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mousetrapplingIncludes some spoilers for Doctor Who at the end...
Fiction: Still reading "The Gardens of the Moon", Steven Erikson - despite being about 3/4 of the way through this book it's still the preamble for the series as a whole, it's satisfying as a story in itself but with the benefit of hindsight you can see how he's introducing a lot of stuff that's going to be more important later.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - just read the chapter looking at how modern humans spread round the Mediterranean at the end of the last Ice Age and am now in the chapter about how the warming climate & the development of farming increase the human populations and change their lifestyle. Two things I was surprised by were the late development of seafaring in the Mediterranean (no signs of it till 10s of thousands of years after we know other humans were colonising Australia) and also how gradual the development of farming was.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Measure for Measure: Act 5 Scene 1 - the Duke takes great delight in making everybody think that Claudio is dead, Isabella deflowered & Angelo will get away with his behaviour but then reveals the truth to end the play. Whilst casually punishing the foolish fop who'd insulted him whilst he was disguised.
Comedy of Errors: Introductory material - mostly talking about the play/trope on which this is based.
Podcasts:ep 101 of The History of Egypt - starting up the narrative again with a discussion of Amenhotep son of Hapu.
bonus ep of The History of Byzantium - looking at the question of how the people on the ground would've thought about the changes of empire ruling them.
ep 4.K of The History of India - another supplementary episode looking at the art & architecture of a historical site relevant to the period the narrative has got to.
ep Sea 4 of The History of England Shedcasts - pirates (mostly from Devon and Cornwall).
ep 208 of The China History Podcast - starting a series of podcasts looking at Jewish Refugees in China from the 18th Century onwards.
ep 11-17 of The History of China - moved on to the Eastern Zhou period, including a couple of episodes on Confucius and on Sun Tzu.
Sunday podcast: an episode of In Our Time about the historical plays of Shakespeare "Is Shakespeare History? The Romans" which was a companion episode to the last one (both special episodes to celebrate 20 years of In Our Time). This one considered how historical Shakespeare was (and was aiming to be) with his Roman plays.
Music: While running I listened to some of U2 "U22" which is a live album from 2012. And to drown out a film J was watching I listened to the rest of "The Very Best of Jazz Funk CD1" (it has a Benny Golson track on it), "Swing Brother Swing" (two Benny Goodman Orchestra tracks) and started "Greatest Mod Ever CD3" (which has two Benny Spellman tracks on).
Live Music: we went to see U2 play at the O2 in London - this is the tour for the album "Experience" and is effectively the second half of their autobiography (the first half being the "Innocence" album & tour three years ago). I really enjoyed it, they're great live.
Study Day: "Amenhotep III & His Funerary Temple: A 'House for Millions of Years'" - Petrie Museum Friends study day, concentrating on Hourig Sourouzian's excavation at the site of Amenhotep III's funerary temple (best known for the Colossi of Memnon, which were once thought to be all that was left). 5 talks during the day:
ep 3 of Can You Feel It: How Dance Music Conquered the World - about the cult of superstar DJs, an eyerolling end to an eyerolling series. Once again traced the history of the phenomenon and described in approving tones how the scene had sold out and become all about the money instead of the music. I normally like the BBC's music programmes, but this series felt like the accurate subtitle was "Everything That's Wrong with the Music Business".
ep 1 of Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths - start of a series about maths and the history of maths, thinking about whether maths is discovered (and inherent to the universe) or invented by us (so all in our heads and thus possible to do differently). Rather good, not sure we agreed with all of it but we also kept pausing it to talk about it.
The Pharaoh in the Suburb - documentary about the recent discovery of the torso & head of a colossal statue in Cairo, dating to the reign of Psamtik I. Tried a bit too hard to sell it as a game changer in Egyptological studies, but did provide a nice overview of the founding of the 26th Dynasty by Psamtik who pushed out both the Assyrians and the Nubians to do so.
ep 3 of Doctor Who - I'd been a bit worried about this episode in advance, tackling the Civil Rights era of US history seemed like it would be full of potential minefields. But it seemed (to this white Brit) that they did a pretty good job of dodging the problems - the Doctor & co were there to keep someone else from interfering with history, Rosa Parks did her thing because she was Rosa Parks not because someone from the future inspired her, we were shown (not told) the way that society then was racist and there were no sudden epiphanies from white characters now that the Doctor had shown them the light or anything patronising like that. But, I got wound up by something trivial - the Doctor & co kept talking amongst themselves like nobody could hear them and I didn't see or hear any lampshading of how they were getting away with that and it set my teeth on edge. I did enjoy the episode overall tho :)
Books
Fiction: Still reading "The Gardens of the Moon", Steven Erikson - despite being about 3/4 of the way through this book it's still the preamble for the series as a whole, it's satisfying as a story in itself but with the benefit of hindsight you can see how he's introducing a lot of stuff that's going to be more important later.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - just read the chapter looking at how modern humans spread round the Mediterranean at the end of the last Ice Age and am now in the chapter about how the warming climate & the development of farming increase the human populations and change their lifestyle. Two things I was surprised by were the late development of seafaring in the Mediterranean (no signs of it till 10s of thousands of years after we know other humans were colonising Australia) and also how gradual the development of farming was.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Measure for Measure: Act 5 Scene 1 - the Duke takes great delight in making everybody think that Claudio is dead, Isabella deflowered & Angelo will get away with his behaviour but then reveals the truth to end the play. Whilst casually punishing the foolish fop who'd insulted him whilst he was disguised.
Comedy of Errors: Introductory material - mostly talking about the play/trope on which this is based.
Listening
Podcasts:ep 101 of The History of Egypt - starting up the narrative again with a discussion of Amenhotep son of Hapu.
bonus ep of The History of Byzantium - looking at the question of how the people on the ground would've thought about the changes of empire ruling them.
ep 4.K of The History of India - another supplementary episode looking at the art & architecture of a historical site relevant to the period the narrative has got to.
ep Sea 4 of The History of England Shedcasts - pirates (mostly from Devon and Cornwall).
ep 208 of The China History Podcast - starting a series of podcasts looking at Jewish Refugees in China from the 18th Century onwards.
ep 11-17 of The History of China - moved on to the Eastern Zhou period, including a couple of episodes on Confucius and on Sun Tzu.
Sunday podcast: an episode of In Our Time about the historical plays of Shakespeare "Is Shakespeare History? The Romans" which was a companion episode to the last one (both special episodes to celebrate 20 years of In Our Time). This one considered how historical Shakespeare was (and was aiming to be) with his Roman plays.
Music: While running I listened to some of U2 "U22" which is a live album from 2012. And to drown out a film J was watching I listened to the rest of "The Very Best of Jazz Funk CD1" (it has a Benny Golson track on it), "Swing Brother Swing" (two Benny Goodman Orchestra tracks) and started "Greatest Mod Ever CD3" (which has two Benny Spellman tracks on).
Live Music: we went to see U2 play at the O2 in London - this is the tour for the album "Experience" and is effectively the second half of their autobiography (the first half being the "Innocence" album & tour three years ago). I really enjoyed it, they're great live.
Study Day: "Amenhotep III & His Funerary Temple: A 'House for Millions of Years'" - Petrie Museum Friends study day, concentrating on Hourig Sourouzian's excavation at the site of Amenhotep III's funerary temple (best known for the Colossi of Memnon, which were once thought to be all that was left). 5 talks during the day:
- "Amenhotep III: Reign of the Sun King and His Building Programme through Egypt and Nubia" Anna Garnett - gave us the context for the funerary temple both in terms of Amenhotep III's position in history and the other things he built.
- "Beyond Memnon: Milestones to a Dramatic History of a Site" Hourig Sourouzian - the site of the funerary temple through history including its destruction by an earthquake in Merenptah's reign, the Colossi of Memnon as a tourist attraction in antiquity, and an overview of her own excavation.
- "Rebuilding the King: The Revival of Scatter Statues" Hourig Sourouzian - a reprise of the second part of her preceding talk, but in the form of a TV documentary (made by the team but not, I think, picked up by any channel). A good counterpoint to the more academic talks before it.
- "Interconnected Cultural and Floodplain Lanscapes of the Holocene Nile Valley at Ancient Thebes" Willem Toonen - looking at what the geography of the site was through history, using evidence from soil cores. Once the temple would've stood on a hill next to a branch of the Nile, quite a different setting to the more flat modern landscape.
- "The Colossi of Memnon & Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project: Archaeology & Challenges of Conservation" Hourig Sourouzian - more detail on Sourouzian's own excavations.
Watching
ep 3 of Can You Feel It: How Dance Music Conquered the World - about the cult of superstar DJs, an eyerolling end to an eyerolling series. Once again traced the history of the phenomenon and described in approving tones how the scene had sold out and become all about the money instead of the music. I normally like the BBC's music programmes, but this series felt like the accurate subtitle was "Everything That's Wrong with the Music Business".
ep 1 of Magic Numbers: Hannah Fry's Mysterious World of Maths - start of a series about maths and the history of maths, thinking about whether maths is discovered (and inherent to the universe) or invented by us (so all in our heads and thus possible to do differently). Rather good, not sure we agreed with all of it but we also kept pausing it to talk about it.
The Pharaoh in the Suburb - documentary about the recent discovery of the torso & head of a colossal statue in Cairo, dating to the reign of Psamtik I. Tried a bit too hard to sell it as a game changer in Egyptological studies, but did provide a nice overview of the founding of the 26th Dynasty by Psamtik who pushed out both the Assyrians and the Nubians to do so.
ep 3 of Doctor Who - I'd been a bit worried about this episode in advance, tackling the Civil Rights era of US history seemed like it would be full of potential minefields. But it seemed (to this white Brit) that they did a pretty good job of dodging the problems - the Doctor & co were there to keep someone else from interfering with history, Rosa Parks did her thing because she was Rosa Parks not because someone from the future inspired her, we were shown (not told) the way that society then was racist and there were no sudden epiphanies from white characters now that the Doctor had shown them the light or anything patronising like that. But, I got wound up by something trivial - the Doctor & co kept talking amongst themselves like nobody could hear them and I didn't see or hear any lampshading of how they were getting away with that and it set my teeth on edge. I did enjoy the episode overall tho :)
no subject
Date: 2018-10-25 17:22 (UTC)Last week I saw the play Equivocation, which is about Shakespeare being commissioned to write a play about the gunpowder plot, which was very clever in looking at challenges both period and current. I enjoyed it, despite being hugely tired that evening. (Somehow your mention of Shakespeare prompted this. Not completely sure why.)
no subject
Date: 2018-10-25 18:01 (UTC)The play sounds interesting :)