Since Christmas...

...I have become a thesp. As promised late last year, I have included a snapshot of my Christmas card to some friends (right, top), although a picture of the card I created the Christmas before is strangely vacant from my hardrive. The wording around the edge reads: felix dies natalis christi, roughly translated as 'luck to you on the birth-date of Christ'. As the last one was Roman-themed I thought it best to skip ahead to the quasi-pagan post-Roman era, referencing the Wiccan Wheel-Year (right, below) along the way. Although it's a bit more minimalistic than 2009, the white space and heavy use of silver goes some way to giving the impression of cold, I think, making it a bit more suitable.

I've also been attempting for some time to get a decent picture of my dad's new paintings, although whether he wants them uploaded on here is really up to him. A recent attic clear-out has unleashed upon the household a backlog of his old illustrations and a couple of oil-paintings, one of which he has since touched up. I already have in a folder somewhere some scans of his old pencilwork, taken from a black notebook that I found discarded up there way back in 2007, and it'd be great for them to see the light of day again. Watch this space.

...I have been eyeing the competition. Most notably I have stumbled upon the blog of economic historian Daniel Little, Understanding Society, while feverishly trying to research Medieval economics. While at first it seems a bit heavy, the range and depth of the articles is staggering. It's definitely worth a read. Another -more archaeological- blog example Stanford University's Archaeolog, which hosts a range of theoretical opinion-pieces and revealing conference posts that make for interesting reading. I don't agree with quite a lot of it, but that's what makes it fun.

...I have published another article on archaeological theory. The 1100-word piece was intended both as a follow-up to last October's article about the darker side of postprocessualism (link), and in response to David Robert's reply in issue #14 (link). As a method of moving the debate on a bit, we decided this month to release point and counter-point together, his piece following mine. My article carried on in the same vein, taking his objections in hand, and then moving onto a discussion about the democratisation of the subject. He in turn defended his previous stance, taking the time to explain 'contextual holisticism' in more depth (you can read the details yourselves). What struck me most was how much more theorised and academic the journal has become in recent months, far more so than when I was an undergrad. While I'm not sure how much my articles have made people think, the postprocessualism debate has at least put theory out there -people can now read about this on coffee tables in King's Manor, or search for it on Google. Maybe in time the Post Hole could develop into a pan-student online journal similar to Sheffield University's graduate-controlled Assemblage?

That's all for now.
James