Things I Learned This Week

Dickens, Shmoo, Ishiguro, and more!

Two more weeks til Christmas. Still have a paper to finish and one final, but I’m in the home stretch. Here’s what stuck to my ribs this week.

I have mentioned this before, but my husband and I often have time in bed where we riff and talk about whatever is on our minds. I have taken to calling it Intimate Moments of Knowledge (IMK). It’s the time when you go down the rabbit hole on whatever is cooking in your brain. The other morning, somehow, we got stuck on Shmoo. It was this thing from Al Capp’s comic strip Lil’ Abner from the 1940s that poops eggs and milk and was edible and wanted nothing more than for you to eat it, and it tasted delicious. And it multiplied. And made no waste. Basically, it was the thing that could save the world, solve poverty, starvation, pollution, the works. The creature was a cultural phenomenon with merch and spinoffs. My son had a book of the comic strip when he was little, and even he loved it. Every few years, my husband remember it, and I dig deep. Do yourself a favor and click here.

My husband was reading The Good War: An Oral History of World War II by Studs Terkel and started reading me a passage about Hans Massaquoi. The former editor of Ebony magazine wrote a memoir called Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany. I don’t want to tell you too much about it, but his story of growing up in Hamburg, the son of an African father and German mother, is absolutely fascinating. That’s him in the picture with the swastika on his sweater vest. How he survived Hitler’s reign of terror and went on to live an amazing life is an inspiring story. Worth a deep dive.

My mom’s good friend Terry Sweeny was featured in New York Magazine’s celebration of Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary. He was only on the show for one season (but was a writer for other seasons), and Terry was SNL’s first openly gay cast member and one of the few out actors on television. We met him when I was little, and he and his partner Lanier Laney came to South Carolina researching to write a screenplay for a movie called Shag, which has since become a cult fave. Lots of my mom’s college stories ended up in the script, and I’m so glad Terry is getting some love. Terry and Lanier also have a dual art show up at Queens Botanical Garden Gallery, which runs until March. All my NYC friends, check it out!

I finished the last Ishiguro book, Klara and the Sun, and I’m sad to be leaving him behind, but the professor has promised a zoom reunion when his next book comes out. In the meantime, glad to know Taika Waititi is directing the film adaptation.

Lastly, anyone who knows me knows that a highlight of the season for me is reading A Christmas Carol and watching the Muppet version (the ONLY version worth watching again and again-Michael Caine is in peak form). If you have never read it, do yourself a favor and do it this Christmas. It is simply the best of the best. A master!

Quote of the week?

“We are now ready to bask in Dickens.” — Vladimir Nabokov from his Lectures on Literature—cited on the Slate Cultural Gabfest this week ;)

‘Til Tuesday kids.

Burgin

(I’m finishing college at 50+, follow along and read my story here.)