Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: March 9, 2013

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,
This is how I best sum up my week:

Writing

• Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian
  • Introducing Graphicdemia: Collecting Comics and Graphic Novels in Academia

Watching

• Vikings
  New series on the History Channel from Michael Hirst, who wrote The Tudors. Now it’s interesting this is on History, since it’s network TV,  so nothing can be shown that would rate above PG-13 rating which seems antithesis to Viking history and lore. I liked the first episode, but yearned for more exploration as a few scenes seemed stifled due to its network presence.
• Dancing on the Edge
  This five episode series has finally finished and god, what a waste. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthew Goode (along with many of their cast mates) were wasted in this tedious and overwrought piece. I suspect someone needed emergency cash to push to get this aired.
• Last Tango in Halifax
  Discovered this last week, it should be over in the US on various PBS stations in the summerish. I was able to grab the first season and plowed through most of it fairly quickly. It’s not innovative, or edgy, but it’s soothing. It’s a nice palette cleanser after watching crap (see: Dancing on the Edge).

Weekly watching: Stella, The Vampire Diaries, Mr. Selfridge, Banshee, Portlandia, Top Gear UK, House of Lies, Elementary, Spartacus, The Americans, Archer, and Project Runway

Links

• The American secretary who became king: A woman’s journey to royal
• Pulp-o-mizer: the custom pulp magazine cover generator
• 500-year-old arrest warrant for ‘The Prince’ author Niccolò Machiavelli discovered by British professor
• MOOC Completion Rates: The Data
• The Good, Racist People
• The History of English Heritage: The man who demolished Shakespeare’s house
• The Adventure of the Social Media-Driven Copyright Debate, With Annotations on Sherlockian Sexism and the True Nature of Literary Devotion
• ‘Viking sunstone’ found in shipwreck
• Vatican Library rings in 2.8 petabytes of storage to digitize its archive of 80,000+ manuscripts

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
xoxo,
Lisa