S. Worthen | Weblog

This week involves lots of paper grading, writing, and Boethius. Much as Boethius is a challenge, reading him is also a real relief after the papal letter (singular - we didn't even finish one) of the past few weeks. The next few weeks feel very short already since I'm busy making plans for the last three weekends of this month, all of which will involve being social and either travelling or someone else travelling.

Not that I needed more to do, but I finally found out who to contact to volunteer for the RSA meeting, so I should be on the list now. Hurray! I wanted to dabble in the conference, but it certainly wasn't worth the cost of attending. This way I can not only attend and dabble, but also be useful and constructive. (RSA = Renaissance Society of America)

Back to cocoa and a little pre-sleep dissertation work...

Dear Sister,

If you succcessfully see this, let me know - then I'll know it's working and you can read what I write!

- S.

John North, pre-eminent historian of medieval astronomy and other historical astronomy is around this week to give a few talks, including in my department - which means I'll have a chance to talk to him. I know his work, but haven't read as much of it as I would like to. I looked around to see what else he'd written today, and discovered that he has a new book out (well, in the UK) on Holbein's Ambassadors, a scientific and iconographical analysis.

I missed a nice number day! Yesterday as 03/03/03 and I didn't even notice to be able to date pieces of paper and such.

It's Pancake Tuesday in England, the end of Carnevale in Italy, and Mardi Gras in all sorts of places. My mother went out to check out the costumes, crowds, and this year's Piazza San Marco decorations. Here's an excerpt from her email.

Then on to Piazza San Marco, my main destination, because I
wanted to see what a giant spider web might look like. Well, the Piazza
was really filled with people, from the stage all the way to the
Campanile. No band, but really loud recorded dance music. And the spider
web was amazing. I'll try to describe it - six vast skeins of spidery
filaments, hung from the 5th level of windows of the Campanile, and
spread out on the north side of the piazza, all the way from the clock
tower to halfway down the Quadri side. With the night lighting, it was
very effective. Each of the arches, all around the piazza, were lighted
with two lights, one red, one yellow, a kind of color wash. And hanging
in each bay of the colonnade were curtains of tiny white lights (like
the icicle lights at Christmas). There were many thousands of people,
all dancing. To see the whole crowd - spidermen, doges, bears,
cheerleaders, grim reapers, babies, and so on - dancing to YMCA and
Freak Out, and other such songs, was very amusing.

If you know the space, hopefully you can picture it. She didn't send photos this time - well, she did, but they were from earlier in the day.

In honor of such worldwide festivities, I'm making crepes tonight - what people in the UK would call pancakes.