Friday Varia and Quick Hits

Low, grey skies set off the changing colors of the leaves this time of year in North Dakotaland. It’s fall. There’s football on TV and the daily struggle to decide whether to break out the sweaters or not. Cricket and Formula 1 are gearing up warmer places, and, at the same time, it’s the sweet middle of the semester when I feel like I’m in my groove and the students are not quite overextended.

(As a cricket related aside, I watched a good bit of Alistair Cook’s final innings for England and thorough enjoyed it. That he left the game the way that he arrived is great to see and I can’t help but wonder whether with his retirement, we’ve witnessed the end of the era of deliberate openers in test cricket.)

It’s a great time of year and a nice backdrop for some quick hits and varia:

• Hesperia 87.3.

• Wax infant votives from Cyprus.

• Gold coins.

• Digital Approaches to Teaching the Ancient Mediterranean

• Citation as an Act of Enchantment. (See also: Citation is a Gift).

• Sara Perry on what it means to do good archaeological interpretation.

• Two new free books: Authenticity and cultural heritage in the age of 3D digital reproductions and Archaeologists in Print: Publishing for the People.

• Eliade and Saul Bellow.

• Ioannis Makriyiannis at the Gennadius.

• Two pieces on the future of peer review: Let’s Abolish the Peer-Review System and Peer Reviewers Unmasked.

• Faith and History.

• King Kong and Spotify.

• Anatomy of an AI system.

• What I’m reading: Amara Thorton, Archaeologists in Print: Publishing for the People (UCL 2018).

• What I’m listening to: Leon Bridges, Good Thing.