On Sunday, I travelled to Northampton, Massachusetts to memorialize my mentor and friend, Bob Paynter, who died earlier this year. It was a sad and beautiful evening, full of laughter and tears and reconnection with old friends and colleagues, and plenty of great Bob stories. I was very honored to be asked to speak as one of Bob’s students, and I tried to capture what made him such an amazing educator and person.
The semester started at both SUNY Oneonta, and at Hartwick, and so my wife and I are both back slaving in the teaching mines. I’m teaching a small Introduction to North American Material Culture course, which tries in a halting and abridged way to capture the complexity and richness of Indigenous life before the arrival of Europeans. So far, we’ve talked a lot about terminology, particularly the concept of material culture as a way of understanding human behavior and social life through objects that circulate within it.
I also started again as work study coordinator, faculty advisor for the Alternative Realities gaming club, and the various other responsibilities of being Museum curator that crash into me at the start of a new semester.
Not sure if it was this week or last, but I bought a copy of the Sadies new album “Colder Streams”, which is haunting and beautiful, full of jangly guitars, bright harmonies and dark stories of magic, nature, and ghosts.
I did a fun thing that I saw on X/twitter, which is to make a list of 20 songs that spark joy. These are supposed to be songs, that in the words of Nick Worral (who posted the original idea) “bring instant joy the second you hear the first note, the ones that give other people the best insight into what stirs your soul”. Here’s my list:
This was hard to do! And after I had written it and posted it, I already thought two songs that should’ve been there all along.
I spent a lot of time this week getting ready for the semester to start next week. I finalized my syllabus for MUST252: Introduction to North American Material Culture, and did some preparatory work for work study and other student work in the Museum.
I also spent some time putting up various exhibit panels for “Velocity & Position” and the Micronesia exhibit. They look great–thanks Dataflow!
I started biking again, and inaugurated it by taking Hazel to her daycare in our new bike trailer. She’s in Pre-Kindergarten now, and I’m so proud of and delighted by her.
I mourned the passing of Dr. Francis McMann, one of the great teachers of my life. We called him “McMann”; woebetide anyone who called him Francis, let alone Frank!. He taught AP US History, AP Economics and Philosophy at Washington High School. Before I ever met him, I had heard that he was a strict teacher, a conservative, and a wise-ass. I was immediately taken with him when I sat down in his AP US History Class my junior year. He taught US history not as the chronicle of historical facts, but as the unfolding of economic and mercantile processes. It was the first time a teacher asked me to think about explanation rather than just memorize something, and I was hooked.
McMann called himself a conservative (largely to troll the lefty students like me) but he was really more of a classical liberal. He been profoundly influenced by the supply-side revolutions of the Chicago School and Milton Freedman, and for him, markets were the great social levelers of the world and the primary force the spurred historical changes. As examples, he taught us that the Salem Witch Trials were really about competing property rights, rather than the standard story of religious fervor, and that the Civil War was about two visions of the US economy. He taught us about Keynesianism and marginal utility and Plato’s Republic and a whole lot more. I found this all fascinating and soaked it in, even as I continued my nascent leftward political and intellectual journey, but his insights and his way of thinking were profoundly important to me, and my own turn toward Marxism was really just about turning what McMann had taught me on its head.
He was very funny. His lectures were peppered with jokes and snark and the occasional light teasing, particularly about the French nation and people, whom he delighted in razzing at any opportunity. During the 1996 Presidential election between Clinton and Bob Dole, we asked him who he thought would win, and said “My prediciton is that Clinton will win and Walter Mondale will be vindicated!”. Right around Christmas time, he made a big show of telling us all that Santa Claus was myth and when somebody asked him if he told that to his own kids, he pulled out a credit card, saying “From the moment they were little, my kids knew that THIS was Santa Claus”.
He could also be kind of a jerk. He once split the class up into men and women, and had an impromptu boys against girls trivia contest where he was clearly putting his thumb on the scale for the boys. He also once assigned me a presentation on Richard Nixon and Vietnam, specifically because I had said how much I hated Nixon. But in the course of the presentation I began dropping expletives to the point where he had to ask me to tone it down. He still gave me a good grade, though!
Even as I was suspicious or dismissive of some of his political and economic insights, I had such a profound respect for him, and I knew that he had a great respect for me. He was certainly supportive of me. He wrote me college rec letters and gave me an award based on a fictional economics professor who solves crimes.
More than that, he was always happy to talk about anything I brought his way, whether it was the cantankerous critic Allan Bloom or the Posse Comitatus or anything else I was soaking up in those days. And he always responded with a frankly infectious enthusiasm and curiosity.
Thanks for everything, McMann. It’s no exaggeration to say that his US history class was one of the driving forces that spurred me into the world of archaeology and made me the thinker, scholar and citizen that I am today.
We dropped my son off at Camp Stomping Ground, and then picked him up again on Friday. It’s an amazing place and he really loves his time there. We’re also really proud of him for spending a whole week in an unfamiliar (though delightful) place.
I bought a bike trailer, in the hope of using less fossil fuel on the planet.
I finished reading Chris Hayes “A Colony in a Nation”, a trenchant and rich book about criminal justice and punishment that is rhetorically interesting though quite light on sketching alternatives or solutions.
At the Museum, I did some work on bringing more Indigenous artists into the galleries, and advertising for our newest exhibit “Velocity and Position: The Human Figure at Motion and at Rest”.
I did some work helping the Hartwick Field School communicate and collaborate with Indigenous communities.
I did some prep work on my syllabus for MUST252: North American Material Culture.
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.
My son spent the week in Iowa with his grandparents. I miss him, but I’m delighted for him and for them that they get to have this week together. I’m picking him up in Erie, PA on Saturday and can’t wait to hear all about the week he’s had.
On the way back from dropping him off last Saturday, I listened to an audio recording of Shirley Jackson’s “We have always lived in the castle”. I came to Jackson late–unlike seemingly everyone else, we never read “The Lottery” in high school–and am now falling in love with her precise and understated prose, and her masterful ability to build tension and strangeness. “We have always lived in the castle” does this over the course of a short novel, featuring familial murder, sympathetic magic, a menacing community, and the power of commonplace objects. Brilliant.
Hazel was feeling a little sad that Dominic was gone (really, all of us were!) so we took a trip to Binghamton to visit the Ross Park Zoo, and the Southern Tier Discovery Center. The zoo requires some comfort with climbing, as much of it is built into a hill, but it’s quite nice. The Discovery Center is a lot of noisy fun.
In the Museum, we finished putting up all the labels for “Velocity and Position”. I also finished the designs for the title and abstract panels and sent them to the printer.
We had a delightful visit from our Toronto Cousins, who stopped with us on their way back from New York City.
This is our last full week with our summer student assistants, so we took them out to lunch. They’ve done amazing work and I’m really proud of all of them.
I did some work on getting my student loans in order for when the pause ends, and for getting my passport renewed.
My supervisor and I drove one of the Renaissance paintings in our collection to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center for assessment and eventual conservation. The Museum is putting together a grant to pay for this, and an assessment is the first step. I had sworn that I had been to Williamstown before, but while we were there I didn’t remember a thing…
Still working my way through Leguin’s The Books of Earthsea. I just finished reading Tehanu, which was absolutely devastating and powerful. I’m also reading through A Wizard of Earthsea with my ten year old, and he and I are loving it.
In the Museum, we are still putting the finishing touches on the human figure exhibit. We had some trouble with our interpretive labels warping with the high humidity, so we reprinted them and tried a different adhesive. Fingers crossed!
My son and I got him packed up for a week-long trip to visit his grandparents in Iowa next week. He’s really excited!
We were planning on camping at Gilbert Lake State Park last weekend, but for a variety of reasons, we ended up just taking the day and going to Chenango Valley State Park for a swim, picnic, and beach frolic.
We had our last Crafternoons! This week’s theme was “music” and we had kids making and decorating rain sticks, tambourines, cardboard guitars, and more. I love this event and it’s so wonderful to be able to see it all come together.
We picked up my mother-in-law in Niagara Falls for a visit. We also took the opportunity to see the Falls, and to visit the wonderful Butterfly Conservatory nearby. We also availed ourselves of some wonderful Jamaican food, which I miss very much from my Toronto days.
I got some stuff around the house fixed, including a noisy furnace and a leaky basement pipe….in the sense that I called the guy who did it. Progress!
We did some more installation and preparation work on “Velocity and Position: The Human Figure at Motion and at Rest”
The Museum held another Crafternoons, this time with “masks” as the theme. This gave us an opportunity to get out some of our wonderful Mexican mask collection.
With my wife and mother-in-law, we watched Howard Hawks' screwball comedy “Bringing up Baby” on the Criterion Channel, which is completely bonkers and a lot of fun.
I’ve been rocketing my way through “The Books of Earthsea” which are as delightful and enchating as everyone says. This week I finished both “A Wizard of Earthsea” and “The Tombs of Atuan”, with illustrations by the great Charles Vess.
My wife and I watched “I am Mother”, a dark and deeply cynical science fiction film about a robot that raises a human child inside a sealed, post-apocalyptic bunker. It was well done, but definitely emotionally and morally messy.
The museum hosted our second “Crafternoons” centered around the theme of storytelling. Our student workers made storytelling dice and kids made comics and picture stories. It was tons of fun!
We did some more work installing “Velocity and position” in the Elting gallery.
With the holiday, my fam did several fun trips. We went to Ithaca and visited the Museum of the Earth, a really fascinating and beautiful paleontology musuem. We also went to Binghamton and took the kids to see “The Little Mermaid” and “the Flash”, respectively, as well as paying a visit to Robot City Arcade. Finally, we went to a 4th of July cookout at a friend’s house, and had a great old time, despite the heat.
My wife and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary. We had a great lunch at Mt. Fuji and exchanged gifts. I love you, baby!
I finished watching the Netflix Sandman mini-series. The original comic was vitally important to me when I read it as a teenager, and the series did a good job of capturing the poetry and darkness of the comic that so captivated me.
In the Museum, we de-installed “Juxtapositions: Warhol and the Baroque” and began the installation of a new show I’m curating tentatively titled “Velocity and Position: The Human Figure at Motion and at Rest”.
We had our first Summer Crafternoons! The theme for today was “Water” and our visitors made paper boats and paper fish with designs by our student assistants. It was a lot of fun and a joy to have children in the Museum.
I tried to buy Diablo 2 from Blizzard, which was on sale this week, only to discover that despite the game being almost 20 years old, it was not ported to run on systems without dedicated graphics cards, like my laptop. This seems a very silly oversight, but it’s too bad for them, I guess. Refund requested!
My wife and I re-watched “The Freshman”, a largely unheralded but hilarious and strange early 90s movie about friendship and kinship, film-making, pre-Giuliani NYC, and a Komodo Dragon. The cast is astonishingly rich, with amazing performances by Bruno Kirby, Penelope Ann Miller, Frank Whaley, Paul Benedict, Maximilian Schell, BD Wong, and of course, Marlon Brando re-capitulating Don Corleone. It’s remained one of my favorite films since I first watched it with my dad in the 1990s, and my wife and I quote it to each other constantly.
