Things Noted Here and There

XLI , an ancient/medieval edition of the festival, will be up later today at Xoom.

"Faces of Ancient Arabia," an exhibit at Baltimore's Walters Art Museum, opened yesterday. Gabe Oppenheim,"A Collector's Eye for Artifacts -- and Adventure," Washington Post, 20 July, tells the remarkable story of Giraud Foster, whose 61 carvings and friezes, dating from the 6th century B.C.E. to the 4th century C.E., are over half of the exhibit.

John Carey reviews Timothy Brook's Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World for the London Times, 20 July.

Rochester, NY's George Eastman House has added its fine collection of early 20th century photographs from across the world to Flickr. Its photostream is here. Thanks to Xeni Jardin at boingboing for the tip.

Marcella Bombardieri,"A talk with Orit Bashkin," Boston Globe, 20 July, interviews the author of the forthcoming The Other Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq. It is a study of Iraq in the 1920s to the 1950s,"when its thinkers could safely disagree." Thanks to Manan Ahmed for the tip.

Michael Roth,"Influential philosopher came to rethink it all," San Francisco Chronicle, 20 July, reviews Neil Gross's Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher. Thanks to Mary Dudziak for the tip.

Benny Morris,"Using Bombs to Stave Off War," NYT, 18 July, gets a critical reading in David Kaiser's"Implications of History," History Unfolding, 19 July, and David Noon's"Blackmail," Lawyers, Guns, and Money, 19 July.