Friday Varia and Quick Hits

The weather is slowly warming here in North Dakotaland and even a pesky early spring snow doesn’t stand a chance. “They” say it’ll be close to 40° this afternoon. 

Springtime sports will keep me distracted this weekend, with the Phillies meeting the Dodgers for an early season series and the F1 guys at Suzuka in Japan. The NASCAR circus goes to Darlington and there is some intriguing, if not exactly good, boxing (and I’m talking about the Richard Torres v. Guido Vianello fight tomorrow evening).

Otherwise, I’m going to do some work on a couple publishing projects, get some grading done, and read.

I’ll also make time to restock my sadly diminished gaggle of quick hits and varia:

• Pasts Imperfect.

• The Gladiatorial Spectacles in Cyprus and the Enigma of the Amphitheater at Salamis.

• A couple books:

Dan Hicks, Every Monument Will Fall: A Story of Remembering and Forgetting. 

Weirding Landscapes: Arctic Glacier Extinction and Monsters of the Anthropocene.

• From the Blogs:

Stop Making Sense.

The Dark Ages.

Noodling Varia.

• Father Divine mansion in Philly.

• Divisive versus Eye-opening.

• Copyrights and AI.

• Race and Science.

• Hair-splitting.

• Patek Philippe Reference 5370R. 

• What I am reading: Myka Tucker-Abramson, Cartographies of Empire: The Road Novel and American Hegemony. 2025

• What I’m listening to: Branford Marsalis, Belonging.

Portrait of a Milo as a Young Dog.