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June 2021

Somewhat excited that I've got my first ever research leave in my academic career coming up. October '21 -> Jan '23! Will blog in the near future about the projects I'll pursue, but in the meantime, it's worth a celebration (and some vocal recording).

A strange sensation as I have had some further setbacks to my hearing: I now get partial deafness in my dreams. Dialogue that I dream is interrupted by inaudible partial words, even though the other person's speech is, obviously, a fabrication of my own (un)consciousness.

The truly annoying thing about this is the message, every 30 seconds, "Hello. The team knows that you are waiting and will be with you as soon as they can." Followed by fake birdsong. 🐦🦉🦅🦜

It's very kind of Facebook to suggest that I may wish to display my "favourite Facebook photos" in my home. Not sure Gowron should really be on there, though.

The Guardian: "Hancock has left the NHS in crisis. Don’t assume Javid will save it". What kind of idiot would assume that a free-market Rand devotee would save it?

Also: "MPs pile in to celebrate his appointment, and you can see their point, he’s definitely preferable to Hancock". In what way?

Further historical reflections on paper and ink colouring from Semedo, Alvare de, The History of That Great and Renowned Monarchy of China (London: I. Crook, 1655). Here, by 1655, he writes of an equation between "the best" and "the whitest" paper.

However, he also notes a Chinese practice of printing in white ink on a black substrate. I found this source, as with many, via the work of Tsien Tsuen-hsuin.

Tsien Tsuen-hsuin was an extraordinary scholar. Hard to describe the depth of research in his Paper and Printing, Science and Civilisation in China. I deeply regret that I wasn't doing this project a decade ago, so I could actually speak to him before he died.

Does "learning to live with the virus" involve ANY level of protection for the vulnerable, or is it just letting vulnerable people die from it and not caring? Asking for a friend.

Looking forward to d̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶h̶o̶r̶r̶i̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ learning to live with the virus!

So, after a long detour into reformation colour symbolism, I am back to examining the historical technical development of inks. Struck again by how the earliest use of the Chinese character ‘mo’ / ‘墨’ refers to tattooing as a punishment; a human skin substrate.

(From Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin, Paper and Printing, Science and Civilisation in China, Reprinted (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 238.)

In the past few weeks I have found myself back to doing days that consist of 9+ hours of admin, email, and meetings, before any actual academic work. I've decided to break that cycle today by kicking off with some research (back into polychromatic book history).

Today I will also chair a Ph.D. viva all afternoon and then, this evening, teach a postgraduate training session on publishing technologies.

Social media as a semi-public, interactive, and conflated-anniversary reminder diary is an affectively provocative technology. 27th June is the anniversary of giving a talk at Harvard, starting the nasty chemotherapy drug cyclophosphamide, and living in pandemic fear.

Not recorded re positive experience at Harvard: our train was hours late and we almost missed the talk. Got asked a question by Robert Darnton and I was bricking it.

My favourite thing is when they say, about the lottery, "the odds are similar to being attacked by a shark". I always wonder: do they just mean, like, in the street - or do you have to swim in the sea to get these odds?

Not looking for sympathy, but I've been really struggling psychologically this past fortnight. A not small reason is that I heard that they don't expect any effective covid protection from my immunotherapy until 2023. Coupled with no antibody response to vaccine and it's bleak.

We had begun to do a few outdoors things this year. But now infection rates are back up, it's unsafe again for me. The link between deaths and infections _may_ be broken, statistically. At my individual level, it's very doubtful that it is.

The constant background threat of serious illness or death, coupled with extreme isolation and monotony, is not a terribly happy space. I'm lucky in having a partner and pet - many don't even have that - but it's really got to me this week.

This morning's early-morning research work/reading is more on shifts in color perception. Alan E. Shapiro's ‘Artists’ Colors and Newton’s Colors’, Isis, 85.4 (1994), 600–630 <https://doi.org/10.1086/356979>. Tracing more of the Artistotle -> Alberti -> Leonardo -> Newton lineage.

The most remarkable part of this article is the massive appendix detailing philosophers who rejected Aristotle's views on black and white as the originators of all colours

It's 13 years since I attended my first ever academic conference, which was International Pynchon Week in Munich. It doesn't feel like a particularly significant year anniversary, but the photo memories are too amusing not to re-post.

Urgh. Hugely disrupted sleep due to thunderstorms last night; Toby not sleeping through; powercuts triggering alarms. Still, my UPS systems all worked as they could and safely shutdown all the OLH backup systems!

(Picture for illustration only, not the actual storm we had :P)

Quick cuppa tea, then I'm giving a conference paper in Germany. Global scholarship from the confines of my super-heated office.

I used the Internet Archive's digital lending to consult Moshe Barasch's Light and Color in the Italian Renaissance Theory of Art, from 1978. The book is available, in print, in our library at Birkbeck but a personal copy would have cost me £300. https://archive.org/details/lightcolorinital0000bara/

The controlled digital lending, about which there has been so much howling and legal cases from publishers, let me consult a book I never would have bought, of which we already owned a copy, from the comfort of my own home, for research purposes. It was great.

Almost as good as it being open access.

This morning's historical research work into color history symbolism shifts took me to Leonardo da Vinci's assertion that ‘white is not a colour but the neutral recipient of every colour’, at JP Richter, The Literary Works of Leonardo Da Vinci (London: Sampson Low, 1883), 278.

Great to see pictures from this event in Kosovo, in conjunction with @openlibhums! More soon on the writeup!

Knew it wouldn't be long before Toby's precarious pond drinking balancing act mutated into his once-per-year accidental headlong 100% immersion plunge.

Had a day off today, visiting Howlett's Wild Animal Park, who do some great conservation work. Well setup on the social distancing and covid front and felt very safe. One of our first real outings in over a year.

This morning I am reading Michel Pastoureau's "L'incolore n'existe pas" in Points de vue Pour Philippe Junod. Part of my ongoing pursuit of his "chromoclasm" argument.

It's the @COPIMproject biannual meeting. Pizza and alcohol-free beer. Living life on the edge.

Sketching COPIM

Wow. Some nice midweek news. I have been selected for the Shaw Trust Disability Power 100 2021, the list of 100 of the UK’s most influential people with a disability or impairment. 😲

interesting people-first language here, from them, I should add -- which is contentious

Also good on the Oxford common room taking down a picture of the Queen: "The government’s respect for the Queen of course knows no bounds, as we saw in the Supreme Court judgment on the prorogation of parliament in which the prime minister was found to have misled her majesty."

"Sounds like a case for the free speech champion, who will no doubt be rushing to defend the graduate students of the Middle Common Room any day now."

"Some will question why Mackenzie and Browne, two notable oil executives, are now leading figures in the implementation of the UK government’s research strategy" - I do enjoy the Research Professional 8am "Playbook".

Lloyd Webber says he will risk arrest to reopen his theatres on 21 June.

He's already overdue for crimes against music.

Looking something up on Wikipedia this afternoon led me to Mostar and The Old Bridge. It brought a sad pang of better times when fascinating parts of the world were accessible to me.

Saturday reading - Jonathan Senchyne's The Intimacy of Paper in Early Nineteenth-Century American Literature.

I do not smoke. I have never smoked. I do not want to give up smoking.

Them: AI threatens the future of humankind.

AI shopping recommendations:

Image description: a book advising how to stop smoking

Sigh. Just as we'd started to take some tentative steps out and were feeling a bit hopeful, it looks like it's going to be back into total shielding now. 2.6x risk of serious illness and hospitalisation, prior immunity/vaccine escape. Immunology: "do not catch this".

"There is no denying that RAM is perhaps one of the most important components of any PC build. Simply because without any RAM, you will not be able to boot your PC, and that is an issue for a lot of people."

Some good news last week. My short book, PASSWORD (now OA), will be professionally translated into Spanish. All of my publication and translation royalties will go to @VersusArthritis. 🙂