After watching John Leguizamo’s Netflix special Latin History for Morons, I felt a duty to learn more about the Hemisphere in which I live. I started with Mr. Leguizamo’s strongest recommendation: 1491, a 560-page tome with multiple appendices. The author isn’t a historian or archaeologist but a journalist who synthesizes all manner of information and makes it accessible. The result is so compelling, so dense and riddled with shocks big and small that I suspended my usual speed-reading. Unexamined assumptions that I wasn’t even aware […]
So much yawn
I got my degree in archaeology. Despite this, the Indiana Jones franchise has two of my favorite movies of all time. So, clearly, I’m not much of a stickler for authenticity in my fiction. Stretching the bounds of what happens in the real world is perfectly acceptable for me. Spin me a good yarn, and I’ll forgive the shortcuts. But I absolutely detest the expert who is equally well-versed in all things. You know the type. CSI popularized this, with their forensics experts engaging in […]