Friday Varia and Quick Hits

Late winter days in Grand Forks hint at hope, but are filled with false promises. Today we’ll see the upper 40s and there’s promise of a whole week with highs above freezing. While our entire world feels like its wet, muddy, and icy, there is hope.

The weekend is all about NCAA basketball. I don’t really have a rooting interest in this year’s tournament; I suppose I’ll pull for the two A10 teams: VCU and St. Louis. The Cup guys are at Darlington which is always fun. The Ammo Williams – Carlos Adames fight on Saturday night is just short of must-see TV, but will be interesting.

We’re entering the home stretch of the semester and while my summer travel plans remain unclear, I’m starting to think about long bike rides and warm summer days. And, I’m always thinking of quick hits and varia:

• Pasts Imperfect.

• Ancient History Roundup.

• Noodling’s Varia.

• Some Reading:

Brit Paris, Radical Infrastructure: Imagining the Internet from the Ground Up(2026)

Open Context in a Changing Context: Data Publishing, Interoperability and Governance.

Toward an Archaeology of Care.

From CHAT:The Contemporary Archaeology of Inequality: Material Culture and Social Change.

• North Dakota State Poetry Association.

• Some watching:

Ionian Peasant Gerasimo and the Currants.

Philadelphia 1700s.

2Saxy Athens.

Blindsight.

• What I’m reading: Allen Ginsberg, The Fall of America: Poems of these States. 1973.

• What I’m listening to: Immanuel Wilkins Quartet: Live at the Village Vanguard, Vol. 1. 2026.