Welcome back!
In general “state of my body” news, I had to buy a step stool to now get up into our king size bed. I found a glow in the dark one!
My partner and I also finally watched Project Hail Mary. I liked it! It was also a lot funnier than I was expecting. I haven’t read the book, or really any of Andy Weir’s titles. I also haven’t watched The Martian.
The hormones really jumped out and I started crying during the first fist bump scene and really didn’t stop.
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For those who were nerds on the internet twenty years ago, you may remember The Guild. They’re currently running a Kickstarter with a couple days left to make a renfaire movie in honor of its 20th anniversary. It’s already surpassed it’s fundraising goal and has the OG cast involved with some guest stars.
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Scholar Rachel Hope Cleves wrote an open letter to Drawn & Quarterly regarding their recent publication of Vermont Cartoonist Laureate Tillie Walden’s adult graphic novel debut, Charity & Sylvia. In the letter, Cleves, who authored a biography of Charity Bryant and Sylvia Drake with the same name, calls for Drawn & Quarterly to option her biography for adaptation and co-credit her, with appropriate compensation. Has anyone else been following this?
Cleves also did an interesting AMA on Reddit, if queer history or the history of sexuality is of interest to you.
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If you’ve ever worked in higher ed, you may enjoy this University Title Generator. I recently got Executive Deputy Executive for the Office of Academic Technology with an estimated salary of $86,348.
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I’d like to plug a documentary I recently watched called Clean. It’s about Sandra Pankhurst, a woman who started a trauma cleaning business in Melbourne. I went into it thinking it’d be more true crime, but it was definitely more of a human interest piece and left me with a good cry. It’s not overly graphic and is available on Amazon Prime Video. Content warnings for references of past experiences of child abuse and SA, as well as footage of hoarding and crime scenes aftermath (bodies are not shown).
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
This is a really thoughtful response to Cleves’s post from a third party who read both books and calls out some really significant issues with the claims: https://buttondown.com/thene/archive/charity-and-sylvia-the-extraordinary-claims-of/.
Thank you Amanda for the link about the Charity and Sylvia issue. I’ve been slowly reading Cleve’s book. I really appreciate Stephanie’s link and I agree with what was posted there.
Oh wow, I haven’t read, and hadn’t heard of, the Charity & Sylvia controversy. What a shame.
It’s kind of hilarious to me (I am quite bitchy, yes) that Cleves claims her cover was stolen, because I took one look at the comic cover and was so visually put off by it I could wish that the history cover *had* been stolen. Did Cleves actually design her own cover? Props to whoever did, and especially to the silhouette artist back in the day who made the likenesses (to which, obviously, Cleves has exactly as much exclusive right as she does to the names of the women in question). To me, Cleves comes off as entitled and untrustworthy in her initial complaints, and then the publisher’s response is also intensely cringe, but that buttondown link seems comprehensive and fair – but I say all of this with the mortifying awareness that I am sounding off while hoping never to have to read either of the actual texts and am just stupidly rubbernecking over here so I am definitely part of the problem. I usually try to avoid reading about these sorts of squabbles because they make me despair of humanity, but the despair o humanity meter is just permanently maxed out at this point, and I am finding it all weirdly fascinating this morning.
@Stephanie: Thank you for the extra link!
Thank you, Stephanie, for that great extra link! The whole thing was a great lesson to me how people of good sense lose their minds on social media. I saw the claims and originally assumed that it was a misunderstanding based on the difference between comics publishing and academic publishing, and that the bibliography website was an addition to make things right. But when I realized the bibliography had been there from the beginning, with plenty of references to Cleves, I was shocked that so many people who should have known better were piling on to the wrong side in the dispute. And what a great way to discourage creators from engaging with real historical scholarship instead of repeating popular misunderstandings of the past.
I wonder if any of this was precipitated by the controversy over The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon about three years back. Her (fictional) book was based on the research of historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and a lot of people felt she had not properly credited Ulrich, although Ulrich herself did not get involved in the discussion.
I, for one, would like to know more about the glow-in-the-dark stepstool!
On a lighter note…. Acorn has a comedy/mystery series — also set in Melbourne — about a married couple who own a trauma cleaning company and dabble in solving the related murders. https://acorn.tv/mrandmrsmurder/
@Amy E: Of course! It’s this one. It arrived yesterday. The glowing isn’t as bright as the photo, thankfully. I was worried it’d keep my partner up. Super sturdy and easily adjustable.
The Guild is a fantastic, super funny series and the 20 year renfaire movie has the original cast plus lots of awesome extras like Nathan Fillion. Highly recommend watching the original series, you will be hooked! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urNyg1ftMIU
Stephanie! That was a great read and I’ve now requested both books, even if I’m turned off by Cleve’s behavior.
It’s great to see how much work Walden put into this! I’ve read them before and am also an academic, and am just so impressed.
I’m sending the glow in the dark stool link to a pregnant friend, because I think she’ll have use of it too!
I really liked Project Hail Mary too! It was also much funnier than I expected. I really enjoyed The Martian, too, though its humor was drier versus the giggles Project Hail Mary brought on. Both great movies!
I like The Martian as well as Project Hail Mary (books and movies). In each case, I think that the book is better, but the movies are very good.
I hadn’t heard of the Walden and Cleves books, nor the debate. The essay Stephanie Burgis links is fascinating and the images from the book itself are touching – off to order it.