I’m by blessed in my own way!

I’ve reconnected with many folks after the divorce, and my family is very spread out (New Mexico to Delaware, Minnesota to the Carolinas). It’s fun!

Also, @annakornbluh.bsky.social 's book has been languishing on my desk as a next-to-be-read for far too long, so maybe I'll remedy that this week. I hear it's good ...

"He's a nice boy, an expert in Nabataean archaeology, trade routes across the frontiers of the eastern Roman Empire, Safaitic and Thamudic epigraphy, and pre-Islamic Arabian history, but I don't really understand much of what he wrote. I hope it sold well ..."

Wow, not worth visiting then? It was a place i intended to stop at someday.

youtu.be/UG-KNy1MRTc?...

This is excellent.

I’m not hosting this year, but if I was the soundtrack would be American jazz and soul, maybe with some subtly subversive pieces in there that hopefully would lead to awkward conversations about injustice with my Republican family:

youtu.be/YDfkkRa1VA8?...

You know, I think it still sounds instructive in its own way. Thanks.

I’ll have to take a look, sounds very pertinent.

Interesting, thanks.

Looks interesting, thanks.

I had a nice edition of this and traded it thinking I’d never get around to it! This is why we don’t do this anymore.

Why do you feel that about Zweig? I confess to not having read that one, it’s on the TBR someday.

Thanks, if I remember back to my long-distant grad school days it was one of those things that * everybody * working with that region put pictures of or pictures of details of in their books and articles, but there was a fair bit of decent scholarship about it, too. That was a long time ago, though.

I'm curious, and I don't want to come across as a horrid tire-kicker here so tell me to go away if that is appropriate, but have you done any work with something like the 6th century Madaba map (which I realize is quite fragmentary)? Does a Surprised Eel vision of that type of cartography exist?

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