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Date: March 9th, 2020.

Time of Writing: 8:59 PM.

Weather: Incredibly warm today. Unseasonal. Disturbing.

Mood: Worried.

Day Overview: Stayed up late watching an old Russian silent movie because fuck it I'm young and I can do these things, and at the end I go to my phone and I notice these big vertical lines going up and down the screen the longer I have the phone screen on, all sorts of different colors before my eyes just going crazy on the phone. Looks like the screen finally got killed. I was due for a new phone anyway, and I'll be getting one when I get home. It kinda sucks, just the timing of this, but I guess worse things have happened. The phone still works otherwise with no issue, but I can't really look at it for that long without being seriously distracted by the lines. It's whatever. I was up really late in bed last night just unable to get my mind off of it, though. This totally could have been avoided if I petitioned harder for the lower bunk last semester. The crack that caused this came when I dropped my phone off the top bunk. If I'd kept the bottom bunk, this would not have happened.

The TA for my one class this morning was not here, which was fine, even though he's cool and I missed him just sorta being around the class still carried on fine. The girl behind me trusted me, a complete stranger, enough to plug her phone into the wall and not mess with it. There's no mistake there, I'm just saying that I could never do something like that. I don't hate people most of the time, but I'm wary of them. Which could be a protection. If behind every person's mask was a person like me then I'd have many reasons to be distrustful. And there's the edginess quota for today all filled out. I didn't have to wear a sweater in today's weather. It was low 70's in the afternoon, and even though there was a good breeze it was way too hot for this season. Just on a conceptual level, I mean.

The group of friends dubbed The Loaf - myself, Spencer, Via, Jess, and Dev - had a picnic planned for this weather. We picked a spot by the campus pond and had lunch we got from the dining halls, the grab & go section. The dining hall near my dorm has this big mac ripoff thing that's pretty good, today's tasted the least like a big mac than ever, but it didn't matter because a burger is a burger and burgers are good. Spencer and I threw the frisbee for a while, which was a lot of fun. He had this dumb (but funny) moment where he tied his phone to a piece of string, threw it over a branch, and tried to take a selfie of us with his apple watch, which got a really great picture of him making a really strange face. We were in hysterics for basically the whole afternoon all the way into the dining hall to grab some ice cream. The group splintered after that, with Spencer and Via walking up to his dorm to hang out. We wound up outside, talking to people from the area. The actual rooms in that area suck, but it seems like they have a really great sense of community. We threw more frisbee with people from the area, and then after Via grabbed her stuff from his room we left. I'm going to do some late night studying and essay writing with Tsz again in a little while, after the food truck rolls up and I get a quesadilla.

On My Mind: I've been worrying about the coronavirus lately. Not that it'll hurt me significantly - my parents will probably be fine if they get it, and I'll definitely be fine if I get it. I'm chiefly worried about what my university is going to do with regards to closures after spring break. The procedure, from what I've heard, is going to be to close campus for an additional two weeks at the end of spring break. This'll suck. Classes will move to online during this time, and afterwards, which'll throw a biiiig wrench into my writing class, which is essentially experientially driven. It'll be fine for basically everything else, though. Except Film Studies, because I don't know if they have the license to distribute the rest of the films on a mass scale when we're not in class. Some are on Kanopy but not all of them. I'm still going to Montreal - it's safer there than it is in my hometown, as far as reported cases go. I'm just worried about the world I'll be coming back to.

• Man With A Movie Camera directed by Dziga Vertov: This is the Russian film I mentioned earlier. Pure documentary. It's crazy to me just how many aspects of the average person's life were captured in this film. From people waking up in the morning to a baby being born to a funeral procession to the hustle and bustle of a day's commute to people at the beach to various athletic contests to people just working in factories, it was a wild ride with incredibly sophisticated editing techniques and visual poetry. It kind of stunned me. What's also stunning to me is how predictive this was of the future of, not exactly cinema, but video to come. These days the vast majority of content produced is by amateur filmmakers. Be it a Snapchat story, an Instagram video, or a TikTok, these videos document everyday life from the vantage point of the everyday human being, and this is the kind of content being consumed the most. If Man With A Movie Camera was intended as a manifesto for the future of its medium, divorced entirely from theatrical and literary techniques, it was startlingly accurate. I listened with the Nyman soundtrack, which was pretty good, if repetitive.
  
  On a more critical level I didn't really like the framing of the documentary, with the movie theater at the start and the end. I suppose it must have been a clever meta nod back when this was released, but it scans as only that - a sly wink and a nudge. There's no other purpose to it. I also think that there are several aspects of daily life that Vertov should have spent more time on. There were likely technical constraints keeping him from exploring the nightlife of his city (or the lack thereof, I'm not an expert on Odessa in the late 1920s) but the film feels distinctly lacking of any less than pure elements. Part of me wants a modern remake, but the same part of me knows that would be futile and entirely worthless. Overall, I feel a strong 8/10 with this one. Definitely impressive at times, but frustratingly lacking at a few key points.
  
  
• Section.80 by Kendrick Lamar: This is a stronger start than I thought it'd be. I like it more than DAMN. by a fair enough margin, and even though it's definitely something of a formative effort it's still got a concept and breadth of topics that are hard for a lot of albums to match regardless of genre. This rounds out my experience of Kendrick's studio discography. I'm tempted to delve into his mixtapes but given what I've heard about them they aren't all that special. The version I listened to was missing a song, though, the tune The Spiteful Chant which I was at least sort of looking forward to because it apparently samples Iron by Woodkid. As far as other things about the album goes, I love how Kendrick dances around the Kanye bar in HiiiPower. That's about the only thing I have to say that has a chance of being somewhat unique. 8/10, but on the high side. Like, picture if you will a rating between an 8 and a 9. I wonder what that would be called? Probably would involve some mark to denote the presence of a smaller-than-whole number. Who knows?

• Finished everything I started today.

Works Produced: Well, I'm about to go and write some parts of an essay. Haven't really gotten anything else thrown together yet though. Not tonight, at least.

Other Thoughts: Thank you for reading my blog. This week's episode of my radio show The Theme Machine is themed around Travel and Transportation! Songs are about the act of travelling and the machines we use to get from place to place. You can catch it Friday morning from 12:00 AM to 2:00 AM EST on WMUA Amherst. That's 91.1 FM if you're local and WMUA.org online. Ciao!