Things I Learned This Week

Pecha Kucha, Harry Ransom, Masquerade, Chan-wook, Sugarbaker, and Dalloway

Over spring break, my son was here. ❤️ We did and saw a lot of stuff, and I’m still reeling from allergies, time off, and getting back in the swing of things. I can’t believe we only have a month + left of school. Nuts! That said, here’s a few things that stuck, a few things that might be too late for you to do yourself, and a few things still to come.

First things first. If you aren’t busy, Tuesday night I’ll be speaking at Pecha Kucha at Trinity University, along with a slew of other talented folks. Tickets only $12.51. ;) If you are not busy, come out and support! (The talented Josh Huskin took the shot. I hate getting my picture done but he’s a pro and made it near-painless.)

We did make it up to Austin to see the Live from New York: The Lorne Michaels Collection exhibit at the Harry Ransom Center, which has sadly now closed, so too bad for you. However, the Lorne Michaels archives are available to ogle anytime for free and by appointment, along with zillions of other cool literary and media things like The Niépce Heliograph, the earliest surviving photograph produced in the camera obscura. And the The Gutenberg Bible, the 500-year-old text is one of only 20 of the first printed books that still survive. Free for the viewing!

The San Antonio Museum of Art is showing (until July), New African Masquerades, which presents the work of four artists working today in four different regions of West Africa: Chief Ekpenyong Bassey Nsa (Nigeria), Sheku “Goldenfinger” Fofanah (Sierra Leone), David Sanou (Burkina Faso), and Hervé Youmbi (Cameroon). The show explores how masquerades honor family, support the livelihoods of their makers, offer new imagery, and circulate through twenty-first century technology. Along with thirteen masquerade ensembles made from materials including wood, cloth, fabric, sequins, raffia, beads, feathers, and shells, the exhibition includes an immersive video experience, with 360-degree views showing masquerade ensembles as they are made and performed. It was totally rad. Not to be missed.

Finally got around to watching No Other Choice, a South Korean black comedy/murder mystery from last year co-written, produced, and directed by Park Chan-wook, based on The Ax by Donald Westlake. Now I’ll take Train to Busan and Parasite over pretty much any Korean film, but this one was pretty dark and funny and had peak sets and mood. Plus, far beyond the horrors of the actual murders is the message of the looming AI takeover of the workplace, something I wrote about yesterday and have been plagued with contemplating endlessly over the last year. Fun, weird, and makes you think. And it’s a love letter to paper. 😍

As much as I flipped over my first earnest run-in with Virginia Wolfe last year, I think I am too old and cynical for a book like Mrs. Dalloway. Or maybe after this school year I’m just burnt out on British novels of manners. Or maybe I’m reading it at the same time as my new all-time favorite book ever, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and the competition for my attention has been too great. With the last few chapters of a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway left to go, I have not gotten to the climatic/ suicidal end yet, so I can’t be the full judge until then. Wish me luck, though, as next week I have to present on it and need to make it as snooze-free as possible.

This week, I’ve been trying to throw a large pendant to mimic the midcentury Beaumont Mood lamps designed by the legendary San Antonio ceramic firm. I did one trial run which was chaotic and just OK. (The green anole at my pottery studio was suspect of the whole endeavor.) I threw another today that is too small, but at least I’ll be able to practice carving on it. It’s to replace our front porch pendant that got wrecked in a wind storm. My husband had to get stitches, too, when the rather tall ladder he was using to work on the wiring decided to fall down and attack him. To celebrate the fact that he survived the fall, enjoy the Vicki Lawrence on The Carol Burnett show singing The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia, written by Vicki’s husband Robby Russell and released on 1973. And, which all ties back to the best comedic monologue ever written for broadcast television. RIP Julia Sugarbaker.

Quote of the week?

He’s the chorus of that haunting (yet silly in retrospect) ditty.

That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia
That's the night that they hung an innocent man
Well, don't trust your soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer
'Cause the judge in the town's got bloodstains on his hands

‘Til Tuesday, friends.

Burgin

(An MFA grad student at 50+… follow along and read my story here.)