Back to the homepage.
Back to the index.

Date: April 22nd, 2020.

Time of Writing: 8:45 PM.

Weather:

Mental and Physical Health State: I have a headache that I just can't suss out. Maybe I'm not drinking enough water. The kerning of the spaces between my words on this page looks a little too wide. Are my letters distancing now?

Day Overview: Six hours of sleep, woke up 11:30 AM. I spent a good deal of time just sort of languishing over the fact that I had to function as a person today. Caught up on material for two classes, registered for my own classes for next semester. Included Marching Band even though I know it probably won't happen. I'm more than willing to march again. I'd be heartbroken if I didn't get the chance. But I just need to think realistically here. Pessimistically, even. I need to make pessimistic estimates. All of the last few years worth of undoing that reputation I had to be a pessimist, and now I have to become one again. Time is a flat circle. I'm becoming very familiar with the taste of instant noodle bowls.

On My Mind: We've only been at this for a month. It's bewildering to think about that this has only really truly been going on for a month, just a little over that. Imagine enduring another month of this. And another on top of that. And another. And another. May, June, July, August. September at the earliest is when things might return to any semblance of the way they were before, and that's an incredibly liberal estimate. It's more likely to be sometime next year. I need to break some bad habits. Start exercising a bit more. Actually put myself on some kind of routine. Lay off the [REDACTED]. Learn how to make instant noodle bowls taste better.

• Un Chien Andalou directed by Luis Benuel: What a freak show this one was! The infamous eye scene wasn't nearly as unnerving as I was anticipating, but the follow-up ants-pouring-out-of-the-hand absolutely skeeved me out. You could chop this up and get a great music video out of it. There's a lot of great symbolism about the different stages of life, man's relationship with women, a bunch of things, and that ending still is freaky as hell. Dragging pianos filled with donkeys attached to two small men across the floor is a pretty apt metaphor, but for what maybe I missed it. Some of the special effects missed the mark with me and haven't aged well at all. But this is still a pretty fantastic short film. 8/10.
• Meshes of the Afternoon directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid: Now this one here is absolutely masterful. Every further escalation of surreality here didn't have me scratching my head as in Un Chien Andalou, but rather had me realizing pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. The effects in this one remain genuinely unsettling. The editing is great. Everything is oh so subtly off. And the mirror faced cloaked figure is legitimately unsettling. I don't want to spoil this one. Go look it up on YouTube. 9/10. Only bit that lost me was the start was a bit slow, but maybe on another rewatch it'll make more sense.
• Mothlight directed by Stan Brakhage: Watching an archival YouTube upload of this, some of the magic is lost. There is no film here; bits of moths and bugs and leaves were placed in between two layers of tape and put through the film projector's reel live, with the fluttering noise of the projector mimicking the flap of the Moth, and the light shining through from the projector being the titular Mothlight. This is a pretty neat concept, but I don't rate concepts here. It was a short three minutes, as short as any other three minutes, but each second was felt. 6/10. Commendable that the madman actually did it if nothing else.
• Scorpio Rising directed by Kenneth Anger: This one drags quite a bit. I feel like the point could be made with a lot less motorcycle tuning. The Nazi stuff is also jarring. I get that early biker culture was a lot of WWII vets and they were displaying their trophies and stuff, but it was still somewhat bizarre. I didn't enjoy the soundtrack, interestingly enough. I feel like the film would have been better with less of it. A little bit is nice to sort of color things a little, but I would have wanted to hear more diegetic sounds in here. The main character also doesn't really come through here. Overall a 7/10 but I realize I'm not the audience that is going to get the most out of this one.
• Frank Film directed by Caroline and Frank Mouris: While this animation style is probably very influential, the actual genesis of it is an absolute bore. I don't want to hear about Frank's life. I don't want to hear his list. He doesn't make it interesting, and the incredibly fast pace of the images on screen does nothing to match his narration, slow and plodding as it is. I mean I guess his voice sounds nice. This is another neat concept that falls apart in the execution. 5/10.
• Los Angeles by X: Blistering punk rock musicks, yeah?! First two tracks are great, the following three are disposable, all of side two rocks. It's already a short album but fat can still be trimmed. The final two tracks add a lot of much needed depth to the punk sound. DIY doesn't just mean be simple, or it shouldn't, at least, and X make a good example of how a band can evolve the punk aesthetic without straying too far. It's entertaining except for that middle bit, which I honestly needed to be snapped out of because of how plainly hypnotic it was. Sometimes music makes it hard to focus on the music. 7/10.

• Kimetsu no Yaiba animated by studio Ufotable: Episodes Nine and Ten.
• Kami no Tou animated by Telecom Animation Film: Episode Four.
• Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu Season Two animated by Studio Deen: Episode Seven.

Works Produced: Not much of anything but maybe I'll get something done tonight. I owe stuff.

Other Thoughts: Thank you for reading my blog. This week's theme for The Quarantine Machine is chill vibes. Calming songs for trying times. There's a lot of different kinds of calm in here. Wistful calm. Pastoral calm. Calm that's really just vibing a little. Works best with a twelve second crossfade. I'm not one hundred percent on what next week's theme is going to be, so please suggest more if you haven't already.