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by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 1/1/2023-1/7/2023

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This Week:

  • I returned back to work after a wonderful and enriching break. It was Christmas, Hazel’s Birthday, and the New Year, along with family visits, trips to fun places, and lots of great food.
  • Like seemingly everybody, we watched Glass Onion. Despite the shared character, it was a very different movie from Knives Out, zany and madcap compared the latter’s austere mannerism. But it was tons of fun all the same.
  • I finished reading M. John Harrison’s retrospective collection “Settling the World”. Many of the stories are collected in a now-out-of-print collection that I had already read called “Things that Never Happen”. But reading those stories afresh was almost more delightful and rewarding than the first time I read them. I had missed the fierce and anguished Thatcher-era politics of “Running Down”, the thoughtful and genuine feminism of “Science and the Arts”, and the creepy medicalization of “Yummie”,  and “The Crisis”. And the new-to-me stories of “The Causeway”, “The Machine in Shaft Ten”, and “Doe Lea” were equal parts engaging, unconventional, and brilliantly written.
  • Thanks to a delightful gift from my folks, we got a year of the Criterion Channel. It’s a pretty bewildering streaming service, and with the addition of many films I’ve never heard of, it’s a big exciting apple from which to take a bite. We started out with a bang, watching Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” a movie that was equal parts preposterous, funny, and exciting.
  • A lot of my work this week involved just catching back up after a week off. I spent a lot of time de-installing “Front Row Center: Icons of Rock, Blues, and Soul” and prepping the galleries to be painted for the new exhibit curated by Museum Studies students.
  • I finally got around to watching the video of “Sing Nowell” which was a tribute concert to Tony Barrand, who died about a year ago. Tony was a brilliant singer, dancer, and teacher and a big influence on my life. The music he made with Nowell Sing We Clear (some of which is performed here) is a regular part of my holiday season and this was delightful performance by enthusiastic and talented folks: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wUa6U_zwEY&w=560&h=315]
by Quentin Lewis

Yearnotes 2022

yearnotes

This is my year as sentences on which I could put a period, and a few that require more complicated or delicate punctuation.

I read 53 books this year:

 

Besides books, my most regular medium of choice is podcasts. My staples for this year have continued to be WTF w/ Marc Maron, Why is this Happening?, Double Threat, Explorers Wanted, Pseudopod, Our Opinions are Correct, Weird Studies, Know Your Enemy, the Memory Palace, and Deconstructed. New additions include:

  • Unclear and Present Danger, a podcast about post Cold War movies of the 1990s, which is informative and thoughtful, though focusing on movies that are mostly neither.
  • 5-4, a very funny and incisive podcast “about how much the Supreme Court Sucks”
  • “The Land You’re On”, a wonderful exploration of contemporary and historical Haudenosaunee life and culture put together by the great Neal Powless.

 

I saw some good (and some bad!) movies and TV this year, including

 

I mostly buy music on Bandcamp, and this year I bought albums by:

 

Professionally I got a bit done.

  • Teaching-wise, I again taught Collections Management, and this year, taught it Ungraded, with grades developed in consultation with students based on their and my mutual assessment. It was a great experience that I’m doing again. I also taught North American Material culture up to 1700, with far-too-brief surveys of the rich and diverse object-worlds of Indigenous people on Turtle Island. Finally, I was a guest speaker in SUNY Oneonta’s capstone course “Issues in Anthropology”. I spoke about the archaeology of race, a subject to which I used to devote substantial intellectual and practical effort.
  • We finished a speaker’s series on Land Acknowledgements with amazing talks by Bonney Hartley (Stockbridge-Munsee Community) and Darren Bonaparte (Mohawk of Akwsesasne).
  • We finished and installed two exhibit panels documenting our repatriation of brooches used by John Wannaucon Quinney to the Stockbridge-Munsee. These panels were developed by Hartwick students and staff and members of the Stockbridge-Munsee community, and copies are on display here and at the Arvid E Miller Cultural Center and Library on the reservation in Wisconson.
  • I applied for and successfully received a NYSCA/MANY Partnership Grant for Capacity Building. This grant is currently funding our consultation by Indigenous Concepts Consulting, a Haudenosaunee-owned consulting firm, who is helping us re-think and re-imagine how we exhibit and talk about Native people at the Yager Museum. We held a day-long workshop with Michelle and Neal in November, and now we are in the process of coming up with a new exhibit plan to install next year.
  • With some money from the Richard and Gerri Haan fund for Native American studies, the museum hosted a weeklong residency and exhibit by Jason Medicine Eagle Martinez, an artist and teacher based in Rensselaer, New York. Jason’s work and process were enthusiastically received by students, faculty, and staff, and I’m honored to continue to be able to use the Yager Museum as a space to exhibit exciting contemporary Indigenous art.
  • Speaking of that, earlier this year we de-installed dadibaajimo: Two Mississauga Artists Share stories, and after months of wrangling, I finally managed to return Cathie Jamieson’s paintings back to her on the Misssissauga Reservation, with the help of Luke and August Swinson. Luke has agreed to donate his artwork to the Museum’s collection, and we have purchased two of Cathie’s paintings as well. I am excited to help the museum grow and blossom as a repository of interesting and gorgeous contemporary Indigenous art.
  • I completed the Museum’s five-year collections inventory, with the help of Hartwick students Moussa Niang, Gabriel Valenzuela, and Josephine Becker. My son even helped too! We also repaired and re-installed St. John of Nepomuk in the Museum’s Van Ess Gallery.
  • Along with Josephine, I installed “Front Row Center: Icons of Rock, Blues, and Soul”, a travelling exhibit of photographs by Larry Hulst. I also directed the installation of “Juxtapositions: Warhol and the Baroque” and did some design work for the display panels. Finally, I installed some Mexican Masks from the Museum’s collection for display at Thornwood, the home of Hartwick’s new President, Darren Reisberg and his husband John Hilliard.
  • After two years of locked summers in the Museum, we re-started the Museum’s Crafternoons programs, with weekly activities for kids. I love this event and am happy that the Museum can be a space for children’s creativity again.We also showed a bunch of movies, had a live concert, and hosted another successful “Horror in the Museum”.
  • I joined Hartwick’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion subcommittee on Native American issues. We are working largely on aesthetic and built-environment changes to the College, including street signs, the college alma mater, a land acknowledgement and the placques on Yager hall. We are also building a case for greater engagement with New York Indigenous communities through recruitment and retention of Indigenous students and faculty.
  • Oh yeah, and I got promoted to Museum Curator, too!

 

I tried, in halting ways to take better care of myself this year. Inspired in part by weight-lifter and fitness-culture critic Casey Johnston, I started doing strength-training again at the gym. I feel strong in my body and better overall. I also started talking to a therapist regularly, which has made my brain and my heart feel better too.

On the other hand, this is the year my whole family got COVID. Thankfully, none of us seems to have developed any long-term or debilitating symptoms. We also managed to get the usual kind of sick that was held at bay by quarantining at home for two years.

We spent an atrocious amount of money on car repair. If you’re up there God, please send me a future that looks more like Wakanda than NYC. Or at least send me a Tern GSD electric bicycle.

When vehicles were working, we did take the opportunity of a slightly epidemiologically safer world to travel a bit.

  • We visited Toronto (and Bancroft, ON) for the first time in two years, and I ultimately ended up going back twice more–once to pick up my renewed PR card, and once to celebrate my Mother-in-Law’s 80th birthday!
  • We also took a trip out to the North Shore of Massachusetts, which is a gorgeous, fun and personally resonant place to which I am always happy to return.
  • We spent some time in Iowa with my parents and my brother. And they spent some time in Oneonta with us.
  • We also did some shorter outings to Oswego, and Chenango Valley State Park.
  • We sent our son off to summer camp at the amazing and inspiring Camp Stomping Ground. It was a bit rocky for him (and for us!), but he made it through his first time and is excited to go back next year.

I mourned the passing of influential people in my life, including Tony Barrand, Mike Davis, Mimi Parker, and Wilco Johnson.

I voted and gave some money to good people, and like most of us, I mourned the many dark turns that America and the World took. I did spend some time working on the Black Trowel Collective’s Microgrants Committee, helping provide microgrant funding for financially distressed archaeology students. I wanted to do more.

I played second guitar for John O’Connor at a wonderful summer evening concert at Meadowlinks Golf Course in Cooperstown.

Late in the waning hours of 2021, I wrote a Christmas ghost story that I’m still fiddling with. I also finished a draft of a short story that I’d been working on for a year, but when I shared it with some writer friends, they suggested I open it up into something bigger. In a fit of blind hubris, I’m now slowly turning it into a novel about the Catskills, the violence and weakness of men, faith, and conspiracy. Stay tuned–maybe by next year I’ll actually have something substantive written.

…

As I was writing this, I kept thinking of things I didn’t do; didn’t make, didn’t arrive at, didn’t finish this or that thing I started, didn’t even start this or that thing I thought a lot about, didn’t call when I should have, didn’t help out when I could have, didn’t get around to something or other. I’m not sure why I feel so weighed down by the alternative 2022 I construct in my head; there are a lot of words and deeds in the previous paragraphs! Somehow it just feels tentative and uneven when I try to take it all in.

What I do feel good about are my people, who are the ultimate measure of any of us. I love Alanna (who was amazing this year in too many ways to count), and Dominic and Hazel who I get to watch grow anew every day. I love my folks, and my brother (who made quite a year for himself in a new city). I love my friends with whom I communicated in a variety of lengthy and brief ways this year: the Minister of Intrigue, Randall (who had a baby–here’s to you Julian), and Bill (who bought a house), and Pat (who made a hit Christmas movie), and Matt (who moved) and Matt and Paul and Ian and Thor and Juan and Liz and Dan (who also had a baby whose name unfortunately escapes me as I write this) and Anthony and Bob and John and Jon and Nate (who still hasn’t told me the name of his new baby!). Thanks everyone for the various subtle but essential acts of listening and talking to me that you did this year.

May we all hope to give as much nourishment, joy, and care to the people around us as we draw from them, in this new year, which will be better than the last.

by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 12/11/22-12/17/22

weeknotes teaching museum family books

This Week:

  • A bit of calm after the storm. The semester is over, and now it’s time to pick up some of the projects that got piled on my desk and ignored.
  • I ordered some supplies for our upcoming student-created exhibit about Micronesia.
  • I did some Christmas shopping for friends and family.
  • I wrote and submitted some letters of recommendation for students applying to grad school. Here’s hoping they make it through, given that it’s mostly a scam.
  • I finished reading Catherynne Valente’s “Space Opera” a funny love-letter to campy and outrageous music, wrapped in a bewildering and rich first-contact story.
by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 12/4/22-12/10/22

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This Week:

by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 11/20/22-11/26/22

weeknotes family

This Week:

  • I put 42 years in the can.
  • Most of the week was spent on break. We don’t tend to do a traditional Thanksgiving. Some of it is that none of us like the traditional foods, some of it is because my wife is Canadian and Thanksgiving is a completely different holiday there, and some it is because for many people, it’s a day of mourning. This year, we’re making Puerco Pibil, homemade flour tortillas, guacamole, and eating the remains of a delicious birthday cake.
by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 11/13/22-11/19/22

weeknotes indigenous museum health books music

This Week:

  • I prepared for our upcoming consultation and workshop with Indigenous Concepts Consulting. The workshop will be this Saturday and I’m really looking forward to re-imagining our exhibits and how they speak about Indigenous people.
  • I finally finished reading “Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training” by Mark Ripetoe. I’ve been going to the gym for the last nine months, after years of not going, and this book was a good (if somewhat bluntly-toned) book that helped me think about strength and form in new ways.
  • I also finished reading “Claire Dewitt and the Bohemian Highway” by Sara Gran, which is the second Claire Dewitt mystery. I like it better than the first one, which is saying something. It was a gorgeous and tense meditation on love and what it costs, wrapped up in a genuinely perplexing and exciting mystery. Wonderful.
  • The Yager Museum hosted Killdeer Trio, a multi-genre ensemble who drew inspiriation from our current exhibit “Front Row Center: Icons of Rock, Blues, and Soul.
by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 11/6/22-11/12/22

weeknotes movies music museum teaching

This Week:

  • My wife and I finally finished watching “The Beatles: Get Back”. I’m adding to the chorus, but despite it being 8 hours long, it was completely enthralling, emotionally moving, and delightful in equal turns. I was totally engrossed watching four close friends hang out, crack jokes, and then, on a dime, start playing (and even creating) some of the most gorgeous music you’ve ever heard.
  • I cleaned the frame of an old painting, with the goal of eventually putting the canvas back in.
  • Because they were on “Pay what you want” on bandcamp, I filled in some gaps in my Mountain Goats back catalog.
  • I mourned the death of the great Mimi Parker of Low by re-listening to some of her gorgeous and thoughtful music. Rest in Peace.
  • I gave a guest lecture on the archaeology of African-Americans in an anthropology capstone class at SUNY Oneonta. It was kind of fun to talk about stuff that I used to think very deeply about, but have moved away from in my turn toward Museum work.
by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 10/30/22-11/5/22

weeknotes museum family indigenous movies books

This Week:

  • On Sunday, we held the Museum’s Halloween storytelling event “The Horror in the Museum”. It was tons of fun, and a great Halloween tradition.
  • We took the kiddos out Trick or Treating, and to the Oneonta Halloween Parade.
  • I made the Museum available for an archaeology class exercise on typology.
  • I concluded some paperwork for the week-long residency of Jason Medicine Eagle Martinez. His installation “Hybrid: The Kiva Show” in the Herzog gallery is really stunning, and I’m proud and humbled to have facilitated it.
  • I did some collections research on an old and poorly catalogued collection in the Museum.
  • I attended the College’s DEI-Indigenous affairs committee meeting.
  • The Museum screened another documentary about Rock and Roll as part of our programming for “Front Row Center: Icons of Rock Blues and Soul”
  • I finished reading “Voyage of the Dogs” by Greg Von Eekhout. It’s a “lost in space” type story about a group of dogs on a space mission to a distant planet who wake up from hibernation to discover the humans have left. It was very exciting if a bit tense, especially for dog lovers!
  • In honor of his passing, I tracked down a copy of Mike Davis' astonishing short work “Buda’s Wagon: A Brief History of the Car Bomb”.
by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 10/16/22-10/22/22

weeknotes movies teaching music museum books

This Week:

  • Movie-wise, I was on a western kick this week. I finished watching “The Harder they Fall” a revisionist African-American western with a stellar cast. It’s long but very entertaining.
  • I also watched “High Plains Drifter”, dark and haunting movie about the magnetic pull of evil and the inability to escape violence.
  • We hosted Hartwick’s Board of Trustees at the Yager Museum.
  • I did final grades for MUST252: North American Material Culture to 1700. It was a fun class, and I hope the students enjoyed it as much as I did.
  • I picked up two albums–Green Lung’s “Woodland Rites” and “Silent Shout” by the Knife. Great Halloween music!
  • We de-installed “Street Stuff”, an installation at the Museum by Roberta Griffith.
  • I finished reading Scott R. Jones bewildering cosmic horror novel “Stonefish”, about a journalist in the future who seeks out, and ultimately finds an eccentric tech-billionaire who disappeared while searching for cryptids in the pacific Northwestern United States. It’s a dark and explosively written novel that, like most cosmic horror, is about the futility of action in an actively hostile universe, but it steps above the genre with its elaborate and terrifying mythology, rich prose, and understated humanism.
by Quentin Lewis

Quentin's Weeknotes 10/9/22-10/15/22

weeknotes movies teaching museum comics

This Week:

  • I watched the Marvel/Disney+ feature “Werewolf by Night” which was fun, and a great throwback to the classic horror of the 1940s and 50s.
  • I also watched the new version of Hellraiser, which was fine. It was certainly better than most of the 11(!) sequels to the exellent original film, but that’s not saying much, given how many of those sequels are verschtunken.
  • At the Museum, we screened a documentary about rock and roll photographers, in keeping with “Front Row Center” our newest photography exhibit.
  • In MUST252, we had a guest lecture from Mohawk historian Darren Bonaparte, who talked about Wampum. It’s also the last week of the class, and students submitted their final take-home exams.
  • I finished reading COG, a wonderful young adult novel about told from the point of view of an android child, which is a funny and sweet meditation on freedom and care.
  • I also read Infidel, a horror graphic novel about racism and xenophobia set in a run-down apartment building in NYC.