In this fascinating Times Online piece, one historian says that HBO’s Rome, while good entertainment, has vastly simplified the sexuality of ancient Rome. It’s a fascinating read, especially where he claims that, in fact, HBO’s The Sopranos is much closer to ancient Rome.
Category: ASIDES
Fifty Fantasy & Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read (according to China Miéville)
Instead of the Lunar New Year Readathon I did last year, I’m considering trying to work my way through China Miéville’s list of Fifty Fantasy & Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read over at Fantastic Metropolis. Some of those books will be difficult-to-get, but I just got a credit card approved, so it might be possible to order them, used, if I really want to make my way through the whole list. (Meaning, the books I haven’t read, which is the majority of Miéville’s selections.)
The Plague of Athens
The blog rogueclassicism has the scoop (not much of a scoop anymore, but whatever) on the Plague of Athens: it seems it was typhoid fever.
Just WEIRD
This is plain weird: The mummified body of a woman who didn’t want to be buried was found in a chair in front of her television set 2 1/2 years after her death, authorities said. She said she was planning to come back.
For Those On the Road A Lot
For those of you forced to be on the road, especially driving, who wish they could spend the time reading, you might find useful the wonderful site of Librivox. LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then we release the audio files back onto the net (podcast and catalog). Our objective is to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project. It’s a very cool project. I am enjoying it and planning to download a novel …
Healthy Didgeridoo?
Via Alex Halavais, here’s a news report stressing the health benefits of playing the Australian didgeridoo.
In Honor of Watching Donnie Darko for the Nth Time: A Quiz
Here’s a neat quiz. I post my result on the evening on which I watched the brilliant movie Donnie Darko for the Nth time in my life. You are Karen. You are just trying to help kidsfind themeselves. “A linguist once saidthat out of all the combinations of words inthe English language, “Cellar Door”was the most beautiful.” Which Donnie Darko Character Are You? brought to you by Quizilla
Carla Bley and the Korean Prison Chef
As I live in Korea, this may amuse me more than those in North America. Or not. On what I think is the Carla Bley Band site, which is built on the theme of a musical prison — don’t ask what the heck that is all about — there’s a piece about how a deal was worked out, with Carla Bley scoring a musical residency in in Germany, and the WXW prison in America getting — you got it — a Korean prison chef. I told you it was weird. The rest of the site is bizarre, too. One more …
Viridian Note #00456
Right now on the front page of the The Viridian Design Movement site, you can read the current Viridian Note, number 00456, which sums up the “State of the World 2006”. Included are a summary of a dozen bizarre weather moments from 2005, and a mockery of Thomas Friedman’s latecomer handwringing about the “oil problem”. Also is included a link to a pretty interesting conversation with Bruce Sterling on The Well. Worth checking out, for more than just this one strange link.
Volunteer Abroad, Internship Abroad with Global Crossroad in more than 20 Countries
Global Crossroad is an organization that organizes volunteer programs in developing countries. For anyone who’s thinking of traveling, it might be an option, since it not only cuts down on travel expenses (some — costs are reduced, not completely defrayed) but also allows you to do volunteer work whilst enjoying a foreign country. Though I can’t find a way to access it from the frontpage, the Mongolia Summer Camp program looks very interesting.