Quentin's Weeknotes 1/24/21-1/30/21
This week:
- I finished reading the first Enola Holmes book “the Case of the Missing Marquess” with my kid. I heard about it because of the Netflix movie, and found that (as is so often the case) the book was much better than the original. A fun, feminist detective story that my somewhat precocious 7 year old could follow with only a little extra explanation.
- I watched “Midnight Special”, a dark and strange superhero movie with a stellar cast. I had heard about it years ago but only got around to watching it now. The movie centers around a child and his father (played with great understatement by Michael Shannon) who are on the run from a religious cult and the US government, due to the boy’s miraculous, dangerous, and ultimately self-draining abilities. It’s a contemplative, exciting movie about power, freedom, and what those things may cost.
- I did some work at the Museum for upcoming programs (Mohawk!) and research on collections objects.
- I got my Collections Management syllabus in gear for the upcoming Spring semester.
- I finished reading Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” which I had owned for years, but never read…and reading it, I remember why. He’s a brilliant writer, with a real skill for propulsive and exciting prose and action, and his juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated things are brilliant and funny (ancient mythology and computers?) But I find reading him extraordinarily difficult, because he switches perspectives so frequently that I never feel settled into his texts. I get to the end of an exciting chapter, and then jump into the next chapter and lose all the momentum that he built up. Anyway, Snow Crash was great.
