The Cranky Professor

There's Visual Literacy and there's Legal Literacy. And you'd think a building full of lawyers would be legally literate.

In producing faux openness (look, we're all social media and we post photos!) the White House forgot that "no copyright for pictures produced by federal employees in the line of work" clause, didn't they? And they didn't HAVE to publish on Flickr!

Now they're scrambling - and it probably won't work.

I really should blog about the great Visual Literacy seminar our Library and NITLE put on right before classes started - I've been bogged down! Copyright and such were certainly topics. In fact, I set up a private Tumblr blog just this morning for my Islamic Art & Architecture students. Not only do I want this to be a comfortable class environment (cough cough) but I want it to be unsearchable when we start talking about images of the Prophet Muhammad.

Britain's only Chariot Track

Trying to save Colchester's Roman circus.

German pick up phrase a day?

I keep improving shining hours (which if you live in a place as gray as I do is important) - I bought a German-phrase-a-day calendar. Lately it seems to be stuck in a singles bar. Sind Sie verheiratet? Then earlier this week "Sind Sie single?" Yesterday, "Sind Sie in einer Beziehung?"

Today we've broken away from all that and I keep saying to myself (whenever I walk past the end of the kitchen counter, "Keine Sorge, mein Hund beißt nicht."

A new fave - Unhappy Hipsters

Life in high design - Unhappy Hipsters.

Weather, not Climate

I foolishly believed the weather prediction this morning - no snow here! Cold but clear! While I was inside Staples it grayed up, started snowing, and hasn't stopped. Argh!

On the other hand, I bought a nice wire book stand.

Vote Medievalist!

Well, a B.A. in philosophy and medieval history from Stanford, at least!

And not a creepy FCINO.

Gotta love the Gender Warfare, too - "Purity, piety, our fiscally conservative leaders, men we admire...."

Gummy vitamins for adults?

Some generation younger than mine is coming of age - and being advertised to.

Gummy vitamins? You can't swallow a chalky pill?

Sources and Documents

I had to buy a new copy of J.J. Pollitt's Art of Ancient Greece: Sources and Documents; I have no idea what I've done with mine, the library's is too fragile to xerox out of, and books like this are endlessly useful. I sometimes think of just ordering one of them as the primary textbook along with a history of a period and working through mainly the images (or kinds of images) referred to in the surviving texts. It would be an interesting way to run a course - but ultimately I probably wouldn't like it. We (or I) depend too much on the insights from archaeology, which this kind of textual evidence is not all that helpful at generating.

Here are some other ones I use all the time:
Cyril Mango: The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453: Sources and Documents
Caecilia Davis-Weyer: Early Medieval Art 300-1150: Sources and Documents
Teresa Frisch: Gothic Art, 1140-c. 1450: Sources and Documents

Recruiting for Rome

Last night was the open information session for our Spring 2011 abroad programs. Nick and I and a student who went in 2009 did a quick presentation twice as students cycled through. We talked to about 35 last night - and expect maybe 70 applications eventually. Students turn in applications March 1. We have a month to evaluate, check references, look at transcripts, cross-check disciplinary records with the deans, and make our selection. We make offers on April 1. They pay a deposit by early May. So before the end of the semester we should have our Rome 2011 Crew lined up!

I think the idea of a permanent majority is over

When you lose Saturday Night Live, you've lost.

Presidents of Harvard, Brown, Yale, etc., fly to Switzerland to save the environment

So they're all going to behave sustainably NOW. From now on. Only videoconferences? Because it seems to me that the transportation costs (in dollars and carbon) are pretty unsustainable between Providence, RI, and Davos, Switzerland.

Interacting with Modernism

One of the problems of having a big, famous Modern building is there's no way to add to it - you end up making everyone angry that you've messed up the earlier architecture. The S.C. Johnson Company had two buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright - now they have a building by Norman Foster that sits near them and comments on them. Here's a review from the Chicago Tribune with several good photos.

Islamic Art in Detroit

The Detroit Institute of Art (one of those museums everyone forgets about - in a formerly great and wealthy city ) is opening a new Islamic Art gallery. Here's a link to the collection - it looks very interesting!

Dynastic meltdown

Beau Biden decides not to run?

Anthrax?

I keep forgetting they haven't really solved the anthrax case.