Spring has finally sprung here in North Dakotaland with temperatures in the 50s and 60s and the last of the snow melting from our gardens. The mulch we ordered is still frozen at the nursery giving us another week to enjoy the warm weather without the burden of doing work outside.
In my life, the bustle of springtime stands in contrast with the social austerity introduced by The COVIDs. At best, it’s giving me time to slow down a bit to read, write, and reflect when usually I’d be flailing my way toward the end of the semester.
To help share some of my springtime reading (and stay tuned for my traditional summer reading list), University of Nebraska Press and North Dakota Quarterly have made the latest issue of NDQ available as a free download here. They’ve also offered a discount on NDQ subscriptions using the coupon code “9389VT”. There’s something to be said for the sentiment that for now on, I’ll only read fiction.
These are difficult times for the arts. If you can, buy a book from a small press (I suggest something from my friends at NDSU Press, or from a small book store like Zandbroz in Fargo, Ferguson in Grand Forks, Books on Broadway in Williston, or Main Street Books in Minot), give to a museum (like the North Dakota Museum of Art or the Plains Art Museum), support a local arts organization (like the Grand Forks Chorales), or subscribe to a little magazine (check out North Dakota Quarterly or Ploughshares at 50).
I hope your weekend is full of good things and enjoy this little list of quick hits and varia:
- Tabulae Imperii Byzantini 13: Bithynien und Hellespont is open access.
- Forgotten Friend of Skyros: Hazel Dorothy Hansen.
- Digital Catalogue: Woven Interiors: Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt is a free download.
- What’s the Deal with Birds?
- Urban Erasures: Historical and Contemporary Archaeologies
- Aptera, a City of Crete.
- The Black Sea Research Project.
- Shawn Graham’s Crafting Digital History class.
- Dark Data.
- Rivers of the Anthropocene.
- Greek Ship jumpers and immigration.
- Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid Pro Quo?
- Granta is making some of their archive free.
- NEH Funds for Cultural Institutions.
- Gin and Milk.
- Sad news about New Rivers Press.
- RIP Lee Konitz.
- On Wilmington, Delaware:
- Kyle Cassidy on Philadelphia during The COVIDs.
- Athens at Easter.
- What I’m reading: Christopher Witmore, Old Lands: a chorography of the Eastern Peloponnese. (2020)
- What I’m listening to: Lee Konitz, Live at the Blue Note.
Differing attitudes toward walks:
