January Pieces Of My Mind #3

It only took us eleven years to get a lamp over the gaming table.

• Stockholm’s Medieval Museum has sold out of my castles book again and are ordering both language versions. The Swedish one is being printed right now in Viljandi, Estonia.
• Yay, invited to upmarket conference in Prague!
• I’m working on three papers and one fieldwork project while also peer reviewing other papers, it’s all about completely different things and I’m having a blast!
• Shouldn’t 45 be playing this Beck tune at his rallies? ”Acid casualty with a repossessed car / Vietnam vet playin’ air guitar / It’s just the shit-kickin’, speed-takin’ / Truck-drivin’ neighbors downstairs”
• Does not feel great when Duolingo feeds me the phrase “They aren’t people” on Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Polish.
• Tired of this overcast snowless excuse for a winter. I want sunshine, foliage, shorts, tee shirt, sandals, straw hat.
• Norwegian problems: Løken Church was the main church of Sunndal Valley, Nordmøre fylke. In 1685 it was crushed by an avalanche.
• Working with harness mounts. Searching for literature on the subject, I find that the main library for Swedish archaeology holds only one contribution that has the Sw. word seldon in the title. And that I wrote it myself 24 years ago.
• Why is the Book Depository posting ads in Stockholm’s subway? Rather than the company’s owner Amazon that also sells books?
• Movie: The Farewell (2019). Dispersed Chinese family reconvenes for a young cousin’s wedding. But the real reason is that grandma is dying, a fact about which she is being kept in the dark. Grade: good!
• Suddenly remembered a bizarre thesis presentation in 2003 where the author and the opponent shared an explicit social constructivist and knowledge relativist perspective. The opponent criticised the author for including a large data collection as if objective observation were possible. The author’s main interpretation went against an established consensus (and failed to change it, as it turned out). When audience question time came I put up my hand and asked: “Let’s say there’s this researcher who supports the consensus interpretation that you’re challenging. What are your main arguments to show her that she’s been wrong?” Replied the author: “Oh, but I’m not trying to prove anyone wrong!”