Quentin's Weeknotes 3/9/19-3/15/19

This Week:

• I read, with great delight, Elizabeth Warren's plan to break up big tech companies, particularly those that are attempting to organize themselves as markets. I've always liked Warren and am hopeful that she will continue to push the Democratic party to do right.
• I read Ryan Walsh's nuanced take on the Blurred Lines decision, in which he argues that it is a dangerous precident to make musicians pay for consciously referencing another artist. Not only does this force artists into an untenable creative position (because everyone learns about music as a fan before they learn about it as a craft), but as Cory Doctorow noted in an article I liked last week, certain kinds of borrowing is considered culturally acceptible (particularly if it's from historically marginalized communities) while other kinds requires resititution.
• I started listening to the Odyssey Workshop Podcast. The Odyssey Workshop is an annual and very selective fantastic fiction seminar and course that brings in world-class writers, editors, and agents to talk about how to have success as a writer. They also do a podcast that provides excerpts from the classes and I've really enjoyed listening to Jeff Vandermeer and Elizabeth Hand's contributions.
• I finished Rober Aickman's Cold Hand in Mine. It was exactly the kind of horror/weird fiction I love--stylized, ambiguous, and subtle.
• I read Joe Kennedy's incisive essay on authenticity and class politics in The Baffler. I'm really fascinated by authenticity, which I've always thought of not as a real thing, but as a historically specific attempt to freeze something in the flow of time, and usually with material things (objects and spaces). Thus, as Kennedy notes "real" working class voters are purported to live only in rural areas while "fake" leftists come from cities. Likewise the constant evocations of coffee in his essay as a marker of a certain kind of class identity. I additionally like this essay for Kennedy's evocations of his hometown of Darlington, U.K. I know Darlington well--it's the next town over from the one where we lived, and was the site of some of the first political protests I saw against austerity in the UK.

Book Notes: Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman

Review/Notes of Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman. (Link)

Date finished: 3/10/2019

I heard of Aickman from John Darnielle, of the Mountain Goats, who described him as a literary influence during his tenure on the Podcast I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats. Darnielle spoke of Aickman as being a very subtle, suggestive writer of horror and strangeness, which sounded right up my alley.

The stories collected in "Cold Hand in Mine" are variable in their adherence to that mission, with some (The Hospice, The Clock Watcher) being almost inexplicable and others (Pages from a Young Girls Journal, The Same Dog) bringing more of a light touch to already familiar tales and themes.

Still, several of the stories in here are absolute masterpieces--the Hospice, in particular is stunningly weird, to the point that it's almost funny. "Meeting Mr. Millar" also has a great deal of humor mixed with the bizarre, as the narrator is an editor of pornographic fiction.

The hardest part for me was that Aickman's prose is very specific and very stylized, and the subtlety of his creepy imagery is easy to miss if you read quickly. Unfortunately, as a father to a new baby (as well as an already dynamic and engaged five year old) it's hard to find time to read something slowly, and this collection took me far longer to read than I think it might otherwise have.

Really fantastic stuff.

Quentin's Weeknotes 3/2/19-3/8/19

This Week

• I hiked up to the top of Table Rock with my son. It was a good reminder of how lucky I am to live in central New York.

looking down over West Oneonta, and the hills beyond

• I read this amazing essay by Cory Doctorow, on the fundamental violence inherent of the idea of the lone genius creator who deserves exclusive (and perpetual) rights to his creation. So many great ideas in here, but I'm most impressed with the phrase "Lockean Titan", which strikes me as an amazing core of an alternate history science fiction novel featuring English philosophers.
• I read Sady Doyle's essay on having children in the age of climate change. Her piece is not a lamentation, but a call to action, drawing on the framework of reproductive justice. Being a father of a new baby has got me thinking about what it means to raise children in a world that's on fire, and what I can do to help put the fire out.

Quentin's Weeknotes 2/23/19-3/1/19

This Week:

• I read Volume 1 of Kieron Gillen's run on Darth Vader. Believe it or not, this is the first time Darth Vader has been given a solo comic series, and it absolutely doesn't disappoint. It somehow manages to build on the character's mythology while expanding it dramatically, by giving Vader some adversity to overcome. Really great and recommended.
• The Yager Museum held its last day of our Winter Break programming for kids, which we coordinate with other Oneonta cultural institutions. This was an event that I've coordinated for the last two years, and usually involves some combination of passive and structured museum activities for K-6 kids. We get a good boost in visitorship, and have a great old time. Plus, I have to say that the thing I love the most about it is hearing the sounds of children in the normally quiet and staid museum galleries.
• I stumbled into the amazing world of one-page, homemade role-playing games, after reading this post on Lifehacker. I've played RPGs since I was a kid, and have continued as an adult, but finding time is always a problem. One-page RPGs seem to be a simultaneously economical and bonkers/simple solution.
• If I didn't love Georgia Gubenatorial candidate Stacey Abrams already, I am over the moon after listening to her appearance on Why is this Happening? With Chris Hayes. When have you heard a politician describe their political philosophy in weighing tough choices this way:

My first job is who's going to get hurt, and how painful would that hurt be?

Abrams clearly ran one of the most progressive, organized, and ethically righteous campaign of the 2018 cycle, and her incredibly narrow "loss" (with quotes used advisedly given the context) has clearly only galvanized her to aim even higher. Plus, she writes suspense romance novels and loves Super Friends. Stacey Abrams for Anything!

Quentin's Weeknotes 2/16/19-2/22/19

This week:

• I read Lady Killer Vol. 1 by Jamie S. Rich and Joelle Jones. The story is fun--a 1950's-era suburban housewife who moonlights as an assassin. It's a great combination of blood and sterile cleanliness. But the real draw is the breath-taking art by Joelle Jones, which draws on mid-century design, but also shows off her peerless drafting and pencilling skills.
• I read this brief note from M. John Harrison's blog, worth reproducing in full for its advice on writing good characters, as well as for a good description of what many of us are living through these days:

People who lost their ontological security so long ago they don’t even remember it happened to them. They muddle along trying to construct and maintain a self out of what’s left, continually remaking the world out of unstable bits and pieces, suffering a condition they don’t even recognise as loneliness. They stumble upon a life of habit and that will have to do. It gives them a certain gallantry. We recognise that about them even when it’s irritating. People who have lost ontological security to that extent are rarely aware of it, so when writing them it is best not to present direct explanations or origins. That would rationalise their behaviour the way single-event trauma is used in the Hollywood blueprint, to add motivation and simple causality to plot-driving characterisations and characterisation-driven plots.