My Yearnotes for 2021

What I felt most accutely this year was a shifting and mutable sense of time; the way it compresses and expands and warps and freezes. I found myself very aware of having no time for some things and the stress and anxiety that comes with that. For other things, I felt the slow drag of every second passing.

In many ways, this year felt so much harder than last year, where we all were just struggling, one foot in front of the other, through the pandemic until the vaccines arrived. Now they’re here, but lots of people aren’t getting them, and all of us are suffering the slings and arrows of a shrinking, but increasingly intransigent population.

Indeed, “the slings and arrows of a shrinking but increasingly intransigent population” might best characterize whole aspects of American life in 2021. 

So what follows is my record of a heavy year, alternatively frozen still and rushing headlong into some unknown horizon, and of what I did and felt and even enjoyed along the way.

Music was a big part of my life this year.

• I played two concerts with John O’Connor as a member of the Fellow Travelers.
• I saw my first live concert of music in many years, seeing Clutch, Stoner, and King Buffalo at the Empire theater in Albany, with my friend Thor.
• I purchased or received albums by Cloud Nothings, Craig Finn, Richard Thompson, Jawbreaker, Current 93, boygenius, Propagandhi, John K. Samson, Low, Superwolf, King Buffalo, All Them Witches, The Horror,  John Allison’s album of New England Ballads, the Old Sturbridge Singers album of Early American Choral Music, Pete Seeger and Brother Kirk, and Coope Boyes and Simpson.
• The Low album is as good as everyone says it is, strange and warped and beautiful. I was also really enchanted by boygenius, All Them Witches, and John K. Samson.
• I tried to make some more electronic music with the various tools in my kit, but found it hard to finish things I started.

I read 62 books year, for a total of around 15000 pages. The goal for this year was to clear my bookshelves of things I have been planning to read for a while, and overall, it was a success. Now they’re all in my basement. Progress!

Books that really stuck with me included:

• Railsea by China Mieville–a wonderful blending of weird fiction with various 19th century genres (especially sailing novels and political romances), set in a post-apocalyptic future where humans hunt mutated moles through a desert criss-crossed with overlapping railroad tracks.
• Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson–I heard this described as “Stranger Things” with household pets, which may be enough to entice. If it’s not, the gorgeous art of Jill Thompson should bring anybody to this delightful and fun graphic novel.
• Things that Never Happen by M. John Harrison–I continue to devour everything I can find by this genre fiction master. I’m trying to locate something I can’t quite name in his elusive and alienated characters, who barely notice the increasingly strange worlds in which they live. This is an out of print collection of short stories, but many are reprinted in the newly-released collection “Settling the World."
• Conspiracy of Interests by Laurence Hauptman–I’m a settler, on the lands of the Haudenosaunee people and the Oneida and Mohawk Nations, and I’ve tried hard to both learn the history of how that came to be, as well as incorporating that knowledge into my life and work. This book, which charts how New York State became a cohesive entity in the 19th century, through the direct dispossesion of the lands of the Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca, helped me answer that question.
• Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz–A book about urban life in the past, present, and (potential) future that is hopeful, rich, and engagingly written. It’s also a love-letter to archaeology, and the joy of discovering all the ways the past is radically different from the present, as well as eerily similar.

I watched a few movies, including Spring, Underwater, Crimson Peak, In the Earth, A Ghost Story, Dune, Hamilton, Ghidorah the Three Headed Monster, Lake Mungo, Johnny Mnemonic, Midnight Special, High Rise, Jupiter Ascending, Summer of Soul, Con Air, Paw Patrol: The Movie (at the Unadilla Drive-in!) and Kiki’s Delivery Service. “Spring” was amazing; a weird, grotesque and heartfelt meditation on love and mortality. I also really liked “Midnight Special,” which is sort of dark mirror of the superhero film, and unlike other “gritty” superhero movies, asks profound questions of the consequences of power on the empowered and their loved ones.

Podcasts continue their central role in my life. WTF w/ Marc Maron, Why is This Happening, Double Threat, Greetings Adventurers, Pseudopod, Deconstructed, The Memory Palace, Our Opinions are Correct, and Explorers Wanted are staples. Beyond that, I enjoyed

• Know Your Enemy, a historical and cultural podcast where two socialists discuss the American right.
• What had Happened Was, where rapper Open Mike Eagle engages in a long biographical dialog with a significant figure in Hip-Hop. EL-P’s tenure in the second season is not to be missed.
• This Land, hosted by Cherokee journalist Rebecca Nagle, is an indispsensible and harrowing deep exploration of issues of Native American law and land. Season 2’s discussion of the Indian Child Welfare act was enlightening and emotional.
• Blowback, which shines a harsh light on American foreign policy. Season 1 walked through the disaster of the Iraq war, while season two focuses on American policy towards Cuba.Both are full of rich and enraging detail.

I tried really hard to write fiction, but mostly failed to produce anything of substance. I started out the year strong, writing short scenes every week, using wikipedia’s “random article” feature for prompts. But I just couldn’t make my brain focus on the creative spark enough to sit down and do anything longer-term than that. I did submit a piece of flash fiction to Crystal Lake publishing’s “Shallow Waters” contest, entitled “Torn Page Found at an abandoned circus” which you can read here.

Professionally, I got quite a bit done

• I taught Collections Management, and co-taught a new class, Introduction to North American Material culture.The latter has been something I’ve wanted to do since I put together a material culture syllabus for my doctoral comps, and I had a good time teaching it.
• I co-curated and installed a major exhibit entitled “For the Moment, Living Images: Masks of Mexico and Beyond."
• I facilitated the repatriation of brooches owned by John Quinney to the Stockbridge-Munsee band of Mohican indians.
• I took part in an AAIA Repatriation Conference Panel entitled “Nothing that deserved the Name of Purchase was ever made: The Implications of Patrimony and Ethics on Returning Diplomatic Items”,building off the Stockbridge-Munsee repatriation.
• I organized and implemented a speaker’s series at Hartwick on land acknowledgement, and welcomed our first speaker, the amazing Michelle Schenandoah.
• After years of delay, I finally finished and had printed the exhibit material from “Black Lives at Hartwick: Then and Now” into a permanent form.They will be on display somewhere at Hartwick once they return from the Greater Oneonta Historical Society.
• Since the museum was able to open up on a limited basis, we had some great events including movie screenings, performances, and general receptions and programs.

Politically, it was a dark year, and it’s getting darker. Trying to find a few points of light, I joined the Democratic Socialists of America, after cheering them on for years. I also joined the Black Trowel Collective, a group of archaeologists who are thinking about mutual aid and radical care operating in the past, as well as trying to implement those relationships in the present.

Our home and our home life continued to be a refuge and a source of strength.

• I bought a bike, and tried to spend less time driving. I wanted to get more exercise and lose some more weight, neither of which were particularly successful efforts. Still, the bike’s not going anywhere, and I hope to continue to find ways to use it both for my own health, and the health of the planet.
• We got a dog. Quill is delightful and an energetic and energizing member of our household.
• With my father and my wife and my son, I built a playhouse for our kids. I also built a picnic table, and learned how to replace a light fixture.
• Our family took little vacations to New Hampshire, Western Massachusetts, and Philadelphia, and did some regional travelling where we felt it was safe to do so.
• I got to see my parents, and my mother-in-law in person for the first time since the pandemic started. I also got to see my good friend, the Minister of Intrigue, as well as various old friends in Western Massachusetts.
• Both our kids returned to school/daycare this year, after months of being at home. They’ve both done really well settling back in, even with multiple quarantines and new procedures and uncertainty. I’m proud of them, even as I wish that it didn’t have to be this way.
• I got to cheer on my amazing wife as she worked and fought hard at SUNY to be a great professor and a great scholar, in the face of the continued upheaval of the pandemic and the emotional toll it is taking on educators and students. I also got to see her reap some professional rewards for her hard work, including tenure at SUNY Oneonta. I’m so proud of her, and proud to be with her.

So time passes. All told, I’m happy to be putting this strange and uneven year aside, and making something new and better with the next one.