Friday Varia and Quick Hits

It’s a pretty grey Friday morning here in the New Archaeology of the Mediterranean World global control room, but it looks like tiny slivers of blue sky are desperately attempting to push their way through the clouds.

Despite the meteorological struggle playing outside my windows, the Friday Varia and Quick Hits must go on…

• Byzantium/Modernism: Art, Cultural Heritage, and the Avant Gardes will be streamed live this afternoon starting at 2:30 CST from Yale University.

• The Robert Biggert Collection of Architectural Vignettes on Commercial Stationery at Columbia University may sound obscure, but it is, in fact, fascinating.

• An interesting article on how colleges are assessing and thinking about motivation.

• The inestimable Joel Jonientz had a birthday this week.

• Matthew Sears has his hoplite phalanxes and Roman legions out on campus at Wabash College.

• Cool covers of Ian Flemming’s James Bond books.

• Doesn’t it stink when you discover your journal accidentally published a paper with “no scientific content”? Good thing they can’t retract a blog. (h/t Dimitri Nakassis)

• Some fun facts about the Wisden Almanack. Two more cricket notes: this was sort of an annoying test, but this fun story about Chris Gayle made me smile.

• I mean, seriously Phillies?

• If you go quick and look here and don’t tell many other people, you can see what Sam Fee and PKAP are dreaming up for an iPad.

• I installed a 7 day trial of Boom. It does make my Mac louder, but I’m not sure better.

• Teaching Thursday has begun its annual series of First Year Reflections.

• New Archaeology of the Mediterranean World = 34,843; Corinthian Matters = 34,879.

• What I’m reading (when it arrives later today): Ian Hodder, Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationship between Humans and Things. (2012)

• What I’m listening to: Sun Araw, The Congos, and M. Geddes Gengras, Icon Give Thank. Frkwys Vol. 9; The Gories, I Know You Be Houserockin’ (via Kostis Kourelis)