Thursday, October 4, 2018

Immortal Egypt, Joann Fletcher

First, I must say, it is a very good show, and Joann is a fine and entertaining and a knowledgeable host. I watched it on Amazon Video twice. The stuff she comes up with is impressive.

Second, she drives me nuts.

I can't stand listening to her speak. And I can't stand looking at her stupid Orphan Annie hair, nor her ridiculous black clothing throughout.

In Nubia she discusses some amazing insights about the ending of Egyptian self rule when Nubians took over but were absorbed into Egyptian culture and protected it, bringing it back to Nubia immediately before the Greeks took over. A sandstorm kicks up and the wind is blowing her ridiculous frizzy out-of-control hair into her face and across her face so she's speaking from within a frizzy moving hair mask. For her that is normal. And the whole time I'm going, "Let me cut your hair. Come on, let me cut your hair. Bzzzzzzzzzzt. There. Much better."

"The hot of the country, the hot of the tomb, the hot of the soul, the hot of the city, the hot of nation, the hot of the desert, the hot of the dispute, the hot of situation, the hot of their marriage, the hot of the drought, the hot of the granary, the hot of the pyramid, the hot of crisis, the hot of the treaty, the hot of the first dinisty, the second dinisty, the sixth dinisty, the eighteenth dinisty, the Ptolemy dinisty. The Egyptian cul-chuh, the Greek cul-chuh, the pharaonic cul-chah, the laic cul-chuh, the priestly cul-chuh, the milli-tree cul-chuh"

"Shut up !"

It occurred to me, how does one even get a phd with such an incredibly limited vocabulary?

It's never, "the core of the country, the center of the tomb, the solar plexus of the physical body, the essence, the substance, the gist, the bosom, the mettle, the meat, the nub, affection, fondness, tenderness, bravery, or courage." But always hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, hot, up to fifteen times per episode. I'm not exaggerating.

"Alexandrier" "There's where one of the missing Rs went. I found one!"

I cannot stand listening to this woman speak. It drives me insane. But on Amazon Prime Video, the preferred subtitles are all messed up.

She goes into a museum basement and has access to Carter's original glass slides. Fascinating. The female curator has the same disqualifying speech impediment and equally frizzy uncontrolled hair except even fuller and longer.

Is it a thing with intellectuals to be against hair products, or what? And against personal stylists. They all need someone to help them pick out their clothing. Fact! I'm not being mean. I'm observing reality and stating fact.

She goes into a museum storage and a male curator explains an ancient text with an interesting story very revealing of ancient life, and he too has the same speech impediment and  poorly chosen clothing and overly long uncontrolled frizzy hair all over his face, ears and neck.

And I'm sitting here thinking, "You're all getting your stupid frizzy hair falling out all over the place you freaks. You're all messing everything up. Let. Me. Cut. Your. Hair." All of you.  Academics drive me insane.

All of these people studied hieroglyphs so logically they all should be my buds.

But when you displace your Rs in your native language how can you be trusted with Rs in hieroglyphs? This is an R in hieroglyphs . What is she going to do with them, lift them all out and sprinkle them around randomly as from an R-shaker?  *pantomimes a salt-shaker.*

She is a ridiculous woman with some very interesting and unusual insight and good high production show. What an intolerable dichotomy.

I end up ridiculing her throughout the show and miss half what she says. At least half.

Incidentally, elsewhere, she found a wig in the Nubian hairstyle, tangled and no longer black, worn only by royal women between 1400 and 1300 BC, so she formed a theory the wig was actually worn by Nefertiti. Big find. Convincing. Evidence in wall paintings showed Nefertiti wore such a wig. Joann excitedly announced her theory to the press and that violated an agreement that all new discoveries will be discussed with the Ministry of Antiquities, so Zahi Hawas disinvited Joann Fletcher from further study in Egypt.

Forever.

Then Zahi Hawass was himself sacked during the overthrow of the Egyptian president. The new Egyptian president cleared out the whole cabinet.  (Although Antiquities is not a cabinet position, he was trashed with the rest of them.) Protestors wanted him out for being too cozy with the old president. They're very emotional people.

4 comments:

edutcher said...

Need an m.

deborah said...

I wonder if a future archaeologist will come up with a theory of Sheila Jackson Lee's hairpiece.

It must have been an incredible blow to be denied entry into Egypt forever. Did she feel worse than Voltaire when he was banned from Paris? Prolly not. Hee.

Amartel said...

Zahi shows up in every one of these Egypt shows. (Well, maybe not anymore if he’s been sacked.). It always made me wonder if they have to put him in there somewhere in order to even film in and around these antiquities.

Chip Ahoy said...

Thanks for the M. Fixed.