by Quentin Lewis

Weeknotes: 02/09/25-02/15/25

weeknotes museum indigenous books television movies

This Week:

  • I finished reading Laird Barron’s newest collection “Not A Speck of Light." I think it’s my favorite short story collection by this horror master. His tight, economical prose and his rich and murky cosmic horror mythology have always been great, but this time, he’s combined them with a real thoughtfulness about families, relationships, and what it means to live a fulifilled life. Also, many of the stories feature dogs, and all of them are good dogs.
  • Dominic and I also finished reading Lauren Wolk’s Young Adult Novel “Beyond the Bright Sea”. It was a beautiful and heartfelt story, about a young girl who is raised on an island in 1920s coastal Massachusetts by a kind of hermit artist, and gradually works to uncover the mystery of where she came from and who her family really is. The many mysteries of the book make it a fun page-turner, and the writing and the characters are rich and engaging.
  • I did a lot of program planning, creating posters, writing press releases, and doing other advanced work for our upcoming public programs. We are going to be hosting a film screening of the 2016 documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” about the life of James Baldwin, a talk by local historian Harry Matthews about Frederick Douglas' connections to Oneonta, and, in partnership with Hanford Mills Museum, a program for kids called “World of Water”. Whew!
  • In MUST204, we talked about (and did) condition reporting, and about Museum nomenclature.
  • Friday was Valentine’s day. We all traded cards and chocolates, and Alanna and I are planning on dinner at Dazzos Kitchen.
  • We had a collections committee meeting on Monday, and agreed to accession works by illustrator John O’Leary. We also de-accessioned material that we have offerred up for repatriation. Now I have to send formal transfer of control paperwork to O’Leary’s estate and to the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe.
  • Alanna and I finished watching season 1 of Slow Horses. It’s a great spy thriller series, funny and exciting and tense, and all of it anchored by astonishing performances by Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, and a wild ensemble cast.