shows a photograph of a jug made in the shape of a Llama and a man and thinks that the man is riding the llama for transportation purposes. The label assured him "Llama usado como transporte." I think the label is wrong.
disclaimer: I am a specialist in Europe around the year 800, not pre-Columbian art. However, I know some specialists in pre-Columbian art and even once edited a masters thesis on a Peruvian weaving pattern showing jaguars where I learned some of the iconographical tricks for the woven versions of bodies. What's more, I know a lot about the awkward miscues caused by the assumption that naturalistic rendering is equivalent to Realism (with all the horrid assumptions with which that word has been burdened since 1850).
The photograph isn't quite complete - click and see - Prof. Tabarrok seems to have clipped the llama head out of the right side. The naked man is riding on the llama's back with his feet at the neck and his head over the tail. The modelling is lovely and rather convincing (other than the man's stocky neck, perhaps, which both works well in clay and echos the llama neck).
What's going on here, though, isn't "transportation" or accomodation to the llama's rather feeble frame. What we see here is a shaman and his animal spirit. Needless to say there's nothing I can find by googling that isn't by a contemporary practitioner of "shamanism" (which may be marginally more authentic than modern self-styled druids, given that there actually are shamans to go talk to in the 21st century, but these links all look shaky). Still, what we see in lots of Central and South American art shows us the transformative process between human and animal. Lots of the gold objects in the shape of animals were, we think, worn by shamans who intended to become those animals. This little jug might well have been used in the necessary ritual.
O.K. I'm making this up, but it's exactly why you take me and people like me with you to museums -- we know more than those horrid little labels. And unless Lauren Bacall is doing the audioguide, you'd be better off listening to me.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:24 PM
At Least Two Billionaires Left Behind
George Soros and his friend Peter Lewis, that is. America Coming Together fades away, sucking $196 million dollars with it. Soros offers comments only through a spokesman for the Washington Post story; that's appropriate, since he's supposed to be in a monastery.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 6:08 PM
Medieval and Ancient Blogs on Parade
My friend that other damned medievalist persuaded me to run a blog roundup of Ancient and Medieval blogs -- if you care to submit something send it to professor AT crankyprofessor-dot-com. Things will go up Friday the 5th.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 11:00 AM
Sorry for the silence . . .
I've been peevish even for me -- I was sick, then I had to travel while relapsing, then I was at my parents, now I'm home, the weather is sticky and hot, the summer is ending swiftly, I have a lot to do. Oh, well. I'm back. I hope you've been using the archives or the category function . . . .
Posted by CrankyProfessor at 10:58 AM