Weeknotes: 5/19/24-5/25/24
This Week:
- It was a very busy and bewildering week. Last Saturday was commencement at Hartwick and SUNY Oneonta. I had the great delight of taking the kiddos and seeing Alanna be presented with her Chancellor’s Award. I’m so proud of her and all the scholarly and research work she does.
- AND….she’s doing some of that now. On Sunday, we spent the day in Albany, visiting the New York State Museum, and the Rensselaer aquarium, and then dropping Alanna off for a research trip to Mexico. She’s there for two weeks, and I’m holding down the fort, with some help from my parents, who are visiting.
- I finished reading Brian Evenson’s wonderful short story collection “Song for the Unraveling of the World”. He’s one of the best contemporary horror and weird fiction writers, and is in the same league as Shirley Jackson in his ability to fill his stories with quiet, understated dread.
- Post-commencement, it was quiet at the Yager Museum, and I used the time to get some work done that had fallen by the wayside during the semester. I followed up on some potential new collections acquisitions, as well as some exhibit planning and summer program planning. I also attended a workshop on teaching our Freshman experience classes, and took in a job talk in the History department. Whew!
- At the end of the week, I surprised my dad with a short trip down to New York City. He turned 80 a few weeks ago, and I thought that seeing some world-class Museums would be a nice way to celebrate. We visited the Met, and had a delightful tour of the fabrication and conservation labs from my good friend Nisha (thanks Nisha!), and then spent the afternoon exploring the bewildering and beautiful European painting galleries. Today we’re going to visit the MOMA, and then try and visit the Cloisters before heading home. My dad is in his element here, and then even more so when we had a wonderful glass of Cotes du Rhone at Benoit.
