Friday Varia and Quick Hits

It’s been a bit of a hectic year for me at Archaeology of the Mediterranean World Headquarters with too many projects, too many smart and energetic colleagues, friends and students, too many fun things to do and read, too many stories to follow in sports, too many books to read (and write and publish), too much political anxiety, and too many dogs (er, not enough dogs).

What a better way to end 2017 than with Alastair Cook carrying the bat for a double-century in the Ashes, with the Eagles clinching home-field advantage and a first round bye in the playoffs, with The Process, and with Ohio State playing tonight in a bowl game that they might actually win!

Despite wavering a bit in recent weeks and months, I’ve decided to stick with the blog after many kind words from people. I do want to explore some other options though and I can’t help but thinking a kind of newsletter format that is delivered weekly to an inbox is more efficient and contemporary mode of delivery? This could also bring together updates from my various projects from North Dakota Quarterly and The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota. Maybe it’s too self-indulgent to think people will want that, but, on the other hand, I find the recent turn to newsletters endlessly fascinating and entertaining. As a long-time pioneer in the blogosphere recently quipped “you can’t remain neutral on a moving train.“

Fortunately, no matter how much media moves, there’s still something about compelling content, and with that, here are a few end of the year quick hits and varia:

• Cleaning up Field Archaeology (huge hat-tip to my friends and colleagues on the Western Argolid Regional Project for speaking out!)
• Eidolon winter reading list.
• Climate change in the Late Bronze Age.
• Fermor. Patrick Leigh Fermor.
• Turks in Greece.
• Saving history from Isis.
• Archaeology of Sabotage.
• Remember refugees.
• Campus archaeology.
• No quick fixes in American higher education. (Oh good, I have time!).
• There is no crisis in the humanities.
• Eternal graffiti. 
• The best high-fi gear of 2017 from my friends at Part-time Audiophile. 
• Documenting one room school houses in North Dakota.
• What am I reading: Blaire Briody, The New Wild West: Black Gold, Fracking, and Life in a North Dakota Boomtown. (New York 2017).
• What I’m listening to: Sun Ra, Languidity.