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Book Notes: The Obama Inheritance

Notes on The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories of Conspiracy Noir, edited by Gary Phillips

Date finished: 3/25/19

A wild ride with a really clever premise, and featuring some amazing tales.

It’s kind of all there in the title–this is a book in which writers of mystery, suspense, science fiction, and thrillers take, as a given, all of the conspiracies that were drummed up about President Obama, and turn them into a narrative. Given how feverish and bizarre many of these ideas were, it’s a rich mine to plumb. The pulp tradition looms large here, with spy thrillers, space-monsters, and action heroes making regular appearances.

As with all anthologies, the results are variable. Some of these stories were thrill-rides, others reveled in the horrific implications of their inspiration, and others used the opportunity to contemplate America as an idea and a lived experience, particularly around issues of race (perhaps not surprisingly, as most of the contributors are people of color). The stories that I liked the best took the feverish, almost psychedelic weirdness of the far-right’s swamp of Obama-hate and ran with it. Eric Beetner’s “True Skin” and L. Scott Jose’s “Give me Your Free, Your Brave, Your Proud Masses Yearning to Conquer” take on the idea of Obama as a lizard-person, with equal parts funny and disgusting results. Nisi Shawl’s “Evens” plays with the idea of clones and their implications for succession and term limits.  Other stories draw on other mythologies and fold them into our current political situation–Star Trek for Adam Lance Garcia’s “The continuing Mission” and The Scarlet Pimpernel in Gary Phillips “Thus Strikes the Black Pimpernel”. Still others are action-filled thrillers like “Michelle in Hot Water” by Kate Flora and “Forked Tongue” by Lise McLendon.

My favorite story is perhaps the strangest–“The Psalm of Bo” by Christopher Chambers, framed as a gospel according to the Obama’s beloved water Spaniel, and recounting the story of how dogs inherit the Earth. It’s almost quiet and meditative, even as the story it depicts is absolutely bonkers and delightful.

It’s hard to escape the world we’re in, dangerous and spiteful as it is. But this anthology does the great work of confronting that world head-on. Maybe that’s the best approach–certainly it made for an entertaining read.

Quentin's Weeknotes 3/16/19-3/22/19

This Week:

• Toothpick sculpture of Star Wars shipsWe went to the Museum of Science and Technology in Syracuse. It’s an amazing facility, with lots of great interactive stuff. I found particular delight in their elaborate toothpick sculpture area, and especially the meticulous Star Wars models.  There’s a certain kind of person who puts a scale sign on models of imaginary spacecraft, and they and I are sympatico.
• I read Cody Goodfellow’s long essay on HP Lovecraft, race, and weird fiction. I have a complicated history with Lovecraft–he was basically my introduction to weird fiction, and his rich descriptions of New England were one force that drove me to live there for so many years. And he was horribly, and pretty irredeemably racist in his life and his fiction. This essay parses some of that same terrain, and argues that, though Lovecraft may not be worth glorifying, his creations certainly are.

“We embrace Otherness in all its forms, even in its most inimical and enigmatic face, when it looks at us in the mirror. The apocalypse we look forward to is not an end of old things, but an end to lies and the rise of beautifully weird new things, which shall not command but intrinsically earn, our devotion and worship.”

Quentin's Weeknotes 3/9/19-3/15/19

This Week:

• I read, with great delight, Elizabeth Warren’s plan to break up big tech companies, particularly those that are attempting to organize themselves as markets. I’ve always liked Warren and am hopeful that she will continue to push the Democratic party to do right.
• I read Ryan Walsh’s nuanced take on the Blurred Lines decision, in which he argues that it is a dangerous precident to make musicians pay for consciously referencing another artist. Not only does this force artists into an untenable creative position (because everyone learns about music as a fan before they learn about it as a craft), but as Cory Doctorow noted in an article I liked last week, certain kinds of borrowing is considered culturally acceptible (particularly if it’s from historically marginalized communities) while other kinds requires resititution.
• I started listening to the Odyssey Workshop Podcast. The Odyssey Workshop is an annual and very selective fantastic fiction seminar and course that brings in world-class writers, editors, and agents to talk about how to have success as a writer. They also do a podcast that provides excerpts from the classes and I’ve really enjoyed listening to Jeff Vandermeer and Elizabeth Hand’s contributions.
• I finished Rober Aickman’s Cold Hand in Mine. It was exactly the kind of horror/weird fiction I love–stylized, ambiguous, and subtle.
• I read Joe Kennedy’s incisive essay on authenticity and class politics in The Baffler. I’m really fascinated by authenticity, which I’ve always thought of not as a real thing, but as a historically specific attempt to freeze something in the flow of time, and usually with material things (objects and spaces). Thus, as Kennedy notes “real” working class voters are purported to live only in rural areas while “fake” leftists come from cities. Likewise the constant evocations of coffee in his essay as a marker of a certain kind of class identity. I additionally like this essay for Kennedy’s evocations of his hometown of Darlington, U.K. I know Darlington well–it’s the next town over from the one where we lived, and was the site of some of the first political protests I saw against austerity in the UK.

Quentin's Weeknotes 3/2/19-3/8/19

This Week

• I hiked up to the top of Table Rock with my son. It was a good reminder of how lucky I am to live in central New York.

looking down over West Oneonta, and the hills beyond

• I read this amazing essay by Cory Doctorow, on the fundamental violence inherent of the idea of the lone genius creator who deserves exclusive (and perpetual) rights to his creation. So many great ideas in here, but I’m most impressed with the phrase “Lockean Titan”, which strikes me as an amazing core of an alternate history science fiction novel featuring English philosophers.
• I read Sady Doyle’s essay on having children in the age of climate change. Her piece is not a lamentation, but a call to action, drawing on the framework of reproductive justice. Being a father of a new baby has got me thinking about what it means to raise children in a world that’s on fire, and what I can do to help put the fire out.

Quentin's Weeknotes 2/23/19-3/1/19

This Week:

• I read Volume 1 of Kieron Gillen’s run on Darth Vader. Believe it or not, this is the first time Darth Vader has been given a solo comic series, and it absolutely doesn’t disappoint. It somehow manages to build on the character’s mythology while expanding it dramatically, by giving Vader some adversity to overcome. Really great and recommended.
• The Yager Museum held its last day of our Winter Break programming for kids, which we coordinate with other Oneonta cultural institutions. This was an event that I’ve coordinated for the last two years, and usually involves some combination of passive and structured museum activities for K-6 kids. We get a good boost in visitorship, and have a great old time. Plus, I have to say that the thing I love the most about it is hearing the sounds of children in the normally quiet and staid museum galleries.
• I stumbled into the amazing world of one-page, homemade role-playing games, after reading this post on Lifehacker. I’ve played RPGs since I was a kid, and have continued as an adult, but finding time is always a problem. One-page RPGs seem to be a simultaneously economical and bonkers/simple solution.
• If I didn’t love Georgia Gubenatorial candidate Stacey Abrams already, I am over the moon after listening to her appearance on Why is this Happening? With Chris Hayes. When have you heard a politician describe their political philosophy in weighing tough choices this way:

My first job is who’s going to get hurt, and how painful would that hurt be?

Abrams clearly ran one of the most progressive, organized, and ethically righteous campaign of the 2018 cycle, and her incredibly narrow “loss” (with quotes used advisedly given the context) has clearly only galvanized her to aim even higher. Plus, she writes suspense romance novels and loves Super Friends. Stacey Abrams for Anything!

Quentin's Weeknotes 2/16/19-2/22/19

This week:

• I read Lady Killer Vol. 1 by Jamie S. Rich and Joelle Jones. The story is fun–a 1950’s-era suburban housewife who moonlights as an assassin. It’s a great combination of blood and sterile cleanliness. But the real draw is the breath-taking art by Joelle Jones, which draws on mid-century design, but also shows off her peerless drafting and pencilling skills.
• I read this brief note from M. John Harrison’s blog, worth reproducing in full for its advice on writing good characters, as well as for a good description of what many of us are living through these days:

People who lost their ontological security so long ago they don’t even remember it happened to them. They muddle along trying to construct and maintain a self out of what’s left, continually remaking the world out of unstable bits and pieces, suffering a condition they don’t even recognise as loneliness. They stumble upon a life of habit and that will have to do. It gives them a certain gallantry. We recognise that about them even when it’s irritating. People who have lost ontological security to that extent are rarely aware of it, so when writing them it is best not to present direct explanations or origins. That would rationalise their behaviour the way single-event trauma is used in the Hollywood blueprint, to add motivation and simple causality to plot-driving characterisations and characterisation-driven plots.

Quentin's Weeknotes 2/9/19-2/15/19

This Week:

• I finished reading Dr. Sheena Howard’s Encyclopedia of Black Comics, an eye-opening compendium of African-American comic and sequential artists that shines a light on a hidden history of something I thought I already knew pretty well.

• I watched two great things on Netflix:

  • The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, which sits with best of the Western tradition of exploring the complexities of violence and national identity. Also, “The Mortal Remains” is probably the most Aickman-esque piece of filmmaking I’ve seen, combining morbid, sinister horror and comedy.
  • Russian Doll, which Alanna and I devoured pretty quickly. Calling a modern version of Groundhog Day does a disservice to this dark and subtle, strange, eccentric series populated with complicated, funny characters.

• The Yager Museum and the Haan Fund for Native American Studies hosted a talk by Melanie Printup Hope, an artist of Tuscarora (Haudenosaunee) and European descent.Hope’s work has been exhibited across North America, and makes really interesting juxtapositions of traditional and modern forms, in the service of focusing attention on issues of colonialism, memory, land, and community. Her talk, and her subsequent visits to classes here at Hartwick were really inspiring and I thank her for coming and for sharing her ideas and her wisdom.

• I continue to alternatively giggle and sigh at every new volume of Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s Sex Criminals. Volume 4 is sad and sweet, and as usual, is asphyxiatingly funny.

Quentin's Weeknotes 2/2/19-2/8/19

This Week:

• I started teaching again–MUST204: Collections Management
• I read this piece by Laurie Penny, outlining the cruel and grotesque class politics of Brexit. I’ll read anything Penny writes–she’s funny, and fierce, and incredibly smart. This long article makes clear that it was the Conservative (and New Labour) ideological long-commitment to austerity that spurred much of the anger that led to the Brexit vote and that weakness and indifference of the political class in England will keep it on schedule to happen in just under two months.
• I am so unhappy that the 2020 presidential season is already starting, and have actively tried to avoid thinking about it. Nevertheless, I read with great interest this piece on Cory Booker’s long commitment to defunding and privatizing public education. I’ve always felt like Booker was a fairweather friend to causes I believe in, and this well-cited essay makes clear that he’s no friend to public schools, teacher’s unions, or anything like what I believe to be enriching public education.
• I watched, with ecstatic joy, the trailer for the upcoming TV series Good Omens, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. The book is laugh-out-loud funny and so incredibly smart, and the TV series has, so far, done all the things I’d want to make the show honor the book. I still remember how hard I laughed when I read the passage about Aziraphale’s collection of misprinted Bibles:

And he had a complete set of the Infamous Bibles, individually named from error’s in typesetting.

These Bibles included the Unrighteous Bible, so called from a printer’s error which caused it to proclaim, in I Corinthians, “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the Kingdom of God?"; and the Wicked Bible, printed by Barker and Lucas in 1632, in which the word not was omitted from the seventh commandment:, making it “Thou shalt commit Adultery.” There were the Discharge bible, the Treacle Bible, the Standing Fishes Bible, the Charing Cross Bible and the rest. Aziraphale had them all.

• As with Laurie Penny, I’ll read basically anything Sady Doyle writes (except this). Her post-mortem on the grotesque misogyny of the State of the Union came as a welcome balm to the delicious but catty furor over Pelosi’s shade.
• Yay! We have draft language for a Green New Deal! And, man…is it spicy. Decarbonization, a jobs guarantee, transition assistance for fossil fuel workers, and real fair/ethical trade, along with a whole lot more. David Roberts at Vox has a good breakdown of what’s in it, and what’s not. Here’s a delightful, shocking, and hopeful takeaway of where we are:

the progressive movement has, in rather short order, thrust into mainstream US politics a program to address climate change that is wildly more ambitious than anything the Democratic Party was talking about even two years ago.

Quentin's Weeknotes 1/26/19-2/01/19

This Week:

• I read an explanation of a General Strike from America’s most radical publication. This is increasingly relevant given that the recent shutdown seems to have inspired a growing informal general strike, and that General strikes get shit done.
• I listened to a recent WITH episode on Amazon. Instead of focusing on their atrocious labor relations, the episode instead talks about their business model and their long-term plans. The short version is that they rely pretty heavily on what we used to call predatory pricing (a crime under anti-trust laws), require massive government subsidies to operate, and are basically planning to supplant what we think of as the free market with a siloed portal between consumers and producers. I’ve had a growing distrust of Amazon for a long time, and this podcast inspired me to try and migrate some aspects of my life off of it.
• I read this profile of Jordan Peele. Get Out was amazing. Key and Peele was amazing. But this piece makes clear that Peele has both a grand agenda as a horror filmmaker, and the skill, depth of knowledge about horror, and fierce intellect to achieve it.

Quentin's Weeknotes 1/19/19-1/25/19

This Week:

• I browsed through the newly digitzed archive of Freedom, Paul Robeson and Louis Burnham’s radical cold-war era newspaper.
• I read this interview with Brian K. Vaughan, creator of Saga, which remains one of the most inspiring pieces of fiction I’m currently reading. Here’s the money quote:

Ninety percent of anything is mostly garbage and that remaining 10 percent is not only excellent but worth dying for. The only way to get there is to try to be excellent with your art.

• I discovered the website Fonts in Use, which provides font names for a whole host of historical magazines, books, albums, and other pieces of media. As someone whose job involves a bit of graphic design, I appreciate having a good repository of fonts for inspiration or assistance.
• I have been reading Viriconium,  M. John Harrison’s masterful series of novels. While reading up on Harrison, a vitally important figure in the modern speculative fiction, I ran across this long post by illustrator Jonathan Coulthart entitled “Covering Viroconium”, analyzing the (mostly failed) attempts to make decent cover art for his genre-bending, enigmatic books. Here’s the example I’ve been reading from, which is, at best, loosely representative of the contents–as Coulthart points out, it makes the novel look Steampunk (which it’s not, in any meaningful sense), and also depicts the hatching of a mechanical bird, an event that is not present in any of the text.
• I put the finishing touches on the syllabus for my Hartwick College Course “Collections Management.” It’s a two-credit practicum course designed to give students the basics of Museum object handling, inventory management, and on-going collections maintenance. I tweak it a bit every year, and this year, have front-loaded more practical stuff, while leaving more abstract questions towards the end.