This is really my last week before two weeks off for the holiday break. We’re going to Iowa and Toronto, which will hopefully be fun and relaxing.
If all goes well, Hazel will have her first time in the Decker School of Ballet’s annual performance of “The Nutcracker”. I helped do the load in of the sets and some of the tech set up last Sunday. Alanna has been running a marathon of hair, costumes, and helping backstage. I am so proud of Hazel’s hard work and her willingness to try a new, big thing for the first time. I’m also grateful to Alanna for taking on so much of the responsibility of making this happen.
I spent the week trying to move a number of projects closer to completion, including our Spring arts camp, some NAGPRA consultation, the Phil Young Residency, and a new exhibit about Edgar Allen Poe.
Good Things:
I encountered the bizarro world of Strudel, a music programming language that generates your notations in real time. There’s a browser interface, along with an excellent tutorial. I had a great time poking around in it, and wish I had more time to sit with it!
It’s final exam week and my exhibit prep students finished installing their displays, and I submitted grades. It’s been interesting and even fun teaching this class in a formal way, and giving me an opportunity to put all I’ve learned about exhibit installation to good use.
This Friday and Saturday, we’re having Community Days at the Museum, with tours, snacks, and activities. It’s a great way to bring the Museum’s Fall season to an end.
I did some work on our Spring arts camp. I also made some phone calls to get donations and advice for the Phil Young Indigenous artists residency.
I finished reading Tim Powers' “The Anubis Gates”, a rollicking adventure story featuring time-travel, egyptian magic, and 19th century historical figures. It was as weird and inventive of a fairly conventional adventure novel as I’ve ever read.
I’ve been trying to get into the Christmas spirit, and music is a big part of how I do that. Here’s a Christmas playlist, at least for what I’m rocking this year:
Steeleye Span - Gaudete
Nowell Sing We Clear - Chariots
Finest Kind - Shepherds Arise
Sufjan Stephens - The Friendly Beasts
Low - Just Like Christmas
The Weepies - All that I want
Mike Doughty - I hear the bells (but the live version, not the studio)
Jeff Buckley - Corpus Christi Carol
John Fahey - Medley: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing/ O Come All Ye Faithful
John Denver and the Muppets - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Anonymous 4 - Alleluya! A Nywe Werk is Come on Honde!
It’s the last week of classes at Hartwick. Students in MUST205 class are finishing their display cases, and I finished mine, showcasing a new acquisition of a William Hogarth Print.
I did some work coordinating the Museum’s work study schedule for Finals week and J-Term.
Tuesday was a snow day, so the kids were mostly with me at the Museum.
I attended Phil Young’s memorial service. I saw many friends and colleagues, heard stories about Phil both old and new, and mourned the passing of a truly amazing man.
The rest of the week involved tidying up a few ends at work, and settling in for a long weekend.
Wednesday, we took the kiddos to see “Zootopia 2” which was as funny, charming, and subtly political as the first movie.
Alanna made a great dinner Thursday, and we had some friends over on Friday. Saturday we trekked to Albany to do some shopping and pick up some Trader Joe’s snacks. Sunday, we picked out a Christmas tree and got ourselves ready for the week.
In MUST205, the students worked on the labels for their final display project, and I started installing my display.
We welcomed DJ White and the Rise-Up Studio dancers from the Akwesasne Mohawk. They put on an amazing Social dance at the Foothills Performing arts center in Oneonta. SUNY Oneonta (who co-sponsored the event), also welcomed them with a wonderful reception.
I said goodbye to my friend and colleague Phil Young, who died late last week. Phil was professor emeritus of Art at Hartwick College, and a long and often lonely champion of Indigenous artists, thinkers, and ideas at the College. He and I have been working on putting together an Indigenous Artists Residency at Hartwick, which would bear his name to honor that legacy. My hope is that it can still happen, though I’m sad he didn’t get to live to see it. Rest in Peace and in Power, Phil.
I gave a guest lecture on Ancient Greece and its afterlife in Museums and architecture, and in American colonialism.
I did some good work moving our NAGPRA responsibilities forward.
True Things
Trump’s Big Beautiful Ballroom by Know Your Enemy–My favorite political podcast uses Trump’s plans to build a White House Ballroom as a window into thinking about the politics of architecture, the contradictions of the right’s “populist” classicism, and the ways that our social orders unevenly manifest in the built environment.
Dominic and I finished reading “City of Ember”. It was well-written, and the characters were rich and interesting. The whole thing felt to me like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in YA novel form.
The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation… It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support… May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy.
I devoured, almost in one sitting, Premee Mohamed’s “The Butcher of the Forest”. It’s a thrilling rescue fairytale, featuring the kind of unnverving, ancient magical world that never fails to grab me. It’s also a thoughtful meditation about violence and war and their consequences. I couldn’t put it down.
I started de-installing our now discontinued exhibit “Of Time and The River: 12,000 years in the Upper Susquehanna Region”. It was an excellent exhibit, curated by the great Dr. David Anthony, and we’re looking forward to showing off objects from Willard Yager’s collection in new ways in the coming years.
In MUST205, the students formally began their final projects of installing a display in one of our display cases.
I returned some objects that we had borrowed from the Milford Historical Society (26 years ago!) back to them.
We hosted our Halloween storytelling event “The Horror in the Museum”. It’s a fun, lively event that I love putting on at the Museum.
In MUST205, students began working on their final projects, planning displays for our display cases using the skills they’ve learned in the class.
I did some work moving along our NAGPRA consultation, and getting ready for the upcoming Mohawk Social Dance.
Halloween promises to be wet and windy tonight. On the plus side, the Oneonta parade is cancelled, which means more time for trick-or-treating!
I finished reading Paul Tremblay’s “Horror movie”. I love his smart, modern take on horror fiction and several of his novels are some of my favorite recent horror writing. This was…okay; well-written and thoughtful about the relationship of film and reallife. But on the whole it felt kind of shallow to me, which is not a thing I usually expect from him.
I worked on trying to finalize the paperwork for an up-coming Indigenous social dance in Oneonta. It’s happening, but man, it’s been a lot of work.
In MUST205, we talked about how to conceptualize and plan cases and displays, and de-installed one of the two cases the students will be using for their final project displays.
We welcomed a group of middle and high school students from Stamford, NY to the Museum for a brief but fun tour.
I finished reading Brian Evenson’s “The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell”, another in a long line of creepy, subtle horror collections. Perfect timing for spooky season!
Good Things:
I rediscovered what a great Fall record The Books “Lemon of Pink” was, and played it quite a lot, as the leaves grew golden and crimson outside my window.
In MUST205, we talked about the materials used in making labels, and then I had the students mount their test labels in the Museum’s planning room.
I did some packing and planning for our annual trip to coastal New England.
I finished reading Colin Wilson’s “The Occult: A History”, a book I’ve had on my shelf for almost 30 years. I was bewildered by it, in terms of Wilson’s antiquated style, the subject matter (ghosts! ESP! aliens! magic! divination!), and how remarkably boring I found the overall thing.
I also finished reading Christian Wiman’s edited volume “Joy: 100 Poems”. I picked a few poems that I liked and wrote some brief notes.
Good Things:
Like a lot of people, I listened to the last episode of WTF with Marc Maron. I’ve been listening actively since 2011 (pretty sure that John Hamm was the first episode I heard?), and Maron’s voice, curiousity, anxiety, and humor have been a constant in my life for the last 15 years. I wish I could say I liked this episode, or that it felt like a fitting way to end his legacy, but Obama’s contradictions were on full display here; soaring rhetoric about democracy and American values and the role of activists in furthering those values with simultaneous scolding of the young, American left for being too judgemental, in their insistence that America live up to those ideals globally. Maron, for his part, has always straddled the line between curiousity and anxious worry, and his great ability was to turn that inward scrutiny on others, whether they were comedians, authors, musicians, actors, or presidents, even though Obama’s first appearance rocketed him to a higher level of notoriety. Having Obama on again seemed less a celebration of those worthy skills, hard-earned in Maron’s life and career, than a tawdry and petty re-vamping of a fickle moment of fame.
I listened to D’Angelo’s “Voodoo”, and especially the ethereal masterpiece “One Mo Gin” a lot this week, upon hearing that he died. What a strange, quiet, sexy, magical album. Rest in Power.
