how i have spent my corona

i miss blogging but every time i sit down to write i draw a blank.
i thought i could at least start with a list of all the things i've watched throughout corona time 2020.
if the title has a hyperlink then you can click it to find out more or maybe watch if it is on youtube it will be a youtube link.

March 2020

• AlphaGo (YT) humans try to make AI play go.
• I Do Not Know What It Is I Am Like, 1986, 89 minutes, color. A seminal video artwork by Bill Viola. (YT) (more info)
• The Incredible San Francisco Artists' Soapbox Derby, 1977 (YT)
• Alphabet: The Story of Writing (pt. 1) (pt. 2) (1980, Donald Jackson)
• American Juggalo (YT)
• A Life Less Ordinary: Voices of Tangier Island (YT)
• The Century of the Self, Adam Curtis, 2002 (YT)
• Jag Mandir, Werner Herzog, 1991. documentary on the "eccentric private theatre of the maharajah of Udalpur." (YT)
• The Man With No Name, 1977 BBC documentary about Clint Eastwood. (YT)
• The Slatemakers, 1980 BBC doc about Welsh slate manufacturing communities. (YT)

April 2020

•  Jobs? Never!! A skateboarding short film by Jim Greco. (YT)
•  
• i spent most of this month making art and playing video games

May 2020

• i spent the ENTIRETY of this month making art, playing video games, and then also having existential meltdowns

June 2020

• this month basically did not happen

July 2020

• i'm pretty sure that this month also never happened

August 2020

• believe it or not... i'm also quite sure this month didn't exist.

September 2020

• at this point, i'm not really even actually sure if i am alive anymore or not.
• finally, on september 22nd, I watch something again. Only The Essential: a Hike from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. (YT)

October 2020

• Well, off to a strong start. I spend the first week of the month rewatching Twin Peaks - The Return (season 3). I become convinced it contains the secret of the universe. 
• I guess things must be getting better. I watch Cheech & Chong's Next Movie (1980) & Nice Dreams (1981).
• A captivating short-form video document of people hesitating at the top of a ten-meter diving board. (YT)
• Mountain Talk, a 20003 PBS documentary on the language and culture of southern Appalachia. (YT)
• Core Sounders: Living from the Sea. a 2013 PBS documentary about fishermen in Carteret County, North Carolina. (YT)
• An Evening with Robin Williams, 1983, from the Great American Music Hall. (YT)
•  
• At some point in the month it is my birthday. like many people i am sure, it was probably the worst birthday i can remember having. i wake up from a 2 hour nightmare about the coronavirus where everybody i know is sick and i have to kill several people who i love because in the dream it is actually zombies. then i wake up. have to go to work for 9 hours, the first 3 of which I still feel like I am inside a nightmare. eventually the day is over. it is book-ended on both sides by work days that feel like i am in a hell-world. 

November 2020

• i watch a documentary about Bobby Fischer that makes me feel very claustrophobic. it is called "Bobby Fischer Against The World." you can watch it on youtube but it will make you feel bad. (YT) 
• this month mostly sucks

December 2020

• Things finally start to get interesting again. I subscribe to the criterion channel and am recommended the films of PBS documentarian Rick Sebak, who makes documentaries about Pittsburgh and about subcultures of Americana and etc. On Criterion Channel I watch a handful of Olympics documentaries, almost all the films of Juzo Itami, Paris Texas, and a documentary about typewriters called California Typewriter.

Well, here we are.

I will write more to you later.

take care of yourself, and let us go into 2021 together at last.