by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 1/8/23-1/14/23

weeknotes movies books comics

This Week:

  • My wife and I watched “The Net” a frankly preposterous and bewildering artifact of early internet culture that was saved only by a really engaging performance by Sandra Bullock. There’s lots of geocities-era websites and glib mentions of viruses and missing disks and mainframes, and an oppressive anxiety about privacy that almost feels quaint. Having said that, the film was fairly entertaining, despite some of the nonsense.
  • With my son, I finished reading J.K. Rowling’s “The Christmas Pig”. To paraphrase the West Wing: JK Rowling. Boy, I don’t know…. The book was good.
  • I finished reading Austin Grossman’s “Crooked” a book that is written as the secret memoirs of Richard Nixon, and posits him as having been fighting in a vast magical and supernatural conspiracy during his adult political life. It’s a fun and interesting book that is weakened by the glaring omission of discussions of race and racism, which were pretty central to Nixon’s political and personal life.
  • I finished reading Volume 1 of Die by Kieran Gillen and Stephanie Hans. It’s a sort of dark fantasy about some kids who get sucked into a fantasy world while playing a Dungeons and Dragons-like game in our world, a la the 80s Cartoon. But they stay there, and when they finally return two years later, one of them is missing and the others are all broken or warped in some way. It was a recommendation from the Minister of Intrigue and as usual, it was well-deserved. Great, thoughtful storytelling and gorgeous illustrations.
  • I worked on de-installing the last of “Front Row Center”, and with some students, started the process of installing our newest exhibit about Micronesia.
  • More Criterion! My wife and I watched “His Girl Friday”, a funny and intense movie about the perils and joys of newspaper journalism and the tensions between work and relationships. Rosalind Russell is funny, glamourously kooky, and cutting, but my favorite scene probably involved Mr. Pettibone, the hapless deliverer of pardons. Criterion likes him too, and there’s a great essay about his scenes and Billy Gilbert, the actor who played them.