Quentin's Weeknotes 11/10/18-11/16/18
This week:
- I read with great joy that both the soon-to-be New York State democratic legislature, and the soon-to-be democratically controlled US congress are starting their agendas with voter reform. New York State election law is particularly archaic and anti-democratic, and I hope that the signs on the horizon will lead to greater turnout and engagement.
- I read this creepy, unsettling story about a family in Westfield, New Jersey that received a series of mysterious, strange, and ultimately threatening letters. It’s bordering on urban-legend territory, with its bizarre poetry, strange historical connections (both Silence of the Lambs, and the band Sha Na Na make an appearance) and the way in which it ultimately refracts to broader social processes like housing the housing market, concepts of privacy, and neighborhood tension.
- I read this guide to decolonizing Thanksgiving in schools. Turkey day has never been one of my favorite holidays–I’m not partial to the traditional food, and as I’ve gotten older and more aware, the ways in which it undergirds some nasty pieces of American nationalism has bothered me more and more. This guide has lots of great on-line and brick-and-mortar resources for thinking differently about Thanksgiving, and I found some fascinating stuff in here, including letters to send to schools, books for kids, and more.
- I read this long and detailed interview with Ralph Bakshi about his attempt to make an animated version of the Lord of the Rings in the 1970s. It’s a crazy story about a movie that’s famously interesting but kind of confusing (the movie ends halfway through the trilogy), and both aspects come through in this interview. There’s Mick Jagger, Spanish Communists, Hollywood horsetrading, and more.
- I listened to Marc Maron’s interviews with John Cleese and Eric Idle, of Monty Python fame. Maron’s deep search for humanity underneath celebrity and artistry was in rare form here, as he discussed with both men the experience of growing up during the reconstruction of Britain after WWII, the radical free-form nature of the 1960s era BBC, and how comedy promotes and grows the human spirit.
