The National Museum of Bosnia in Sarajevo, home to the Sarajevo Haggadah, is set to close.

I’m doing  a guest turn on the main campus this morning for a friend, so I had to start over here at 8:45. Since my own class today is at 11:50 in one of the science buildings (long story) I planned to hang out at the Café and make some notes for a meeting at 1:30. The pen I brought with me from home just ran out of ink! Grrrrr!

Scullers on Seneca Lake, a photo by Michael Tinkler on Flickr.

Saturday was lovely, and I walked to the Marina and back before lunch. Sunday was awful – rain all day, often hard! I got a lot of grading done, at least!

Why all good Republican children are raised to pray for a rainy (or snowy, up here) first week of November. Because WE know that Republicans exercise their franchise in greater proportion than the Democrats. Because, you know, think what you will, we take citizenship more seriously than people who are discouraged by bad weather.

I, of course, have the delight of voting for 3rd and 4th party candidates, because I know the state as a whole will pull the Government Teat Lever.

Ok – AppleTV has brought me a good number of surprises so far. But tonight, a showery night with rain sounds outside, my “recommended for you” queue pulled up Brideshead Revisited. That music!

He told me and, on the instant, it was as though someone had switched off the wireless, and a voice that had been bawling in my ears, incessantly, fatuously, for days beyond number, had been suddenly cut short; an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually, as my outraged sense regained authority, full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long forgotten sounds: for he had spoken a name which was so familiar to me, a conjuror’s name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantom of those haunted late years began to take flight.

I’ve been teaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher this week in Early Medieval Art and Architecture, without ever explaining that I love Helena more than Krautheimer, even if Krautheimer is the background I teach out of.

I need to read the novel again before I start typing out quotations. “The women are still doing what they do before they come downstairs. Sloth has undone them – we’re away.”

The new provost has asked to attend a meeting of each department this fall. Therefore the Department of Art and Architecture had to actually come up with a schedule of meetings! I suppose we could have done this in other years, but somehow it seldom works that way.

For all the current administration may have made my friend Fr. Baker miserable, Vanderbilt is still better off without Gordon Gee, spendthrift.

It’s actually quite pleasant today – currently 57 – but the heat just came on! Maybe the manager is getting ahead of the curve. But on a Sunday?

First full day of Fall, a photo by Michael Tinkler on Flickr.

Students playing some sort of frisbee-game in front of tents left over from Homecoming / Parents’ Weekend.

About the only tech site in my daily reading list nowadays is Daring Fireball – which is almost all-iPhone5-all-the-time right now. I’ll get one eventually – and I may switch to Verizon. AT&T reception has gotten steadily worse (for me at least) in Geneva this calendar year, and they deny that there is anything wrong at all. Reception inside my apartment has gotten so poor that I can’t move around with my phone once a call has started, and the only reliable place to make a call is from the bathroom. Silly!

From what I’ve read, the Verizon version of the iPhone is also much easier (and cheaper) to use abroad. That may or may not be helpful — but signal at home would be nice!

I know that I sometimes complain because people in England with metal detectors find such interesting stuff.

Can’t complain about this American find.

Quiet recluse turns out to be rich. Based on the weight of the gold, $7 million rich. But lots of the pieces are old, so the value may go up.

In answer to the commenter who was curious about the students’ definitions of art – I gave them all back. They’ll show up again on the midterm and maybe I can snaffle some then!

I’m hoping that as they see more art, their definition will be broadened. We were looking at Egyptian tomb statuary yesterday, for instance. It’s beautiful, it’s created by people, but it wasn’t meant to be seen – it was put straight into a tomb and, ideally, wasn’t supposed to come out. One of the things I asked them was, “If you see something like this in a museum now, to what extent does it meet your own definition of art?” I hope that sets things stirring!

HWS Bocce: Sebastiano Lucci and Stan Mathews judge a close one., a photo by Michael Tinkler on Flickr.

HWS inaugurated the Colleges Bocce Court! Sebastiano Lucci and Stan Mathews judge a close one. The Art History Team (Ut Pictura Poesis) lost in the first round, but we had a great time.

White House clarifies Obama’s statement that Egypt is not an ‘ally’

Right. “Clarifies.”