Riot Munchies

We live in Kolonaki. Apparently not a good place to be today.

Dan and I stock up on violent demonstration snacks: pepsi, hot choclate, cookies, chips, nuts, and beer.

WARDEN MESSAGE

U.S. Embassy Athens, Greece
November 17, 2008

The United States Embassy is issuing the following update to our recent Warden Message regarding the potential for large demonstrations throughout Greece on Monday, November 17.
The Embassy has instructed Embassy employees and family members in the Athens neighborhoods of Kolonaki and Ampelokipi to remain in their residences between 4 pm November 17, 2008 and 6 am November 18, 2008. We suggest that Americans in these areas follow similar precautions.

We wish to remind American citizens that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. Americans are therefore urged to avoid the areas of demonstrations, and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations. American citizens seeking Embassy or Consulate General services on November 17th should be aware that we expect to close at 2 pm and may close earlier should circumstances warrant.

Love,

The U.S. Embassy, Greece

Biggest Nerd News in Years

HBO has finally agreed to shoot the pilot for George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire Series. For those of you who don't know, GRRM's series is considered by many to be one of the best fantasy series' every written; the author has been called the 'American Tolkien' and his last book in the series debuted at #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list. His impact within the genre of speculative fiction has been enormous, whether it be for something simple like creating ice dragons, or for his massively influential work on Wild Cards or ASoIaF.

Over a year ago, HBO optioned the rights for the series and considered the idea of dedicating one season to each novel; the first season would cover the first book, A Game of Thrones. But optioning the rights was very different from actually making the show. For the last year, writers have been laboring over the script and attempting to convince HBO that the series would be a worthwhile venture. Unfortunately, HBO has a whole slew of other pilots under consideration; rumour has it that one of them is a King Arthur/Knights type of show, which would be the main competition for ASoIaF, set in a comparable medieval world.

Will HBO actually go through with it? Who knows. The producer of the show, David Benioff, has commented, "High fantasy has never been done on TV before and if anybody can do it, it’s HBO. They’ve taken tired genres and reinvented them — mobsters in The Sopranos and Westerns with Deadwood.” Of course, subscribers to HBO might remember with some bitterness the debacle that was the end of Carnivale, a stunning series that HBO threw out after two seasons, resulting in one of the most gut-wrenching of cliff-hangers in recent TV history. I myself have never forgiven HBO.

But they were able to pull off Rome, and even included some curse tablets in it.

Lead curse tablets from the Nemea Museum.

So we can hope. For the moment, websites everywhere are crashing as rabid ASoIaF fans flock to the Interwebs, looking for news and huzzahing virtually from all corners of the earth. Mostly they are happy because finally, 'Winter is Coming.'

Hell yeah.

The Shotgun Files

For the most part, our Trip to the Argolid and Corinthia has been relatively safe. Perhaps this is because we were not visiting archaeological sites in olive groves on either a Sunday morning or on a holiday. It was on the last trip that we learned that such times are when Greek hunters come out in droves. As I posted previously, at both Kalapodi and the Theban Kabeirion we found ourselves in the midst of several bird hunters, who were stalking the surrounding hills under the olive trees. Luckily, Regular Member Karl Goetze made several recordings of our visits to these sites; I have finally gotten tech-savvy enough to figure out how to get these files onto my blog (thank you, third-party hosting sites).

In the this recording, you will hear Denver Graninger at work. Who is this Denver person, you ask? Denver is the Rhys Carpenter Fellow at the School this year. This means he comes on some of the trips with us and presents a number of the sites. The Rhys Carpenter Fellow is also affectionately known as the Mellonaki – the Little Mellon Professor. It is his job to assist the Mellon Professor, our Program leader, as necessary.

On this Tuesday morning (Oxi Day, thus a national holiday), Denver led us to the Kabeirion at Thebes. A sanctuary where local Mysteries took place, it is located outside of the city, nestled in some low hills on the edge of extensive agricultural fields.

To listen, download the file here: http://www.box.net/shared/fzdf4a9iqn

Denver presents the Kabeirion.

By this time I think we’d gotten used to the gunfire; note also that Denver never flinched once. [Insert joke about the bad-assery of archaeologists here.]

Picture Taking Habits, Travel, and The Mom Picture

Now that I am on the Regular Program, picture taking has become part of my daily habits and basic mannerisms. In fact, I very rarely take pictures in my normal life. As in, never. But here I do, as we all do, at practically every moment of the day.

Picture taking on the Berbati Valley Walk, today.

On the one hand, the pictures that we take at sites will be teaching tools for the rest of our lives. On the other, the constant travelling fosters a constant feeling of vacation-living, and therefore picture taking is required.

There are so many photos being taken, actually, that sometimes the habit takes over and I find myself taking pictures for no reason; the physical motion has become so ingrained that I have no control over it any more. For example, today the group walked through the Berbati Valley; as we ambled up a dirt road we came across a very recently dead snake. It was so recent, in fact, that we thought it might still be alive. Fortunately, Karl was brave enough to poke it with a stick, revealing that yes, indeed, it was not of the living world any longer. The cameras came out immediately, on all sides. So what would possess me to take a picture of Karl standing in the middle of the road with a dead snake on a stick?

For real?

I have no idea why I took the picture. Other people snapped it as well. Is it because it was exciting to see a real live (dead) snake? Enh, that sounds redonk. Could it be that we have to preserve every mundane moment of the trip? Somewhat plausible? I guess every one of us has our own reasons for taking the dead snake picture, but I remember thinking how strange it was even as I became an automaton, lifting the camera to my eye, unable to see anything on the view finder because my sunglasses were too dark, but clicking the button anyways.

Besides the rather weird photos of every single thing that happens, Trip Photos can be grouped into several types:

1) Stuff Photos without People – these are the pictures of blocks, statues, objects, etc., that go into our permanent collection and have an academic purpose. They are boring.

Stuff Picture: on the first trip, I really cared about thresholds. Not so much any more.

2) People Photos – these are either posed or are natural, and eventually they will make it up on Facebook because they are more exciting.

People Picture: Fun! Julia, Scott and Dan at the Tholos of Atreus, Mycenae.

3) The Mom Photo

A good Mom Photo for the Mother of Ben Sullivan (at the quarries on Thasos).

This last type is one of my faves. It is the picture taken with the intention that it will inhabit a frame in someone’s Mother’s house. The Mom Picture has several elements. The first is pretty scenery; for this reason the Mom Picture is most often taken on top of mountains or acropoleis. The second is posing. This means that no Mom Pictures can be taken in museums, since posing is illegal. Plus, Moms don’t really want pictures of their children with boring statues; they prefer dramatic landscapes or famous monuments in the background.

Mark gets his Mom Picture taken by someone else but I snap one, too, for good measure. Tholos of Atreus, Mycenae.

The third thing about Mom Pictures is that they are group projects. They cannot be taken without the assistance of another human being, since camera-timers and tripods are not practical on top of Mycenaean citadels. This means that a person needs to ask someone else to take Mom Pictures, but must also take Mom Pictures for other people in return. Thus reciprocal relationships evolve over the trips, and the product of these picture-taking-cycles is a series of pictures spreading out in all directions across the earth to make Mom’s, somewhere, happy.

Me in today’s Mom picture, at the citadel of Midea.

The ASCSA ASPCA

For those of you concerned about what has become of Wallie, I thought I’d post an update. She is doing remarkably well, actually. Her eye problem is gone, her fleas have been eradicated, her bony limbs are filling out, and she is no longer depressed and hiding inside people’s sweatshirts. Watching her learn to play has been pretty amusing, and she has become quite adept at attacking toys and prancing about on her own. She now lives on the porch of Loring Hall with Rusty Pumpkin, who is surprisingly cowed by the little upstart kitty. As of right now, it is looking like she may have found a permanent home, but everything is up in the air as of yet. I’ll keep you all updated as things are decided; suffice it to say that currently she is the most coddled and spoiled kitten EVER.

Wallie enthroned, ruler of all she surveys. Her throne is not particularly happy about it.

The Halloween Party

Our last break between trips was another mere six days, packed full of sleeping, eating, doing laundry, catching up with the world, and preparing our next site reports. It was also marked by yet another of the American School’s traditions, the Halloween Party. Naturally, Halloween is one of the most characteristic and spectacular of all American holidays, so the American School throws a costume party each October. We host all the Foreign Archaeological Schools in Athens, of which there are about seventeen. Many of the Western colonial powers set up archaeological schools in Athens in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the number of institutes has increased over the subsequent decades. The Halloween Party is designed to provide an event for the different archaeological schools to socialize in a non-academic environment, while also being a chance for everyone to, as they say, let their hair down. In fact, the Halloween party is really one of a pair, the second being Carnival, hosted by the British School in February. I’m told there is a rivalry between us to throw the best party each year, so I’m looking forward to see what the Red Coats pull out of their hats in a few months.

The Bar, pre-party.

Originally the Halloween party was a local American School thing. When Margie Miles, this year’s Mellon Professor, was a Regular Member, the party was attended only by people from the ASCSA. It was a smaller thing, and involved people dressing up in extremely dorky Classics related costumes. Now it is a large event with a different theme each year. It is also tradition that the party is organized and funded by the Regular Members. This means that while on the trips and during our brief forays back in Athens, another one of our tasks was to put the party together, send out invites to the other Schools and to acquire supplies, decorations, etc.

Our party was this past Saturday and the theme was ‘What I wanted to be when I grew up.’ We started planning about four weeks ago, but most of the activity took place during the three days prior to Saturday. For example, some of us made three trips to the major grocery stores for supplies, two of which involved lugging backpacking bags full of liquor, mixers and ice on our backs through the streets of Athens. Everyone pitched in to help get Loring rearranged and decorated for Saturday night, and in general it was a great success. The Saloni was turned into a Dancehall and the Dining Room became a nearly fully stocked bar. I have to say that my past party hosting experience in entirely different contexts proved to be well-worthwhile; we had really great mood lighting, lots of dance music, a rotating staff of bartenders, and Halloween-themed drink names (Screwdrivers = the Rusty Pumpkin, Whiskey and cokes = the Headless Horseman, Ouzo with ice = the Grey Ghost, Zombie = Zombie, Rum and Coke = the Chupacabra, and so forth).

Two of the bartenders: Dan, who wanted to be a surly cowboy; Mark, who wanted to be a rockstar.

We started at 8pm and the last guests left around 4:30 am. The costumes were all homemade, since it is so difficult to get costume materials in Greece (thrift stores are anathema here). Some of them included:

Julia wanted to be a Greek museum guard.

Jonathon wanted to be a fairie princess.

Will also wanted to be a rock star; Ben wanted to be Lawrence of Arabia.

Jeremy wanted to be real horrorshow.

We had a pretty good turnout. A whole contingent of Princeton/Oxford grads showed up; they were here on a week-long study abroad trip and they went straight to the airport from the party; props to them for their dedication. They particularly liked hearing ‘It’s Raining Men.’ The Italians were in full-effect and dominated the dance floor; the Norwegians were by far the most jolly and seduced far too many people with chewing tobacco; the British wore pith helmets and drank lots of London Dungeons (gin and tonic); the Canadians made our own Canadians Scott and Mark proud. There were more languages going on then I could keep track of and a whole lot of people that I am looking forward to seeing again at academic lectures around town.

It was a good time. Thanks to everyone who helped out and to everyone who came!

More Greek Mannequins

This comes from a store that sells medical supplies.