My Yearnotes for 2018

In which I list, in no particular order, things I experienced, worked on or enjoyed this year.

• I read 37 books. Of these, 19 were written/edited by or primarily by women–a ratio I tried very hard this year to equalize after years of not being conscious of it. The most inspiring or memorable of these were

  • W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, a daunting but delightfully rewarding classic of revisionist history of the post-Civil War US;
  • Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples, a graphic novel (of which I read volumes 8,  9 and 10 this year) that feels so simultaneously human and strange, and gives me that wonderful thrill of reading something modern that I know will be someday considered a classic;
  • The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, a gloriously written, righteously angry genre-defying time-travel serial killer novel about the violence that men do to women, which I read during the Kavanaugh hearings and;
  • The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, a monumentally large edited volume of weird fiction that has already spurred me to purchase books by Bruno Schulz and Reza Negarestani both of whom I first encountered here.

• I wrote a piece of fiction (something I hadn’t done in decades) and submitted it for publiciation to an upcoming anthology. It was not accepted, but the process of getting it together inspired me to write more fiction. I’m now working on a novel that I will hopefully finish next year. If you want to read the story (which is about two boys who fight a monster with a machine named for a Dead Boys song), drop me a line and I’ll send you a copy.

• I try to buy music from artists I like, rather than accepting Spotify’s greasy embrace. This year, I bought albums by Refused, Gastr Del Sol, The Monkees, Allo' Darlin, The Hotelier, Preoccupations, Open Mike Eagle, Liberteer, Low, Diarrhea Planet, The Pop Group, and Stick in the Wheel.

• I watched a bunch of movies and TV shows. The ones that have stuck with me included:

  • A Dark Song, a subtly-shaded character study of a woman trying (and failing) to cope with tragedy masquerading as a horror movie.
  • Hereditary, a horror movie masquerading as a subtly shaded character study of a woman trying (and failing) to cope with tragedy.
  • Annihilation, a film where the movie was different enough from the (wonderful) book to make me not care that it was an adaptation, and whose last 30 minutes was perhaps one of the weirdest pieces of cinema released by a major studio since 2001.
  • Mohawk, a supernatural action movie set in colonial New York, with Indigenous protagonists and featuring Indigenous actors.
  • The Endless, a triumphantly strange film by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who know something about weird cinema.
  • Black Panther, a little comic-book movie with simplistic politics that you probably didn’t hear about.
  • Queer Eye, a make-over show that as Laurie Penny so incisivley noted, broadly sketches “the rampaging crisis of American Masculinity."
  • Hotel Transylvania 3, which honestly wasn’t that great, but which I watched at the Unadilla Drive-in with my wife and son. The experience, which was a first for him, was delightful.
  • I also watched Beware of Mr. Baker, GLOW, Green Room, I am Not Your Negro, Beauty and the Beast (2017),  Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, A Quiet Place, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, Neal Brennan: 3 Mics, Dear White People,The Place Beyond the Pines,  Ralph Breaks the Internet, Incredibles 2, The Ritual, Marie Antoinette, Frances Ha and The Hateful Eight.

• I lost close to 30 lbs this year, started exercising again, and cut off all my hair.

• I got a lot done at the Yager Museum and Hartwick College

  • I co-curated and helped install an exhibit on the history of African-Americans at Hartwick College.
  • I put together, or helped put together new programs at the Yager Museum including a Summer ‘Crafternoons’ for kids, an Indigenous Speakers series, and a film screening of a documentary about James Baldwin.
  • I co-taught a new class on Collectors and Collecting, part of which involved teaching wikipedia, something I had always wanted to do but never found the right moment for.
  • I gave a dozen-odd guided tours of the Museum to individuals and groups from around the country.

• I organized a conference session at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology on the Archaeology of American Conservatism. I also reviewed two articles and book proposal in archaeology, and co-authored a draft of an article for an upcoming archaeological compendium.

• I installed Ubuntu Linux on my laptop and have made an effort to use less proprietary software.

• I got off twitter, and pared down my other social media presences, moving more of my on-line life here.

• I attended my father-in-law’s funeral.

• I helped register students to vote in New York, and assisted my local county Democratic Party in GOTV efforts during the election.

• I listened to some good podcasts, of which my favorite episodes included:

  • Why is This Happening? with Chris Hayes from July 24th in which he interviews Giorgio Angellini, a documentarian making a cinematic history of housing in America.
  • Pseudopod’s 3 part reading of the astonishingly creepy Laird Barron story Mysterium Tremendum by the equally astonishing Jon Padgett.
  • WTF w/ Marc Maron from March 29th, with an exhaustive and historically fascinating interview with They Might Be Giants. An honorable mention goes to the August 9th interview with Chris O’Dowd, which might be the funniest podcast episode I listened to this year.
  • Earl Hustle from April 25th, on the challenges of trying to be a parent while incarcerated, which brought me to tears. Honestly, the whole of Ear Hustle is the most honest, painful, politically infuriating, funny, sad and human piece of media that I encountered in this year of record-breaking prison strikes.

• Finally, if all goes as expected, sometime in the next two weeks I will be welcoming a daughter into the world. I remain in awe of and love with my wife’s strength, humor, and fierce intelligence through this whole process, as the rest of our lives have alternatively woven or crashed into it. Likewise, my son’s genuine enthusiasm for and curiousity about this new person joining our family has been both a relief and a wonderous inspiriation. These remain the best gifts that 2018 has given me.