Category Archives: B — READING

READING – MAY 2019

Posted by on May 31, 2019 Comments Off on READING – MAY 2019

27681. (Rut­ger Berman) Utopia for Real­ists
27682. (Richard Car­ri­er) The Sci­en­tist in the Ear­ly Roman Empire
(Else Har­toch -ed.) Moudre au Pays des Tun­gri:
. . . . 27683. (Else Har­toch) Intro­duc­tion [pref­ace]
. . . . 27684. (Else Har­toch) Les habi­tudes ali­men­taires et agri­coles du chef-lieu de la cité des
. . . . . . . . Ton­gres et ses régions envoisi­nantes [arti­cle]
. . . . 27685. (Else Har­toch & Lies­beth Van Camp) Les meules dans les con­textes rit­uels
. . . . . . . . [arti­cle]
. . . . 27686. (Else Har­toch & Ide Man­teleers) Évo­lu­tion typologique et fonc­tion­nem­net des
. . . . . . . . meules à tra­vers le temps [arti­cle]
. . . . 27687. (Else Har­toch et al) Un moulin à min­erai? [arti­cle]
. . . . 27688. (Tat­jana Gluhack, Eric Goe­maere & Else Har­toch) Prove­nance des matières
. . . . . . . . pre­mières et dif­fu­sion des meules [arti­cle]
. . . . 27689. (Frans Dop­eré, Else Hatoch & Ste­fanie Wefers) Pro­duc­tion de meules de la
. . . . . . . . préhis­toire à l’époque postro­maine [arti­cle]
. . . . 27690. (Else Har­toch et al) Cat­a­logue et méthodolo­gie util­isée [arti­cle]
. . . . 27691. (Else Har­toch et al) Con­clu­sions [arti­cle]
27692. (Lawrence Bark­well) The Metis Men of the Lewis and Clark Expe­di­tion [arti­cle]
27693. (Robert J. Lifton) Thought Reform and the Psy­chol­o­gy of Total­ism
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READING — APRIL 2019

Posted by on April 30, 2019 Comments Off on READING — APRIL 2019

27661. (Oliv­er Diet­rich, et al) Göbek­li Tepe ― Pre­lim­i­nary Report on the 2012 and 2013
. . . . . Exca­va­tion Sea­sons [arti­cle]
27662. (Jean Man­co) Ances­tral Jour­neys ― The Peo­pling of Europe from the First Ven­tur­ers to
. . . . . the Vikings
27663. Fun-Size Beano #84 [comix]
27664. (John F. Hel­li­well, Richard Layard & Jef­frey D. Sachs) World Hap­pi­ness Report 2019
27665. (J. R. Miller) Sky­scrap­ers Hide the Heav­ens: A His­to­ry of Indi­an-White Rela­tions in
. . . . . Cana­da
27666. (Michaël Thevenin & Anna Mikhkian) Le ronde aux mou­tons: pra­tiques de gar­di­en­nage
. . . . . col­lec­tif des trou­peaux com­mu­naux en Arménie [arti­cle]
27667. (Bar­bara Woot­ton) Free­dom Under Plan­ning
(William Brei­d­ing -ed.) Portable Stor­age One [Spring 2019]
. . . . 27668. (William Brei­d­ing) Crow’s Car [edi­to­r­i­al]
. . . . 27669. (Aljo Svo­bo­da) Imper­fect Rec­ol­lec­tions [arti­cle]
. . . . 27670. (Dale Nel­son) Sort of Like Tolkien [arti­cle]
. . . . 27671. (William Brei­d­ing) Mus­ings of an Unlit­er­ary Man [arti­cle]
. . . . 27672. (John Fugazzi) The Piv­ot Point: The Bea­t­les’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lone­ly Hearts Club
. . . . . . . . . Band [arti­cle]
. . . . 27673. (Janet K. Miller) Blue [arti­cle]
. . . . 27674. (William Brei­d­ing) Review of Anni­hi­la­tion by Jeff Van­der­meer [review]
. . . . 27675. (Vin­cent McHardy) Not a Good Day to Die [arti­cle]
. . . . 27676. (Ray Wood) Let­ter of Com­ment [let­ter]
. . . . 27677. (Gary Hub­bard) Let­ter of Com­ment [let­ter]
. . . . 27678. (G. Sut­ton Brei­d­ing) The Gor­gon of Pos­es [arti­cle]
27679. (W. D. Val­gar­d­son) Gen­tle Sin­ners
27680. (Knut Rass­mann -ed.) High Pre­ci­sion Tripolye Set­tle­ment Plans, Demo­graph­ic
. . . . . Esti­ma­tions and Set­tle­ment Orga­ni­za­tion [arti­cle]

READING — MARCH 2019

Posted by on March 31, 2019 Comments Off on READING — MARCH 2019

27649. (Michael Breen) The New Kore­ans
27650. (Kon­stan­ti­nos Kopa­nias & Sher­ry C. Fox) Head­shap­ing and Iden­ti­ty at Tell Nad­er
. . . . . [arti­cle]
27651. (M. Ginolfi, et al) Where Does Galac­tic Dust Come From? [arti­cle]
27652. (Hergé) Tintin au Con­go
27653. (John T. Koch) Hα C1α ≠ PC [The Ear­li­est Hall­statt Iron Age Can­not Equal Pro­to-
. . . . . Celtic] [arti­cle]
27654. (W. D. Val­gar­d­son) Thor
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(Richardson 1965) The Loved One

Posted by on March 30, 2019 Comments Off on (Richardson 1965) The Loved One

This is the kind of film that should be seen by hap­pen­stance. A delib­er­ate view­ing can’t match the deli­cious plea­sure of stum­bling upon it by chance. I real­ly shouldn’t even be telling you about it.

In 1947, the British nov­el­ist Eve­lyn Waugh was approached by Hol­ly­wood for a pos­si­ble film­ing of his nov­el Brideshead Revis­it­ed. The book’s two essen­tial com­po­nents were a heavy dose of the mys­ti­cal upper-class Catholi­sism which exists only in Eng­land and bears no resem­blance to Catholi­cism any­where else, and a steamy homo­sex­u­al yearn­ing that man­ages to nev­er men­tion homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. The idea that this would have been made into a film even vague­ly resem­bling the orig­i­nal was ludi­crous, but Waugh was hap­py to let Hol­ly­wood give him an all-expense-paid trip to Los Ange­les to hag­gle. Waugh had no inten­tion of going through with the deal. Waugh was a snob — he was revolt­ed that “low­er-class” ser­vice peo­ple spoke to him as an equal, detest­ed Amer­i­can infor­mal­i­ty, and com­plained about every­thing. But snobs often write the best satire (think Thack­er­ay), as they have no com­punc­tions about hurt­ing people’s feel­ings. Hol­ly­wood is a bizarre, arti­fi­cial, and goofy place even for Amer­i­cans, and Waugh found plen­ty of mate­r­i­al for his next satir­i­cal nov­el, The Loved One, which appeared in 1948. He was par­tic­u­lar­ly fas­ci­nat­ed by Amer­i­cans’ pecu­liar atti­tudes towards death and (to a Brit) weird funer­al cus­toms. The plot is sim­ple: A young Eng­lish­man with a posh edu­ca­tion but no par­tic­u­lar ambi­tion wins a trip to Hol­ly­wood, and stays with an Uncle who is a stal­wart in the expat British com­mu­ni­ty in the film stu­dios. His host com­mits sui­cide, leav­ing him to fend for him­self on this alien plan­et. Attend­ing to his uncle’s funer­al, he becomes involved with Aimée Thanatogenos, an embalmer work­ing at Whis­per­ing Glades Ceme­tery, a spec­tac­u­lar­ly vul­gar Dis­ney­land of Death cre­at­ed by the mega­lo­ma­ni­ac Blessed Rev­erend Glen­wor­thy. He encoun­ters an assort­ment of lunatics, all of them dis­play­ing extreme ver­sions of Amer­i­can cul­ture that Waugh found offen­sive and laugh­able. As in many of Waugh’s books, and many of the same ilk, the “hero” dis­plays no notice­able virtues oth­er than not being one of the loonies. 

Tony Richard­son, a British direc­tor who had scored big with crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed and finan­cial­ly suc­cess­ful films (Look Back in Anger; The Enter­tain­er; A Taste of Hon­ey; The Lone­li­ness of the Long Dis­tance Run­ner; Tom Jones) filmed the book in 1965. The script was writ­ten by the wild­ly unlike­ly com­bi­na­tion of Ter­ry South­ern and Christo­pher Ish­er­wood. South­ern is not much read now, but in 1965 he was in lit­er­ary vogue, and usu­al­ly paired with Kurt Von­negut as a satirist. Ish­er­wood was a gay play­wright and nov­el­ist who had chron­i­cled the sex­u­al under­ground of Weimar Ger­many, and would lat­er reach a wide audi­ence with Cabaret. Waugh had vicious­ly car­i­ca­tured Ish­er­wood in one of his nov­els, but in that cat­ty lit­er­ary crowd such things appar­ent­ly did not mat­ter much. The film script sticks fair­ly close to the book, but adds a some scenes that make it fit in bet­ter with 1965. These addi­tions would, I sus­pect, have been fine with Waugh. Visu­al­ly, the film is a feast. Every shot fills the eye with details just as fun­ny as the sit­u­a­tions and the dia­log. Every cut serves a satir­ic pur­pose. But the real bonan­za is the cast­ing. Aimée Thanatogenos is played to per­fec­tion by Anjanette Cormer, whose remark­able tal­ent was nev­er well-used by Hol­ly­wood. The Eng­lish hero is played by Robert Morse, one of the few Amer­i­can actors at the time who could con­vinc­ing­ly play an Eng­lish­man — while the vul­gar Amer­i­can film mogul is played by Rod­dy Mac­Dowall, then still best known as a for­mer Eng­lish child star. Lib­er­ace turns in a hilar­i­ous per­for­mance as a funer­al direc­tor — he real­ly missed a chance to be a great com­ic film actor. Jonathan Win­ters plays both the Rev­erend Glen­wor­thy and his incom­pe­tent twin broth­er, mak­ing each char­ac­ter a gem. Rod Steiger chews the scenery with the moth­er-obsessed and near­ly psy­chot­ic Mr. Joy­boy. Paul Williams is a child rock­et sci­en­tist. The actu­al Hol­ly­wood Eng­lish Con­tin­gent (reg­u­lar­ly cast as “Lords and but­lers”) essen­tial­ly play them­selves: John Giel­gud, Robert Mor­ley, Alan Napi­er. Mil­ton Berle, James Coburn, Mar­garet Leighton, Bar­bara Nichols, Lionel Stander, and Bernie Kopell do well-craft­ed bits. There are numer­ous Hol­ly­wood in-jokes that the audi­ence could hard­ly have been expect­ed to catch. For exam­ple, the cow­boy film star who is being absurd­ly voice-coached by the stu­dio to play an Eng­lish Lord is played by Robert Eas­t­on. Eas­t­on was him­self a voice coach, and one of the worlds great­est author­i­ties on Eng­lish dialects. Many in the cast were clos­et­ed gays. Tab Hunter plays a tour guide! 

It’s extra­or­di­nary that this satir­i­cal film, made 54 years ago, based on a book writ­ten 71 years ago, remains rel­e­vant and bit­ing­ly fun­ny.

READING — FEBRUARY 2019

Posted by on February 28, 2019 Comments Off on READING — FEBRUARY 2019

27625. (Alber­to Ren­zul­li et al) Pan­tel­le­ria Island as a Cen­tre of Pro­duc­tion for the Archa­ic
. . . . . Phoeni­cian Trade in Basaltic Mill­stones [arti­cle]
27626. (Kenan Işik & Rifat Kuvanç) A New Part of Horse Trap­ping Belong­ing to Urart­ian King
. . . . . Min­ua from Adana Archae­ol­o­gy Museim and on Urišḫi-Urišḫusi-Urur­da Words in
. . . . . Urart­ian [arti­cle]
27627. (Fri­da Beck­man) Gilles Deleuze
27628. (Gina L. Barnes) Chi­na, Korea and Japan ― The Rise of Civ­i­liza­tion in East Asia
27629. (John T. Toth) For­ma­tion of the Indo-Euro­pean Branch­es in the Light of the
. . . . . Archaeo­ge­net­ic Rev­o­lu­tion [arti­cle]
27630. (Nuwan Abey­war­dana et al) Indige­nous Agri­cul­tur­al Sys­tems in the Dry Zone of Sri
. . . . . Lan­ka: Man­age­ment Trans­for­ma­tion Assess­ment and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty [arti­cle]
27631. (William S. Ayres) Review of Rapanui: Tra­di­tion and Sur­vival on East­er Island by
. . . . . Grant McCall [review]
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READING – JANUARY 2019

Posted by on January 31, 2019 Comments Off on READING – JANUARY 2019

27611. (Bruno Ernst) The Mag­ic Mir­ror of M. C. Esch­er
27612. (Ľubomír Novák) Yagh­no­bi: An Exam­ple of a Lan­guage in Con­tact [arti­cle]
27613. (Bas­ti­aan Star et al) Ancient DNA Reveals the Arc­tic Ori­gin of Vikin Age Cod from
. . . . . Haithabu, Ger­many [arti­cle]
27614. (Bob Wood­ward) Fear ― Trump in the White House
27615. (Olivi­er Pute­lat et al) Une chas­se aris­to­cra­tique dans le ried cen­tre-Alsace au pre­mie
. . . . . moyen âge [arti­cle]
27616. (Phil R. Bell & Philip J. Cur­rie) A Tyran­nosaur Jaw Bit­ten by a Con­fa­mil­ial: Scav­eng­ing
. . . . . or Fatal Ago­nism? [arti­cle]
27617. (Ian Hod­der) Where Are We Going? The Evo­lu­tion of Humans and Things
27618. (Rebec­ca Miles -ed.) Eye­wit­ness Trav­el: Cana­da
27619. (Steven A. Rosen) Cult and the Rise of Desert Pas­toral­ism: A Case Study from the
. . . . . Negev [arti­cle]
27620. (Justin Son­nen­burg & Eri­ca Son­nin­burg) The Good Gut
27621. (Kevin Sachs) Does Chris­ten­dom Explain Europe? [arti­cle]
27622. (John D. Rock­e­feller) Ran­dom Rem­i­nis­cences of Men and Events
27622. (Or Rosen­boim) Bar­bara Woot­ton, Friedrich Hayek and the Debate on Demo­c­ra­t­ic
. . . . . Fed­er­al­ism in the 1940s [arti­cle]
27623. (Jack Elliott) Hiver­nant Métis Fam­i­lies, Brigades and Set­tle­ments in the Cypress Hills
. . . . . [arti­cle]
27624. (S. B. Kli­menko & M. V. Stanyukovich) Yat­tuka and Tuwali Ifu­gao Hud­hud: Yat­tuka,
. . . . . Keley-1, and Tuwali Ifu­gao Inter­fer­ence [arti­cle]

READING – DECEMBER 2018

Posted by on December 31, 2018 Comments Off on READING – DECEMBER 2018

27580. (Mario Liv­erani) The Ancient Near East ― His­to­ry, Soci­ety and Econ­o­my
27581. (John­ny Hart) B.C. ― Great Zot, I’m Beau­ti­ful
27582. (Ni Sheng; U Wa Tang & Adam Gry­de­høj) Urban Mor­phol­o­gy and Urban
. . . . . Frag­men­ta­tion in Macau, Chi­na: Island City Devel­op­ment in the Pearl Riv­er Delta
. . . . . Megac­i­ty Region [arti­cle]
27583. (Fred C. Woud­huizen) The Luwian Hiero­glyph­ic Con­tri­bu­tion to the Alpha­bet [arti­cle]
27584. (Robert van Gulik) The Emperor’s Pearl
(Kath­leen Warnock) Best Les­bian Erot­i­ca:
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READING – NOVEMBER 2018

Posted by on November 30, 2018 Comments Off on READING – NOVEMBER 2018

27556. (Philip José Farmer) Sail On! Sail On! [sto­ry]
27557. (Joan Collins) The Snow Queen [ill. Kathie Lay­field]
27558. (Clive Gam­ble) Archae­ol­o­gy: The Basics
The Mag­a­zine of Fan­ta­sy [& Sci­ence Fic­tion], Vol.1, #1, Fall 1949:
. . . . 27559. (Lawrence E. Spi­vak) Intro­duc­tion [pref­ace]
. . . . 27560. (Cleve Cart­mill) Bells on His Toes [sto­ry]
. . . . 27561. (Perce­val Lan­don) Thurn­ley Abbey [sto­ry]
. . . . 27562. (Philip Mac­Don­ald) Pri­vate ― Keep Out! [sto­ry]
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READING – OCTOBER 2018

Posted by on October 31, 2018 Comments Off on READING – OCTOBER 2018

27536. [2] (Ray Brad­bury) Dan­de­lion Wine
27537. (Ian Tat­ter­sall) The Acqui­si­tion of Human Unique­ness [arti­cle]
27538. (T. S. Vasu­lu) Genet­ic Struc­ture of a Trib­al Pop­u­la­tion: Breed­ing Iso­la­tion among the
. . . . . Yanadis [arti­cle]
27539. (Vera South­gate) The Princess and the Frog [ill. Mar­tin Aitchi­son]
27540. (Alis­sa Mit­tnik et al) The Genet­ic Pre­his­to­ry of the Baltic Sea Region [arti­cle]
27541. (Sharon Abramowitz) Epi­demics {Espe­cial­ly Ebo­la} [arti­cle]
27544. (Chris Buck­ley & Aure­lien Bree­den) Head of Inter­pol Dis­ap­pears, and Eyes Turn
. . . . . Toward Chi­na [arti­cle]
27545. (Ian Mor­ris) Death-Rit­u­al and Social Struc­ture in Clas­si­cal Antiq­ui­ty
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READING – SEPTEMBER 2018

Posted by on September 30, 2018 Comments Off on READING – SEPTEMBER 2018

27509. (Bar­bara Newhall Fol­lett) The House With­out Win­dows and Eepersip’s Life There
27510. (John Ljungkvist & Per Frölund) Gam­la Upp­sala ― The Emer­gence of a Cen­tre and a
. . . . . Mag­nate Com­plex [arti­cle]
27511. (John T. Koch) La fór­mu­la epi­grafi­ca Tarte­sia a la luz de los des­cubriemien­tos de la
. . . . . necrópo­lis de Medel­lín [arti­cle]
27512. (E. Lynn & Chuck Mor­ton) Fer­rets
27513. (Zhuo Feng et al) Late Per­mi­an Wood-bor­ings Reveal an Intri­cate Net­work of
. . . . . Eco­log­i­cal Rela­tion­ships [arti­cle]
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