Shaking hands with the dead

"Where facts are few, myth rushes in, the kudzu of history."

There's a sentence I wish I had written. You can find it in a very interesting article in the New York Times by Stacy Schiff, "Who's Buried in Cleopatra's Tomb?" (Read it here.) If she is correct, the problems faced by powerful women have apparently not changed much over the course of the centuries.

Which reminds me of my recent conversation with the outgoing Chair of the Faculty. We're trying to set up a meeting so he can teach me the Secret Faculty Chair Handshake and show me where the bodies are buried. The problem, he said, is that the Secret Faculty Chair Handshake is properly performed by firmly grasping hands with long-dead corpses.

He wouldn't reveal whether the ceremony requires the presence of asps. Go ask Cleopatra. She'll know.