by Quentin Lewis

Weeknotes: 10/24/26-10/30/26

weeknotes books goodthings museum teaching indigenous

This Week:

  • In FLP102, our students installed their objects and labels in the hallway cases. They wrote up and interpreted some interesting objects, and it was a fun exercise to figure out how to display them. We’re also going to talk about why people collect art.
  • The Oneonta City School district suffered a cyber-attack last week and cancelled classes on Monday, so Alanna and I had to do some sudden juggling.
  • I spent some time working with the students in Creative Exhibits, helping them with the design of their upcoming Warhol exhibit.
  • I did some planning for our upcoming visit from Mohawk educator and craftsman DJ White.
  • On Thursday, the Museum held its 10th annual “Horror in the Museum” Halloween storytelling event. It’s maybe my favorite event of the year, and I’m delighted the campus has embraced it and that it has become a wonderful Hartwick tradition.
  • Good Things:
    • On Saturday, we went to the Iroquois Museum, an original and inspiring museum that combines archaeological ethnographic, and artistic objects from the Haudenosaunee past and present to tell an amazing story. They’re doing what I aspire to do, and I was delighted to see so much great indigenous art, and so well displayed and interpreted.
    • I finished reading SJ Shank’s “Our Lady of Holy Slaughter” a while ago, but it took me some time to write up my notes. It’s a short, fun, and grim novella about a troupe of Knights crusading through the medieval Balkans who find themselves facing off ensnared by supernatural forces in a swampy wilderness. I loved Shank’s brisk and thoughtful pacing, and his usual murky and ambiguous magic and cosmology are all shining through here.
    • Alanna and I watched “The City and the City”, the BBC adaptation of China Mieville’s novel. It’s visually and dramatically impressive, full of gorgeous and strange shots, and both cities are populated with well-acted characters, anchored by a morose and churlish David Morrissey as Inspector Berlu. It loosely follows the book, but its last episode veers away into a more conventional international intrigue plot.