Weeknotes: 07/12/25-07/20/25

This Week:

• I spent some time processing our new accessions to the collection. We acquired some really interesting stuff that I’m excited to display soon.
• We held another Crafternoons. This time, the theme was masks!
• I did some work furthering our NAGPRA responsibilities.
• On the back half of the week, we took a trip up to Toronto, to visit my mother-in-law and spend some time in a city we love. We made the most of it too! We visited the Art Gallery of Ontario, walked the beautiful and serene paths of Tommy Thompson Park and ate great food. We took a quick dip in the Donald D. Summerville Olympic Pool and I even worked up the courage to jump off the 5 meter diving board, which scared the bejeezus out of me.
• While in Toronto, I read Bruce Sterling’s Pirate Utopia, an alternate history melodrama about an unusal autonomous port city in Italy whose brief existence has inspired both revolutionary socialists and fascists. I honestly had a hard time following the story, which concerns a WWI Veteran and engineer who is trying to build Missle technology in the independent city of Fiume, and gets involved in the political intrigue of the inter-war period. Lots of real-life early 20th century figures show up, and I found the whole thing a bit bewildering.