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mousetrapplingIncludes some spoilers for Doctor Who at the end...
Fiction: Still reading "Memories of Ice" Steven Erikson - coming up towards the end of it now. If the relationships foregrounded in Deadhouse Gates were all travelling companions one might not've chosen (and betrayal) this book is all about mothers and children (and betrayal). With a strong helping of good intentions being the road to hell.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - moving on now to the period from 3500 BCE to 2200 BCE. Starting off with the developments in Egypt (which gets unified and runs through to the Old Kingdom in this time period) - even though it's outside the remit of the book he's covering Upper Egypt because it'll have that knock on effect on the Nile Delta & thus the Mediterranean cultures. One thing I'd not realised is that Egypt gets agriculture relatively late (compared to the Levant, for instance, which is only next door). He's stressing the nomadic pastoral origins of Egyptian culture, and how the increasing desertification of the Sahara was a driving force in their cultural development.
Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors: Act 4 Scenes 3-4, Act 5 Scene 1 - and we're done, the last scene there's finally both pairs of brothers on stage simultaneously so the whole thing unwinds to its conclusion.jesuswasbatman suggested it fails as a play to read because you need the actors' body language, and that's right I think ... but it's also still one of my least favourite types of comedy.
Much Ado About Nothing: Introductory Material - which (among much else) points out the innuendo in the title, where "nothing" is a euphemism for vagina (no thing, ie no penis).
Podcasts: ep 263 of The History of England - looking at Edward's plans for the succession now that he's fallen ill, and considering if he was firmly under Dudley's thumb or acting on his own thoughts.
ep Eleanor 1 of The History of England Shedcasts - he's starting up a series of mini-episodes serialising the biography of Eleanor of Acquitane, this one setting the scene a bit.
ep 52-59 of The History of China - which covered the rest of the 16 Kingdoms period, and is just starting on the Southern & Northern period where China is dominated by two large powers.
ep 176 of The History of Byzantium - an interview with the podcaster from The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast about Byzantine philosophical thought in general and Michael Psellos in particular.
Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Hope, or more descriptively about the philosophy of Hope. Which is more complicated than one might initially think. The programme started out from the Greek story of Pandora's box, where hope is left behind in the box after the evils are released - so is it a caged evil, an evil kept for mankind, a caged good, or a good kept for mankind? The Greeks were inclined towards it being an evil that Zeus intended kept for mankind to run afoul of. The Christians made it a virtue but then there's a tension between Hope & Faith because hoping for one's eternal salvation implies one doesn't have faith that it will happen. And Nietzsche thought it was a delusion that kept one alive (early Nietzsche thought that was a bad thing, later Nietzsche thought it might not be so bad after all).
Music: While running I listened to the "Greatest Mod Ever" compilation. In the evenings I listened to a couple of Beth Orton EPs plus the second disc of the "INCredible Sound of Jo Whiley" compilation (as there's a Beth Orton track on it).
Study Day: "Egypt's Shifting Capital" was the title of the Egypt Exploration Society's Study Day:
I Am Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum - looking at the life & times of Ashurbanipal, mostly his conquests (gleefully recorded in his palace wall reliefs in gruesome detail) and his library (preserved by fire at Nineveh and now (mostly?) in the British Museum). Very well done, I particularly liked the use of lighting to colourise some of the reliefs and to tell the story on one of the large battle scenes. I'm now wondering if entertainments at the palace would include storytellers who used the reliefs as visual aids.
I, Object exhibition at the British Museum - fun, but rather slight. I'm glad we didn't make a particular trip to see it but instead tacked it on to another visit, but I'm also glad we did make it in to see it.
Early Egyptian room at the British Museum - I had a couple of objects I particularly wanted to see, and I also like looking at the Predynastic stuff, so I hung out in here for a bit while J looked at coffins.
ep 3 of Dynasties - Lions this time. The overall theme really is "nature red in tooth & claw". No pussyfooting around with cute shots of fluffy animals here, instead a tale of life on the edge between survival and disaster.
ep 1 of the Mediterranean with Simon Reeve - new series where he travels round the Mediterranean coast, starting in Italy and Albania. His normal format is to show you something cool or beautiful or awe-inspiring then tell you how humanity is fucking it all up. This episode was mostly skipping straight to the "how we're fucking up" stage. For instance the bit of southern Italy that is pretty much not part of the state of Italy and the local mafia "governs" it as a separate fiefdom.
ep 2 of The Lakes with Paul Rose - Derwentwater this time, still mostly a piece of fluff.
Discovering ... Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue - I think this will be a series, but not shown all at once. First 3/4 of the programme was talking about the piece - putting it in context, talking about the structure etc and listening to bits in rehearsal. And the last part was a full performance of the piece so you could hear what you'd just learnt about. I rather liked it.
Egypt's Lost Princess - about the tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 2012, which didn't contain treasures like Tutankhamun's but did have all sorts of interesting things. It was originally the tomb of an 18th Dynasty princess and had been robbed and reused after that in the Third Intermediate Period. Voiceover man made me wince a bit at times, but it was a well done & interesting programme in general. (Tho as we'd heard Susanne Bickel talk at the EEG about the same tomb earlier this year there was nothing I didn't already know.)
ep 8 of Doctor Who - rather fun historical set in the witch-hunting reign of James I & VI. This time there were aliens, tho humanity still sucked, and the Doctor got to interfere coz it was neither a fixed point nor an important part of a companion's timeline. Liked that while James was very much a caricature he was clearly a caricature of James I & VI rather than generic. Liked in a kinda wince-y way the fact that James's misogyny was too strong for the psychic paper to get past, and liked the Doctor's exasperation (and complete refusal to let it stop her getting on with the job). This time none of the murderers get off quite scot free, tho of course nothing more than a slapped wrist happens to James coz it can't.
Books
Fiction: Still reading "Memories of Ice" Steven Erikson - coming up towards the end of it now. If the relationships foregrounded in Deadhouse Gates were all travelling companions one might not've chosen (and betrayal) this book is all about mothers and children (and betrayal). With a strong helping of good intentions being the road to hell.
Non-fiction: Still reading "The Making of the Middle Sea", Cyprian Broodbank - moving on now to the period from 3500 BCE to 2200 BCE. Starting off with the developments in Egypt (which gets unified and runs through to the Old Kingdom in this time period) - even though it's outside the remit of the book he's covering Upper Egypt because it'll have that knock on effect on the Nile Delta & thus the Mediterranean cultures. One thing I'd not realised is that Egypt gets agriculture relatively late (compared to the Levant, for instance, which is only next door). He's stressing the nomadic pastoral origins of Egyptian culture, and how the increasing desertification of the Sahara was a driving force in their cultural development.
Shakespeare: The Comedy of Errors: Act 4 Scenes 3-4, Act 5 Scene 1 - and we're done, the last scene there's finally both pairs of brothers on stage simultaneously so the whole thing unwinds to its conclusion.
jesuswasbatman suggested it fails as a play to read because you need the actors' body language, and that's right I think ... but it's also still one of my least favourite types of comedy.Much Ado About Nothing: Introductory Material - which (among much else) points out the innuendo in the title, where "nothing" is a euphemism for vagina (no thing, ie no penis).
Listening
Podcasts: ep 263 of The History of England - looking at Edward's plans for the succession now that he's fallen ill, and considering if he was firmly under Dudley's thumb or acting on his own thoughts.
ep Eleanor 1 of The History of England Shedcasts - he's starting up a series of mini-episodes serialising the biography of Eleanor of Acquitane, this one setting the scene a bit.
ep 52-59 of The History of China - which covered the rest of the 16 Kingdoms period, and is just starting on the Southern & Northern period where China is dominated by two large powers.
ep 176 of The History of Byzantium - an interview with the podcaster from The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast about Byzantine philosophical thought in general and Michael Psellos in particular.
Sunday Podcast: an episode of In Our Time about Hope, or more descriptively about the philosophy of Hope. Which is more complicated than one might initially think. The programme started out from the Greek story of Pandora's box, where hope is left behind in the box after the evils are released - so is it a caged evil, an evil kept for mankind, a caged good, or a good kept for mankind? The Greeks were inclined towards it being an evil that Zeus intended kept for mankind to run afoul of. The Christians made it a virtue but then there's a tension between Hope & Faith because hoping for one's eternal salvation implies one doesn't have faith that it will happen. And Nietzsche thought it was a delusion that kept one alive (early Nietzsche thought that was a bad thing, later Nietzsche thought it might not be so bad after all).
Music: While running I listened to the "Greatest Mod Ever" compilation. In the evenings I listened to a couple of Beth Orton EPs plus the second disc of the "INCredible Sound of Jo Whiley" compilation (as there's a Beth Orton track on it).
Study Day: "Egypt's Shifting Capital" was the title of the Egypt Exploration Society's Study Day:
- "Predynastic 'Central Places': Naqada and Neken at the Dawn of the Egyptian State" Grazia A. Di Pietro - she's been re-examining data from previous excavations and has put together a timeline for how both sites were used over time.
- "Amarna (Akhetaten)" Barry Kemp - an update on what's going on with the Amarna excavations, he seems to've been focusing on road networks, and thinking about how the Egyptians conceived of the layout of the site (and the roads).
- "The Memphis Survey After Thirty Years - Where Now?" David Jeffreys - I found this a little incoherent and struggled to follow the thread between the various sites he's excavated at Memphis over the last 30 years.
- "Ancient Egypt in Islamic Cairo" Doris Behrens-Abousif - how the ruins of Ancient Egyptian culture around them did & did not have an impact on architecture in Islamic Cairo. On the did side, building in stone was clearly the way to be remembered, on the did not side was any detail of decoration or architectural style (unlike the re-use of Greek & Roman columns in mosques which had a bit impact on later Islamic stone work).
Museums
I Am Ashurbanipal exhibition at the British Museum - looking at the life & times of Ashurbanipal, mostly his conquests (gleefully recorded in his palace wall reliefs in gruesome detail) and his library (preserved by fire at Nineveh and now (mostly?) in the British Museum). Very well done, I particularly liked the use of lighting to colourise some of the reliefs and to tell the story on one of the large battle scenes. I'm now wondering if entertainments at the palace would include storytellers who used the reliefs as visual aids.
I, Object exhibition at the British Museum - fun, but rather slight. I'm glad we didn't make a particular trip to see it but instead tacked it on to another visit, but I'm also glad we did make it in to see it.
Early Egyptian room at the British Museum - I had a couple of objects I particularly wanted to see, and I also like looking at the Predynastic stuff, so I hung out in here for a bit while J looked at coffins.
Watching
ep 3 of Dynasties - Lions this time. The overall theme really is "nature red in tooth & claw". No pussyfooting around with cute shots of fluffy animals here, instead a tale of life on the edge between survival and disaster.
ep 1 of the Mediterranean with Simon Reeve - new series where he travels round the Mediterranean coast, starting in Italy and Albania. His normal format is to show you something cool or beautiful or awe-inspiring then tell you how humanity is fucking it all up. This episode was mostly skipping straight to the "how we're fucking up" stage. For instance the bit of southern Italy that is pretty much not part of the state of Italy and the local mafia "governs" it as a separate fiefdom.
ep 2 of The Lakes with Paul Rose - Derwentwater this time, still mostly a piece of fluff.
Discovering ... Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue - I think this will be a series, but not shown all at once. First 3/4 of the programme was talking about the piece - putting it in context, talking about the structure etc and listening to bits in rehearsal. And the last part was a full performance of the piece so you could hear what you'd just learnt about. I rather liked it.
Egypt's Lost Princess - about the tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 2012, which didn't contain treasures like Tutankhamun's but did have all sorts of interesting things. It was originally the tomb of an 18th Dynasty princess and had been robbed and reused after that in the Third Intermediate Period. Voiceover man made me wince a bit at times, but it was a well done & interesting programme in general. (Tho as we'd heard Susanne Bickel talk at the EEG about the same tomb earlier this year there was nothing I didn't already know.)
ep 8 of Doctor Who - rather fun historical set in the witch-hunting reign of James I & VI. This time there were aliens, tho humanity still sucked, and the Doctor got to interfere coz it was neither a fixed point nor an important part of a companion's timeline. Liked that while James was very much a caricature he was clearly a caricature of James I & VI rather than generic. Liked in a kinda wince-y way the fact that James's misogyny was too strong for the psychic paper to get past, and liked the Doctor's exasperation (and complete refusal to let it stop her getting on with the job). This time none of the murderers get off quite scot free, tho of course nothing more than a slapped wrist happens to James coz it can't.
