Introduction:
Ah, the tale of danzantes, weird and wondrous leftovers from Monte Albán who broadcast their mysteries to our generation. Once they were dancers, now salamander creatures, remnants of sacrificed captives, relics with stories to tell. Their TicTacToe eyes do not see. Spirals incised into their genitals obliterate their gift of life. That, my dear audience, is a metaphor for what you might expect from today’s lecture. May I introduce our visiting professor in Mesoamerican Iconography, Epigraphy, and Ethnography?

The Lecture:
Heads nod. Eyes blank. The projector sounds like flies on a somnolent summer day.

Closing Remarks:
Today you’ve heard an extensive, labored, erudite effort to label and isolate entities of a state where people lived. These were singing, laughing, crying, murdering, fighting, working, playing people. To achieve precision, a vibrant history was painted in either-ors, in blacks and whites. No pictures were painted with pastel or oil. Poetic words like tzompantti, lumpy, tecajeta, ocotián, zimatián, and cremas were overlayed with graphs, diagrams, schematics. I hope you will revisit our lecture series come December.

Silent Rant:
      “Monte Albián..capitol of a Zapatec State..extensive…a fit culture…
        initiatives and resistance. Note the diagram….” Oh, to lecturing anthropologists everywhere: Holy shit! Pull-lease! Just say what your have to say. You dig in the dirt and fossilized poop on your hands and knees in search of soul. You find stones cracked and carved, uncover evidence of skull racks and mayhem. Even your ink cuneiforms that identifies sherds fascinate the uninitiated. When you present these wonders in academies everywhere, tell us of courts, sex, conflagrations, tradition, costumes and how a society flirted with disaster! Whisper the danzantes' secrets. Speak not with the royal "we." Avoid “dialectic,” “subregions,” “distribution of population over the landscape.” Do not sift your knowledge, stir it, nor dissect it until it loses its flavor. This is about mankind, life, death. C’mon, Teach. Light my fire!