I finally heard from OUP, so I have posted an update to the update. Again: I cannot wait until all this is over.
This exceptionally handsome fella is four years old today!
The Greatest Monument Builders of All Time - The Atlantic:
In place of the heroic proportions and rigidity of royal tradition, statues of Akhenaten emphasized eccentric curves — narrow shoulders, swelling hips, carefully detailed sagging tummy flesh, and a face at once cadaverous and voluptuous. The writer Thomas Mann used the analogy of “an aristocratic young Englishman of somewhat decadent stock; spare, haughty, weary,” but the stylizations could reach buglike extremes. A stela included in “Treasures” shows Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and two of their daughters as wasp-waisted, with bulbous thighs and spindly arms. And yet the affectionate way the two little girls hold hands seems entirely natural. In the context of royal Egyptian art, such scenes of familial intimacy were a novelty, and remain touching.
I wrote about Akhenaten (and his curious preferences in self-representation) in my series of posts on Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers.
I continue to believe that Manchester City will suffer no punishment for their cheating. They will appeal and delay, appeal and delay, making every possible use of their nearly endless financial resources, and eventually the whole thing will just fade away. I hope I’m wrong.
My post on what happened with my DLS biography has gotten more attention than I expected or wanted, so I had to write an update. I’ll be glad when all this is over.
C. S. Lewis, from That Hideous Strength:
“And so,” said Straik, “the lessons you learned at your mother’s knee return. God will have power to give eternal reward and eternal punishment.”
“God?” said Mark. “How does He come into it? I don’t believe in God.”
“But, my friend,” said Filostrato, “does it follow that because there was no God in the past that there will be no God also in the future?”
“Don’t you see,” said Straik, “that we are offering you the unspeakable glory of being present at the creation of God Almighty? Here, in this house, you shall meet the first sketch of the real God. It is a man — or a being made by man — who will finally ascend the throne of the universe. And rule forever.”
Wes and I looking out over the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone (2005). It’s one of those places that doesn’t look real in photographs — but doesn’t look real when you’re there either.
Currently listening: Duke Ellington, Never No Lament: The Blanton-Webster Band. These discs have great healing powers, I’m telling you. 🎵
Currently reading: A Sand County Almanac and Other Writings On Ecology And Conservation by Aldo Leopold. Re: Leopold’s “land ethic” and his emphasis on the “biotic community,” I think: I just don’t know how to convince people who care only about money to care even a little bit about anything else. 📚