Friday Quick Hits and Varia

It’s a holiday weekend and the start of what I like to call “the winter writing season.” These are the frantic weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years when we share with our students an overwhelming sense of urgency to get work done.

Of course we all have other stuff going on. This weekend alone we have The Game, the first round of FCS playoffs (Go Spiders!), the heart of the NFL season, the season finale of Formula 1, and Australia’s desperate effort not to lose their sixth test match in a row. And that’s not mentioning college basketballing, Christmas shopping, or the NBA. No wonder professional hockey went under in the US. There’s simply no time for it.

But there is always time for writing and reading, so please enjoy these quick hits and varia:

• A tragic week in the refugee camps of Greece. First an attack on the Souda camp on Chios, then an explosion in the camp on Lesvos.

• Archaeology in the times of Trump. 

• Digital Surrogates.

• Persian Armenia in photos.

• The SAA Archaeological Record on Archaeogaming.

• RIP Irfan Shahîd and Sharon Jones.

• Leonard Cohen on Greece.

• How to be a good classicist under a bad emperor.

• Two words: Randall Cunningham. 

• Sarah Bond on Arrival.

• What I’m reading: William Least Heat-Moon, PrairyErth: (a deep map). (1991)

• What I’m listening to: Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, 100 Days, 100 Nights and I Learned the Hard Way.