Relatively minor update

A) Vesuvio is lurking, but seems sulking, not smoking.

B) Herculaneum. Catastrophe? Wonderful treasure trove of wonders? Place of a thousand dead people? Ethical conflict!

C) Formaggio: is it ever a bad time?

Add’l

Hymns in the Pantheon at midnight, in a hall dressed in marble ripped from temples to make a worthy church, out of one of the greatest temples of all. The rain fell, but the drains carry it all away: of all things, the pragmatism of the Romans may have been the greatest.

Currently in Napoli in a hotel painted only in exciting colors, which is somewhat like a hostel but does, in fact, offer the magical internet so lately denied to us. The sky is grey but thankfully not with smoke or ash or pumice stone.

KNOCK ON WOOD.

English Roses Prowling for Ivy League Garcons! Harvard has nothing to offer but luscious men!

Breaking news:

Ivy league men attract female students to the US: The lure of meeting an Ivy League man is encouraging female school-leavers to apply to America’s top universities.

Why? Well, it’s a little confusing. Basically, smart ladies are still after alpha males, who only live in faux rugby shirts and formica-plastered dorms, as opposed to the wood paneled, tweed-clad men lazing about Oxbridge.

Unlike English institutions where women connect with men in alcohol-fuelled environments such as the local club or the student union bar, Ivy girls meet boys by joining societies, sports teams and academic clubs.

Hear that? It’s all debauchery and glee over here, forced to sit in pubs for hours at a time, with no recourse to the outside world! American universities are industrious and exciting, free from the demonic firewater, and the men are rousing and engaging! Even the most intelligent, well-bred English ladies are just after lads! Finishing school, what fun!

FYI: ALL OF THIS IS RUBBISH.

Addendum

There’s also this:

As The Dallas Morning News approaches its 125th anniversary in 2010, our business stands at a critical crossroads. Our success depends on employing bold strategies to evolve our organization: our home delivery pricing strategy (on which Jim and John updated us on Monday), our continued dedication and investment in important and relevant journalism that makes a difference in our community and the ongoing development of our product portfolio have all played a role in changing our approach to how we do business.

This restructure and strategic integration with news, along with the many other strategies we’ve put into place this year to better serve our clients and consumers, position us for significant growth and stability as we head into the new year.

Emphasis mine. Priorities, much? Because that’s some of the text of a letter sent out describing the partnership between the A.H. Belo Corp. and the Dallas Morning News. In the words of Robert Wilonsky, author of the Dallas Observer blog Unfair Park:

“As of yesterday, some section editors at all of the company’s papers, including The News, will now report directly to Carr’s team of sales managers, now referred to as general managers. “

Supposedly, this’ll all be okay:

That’s the simplest line: Whether it’s online or in the paper or in some other product, the consumer needs to know whether it’s news content, entertainment content or advertising content. That needs to be clear. We’re very vigilant …

[From a later interview with Bob Mong of the DMN, reported on the same blog.]

And if stories get shut down before that? If editors urge the assuaging of vitriol, or if fluffernutter news accounts rise? That’s an inherent problem with this, and I say that as student who occasionally wrote articles about actual fluffernutter and its more edible friends. I applaud their attempts to make viable fourth estates, even if uh, this is dodgy business. But were they planning on ever publishing an explication next to the masthead?

Jesus: the gap year debate

Breaking news: Jesus! And the Druids!

‘That is when he was around the age of 12 and went to the temple and astounded the learned experts with his knowledge. One could speculate he had just come back at that point.’

Alternatively, he may have made the visit when in his teens or 20s and used his earnings as a carpenter to fund it.

If I were to tango, post application of whiskey, and then foxtrot, on top of Stonehenge’s pillars it would be slightly less odd than this.

What? What’s that?

Mr Harrison said there were ‘no archaeological finds’ to back up the myth, but ‘by exploring the legend, we are opening up a fascinating new insight into early Christianity’.

New! Sharks Ate The Roman Empire! CLEOPATRA AND BAT BOY HAVE A LOVE CHILD PAGE 39!

Dear Santa: Yes.

I would order scotch on the rocks if it involved this.

Pointing lasers at Mount Rushmore

Lasers, guys. The future of art involves lasers. At least that’s the news out of Florence and the New York Times these days, since groups of researchers are trying to digitally capture every curve and crenice of Everything Artsy. No, really.

In a few years’ time museum visitors will be able to revolve Roman amphorae through 360 degrees on screen, or take off on a virtual flight around a temple.

Okay so that one might not involve lasers. It involves the technical sounding description

“A 3D scan is basically a cloud of measured points. Further processing is required to map the object properly,” Stork explains.

Which doesn’t quite mean lasers, although I’m not really sure what kind of gadgets can map out both amphorae and full-sized statuary.

But’s it okay. Because Scotland upped the ante.

Describing how fast laser modeling has progressed and how far it might soon go, Mr. Pritchard said, “We’re no longer a million miles from the ‘Star Trek’ holodeck.”

He was perfectly serious.

Yes.

Currently, said lasers are plotting to do dastardly things to Mount Rushmore, like

What…should be the most complete and precise three-dimensional models ever of the site, millions of times more detailed and accurate than the best photographs or films, precise down to the tiniest fraction of a millimeter.

That’s a pretty precise view of, say, Abe Lincoln’s nose.

So why might one be running around the world with lasers and scanners and priceless works of art? Because this way, they’re safe. The Science Daily reports exciting things like “a search for Greek vases from the sixth century BC with at least two handles will retrieve corresponding objects from collections all over the world” although to be totally honest, that would probably just give you a headache. I’m also not sure, given that the Beazley Archive has approximately 10648 objects (some with shamefully broken handles) from 550-500 B.C. that this is likely to happen within the next hundred years or so. Team Laser has got serious funding, though, and a goal to “compile scans of 500 Unesco World Heritage sites around the globe”. Sweet. Not that I applaud terrorist forces, tourists or weather catastrophes for causing damage to World Heritage sites, but having them on record- having them so that kids in India, for example, could virtual walk down the streets of Pompeii, or so that folks in South Dakota could see the Antonine Wall- that’s pretty smashing.

ScienceDaily article.

NYTimes article.

Wait, wait, don’t tell me

I know, it’s the early hours of Halloween, that scary night when small children are princesses and ghouls and allowed to eat their body weight in delicious sugar.

But you, you somehow have avoided the lure of bedsheets and poorly placed spots. (Are you….a cow? Smallpox? Copy-editor’s discard bin of punctuation?) Perhaps you felt the need to celebrate that noble profession, the one who tells of kings and swords, who touches the stones of old.

That’s right. So you want to be an archaeologist?

Or a….lion tamer?

Let’s try that again. Show me the archaeologist, internet!

….somehow I do not think her life is in ruins, no.

Okay. Seriously.

I mean, that’s…hilarious. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Indiana Bones.

There is a cute guide out there for small children that includes the helpful advice to wear khakis and a shirt, which”should have a cute saying like “I Love Archaeology” or “I dig on Mummies.” This allows for the rather informal archaeologist look to be more solidified.” No! Down with solidity! Archaeologists thrive on grungy khakis and nonaffliated tshirts!

Although I suppose you shouldn’t give children exciting things like articles on “Fixed-point retail location in the major towns of Roman Britain” or pints of beer, so maybe the tee shirt is the way to go.

Stay safe, have fun, don’t let the sexy Spartan Gladiator Wenches in Togas bite!

Lost: Scotch, on the rocks

This just in, Scotch is the Gatorade of intrepid explorers. Life lesson: no drink is worth Antarctica. Slightly less useful lesson: Scotch popsicles!

Key quote, from the current master blender of the cases’ long-lost casks-

Paterson said he’ll be disappointed if that is the whiskey’s final resting place.

“It’s been laying there lonely and neglected,” he said. “Can it not come back to Scotland where it was born?”

That’s the spirit, man. No bottle left behind.

And so this is Oxford

I know, I know. It’s been, at this rate, nearly a month since I left the boulevards of D.C. A month since drinking a cup of coffee larger than my hands, since eating peanut butter that wasn’t rationed out a jar, since the last time I could say the word “pants” without fear.

You might think I’d have some kind of awesome, awe-inspiring list of images that capture the spires of Oxford, that the streets and the gowns in this town would be carefully archived and labeled and stowed.

Oh, that would be totally wrong. To be fair, there is this:

Peter Pan can't touch this.

Clad in the classic garb of sub fusc, well, at least the updated-for-the-ladies version, this is what happens when you make gowns a necessary part of a Saturday morning.

Also taking up prime Saturday real estate?

Danger, danger Will Robinson

3,000 to 4,000 word essays, due every Tuesday at four.

It is marvelous, this place. No one is here, I think, to study because they have to, or because they must- not as graduates, anyway. There are so many books! So many words, so many professors last seen as footnotes.

And so many cups of tea.

Anyway. I’m alive. There will be an update on the hilarious concept of sub fusc, and that when walking through the streets one can happen upon men in kilts, and women in full dress gowns. John Locke ate brunch in the same halls. William Penn. Oh, they’ll nickel and dime you; there’s no doubt that the number of Americanisms around here relates to international student fees as much as our fervor for acts of the mind, and all that. That, and Ivory Towers are expensive to dust. But there are few places that are Oxford, for better or worse.

(For the record: anassa kata kalo kale, mawrters, that will never be forgotten.)