The Writing Is The Hardest Part

One month! It’s been one month since my last post, and I am sure I promised myself that I would write a post a week. Well, that went sideways. In this crazy, F’d up world of ours, it is hard to stay on top of anything. Think about what has happened in a month. Trump lost an election that he feels like he won! Hurricanes keep hitting the eastern seaboard. Are we at 22 or 23 named storms? COVID gets worse — for everyone! And my MA research is straight-up mutha-f’n behind schedule. Yea! I know you were worried about that. HA!

Anyway, the Roman Imperial coins are done being organized. Placed in order of Emperor, family members and finally Caesars. Now, I am onto the Byzantine coins. Something I have been dying to get my hands on.

BEFORE

AFTER

Don’t they look sexy? All in order. It might not seem like a big difference, but it makes a WORLD of difference for those who need to research coins and find coins. And I discovered so many great coins that I never knew existed. Also, I know that I said during this process that I would write a series called Juno She Is A Badass based on the women represented on the coins I was working with. I will get to it; you just need to be Mutha-F’n patient. So with that being said, I guess I will get to the point of this post…

WRITING IS THE HARDEST PART ABOUT WRITING!

I know this is a mind-blowing concept, but it is true. Finding the time to sit down and write about anything, especially topics you love, is a challenging thing to do. It’s hard not to feel guilty about taking time away from projects and jobs that have deadlines and all that shit so you can write for yourself. Even more so when you are not getting paid for my efforts.

I tell my partner all the time: “Babe, I am going to write that novel now and make us millions of dollars.” Only to see myself sitting down and devouring a full bag of chips or a litre of ice cream and not produce a single F’n word. How do you make this happen? F@&k Knows? But every writer has an opinion about how to make yourself write: Set up schedules; lock yourself in a room; run into the mountains, camp out with the wildlife and be inspired by nature, even though it is minus F’n 30 degrees while the local wolves are feasting on your corpse…Sorry, I got sidetracked. It happens. Now, back to writing about the coins.

Byzantine Coins

From a museum in central Turkey, 2016.

Thinking about the upcoming exhibition and what I need to think about concerning how I will display coins and what to write about them, my mind tends to go back four years ago to when I visited a museum in Turkey. Now, I don’t quite recall which museum these coins are located in. I think it was a small museum just outside of the Hittite capital of Hattusa, but don’t quote me on this. Ten coins were displayed, just like they are in the photo above, and a short blurb about how these were Byzantine coins from different emperors. That’s F’n it, nothing more, and nothing less. They were tucked away in some small nook in the museum, and if one wasn’t paying attention, you could walk right by them and not even notice.

“Now, Scott, who gives a damn about this? I mean, really, do you think this is more important than Climate Change?”

WHOA. I did not say that, but it is essential to understand how we represent past societies’ identities. Many Byzantine coins in other fine establishments (British Museum, I am looking at you) tend to be put on display in a non-engaging way and is meant to represent over a thousand years of history. THINK ABOUT THAT. DO IT. RIGHT NOW!

As a nation, Canada is only 153 years old, and provinces such as Newfoundland and Labrador did not join confederation until 1949. Just think how complex, varied, conflicted, and diverse our history is here in Canada since confederation? Then think about pre-confederation and all the unreal shit that happened!

The so-called Byzantine Empire was in existence for over a thousand years! And if we refer to it as the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire, which it was, that F@&ker has two-millennia of history! And we say, “Meh, 10 coins and some Christian artifacts should do it!”

F@&K THAT!

ROMAN or BYZANTINE?

You tell me!

Photo courtesy of Brittany DeMone, 2019.

On that note, I start working with the “Byzantine” coins housed in the Nickle Galleries at the University of Calgary tomorrow. I will be exploring the theme of Identity and how we represent Roman and Byzantine identity through coins in museum exhibitions. EXHILARATING, I KNOW! But this is a fundamental question to tackle as it directly impacts cultural heritage questions and the legacy of Orientalization in academic discourse. 

So stay tuned for THE BYZ as I explore and WRITE about how Identity is represented with “Byzantine” coins.