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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.

Quentin's Weeknotes 1/12/19-1/18/19

I’ve tried to stay off the web as much as possible in the last few weeks, as my attention was pretty successfully occipied.

Now I’m back to work, and figured it was time to start weeknoting again.

This week:

• I listened to Chris Hayes interview George Goehl about what it’s like to do real progressive organizing in rural America, in what is usually called Trump Country (though they both talk in interesting ways about why that’s not a fair or accurate characterization.  The episode was inspiring, both for its subject matter and for Goehl’s story–he is a recovering addict who discovered a political consciousness while getting sober.
• I read this long and tech-heavy, but readable account of the history of RSS, a story of the web’s idealism being broken by the ‘battle to own everything’ as Marco Arment once said. The story ends with our current landscape of siloed forms of syndication like facebook and twitter, and argues that part of the failure of RSS was

Consensus is difficult to achieve and it takes time, but without consensus spurned developers will go off and create competing standards. The lesson here may be that if we want to see a better, more open web, we have to get better at working together.

• I read this long but interesting analysis by political sociologist Dylan Riley about the question of whether Donald Trump is part of the same fascist tendency that emerged in inter-war Europe or is something new. Riley mobilizes a lot of big, birds-eye data and political analysis and suggests that the latter is more likely, but that this insight itself creates more problems. It’s long, but very interesting.

Quentin's Weeknotes 12/08/18-12/14/18

This week:

• I finally finished reading all 110 stories of Ann and Jeff Vandermeer’s anthology “The Weird." My verdict is that it was absolutely fascinating and worth it for anyone with a passing interesting in the history and global scope of weird science fiction and fantasy. At 1100+ double-columned pages, it was quite a journey to get through, and I didn’t love everything in it, but I appreciated getting exposed to fantastic writers outside of the standard familiar American canon.
• I didn’t watch George H.W. Bush’s funeral, but I did read Matt Taibbi’s excoriating profile of Bush’s pettiness, cynicism and violence. Growing up in the 80s, I have distant memories of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, but my memory of Bush’s presidency is tarred by the Gulf War, which utterly terrified me at age 10, and for which Bush never really paid any price. It was nice to see someone pop the bubble of hagiography and rose-colored glasses.

My Yearnotes for 2018

In which I list, in no particular order, things I experienced, worked on or enjoyed this year.

• I read 37 books. Of these, 19 were written/edited by or primarily by women–a ratio I tried very hard this year to equalize after years of not being conscious of it. The most inspiring or memorable of these were

  • W.E.B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction, a daunting but delightfully rewarding classic of revisionist history of the post-Civil War US;
  • Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples, a graphic novel (of which I read volumes 8,  9 and 10 this year) that feels so simultaneously human and strange, and gives me that wonderful thrill of reading something modern that I know will be someday considered a classic;
  • The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes, a gloriously written, righteously angry genre-defying time-travel serial killer novel about the violence that men do to women, which I read during the Kavanaugh hearings and;
  • The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, a monumentally large edited volume of weird fiction that has already spurred me to purchase books by Bruno Schulz and Reza Negarestani both of whom I first encountered here.

• I wrote a piece of fiction (something I hadn’t done in decades) and submitted it for publiciation to an upcoming anthology. It was not accepted, but the process of getting it together inspired me to write more fiction. I’m now working on a novel that I will hopefully finish next year. If you want to read the story (which is about two boys who fight a monster with a machine named for a Dead Boys song), drop me a line and I’ll send you a copy.

• I try to buy music from artists I like, rather than accepting Spotify’s greasy embrace. This year, I bought albums by Refused, Gastr Del Sol, The Monkees, Allo' Darlin, The Hotelier, Preoccupations, Open Mike Eagle, Liberteer, Low, Diarrhea Planet, The Pop Group, and Stick in the Wheel.

• I watched a bunch of movies and TV shows. The ones that have stuck with me included:

  • A Dark Song, a subtly-shaded character study of a woman trying (and failing) to cope with tragedy masquerading as a horror movie.
  • Hereditary, a horror movie masquerading as a subtly shaded character study of a woman trying (and failing) to cope with tragedy.
  • Annihilation, a film where the movie was different enough from the (wonderful) book to make me not care that it was an adaptation, and whose last 30 minutes was perhaps one of the weirdest pieces of cinema released by a major studio since 2001.
  • Mohawk, a supernatural action movie set in colonial New York, with Indigenous protagonists and featuring Indigenous actors.
  • The Endless, a triumphantly strange film by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who know something about weird cinema.
  • Black Panther, a little comic-book movie with simplistic politics that you probably didn’t hear about.
  • Queer Eye, a make-over show that as Laurie Penny so incisivley noted, broadly sketches “the rampaging crisis of American Masculinity."
  • Hotel Transylvania 3, which honestly wasn’t that great, but which I watched at the Unadilla Drive-in with my wife and son. The experience, which was a first for him, was delightful.
  • I also watched Beware of Mr. Baker, GLOW, Green Room, I am Not Your Negro, Beauty and the Beast (2017),  Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, A Quiet Place, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, Neal Brennan: 3 Mics, Dear White People,The Place Beyond the Pines,  Ralph Breaks the Internet, Incredibles 2, The Ritual, Marie Antoinette, Frances Ha and The Hateful Eight.

• I lost close to 30 lbs this year, started exercising again, and cut off all my hair.

• I got a lot done at the Yager Museum and Hartwick College

  • I co-curated and helped install an exhibit on the history of African-Americans at Hartwick College.
  • I put together, or helped put together new programs at the Yager Museum including a Summer ‘Crafternoons’ for kids, an Indigenous Speakers series, and a film screening of a documentary about James Baldwin.
  • I co-taught a new class on Collectors and Collecting, part of which involved teaching wikipedia, something I had always wanted to do but never found the right moment for.
  • I gave a dozen-odd guided tours of the Museum to individuals and groups from around the country.

• I organized a conference session at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology on the Archaeology of American Conservatism. I also reviewed two articles and book proposal in archaeology, and co-authored a draft of an article for an upcoming archaeological compendium.

• I installed Ubuntu Linux on my laptop and have made an effort to use less proprietary software.

• I got off twitter, and pared down my other social media presences, moving more of my on-line life here.

• I attended my father-in-law’s funeral.

• I helped register students to vote in New York, and assisted my local county Democratic Party in GOTV efforts during the election.

• I listened to some good podcasts, of which my favorite episodes included:

  • Why is This Happening? with Chris Hayes from July 24th in which he interviews Giorgio Angellini, a documentarian making a cinematic history of housing in America.
  • Pseudopod’s 3 part reading of the astonishingly creepy Laird Barron story Mysterium Tremendum by the equally astonishing Jon Padgett.
  • WTF w/ Marc Maron from March 29th, with an exhaustive and historically fascinating interview with They Might Be Giants. An honorable mention goes to the August 9th interview with Chris O’Dowd, which might be the funniest podcast episode I listened to this year.
  • Earl Hustle from April 25th, on the challenges of trying to be a parent while incarcerated, which brought me to tears. Honestly, the whole of Ear Hustle is the most honest, painful, politically infuriating, funny, sad and human piece of media that I encountered in this year of record-breaking prison strikes.

• Finally, if all goes as expected, sometime in the next two weeks I will be welcoming a daughter into the world. I remain in awe of and love with my wife’s strength, humor, and fierce intelligence through this whole process, as the rest of our lives have alternatively woven or crashed into it. Likewise, my son’s genuine enthusiasm for and curiousity about this new person joining our family has been both a relief and a wonderous inspiriation. These remain the best gifts that 2018 has given me.

Quentin's Weeknotes 11/17/18-11/23/118

This Week

• I read Cory Doctorow’s short, creepy story “Sole and Despotic Dominion” published on Reason.com. It’s quick and worth your time, as it focuses on the increasing atempts of companies to limit “interoperability to manufacturer approved items”.
• I read “Three Feet from God: An Oral History of Nirvana ‘Unplugged’". These kinds of oral histories are catnip for me, and particularly so since ‘Unplugged’ remains one of my favorite records of all time. That album did what Nirvana did best-siphon the most interesting and wonderful aspects of American independent music and underground culture into the brains of teenagers like me who would have otherwise never heard it. I still remember when Ryan Phelan, Ben Franklin and I sat around the television and watched a VHS copy of the performance that Phelan had taped off the TV. The gasp and wide-eyes at the final words of “Where did you sleep last night?" remains one of the most haunting and powerful things I have ever witnessed.
• I listened to Ana Marie Cox and Rebecca Traister’s searing post-election commentary on the With Friends Like These Podcast. They mainly take aim at the hedging by (mainly male) figures in the mainstream media that the recent election was not a “Blue Wave." They argue that this ignores the largely unpaid and unheralded labor of millions of women who worked to make it happen, the significant structural disadvantages that the Democratic party faced, and the ways in which such language will embolden an already regressive administration to become even moreso. They also put such hedging in the context of other attempts to diminish the productivity of women’s fury, a subject about which Traister has recently written a book.
• I read this reminder that one of the biggest barriers to the Democratic party enacting progressive policies is the head of the Democratic party in the US Senate.
• I read this amazing story documenting the life and career of Harry LaForme, the first Indigenous Appellate Judge in Canada. Judge LaForme’s life mirrors the moder history of Canadian First Nations people and other Indigenous people. He was born on a the Mississaugas of the New Credit reserve (where I used to work in the Consultation and Accommodation office, for his brother Mark, who is quoted in the story), but left at a young age due to economic opportunities and to avoid local racism. He figured out that law was a route in which contemporary Indigenous rights would be fought, and took every opportunity he could get to travel that route. And he discovered the limits to that route, when, despite every appearance that he would be appointed to Canada’s Supreme court, he was denied for a combination of political and unwritten reasons. It was a powerful and frustrating story of opportunity and the limits that long-term racism and colonization put even on brilliant and committed people.

Quentin's Weeknotes 11/10/18-11/16/18

This week:

• I read with great joy that both the soon-to-be New York State democratic legislature, and the soon-to-be democratically controlled US congress are starting their agendas with voter reform. New York State election law is particularly archaic and anti-democratic, and I hope that the signs on the horizon will lead to greater turnout and engagement.
• I read this creepy, unsettling story about a family in Westfield, New Jersey that received a series of mysterious, strange, and ultimately threatening letters. It’s bordering on urban-legend territory, with its bizarre poetry, strange historical connections (both Silence of the Lambs, and the band Sha Na Na make an appearance) and the way in which it ultimately refracts to broader social processes like housing the housing market, concepts of privacy, and neighborhood tension.
• I read this guide to decolonizing Thanksgiving in schools. Turkey day has never been one of my favorite holidays–I’m not partial to the traditional food, and as I’ve gotten older and more aware, the ways in which it undergirds some nasty pieces of American nationalism has bothered me more and more. This guide has lots of great on-line and brick-and-mortar resources for thinking differently about Thanksgiving, and I found some fascinating stuff in here, including letters to send to schools, books for kids, and more.
• I read this long and detailed interview with Ralph Bakshi about his attempt to make an animated version of the Lord of the Rings in the 1970s. It’s a crazy story about a movie that’s famously interesting but kind of confusing (the movie ends halfway through the trilogy), and both aspects come through in this interview. There’s Mick Jagger, Spanish Communists, Hollywood horsetrading, and more.
• I listened to Marc Maron’s interviews with John Cleese and Eric Idle, of Monty Python fame. Maron’s deep search for humanity underneath celebrity and artistry was in rare form here, as he discussed with both men the experience of growing up during the reconstruction of Britain after WWII, the radical free-form nature of the 1960s era BBC, and how comedy promotes and grows the human spirit.

Quentin's Weeknotes 11/3/18-11/9/18

This week:

• I read volume 9 of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' brilliant and poignant graphic novel “Saga”. The only question I have is whether we’ll see Ponk Konk again…
• Just in time for election day, I finished political scientist David Faris' new book “It’s Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics”. Faris argues that the Republican party has spent the last two and a half decades waging a war of procedure on government–rather than running and governing based on a political philosophy, they have exploited ambiguities in the constitution and law, as well as previous reliance on governmental ‘norms’ to entrench conservative governance throughout Washington D.C. Faris' prescriptions to combat this are quite bold, and include no-brainer policies like a national holiday on election day, and statehood for the 4 million US citizens who live in Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico. However, he also advocates for more radical inteventions, including splitting up electoral behemoth California into 7 states, and packing the US Supreme court with additional jurists, as well as retiring existing jurists after a period of service on the court.
• I voted in NY-19, a tight race where the newcomer Antonio Delgado ultimately prevailed. I also drove a van from Hartwick to take students to the polls, and helped the Otsego County Democratic Party with last minute Get-out-the-vote efforts.

Quentin's Weeknotes 10/27/18-11/2/18

This week:

• I read Pitchfork’s history of Outlaw country in 33 songs. The list opens with an interview with Steve Earle, with whom I’ve recently gotten acquainted through his classic album Copperhead Road and his more recent political rager Jerusalem. Earle went to Texas, and then Nashville as an acolyte of older country stars, before joining their ranks, and then losing a battle against drug and alcoholism that eventually led him to prison. The list includes many people I knew (Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Earle, Townes Van Zandt) but lots of other folks I didn’t know and am looking forward to hearing.
• I read The Baffler’s article about how Facebook’s aging demographics have made it a hub for racism, xenophobia, violence, and vitriol that will hopefully, someday, mercifully, disappear into history.
• My kid and I went out to Oneonta’s Halloween parade.