Wednesday, July 7, 2021
Despite the efforts of archaeologists to uncover the rubbish dumps and workshops that reveal the daily lives of ordinary citizens, it is the abundant written record and imposing edifices left behind by the pharaohs that coninue to dominate our view of ancient Egyptian history. In the face of such powerful testimonies, perhaps it is not surprising that we are inclined to take the texts and monuments at face value.
— Toby Wilkinson, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt
Tuesday, July 6, 2021
The kind of cultural container you build around it.
— Michael Pollan, "The Joe Rogan Experience #1678 - Michael Pollan"
Monday, July 5, 2021
The notion that the US in "stolen land" is like saying the ocean is wet.
— M*
Sunday, July 4, 2021
If she moved rapidly she could out sail news of the fiasco.
— Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra
Saturday, July 3, 2021
President Richard Nixon was undone by his attempts to conceal and excise the official record. Mr. Rumsfeld knew better by the time he was serving under Mr. Nixon’s successor. The trick was to marginalize the record, to litter it with so many contradictions that a rebuttal to any future historian could always be found. His memos (known as “yellow perils” in the Nixon administration and “snowflakes” under Ford) would pile up in drifts, disguising the underlying historical landscape. It’s a level of genius that has not been acknowledged in the press — the founder of the Freedom of Information Act is the guy who figured out how to render it almost totally worthless.
— Errol Morris, "Donald Rumsfeld’s Fog of Memos," The New York Times
Friday, July 2, 2021
The American Religion manifests itself as an information anxiety, but that seems to me a better definition of nearly all religion than the attempts to see faith as a compulsive neurosis or as a drug. It is neither obsessive nor intoxicating to ask, "Where were we?" and "Where are we journeying?"; or best of all, "What makes us free?"
— Harold Bloom, The American Religion
Thursday, July 1, 2021
WHAT IS THIS? A CENTER FOR RANTS?
— @dank.lloyd.wright
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
Oh my god, I feel sick to my stomach that he had to do that.
— Lily on a bird flying out of the nest for the first time in a YouTube video
Tuesday, June 29, 2021
I wish I spent less time worrying.
— Lily's answer to the joke question painted on a shell, "What did the pirate say on his eightieth birthday?"
Monday, June 28, 2021
Page 178 of 178
— Word document
Sunday, June 27, 2021
I believe they have more than two eyes.
— Kid on horseshoe crabs
Saturday, June 26, 2021
Not a junk cone.
— Emily
Friday, June 25, 2021
From the Nile he extracts a salted, imported Black Sea herring.
— Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra
Thursday, June 24, 2021
Fresh Handmade Spaghetti in a Bag
— Menu
Wednesday, June 23, 2021
During the illness, she said, she had "Genuine revelations of the Will of God." She believed she had died and was reborn as the Publick Universal Friend. No longer would she use the name Jemima Wilkinson.
— Jemima Wilkinson exhibit wall text
Tuesday, June 22, 2021
History belongs to the eloquent.
— Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra
Monday, June 21, 2021
Even in Cleopatra's day there was such a thing as ancient history... At the same time, the centuries felt closer than they do to us today. Alexander the Great was further from Cleopatra than 1776 is to our century, yet Alexander remained always vividly, urgently present. While 1,120 years separated Cleopatra from the greatest story of her time, the fall of Troy remained a steadfast point of reference. The past was at all times within reach, a nearly religious awe aimed in its direction. This was especially true in Egypt, which had a passion for history, and which for two millennia already had kept a written record. For the bulk of those years the insular, inaccessible country had changed little, its art barely at all.
— Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra
Sunday, June 20, 2021
What music do you listen to?
— Kevin to Dad
Saturday, June 19, 2021
Like Mark Twain in the overwhelming, overstuffed Vatican, we sometimes prefer the copies to the origional. So did the classical authors.
— Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra
Friday, June 18, 2021
You little humm dinger you.
— Sheila half joking half serious on my youth
