Quentin's (bi)Weeknotes 7/13/19-7/26/19
Missed my post last week, so here’s what I did over the last two:
- I read this strange and foggy short story “The Crisis” by M. John Harrison. I read Viroconium earlier this year, and am still lingering over and attempting to reverse engineer Harrison’s lyrical/anxious/morose prose. As with Viriconium, and other of Harrison’s work (see both contributions to the Vandermeer’s “The Weird” Anthology), this story uses a speculative skeleton, namely an invasion from outside, to explore very human states–pessimism, anxiety, inequality, and displacement.
- I finished Southern Gods by John Horner Jacobs. It was good, especially the moody and swampy first half, though it got a little too formulaic for me by the end.
- We had a yard sale with our neighbors.
I love yard/garage sales, as a way of de-cluttering, a way of building community, and as a window into the lives of people by what they discard. We had a great old time, got rid of some stuff, and made a little pocket money. - I saw The Secret Life of Pets 2. There are fewer joys I have in life than hearing my son laugh out loud.
- I was saddened to hear of the death of Rutger Hauer. Like every nerd, I know him most prominently as the poetic and murderous android/freedom fighter Roy Batty from Blade Runner. But the movie of his that I return to over and over again is Ladyhawke, a gorgeous and extremely entertaining Richard Donner Fantasy epic. Hauer is a force of nature in it, and the entire lead cast, including Matthew Broderick, Michelle Pfeiffer, Leo McKern, and John Wood are all astonishingly great in their respective roles. I can think of no better recommendation than the finale sword fight between Hauer’s Navarre and Ken Hutchinson’s Captain Marquet. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIl9IFcIXlg&w=560&h=315]
- It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas–The Verso E-book sale is upon us. This year I grabbed books by Mike Davis, Valerie Solanas, John Berger, Angela Davis, and Theodor Adorno.
