September 2020
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In his new book on the Vikings, Neil Price uses some words that I didn't know. Some old, some new. "Haptic" — relating to the sense of touch. A "byre" is farmhouse in which humans live in contact with livestock. A "volute" is a spiral or scroll-like ornament. An "allodium" is land held absolutely and…
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I read all 599 pages of Neil Price's just-published Children of Ash and Elm, a detailed history of the Vikings, and I'm mighty proud of myself for persevering. It's a long book bristling with details and data. The author, an archeologist, has made his own original contributions to Viking research. To produce this synthesis, he…
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The house was surrounded by bears. They were, I must admit, not very convincing bears — my dreamatorium didn't seem to be able to generate realistic grizzlies. Instead, these bears looked like actors in bear costumes. Even though they were silent, they were menacing and I was frightened. I remained inside the house trying to…
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t There are amnesia movies and there are gaslighting movies. The Secret Fury is both, and, I'm sorry to say, it fails to hit two separate marks. A bad bad lawyer and cadre of hired subordinates contrive to gaslight rich Ellen Ewing (Claudette Colbert) into believing that, while amnesiac, she killed a man. In any…