Eva Barbarossa

Notes on Tiresias 1. Consider Tiresias: the blind seer (see-er). What can he see? The future. For Greeks of a certain vintage, to be a seer was, specifically, to see (and think, therefore) ahead in time. Blindness –…

‘For Greeks of a certain vintage, to be a seer was, specifically, to see (and think) ahead in time. Blindness – either of the occipital lobe, or in the dark of the adyton/cave – may not have been a prerequisite for oracular vision, but it didn't hurt.’

wchambliss.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/n...

I think Wayne has described some of my early experiences better than I have. But then, he has more freedom to do so.

wchambliss.wordpress.com/2025/09/28/w...

Titling a book Shamanism, given Mircea Elide's tome - still discussed, argued about, controversial, is such a questionable choice. Why would one do that? Even if one were to write a new and exceptional work, it feels rather hubristic to take on that title.

Just realized the Ransom Center in Austin holds the Magnum Photo archives. 920 boxes, 200,000 prints, 3,097.77 linear feet. Gelatin silver prints. Too bad I didn't finish writing the PhD before I discovered this.

Don't update to the new Duolingo app. Absolutely unusable with animations and they've removed the ability to turn them off.

Great thread. My work is on languages of place, not the langauges of the humans of said place, and in particular on how we re-learn to listen and understand, and Jay tugs on a lot of these threads.

Reunion party? Reunion crawl?

@panoptic.bsky.social missing apocalypse club

Remedios Varo. Tailleur pour dames. 1957.

YouTube video by Adelphi Edizioni "Una lettura per gli anni '80: Robert Musil" ("Questo e altro" - RSI; novembre 1979)

Oh no. I have just discovered Questo e altro....Wonderful time suck.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=bAzA...

Opinion | Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp. This facility’s purpose fits the classic model, and its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.

"We’re watching the imposition of a global concentration camp network."

www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

I do love me some glorious fashion too, though.

Do you think my life would be fundamentally better if I dressed like Renee Russo in The Thomas Crown Affair?

Messages from the field letters to myself

Going through old presences, and this one, this one I still adore. medium.com/@ekbarbaross...

Could an orca give a TED Talk? What if we could hear nature's ultrasonic communication -- and talk back? From a bat's shrill speech to a peacock's infrasound mating call, conservation technology researcher Karen Bakker takes us thr...

Reading Bakker's books, and this is so fun. I would like a prosthetic to hear beyond the human spectrum. www.ted.com/talks/karen_...

Now I have relocated to watch fox (by tree) and somehow forgot to pack a book. Not helping me get through that massive stack.

Stack of thirteen books awaiting a reader.

The stack of books on my immediate 'read me' pile keeps growing faster than I am currently reading.

If only the onramp were a bit slippier.

I've read bits and pieces of this and it is so good. Looking forward to starting at the beginning and reading the whole thing.

I read Underland in the Arctic, the sole book I took on a long kayaking expedition.

Perhaps I need a good river trip to read this one on-inspiration in many directions.

So, I actually did ‘do my own research’ about fluoride in the drinking water. It took me a number of years of full-time work to address one specific question. I got a null result.

I also got a paper in the Journal of Dental Research (null results are important in public health!).

And a PhD.

Women and Ruins: Archaeology, Photography, and Landscape AAR presents Women and Ruins: Archaeology, Photography, and Landscape, the first exhibition dedicated to the influence of a group of trailblazing women who helped record archaeology and landscapes fro...

aarome.org/events/women...

Catching up on excellent books I had not read. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zora Neale Hurston.

How could I not have read Eliade's Youth Without Youth until now?

This reminds me of the inner basement courtyard in the Boston Public Library. In the early-90s when I lived in the South End, the only way to access it was through an equally twisted route. It was a magical place mostly peopled with older folks and former employees, at that time.

I loved there and bad no idea! Thank you for sharing this.

Thinking about the structures of and across the Biblioteca Adelphi (@adelphiedizioni.bsky.social) books over a coffee this morning and it got me to writing.

akathesia.com/2025/04/20/m...

I cannot imagine translating Philip Roth into Italian. I do look forward to seeing the new Adelphi translations, when they appear. www.corriere.it/cultura/25_f...

What are you reading these days?

This week's TBR pile: Izzo, Labatut, Hurston, Mallock, King and Kripal. Only the Izzo is a re-read. Sunday status: 16% complete by pages, far less by density of material and time spend pondering and considering.

Mmm there are a few hundred here I haven't read, I think. With is rather large for me, but came from acquisitions during the PhD, which I would read 'later' but that 'later' seems to be on a different timeline. The largest TBR pile I have ever had, and yet I re-read.