The Petrified Forest is playing at the wonderful Stanford Theatre (1925 restored cinema showing Hollywood movies). In todays Guardian – an evocative “Country Diary” set in Borth, near Aberystwyth, west Wales, where we used to live. Another petrified forest on the coast and taking us back to the days of the Welsh epic sagas. Photo…
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writing ancient Egypt
I have just received a copy of Toby Wilkinson’s Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. The cover endorsements are enthusiastic; the blurb is packed with hyperbole and the promise of a roller-coaster soap-opera of pomp and ceremony, corruption and decadence, rulers with all-too-recognizable human emotions, in a book that will, we are told, become the…
Olmec Art
“Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico”, an exhibition of Olmec artifacts, is running at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Extraordinary pieces. Extraordinary presence. It was the first time we had come across them first hand. Here the monumental heads, zoomorphic basalt thrones, engobe ceramics, jadeite celts, are gently spotlit in that subdued ambient lighting…
Optimism and transformative design
Transformative Design, my class about design thinking that makes a real difference, run with Meghann (Dryer of IDEO) and Bernie (Roth of Stanford Engineering), opens again soon in the d.school. I got thinking seriously about its themes this weekend at a fund-raising event organized by Castilleja School, where Helen teaches and Molly learns, on the…
Bentley B35AE
Fuel cap. Bentley B35AE, built at the Rolls Royce Derby works in 1933. Raced by Eddie Ramsden Hall in the 1930s and then again at LeMans in 1950. Now part of the Collier Collection in Naples, Florida. My lab is working towards the launch of a new initiative at Stanford, the Revs Program, which will…
archaeological research at the edge of empire
This appeared under the title Edges of Empire – the new excavations at Binchester Roman town, UK in the 2010 opening edition of the online magazine Electrum – [Link] Gary Devore and Michael Shanks Binchester Barrack block turned abattoir – the late cattle ranch in the corner of the fort. The town extended beyond over…
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