by Quentin Lewis

Weeknotes: 08/06/23-08/12/23

weeknotes family musuem movies books

This Week:

  • We visited the Mountaintop Arboretum in Tannersville, NY, and had a tasty lunch at Mama’s Boy Burgeers. It was a delightful trip to a part of the northern Catskills we’ve never visited.
  • On the way back from picking Dominic up in Erie (after a week in Iowa), I listened to Dan Wells “Mr Monster”, the brutal and creepy second book in a series about a sociopathic teenager with a repressed urge to kill who discovers that his town (and indeed the world) is infested with supernatural monsters, giving him an outlet for his violent tendencies. It was a difficult read in many places, full of sadism and violence, and I’m frankly shocked that it’s considered a YA novel.
  • I went with my friend Bill to see “Talk to Me”, a ghost story that plays with social media, mortality, teenage enthusiasm and uncertainty, and chosen families. It wasn’t my favorite ghost movie, but it was solid and well acted by its youthful cast.
  • I also went to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie with my son, and some family friends. I was part of the wave of kids who were taken in by the explosion of TMNT in the late 1980s, and was really looking forward to seeing this with Dominic. Unfortunately, I really felt like an old man, largely because for a movie so focused on quips and clever dialog, the sound was mixed in such a way that I could barely hear the characters talking over the explosion, fight scenes and music.
  • At the Museum, we said goodbye to Laura, our intern from the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum studies. She was wonderful, directly implementing and supervising our Crafternoons programs, and getting us over the line for the installation of the “Velocity and Position” exhibit.
  • I had a brief but fun visit with my cousin Greg and his girlfriend Kristen as they do an upstate New York tour.
  • I did some work on campus beautification efforts in the Johnstone science building, and in the President’s office.