It’s 5 am here in Polis-Chrysochous and I having some coffee in preparation for a long morning clearing weeds from the ruins of the Christian basilica at E.F2. As readers of this blog know, I am particularly interested dream-inspired renovations or discoveries of Early Christian buildings. So I was very aware of my dreams last night just to see if a holy personage might appear to motivate or at least smile kindly on our work this morning.
I think I got close. I first dreamt about a colleague who was very concerned about the tone of a cover letter she was writing and going through all the revisions in it line by line, but this was interrupted by Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Music Mike Wittgraf appearing to discuss a problematic student. Strangely, Mike Wittgraf appeared as Bill Walton (from his mid-1980s playing days with the Boston Celtic), and both scenes took place in my basement. Perhaps it is irreligious to think this way, but this was not as cool as the Panayia appearing to me begging that I “resaddle her old church” or “Ay. Photeini threatening to strike my blind if I did not excavate her church” or even a well-meaning lesser saint asking me to weed with particular piety. We did clean off the basilica nicely, though.
This all being said, I am up nonetheless and preparing a small gaggles of varia and quick hits:
- Stoneworking in the ancient world.
- Athenian names.
- Greek poets and austerity.
- If you didn’t read about our adventures with iPads in the field here, then you can see it on ASOR’s fancy “Archaeology in the Digital Age” blog.
- If you didn’t read Andrew Reinhard’s guest blog yesterday or Bret Weber’s guest blog on Tuesday (because you mistakenly thought is was just more of my blah, blah, blah…), you really should. They are already two of the best things I’ve read this summer.
- The Great Fargo Fire of 1893.
- A year in a Greek garden.
- Apparently the best professors might get bad ratings on student evaluations. This explains some things.
- It looks like the North Dakota University System needs a new chancellor. There’s a great line in a Paul Kelly song about Australian Aboriginal protests in the 1960s. According to Kelly, during the great Gurinji strike, one of their great leaders, Vincent Lingiari, told the white establishment “we know how to wait”. I feel like this should apply to any disruptor who comes to North Dakota looking to change (usually for the worse) our bizarre little culture. They can do what they want as hard as they want, but we know how to wait.
- Along similar lines, some curious bickering around St. Mary’s College in Maryland. I gave a talk there many years ago, and it was very nice.
- Photographs of Fracking at the Field Museum in Chicago in an exhibit called Fractured: North Dakota’s Oil Boom.
- On a similar note, some of the first research on crime rates in western North Dakota.
- Kyle Cassidy on photography and gadgets.
- Some good advice (full stop) directed toward new programers considering a start up. As someone who has leadership roles in starting an archaeological project, a digital humanities center, and is now thinking about starting a digital press, the advice seems pretty broadly applicable.
- Apparently, there are regional differences in how American’s speak. Who knew?
- Art using Excel Spreadsheets.
- Support this Kickstarter right away: Trading cards from the golden age of Australian sport.
- What I’m reading: R. Maguire’s dissertation: Late Antique Basilicas on Cyprus: Sources, Contexts, History (2012).
- What I’m listening to: Frightened Rabbit, Pedestrian Verse; Alphaville, Forever Young.
Archaeology of the Mediterranean World 