Things I Learned This Week

Queer, Deadly Blessings, the Border, and the Northern Green Jay

One week until Christmas, and grades will be in shortly. My son’s home. (Yay!) My husband is recovering from hip replacement surgery. (Boo!) There are a handful of folks in my extended family experiencing medical woes. (More boo!) And I still haven’t taken a moment to process the last six months. I am going to get some quilting done today, write, and administer love, medicine, and meals to the nuclear peeps at home. Other than that, here are some things I learned this week.

In a paper I wrote about Ishiguro, I highlighted spiders, as there are quite a few in his books. In The Buried Giant, there is a scene similar to one from Wes Craven’s Deadly Blessings, which came out when I was nine years old. This scene was used in the film’s trailer and shown repeatedly on TV during prime time. Everyone I know has childhood trauma from watching Sharon Stone with a spider dangling over her mouth, dropping closer and closer while a voice goads “wider… wider.” Did that horror scene from the 80s inspire Ishiguro? Who knows, but dropping that in the middle of a lit-crit piece was big fun.

I have a lot of work to do on novel rewrites, but I have promised myself two books to read over the holiday. If I get through one, I’ll be satisfied. Starting with James by Percival Everett, a retelling of Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I’ve only just begun, but I found myself laughing out loud within the first few pages. Really looking forward to this. The other TBR is The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi by Wright Thompson, about the murder of Emmett Till. I hope I find some quiet time.

Picture by my son August. :)

My son is very serious about iNaturalist, and we drove south to Choke Canyon State Park to try and find some lifers. While it’s not the most scenic park in the world, it was flush with birds, and the drive down was a nonstop parade of caracaras, hawks, and other prey fliers. He was pumped to see the Northern Green Jay, which we spent time with about a dozen of—a spectacular creature. We have to branch out when it comes to birds because our backyard is packed with sparrows, grackles, doves, the occasional cardinal, and that’s about it. Maybe I need to stop buying the cheap seeds.

I went with my husband and son to see Queer. I was a huge Burroughs fan back in the day and was interested in all the buzz around the film. It was lovely and evocative of a time and place and reminded me of the art house films people used to make in the 80s and 90s. I am not the biggest fan of sex scenes on the big screen (they are always soooo cheesy), but I must admit… the one in this must have taken a tremendous amount of balls for Daniel Craig to pull off, not to mention his way less famous scene partner, the mean kid from Outer Banks. It did teeter into soft-core, was hugely awkward to watch sitting beside my son, and I imagine it will be another case of a straight man winning an Oscar for playing an iconic gay character. But good for him. Worth a watch.

Other things to read/watch/listen to. This story in the NYTimes about an IVF mix-up from a few weeks back (heartbreaking.) Jesse Eisenberg on WTF (commiserating.) This New Yorker piece by Marfa writer Rachel Monroe about how the right reports on the border (eye-opening.) My favorite 20-something New Yorker, who occasionally writes hilarious/thought-provoking quips on culture, has put together a gift guide in case you need a last-minute-something for the young person in your life. Give her some love!

Quote of the week?

“I am getting so far out one day I won't come back at all.” ― William S. Burroughs

‘Til Tuesday kids.

Burgin

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