Things I Learned This Week
Lynch, Didion, Star Quilts, Gaiman, Zappa, and Shakespeare's Head
Yesterday was the beginning of Spring term, and I only cried in class once. Yay! A new record. As we brace ourselves for Monday, here are a few things I learned this week.
I’ve been working on a star quilt designed by Plains and Pine, a Montana modern quilter who obviously draws inspiration from the Northern Plains Native American culture. Working on it sent me down the rabbit hole of indigenous star quilting, used for warmth (when buffalo hides began to dwindle) and storytelling. I went to the National Museum of the American Indian when it first opened way back when, but now want to go back to view its quilt collection. Learning about quilting used for storytelling in tragedy—across cultures and generations—quilting and sewing arts were often the only way for women to express their creativity within a society. The more I learn about it, the more I want drop out of everything and sew ‘til I die.
This semester brings my final English requirements before I graduate, and while I’m psyched to dip back into Hemingway, Faulkner, Eliot, and Frost, I’m mainly looking forward to finally finishing Invisible Man (Ellison, always thrown in like an MLK quote) and do some delving into Joan Didion and Joyce Carol Oates. And while there is still so much in academia that is staunchly WHITE MALE AMERICAN, I will endeavor to use my personal reading time to branch beyond, and I trust that graduate school will bring even more diverse reading my way.
Speaking of really old white dudes, I am also taking a class called Decolonizing Shakespeares (where we explore how the Bard’s been reimagined by marginalized groups). The professor mentioned that Shakespeare’s head is missing, a fact I’d never heard before. Apparently, it was more than likely stolen from his grave in the 1700s. (Rumor has it for use in a production of Hamlet.) The idea that everything that has ever existed still exists in one form or another has always freaked me out, but the idea that William’s skull is somewhere separate from his body is mind-boggling to think about. Does the person who has it know they have it? Or is it one of those weird things that get handed down, and someday it will end up on Antiques Roadshow, and we’ll discover it’s been on a mailman’s mantel in the suburbs all these years.
More old white dude facts. The Apartment has got to be the weirdest movie. It’s about this guy who loans his apartment out to people above him on the work ladder so they can use it to cheat on their wives. It’s wild to think it was considered radically woke when it came out when it is so nauseatingly sexist as is. We’ve come a long way, baby. And—ahem—miles to go before we sleep. (How great is Shirley MacLaine though?)
Speaking of sexism, I won’t go too deep into the Neil Gaiman controversy, but this kind of stuff is terrifying. Mainly because after reading the article and then listening to the podcast, I don’t know how I lived in NYC for a decade and lucked out. If I’d ever been in the position these women found themselves in, I probably would have fallen prey in the same way. Gaiman is the penultimate fuckboy. Having grown up in an era where women were taught to tolerate and absorb reckless, violent behavior from men, it used to be difficult for me to ascertain what sexual assault is. Not anymore. Now I know what a predator looks like.
And while we’re on the subject of problematic geniuses, I went with my husband on Tuesday to see Dweezil Zappa’s band playing Zappa. My husband is a lifelong Frank Zappa fan and texted this to friends after the show. When I was 11 or 12 my older brother came home from school and said there's a show called KONO Koncepts that comes on at midnight (AM radio). That night, I listened to it in bed on my transistor radio, and the very first song was "Who are the Brain Police" by the Mothers of Invention. It blew my mind and prompted me to go to the PX at Fort Sam to buy "Mothermania," a compilation of their first 3 albums. Tracks included "The Idiot Bastard Son," "Call Any Vegetable," "Brown Shoes Don't Make It', "Duke of Prunes," and the like. Strange stuff for elementary school kid. I know that album inside out to this day. Picturing my husband as a little kid hearing political, absurdist rock for the first time and being lit on fire is pretty awesome. The show was just OK for me, but after listening to Zappa vicariously through my husband for the last 20+ years, I think I finally got the whole thing. I followed up by watching 200 Motels (sophomoric and absolutely insane, yet fun to watch—in a time capsule sort of way—with great musical interludes) and rewatching Alex Winter’s fab doc Zappa. The guy was flawed, narcissistic, and exhaustingly talented. He was right on about art, commercialism, and capitalism. Sadly, he was right about a lot of things.
And finally, we lost one of the best old white guys this week. I was in the middle of graduating from high school when Twin Peaks came out, but it was my first binge-watch on old VHS tapes my oldest sister used to record the show when it aired. We were all obsessed, but nobody more than her. She was a huge David Lynch fan even before that, so in true birth order fashion, my middle sister and I were too. There is a special thing to falling in love with things your siblings love. Lynch will always be that for me. (Though I don’t think I ever need to see Eraserhead again.) RIP legend.
Quote of the week?
“I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it.” — David Lynch
‘Til Tuesday kids.
Burgin
(I’m finishing college at 50+, follow along and read my story here.)
As always I always love to read your posts. A couple of things; The Apartment was not considered ‘woke’ or even ‘cool’ when it was released. It was seen as a morality play wrapped in a comedy. Polite society was grappling with issues rarely discussed before in public like racism, homosexuality, substance abuse and sexism along with just plain sexuality. The Apartment represented the cost of ambition over morality. It was comedic but the lesson was clear even to a young man like myself. You had to be there and live in that world. On Shakespeare’s head, I was once standing in a church in Amsterdam on Prinsengracht looking at plaque commemorating Rembrandt who was buried in a crypt right below my feet. As I pondered that weird fact I noticed a little addendum to the original plague on a small piece of plastic, written as if typed. It said Rembrandt’s body was originally placed in a rented unmarked grave because he died penniless. As was the custom in those days after 20 years his body was dug up and destroyed. The irony is astounding because Rembrandt was considered one of the penultimate painters of his time and his fame and status was always assured yet his remains thrown away. And in a little town called Delft, not far from Amsterdam are the actual remains of Johannes Vermeer proudly and prominently marked in a church. He died known only locally and then was nearly forgotten but now enjoys his own section in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. I stood on his grave too.
Young Shirley MacLaine was such a snack. Have you seen The Trouble with Harry or The Children's Hour?