Word: mayan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...minds of those who study there, Widener Library is the heart of Harvard. Michael McCormick, Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History, has termed visiting Widener “an almost ineffable experience.” Nobel Prize winner Dudley Herschenbach described the construction as “a huge Mayan temple.” He also wrote of “the spiritual impact” of entering the stacks, those “sacred, otherworldly precincts.” Even the recently completed renovations, which have made the library easier to navigate and less forbidding, have not eliminated...
...nearly 60 years after that, Heye bought just about every Indian artifact he could get his hands on--Kwakiutl doorposts, Mayan jade idols, Lenape wampum belts, Nootka whaleboats, plus every kind of headdress, breastplate and beaded skirt. You can see why he was once described as a man who "felt that he couldn't conscientiously leave a reservation until its entire population was practically naked." By the time he died, in 1957, he had amassed about 800,000 items and opened an overburdened private museum in Manhattan...
...sometimes, as a wise boss told me, we need a change even more than a rest. There has to be a reason why people devote their precious two weeks of repose to sweaty hikes through Mayan ruins or intensive courses in power knitting. It could be that the most refreshing break of all is to think about nothing familiar for a while, go someplace strange and learn something new, forget who you are during the rest of the year. Maybe the perfect summer is one that makes room for both, for accidents and adventures and long drives with no maps...
...these apocalyptic visions get you down. If you listen to the weirder radio talk shows, you know that the next real-life cataclysm won't come until Dec. 21, 2012 (something about the winter solstice and a Mayan prophecy). By then, Governor Schwarzenegger will be in his second term and eligible for Social Security...if there is Social Security. But that's a different nightmare. Or two. --By Richard Corliss
Palmer used an anecdote about Mayan women in Guatemala to further illustrate his characterization of anti-globalization activists...