Now On A More Pleasent Note
Well Yea!
It would figure that Dale Jr. would win a race this year when I was unable to watch it. :( (There was a memorial service that afternoon and that kind of take precedence.) But Great Job Dale Jr. and the Bud Crew! And Props to Steve Hmiel for making the right calls in the pits. Well done and well deserved!
*applause!*
One race at a time guys, just focus on getting everything right and take it one race at a time.
:( for Elliott’s bad day and :) to Mark Martins drive for consistency, now lets get a win guys!
King Tut
Well, with my folks in town, we got some tickets to see this last Thursday afternoon. My Mom knows far more about Egypt than I, so having her along was quite helpful to us and anyone standing within 5 feet of us.
The exhibit is good in that it is very educational about the 18th Dynasty, covering not only Tutankhamen, but his father “The Great Heretic” Akhenaten, as well as his grandparents: Amunhotep II, who is considered one of Egypt better Pharaohs, and Amunhotep’s in laws, who had the most intact tombs found in the Valley of the Kings before Tut was found. (Though they missed out one Tut’s most interesting ancestors: Hatchepsut.) So you learn a great deal more then simply Tutankhamen (which kind of makes sense as there isn’t much info about a Pharaoh that only ruled 10 years and really had only just reached the age where he was taking things into his own hands when he died.)
But it is a little frustrating because after all the advertising, there is very little Tut in the exhibit. There are plenty of artifacts, many of the them simply stunning and some, like the great stone head of Akenaten, very dramatic and evocative, but the majority are from other Pharaohs. The famous funereal mask, apparently, is too fragile to travel and they had none of his 3 sarcophagi. Nor, for that matter, the mummy itself, though much has been made of the fact that they recently CT scanned it and discovered that the piece of bone in his skull, which many thought pointed to murder, was probably left there by careless mummification process and that the leading theory is now that it was due to a serious break of the thigh just above the knee that probably went gangrenous. Nor any of the famous gilded statues that we are all so familiar with were present and only 4 of the items that were found in Tutankhamen’s wrappings. So you kind of left the exhibit with the feeling of…”Wait a minute. That’s it?”.
I also must warn folks, at least in LA (because I don’t know if other cities will handle it differently), to wait to go later on in the shows stay. It was CROWDED AS H*LL! 60 or 70 people in gallery that was maybe meant for 30. And because the cases were set at waist height, and for the most parts there cards were as well, it too forever to make your way through. (Which is why it got so crowded: They tried to let groups in with 8 to 10 minutes in between, but by the 2nd gallery they were stacking up on top of one another.)
So, it’s definitely worth going, if you wait a while and if you go looking for a cool exhibit on Egypt.
The exhibit will be in LA until Nov. 15th and then is headed for Ft. Lauderdale (Dec. 15 to April 23 2006), Chicago (May 26th to Jan 1st, 2007) and Philadelphia (Feb. 3rd - Sept. 30th 2007). You can purchase advance tickets at TicketMaster (or TicketBastard as an Irish friend of mine calls it *chuckle*).
Must See TV
I know it sounds very cheesy for someone to say that a television show changed their life, but that’s the truth here. It didn’t change how I lived my life, but it changed how I looked at the world.
Michael Wood is a historian and journalist who not only has published many works in very dense, but readable, books and newsprint, but has produced several series for PBS, including this one in 1991: Legacy.
Legacy is a six part series that takes six of the major civilizations of the world, or I should say now, six of what are the commonly accepted civilizations of the world, and looks at how they formed; the historical events, theological and philosophical movements, the cultural interactions and influences that makes them what they are today. In one hour, you gain a far greater understanding for the cultures of Iraq (they were allowed into Iraq before the Gulf War), India, China, Egypt, Central America and The West than you could get out of most college courses because by understanding where they are coming from, you understand how those societies react to various events of different scales and why. And you guide through these different times and worlds, is both eloquent and entertaining.
"India was one of the earliest of the great civilizations and it defined the goals of civilized life very differently from the West. The West raised individualism, materialism, rationality, masculinity as it ideals. India's great tradition insisted on non violence, renunciation, the inner life, the female as pillars of civilization. And through all the triumphs and disasters of her history she hung on to that ideal, an eternal quest to identify humanity with the whole of creation, a unity in diversity ... History is full of empires of the sword but India alone created an empire of the spirit."
About my only complaint with Michael Wood, ever, is he does white wash Alexander the Great a bit, but the rest of the work is so remarkable, I will forgive him a little biased hero worship.
“Eye opening” is an understatement. If you have an opportunity to see this, either through a local library or if they are rebroadcasting it on PBS, make plans to sit down and watch. I will guarantee you will not regret those 6 hours in front of the TV.
It would figure that Dale Jr. would win a race this year when I was unable to watch it. :( (There was a memorial service that afternoon and that kind of take precedence.) But Great Job Dale Jr. and the Bud Crew! And Props to Steve Hmiel for making the right calls in the pits. Well done and well deserved!
*applause!*
One race at a time guys, just focus on getting everything right and take it one race at a time.
:( for Elliott’s bad day and :) to Mark Martins drive for consistency, now lets get a win guys!
King Tut
Well, with my folks in town, we got some tickets to see this last Thursday afternoon. My Mom knows far more about Egypt than I, so having her along was quite helpful to us and anyone standing within 5 feet of us.
The exhibit is good in that it is very educational about the 18th Dynasty, covering not only Tutankhamen, but his father “The Great Heretic” Akhenaten, as well as his grandparents: Amunhotep II, who is considered one of Egypt better Pharaohs, and Amunhotep’s in laws, who had the most intact tombs found in the Valley of the Kings before Tut was found. (Though they missed out one Tut’s most interesting ancestors: Hatchepsut.) So you learn a great deal more then simply Tutankhamen (which kind of makes sense as there isn’t much info about a Pharaoh that only ruled 10 years and really had only just reached the age where he was taking things into his own hands when he died.)
But it is a little frustrating because after all the advertising, there is very little Tut in the exhibit. There are plenty of artifacts, many of the them simply stunning and some, like the great stone head of Akenaten, very dramatic and evocative, but the majority are from other Pharaohs. The famous funereal mask, apparently, is too fragile to travel and they had none of his 3 sarcophagi. Nor, for that matter, the mummy itself, though much has been made of the fact that they recently CT scanned it and discovered that the piece of bone in his skull, which many thought pointed to murder, was probably left there by careless mummification process and that the leading theory is now that it was due to a serious break of the thigh just above the knee that probably went gangrenous. Nor any of the famous gilded statues that we are all so familiar with were present and only 4 of the items that were found in Tutankhamen’s wrappings. So you kind of left the exhibit with the feeling of…”Wait a minute. That’s it?”.
I also must warn folks, at least in LA (because I don’t know if other cities will handle it differently), to wait to go later on in the shows stay. It was CROWDED AS H*LL! 60 or 70 people in gallery that was maybe meant for 30. And because the cases were set at waist height, and for the most parts there cards were as well, it too forever to make your way through. (Which is why it got so crowded: They tried to let groups in with 8 to 10 minutes in between, but by the 2nd gallery they were stacking up on top of one another.)
So, it’s definitely worth going, if you wait a while and if you go looking for a cool exhibit on Egypt.
The exhibit will be in LA until Nov. 15th and then is headed for Ft. Lauderdale (Dec. 15 to April 23 2006), Chicago (May 26th to Jan 1st, 2007) and Philadelphia (Feb. 3rd - Sept. 30th 2007). You can purchase advance tickets at TicketMaster (or TicketBastard as an Irish friend of mine calls it *chuckle*).
Must See TV
I know it sounds very cheesy for someone to say that a television show changed their life, but that’s the truth here. It didn’t change how I lived my life, but it changed how I looked at the world.
Michael Wood is a historian and journalist who not only has published many works in very dense, but readable, books and newsprint, but has produced several series for PBS, including this one in 1991: Legacy.
Legacy is a six part series that takes six of the major civilizations of the world, or I should say now, six of what are the commonly accepted civilizations of the world, and looks at how they formed; the historical events, theological and philosophical movements, the cultural interactions and influences that makes them what they are today. In one hour, you gain a far greater understanding for the cultures of Iraq (they were allowed into Iraq before the Gulf War), India, China, Egypt, Central America and The West than you could get out of most college courses because by understanding where they are coming from, you understand how those societies react to various events of different scales and why. And you guide through these different times and worlds, is both eloquent and entertaining.
"India was one of the earliest of the great civilizations and it defined the goals of civilized life very differently from the West. The West raised individualism, materialism, rationality, masculinity as it ideals. India's great tradition insisted on non violence, renunciation, the inner life, the female as pillars of civilization. And through all the triumphs and disasters of her history she hung on to that ideal, an eternal quest to identify humanity with the whole of creation, a unity in diversity ... History is full of empires of the sword but India alone created an empire of the spirit."
About my only complaint with Michael Wood, ever, is he does white wash Alexander the Great a bit, but the rest of the work is so remarkable, I will forgive him a little biased hero worship.
“Eye opening” is an understatement. If you have an opportunity to see this, either through a local library or if they are rebroadcasting it on PBS, make plans to sit down and watch. I will guarantee you will not regret those 6 hours in front of the TV.
posted by KiplingKat | 7:35 PM
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