mourningdove

Berlin Wildlife

I’ve seen some critters here that we don’t have where I live in the States, and so I decided to do some watercolors of them. Not pictured: the Eurasian jay, but I have yet to get a good picture of one I can sketch and paint from….

Ceramics Saturdays: The Ostrakon and Cancel Culture in Ancient Athens

The Agora Museum in Athens is full of these funny little terracotta disks with a hole in the middle, partially glazed in black, with someone’s name scratched through the black glaze. They’re ostraka, and they were used in special elections called to banish certain citizens from Athens for 10 years. Ostracism was used in casesContinue reading “Ceramics Saturdays: The Ostrakon and Cancel Culture in Ancient Athens”

Aikido and Rhetoric: Sacrifice

Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love. Morihei Ueshiba, The Art of Peace Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practiceContinue reading “Aikido and Rhetoric: Sacrifice”

Friday Favorites: Feedly-Cleanup, Cute Animal Edition

It wasn’t even a bad week–these are just adorable: OK, this isn’t adorable: It’s a pile of 1,000,000 mosquitoes. But it reminds me that a bat can eat over 1,000 mosquitoes an hour, which means that a group of 100 bats could chow their way through that pile in 10 hours. Bats are awesome. SoContinue reading “Friday Favorites: Feedly-Cleanup, Cute Animal Edition”

Athens Day Five: Delphi

…which is not at all in Athens, prompting some raised eyebrows from the guy at the Europcar rental counter: “You’re driving to Delphi and back? Today?” Yup. There was no way I was coming to Greece for the first time in my life and not going to Delphi. I knew only the basic Wikipedia factsContinue reading “Athens Day Five: Delphi”

Athens Day Four: Aegina

If reincarnation were a thing, and you got a choice about how you wanted to come back in your next life, I would seriously consider being a cat who lives in a fish market. I mean, choice #1 would be being a sea otter, floating around all day cracking open oysters on my chest andContinue reading “Athens Day Four: Aegina”

Ceramics Saturdays: Mycenean and Cycladean Wares

I’ve learned a lot about these ceramic traditions on my trip to Athens, and they’re really special. A little historical background: these were the two cultures that preceded and most heavily influenced Classical Athenian culture. The Cyclades are a flock of Aegean islands fenced in by Greece, Turkey, and Crete, the mythical home of theContinue reading “Ceramics Saturdays: Mycenean and Cycladean Wares”

Athens Day Three: Aristotle, Dough Balls, and Lots of Vases

Technically this was Day Four of Athens, but we spent Day Three almost entirely at the conference. The presentations were interesting overall: my favorite was by Kent Chan, who works on Euro-American ideas of “The Tropics” and considers stereotypes about heat in his video installation for Weather Engines, “Heat Waves.” Sightseeing Day Three started offContinue reading “Athens Day Three: Aristotle, Dough Balls, and Lots of Vases”

Day Two in Athens: The Agora and Ancient Greek Technology

After a quick breakfast at our corner taverna, Taia, we hopped on the tram for a winding trip from Kassomouli to Syntagma through the National Botanical Garden. From there, we walked through Plaka–both really touristy and really beautiful, with jewel-box Byzantine chapels and crumbling villas tucked at the end of alleys–to the Roman Agora. WeContinue reading “Day Two in Athens: The Agora and Ancient Greek Technology”

First Day in Athens: Anchovies and the Acropolis

I’m here in Athens tagging along with my colleague Birgit, who’s presenting at a really cool project called Weather Engines at the Onassis Stegi art center. The exhibition collects various interpretations by multimedia artists of the factors that drive weather–human and nonhuman, and Birgit is one of the scholars making presentations that help put theContinue reading “First Day in Athens: Anchovies and the Acropolis”