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Date: May 12th, 2020.

Time of Writing: 11:03 PM.

Weather: Very nice today. Just the right amount of breeze. Sunny, too. A few clouds, just enough clouds. A really nice day. I wish I could have spent it with friends.

Mental and Physical Health State: I took one walk during all of April, I found out today, looking through my phone health app thing. I've taken like four this month. Is this what reopening is like? We're entering Phase One, folks. I'm only taking walks when I have a podcast to listen to, it's gonnab e like, twice a week, which isn't nearly enough but whatever. Mentally I'm good.

Day Overview: My weekly listenathon last night kept me up for a while, but once I woke up around noon I was pretty much right out the door on a walk that lasted me almost two hours. I walked down the main sort of street to a bike path, then cut my way through side streets back to my house. When I got back my brother was playing Hollow Knight and I watched him for a bit. Then I got to writing and listening to music, doing some playlisting, and now I'm here.

On My Mind: I feel like I'm getting desensitized to the fact that this is going to go down in history as a terrible thing that happened. I also feel like it's merely the prelude to the greater collapse of the American empire. We will be remembered as an empire for sure. Maybe that's what this will be remembered as. Not just a plague diary, but also a record of the collapse. Either we enter the Cool Zone of interesting-to-study history, or we somehow figure out a pathway that is stable and boring. I don't know. I really don't know what I want.

Works Consumed:

• The Satanic Satanist by Portugal. The Man: Much better than the Woodstock album. Pleasant psych indie at worst and really great songwriting at best. I feel like you could change a few words in each of my little blurbs and have the same thing for each when it comes to albums, because I listen to so many of them. The mood here is happy. It's almost saccharine. It puts me off at times. It's a 7/10 effort.
• Flowers from Exile by Rome: If you can't tell, last night's theme was albums from 2009. This one was very pretty, sonically. The last few songs were a bit of a drop off in quality. This one is like standing in a field when the wind picks up, looking out over a series of rolling hills. It's got a bit of a fucked up PTSD side to it, it sounds worn and cratered, but that's a character thing, not a I'm forcing it thing.
• Endless Fields of Poppy by The Curiously Strong Peppermints: It's like Olivia Tremor Control if they kept making albums and became a bit less special but wholly more mature. Some staggering psych numbers here, but just as much kitsch too. I wavered a bit on this but it's the lower end of a 7/10 for me. It's almost Nintendo Nerd Rock lyrically at times. Lyrics are not really a strong point here at all so discard this one if you're into those.
• Fever Ray by Fever Ray: The more I think about this one the more like a 9/10 it feels. At first it didn't super wow me, it was great but it wasn't super spectacular, but I've listened to a few of these back and the synth work is just like, really really impressive. It's just overall a really strong album. Why would you ever use words to describe music? I should stop altogether. It's a bad idea. Good, good stuff here, I like this. Very cyberpunk at times. Not just because it's synthy. Strong lyrics too. 9/10 again in case you forgot.
• Civilization I by Kero Kero Bonito: Was doing some playlist building and realized that I hadn't heard this. Very excited if Kero Kero Bonito keeps going in this direction. It's super fucking goofy, but the synthwork is perfect. It's like really great video game music. I hope the concept actually goes somewhere and this turns into like, an album, or a bunch of periodically released EPs, and maybe that was the plan but the pandemic ruined it. Oh well. 8/10 based on what is here but I'm very excited with this direction.

Works In Progress:

• Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu Season Two animated by Studio Deen: Episode Eleven. I hope that's what the afterlife is like.

Works Produced: Several hundred words. Getting to the end of a story I've been writing for a bit. It's a bit rough. Also did some playlisting.

Other Thoughts: Thank you for reading my blog. I'm going to sit and undo all the mobile havoc I wrought tomorrow, I promise. We just passed 14,000 views, by the way. Now would be a good time to implement a page counter so this is like a visible fucking number, but I'm lazy and also garbage.