The days are blending together and it’s getting disorienting. I should probably be reading more books; now seems like the right time to get really into Elmore Leonard or Larry McMurtry. At the very least, a couple Raymond Chandler books. If you sit down to read Gravity’s Rainbow now without stopping, the quarantine should be over once you put it down.
Instead I’ve tried to work my way through the Criterion channel, rewatched every favorite currently on Netflix or Hulu, and casually entertained the idea of losing my mind.
A list of things I watched this week that are good and worthwhile:
Casino
Goodfellas
The Big Lebowski
DEVS
Mr. Show
Arrested Development
Deadwood
Uncut Gems
The Dark Knight Rises
Stalker
The Last Picture Show
3:10 to Yuma
The Fugitive Kind
The Piano
Life is being wasted effectively. I listened to The Weeknd’s new album After Hours. It was interesting given the context of being isolated from everyone and stuck at home. In a way it made more sense: lonely, depressing, atmospheric party music. The perfect soundtrack for being alone and turning your room into the club. Still I’d rather listen to Sada Baby.
There was also a new Childish Gambino record released and….. sigh…. you know, back when he was a run of the mill bad rapper, he could at least be interesting. His penchant for trying to prod at the listener with distasteful lyrics and jokes about loving Asian women and indie rock displayed at least some sort of real personality. Now, since making the pivot to Serious Prestige Music™️, he has traded in personality for effective brand strategy. There’s an audience of people who just want to be surrounded by the idea of music, it’s where the concept of “vibe&b” comes from. People want to live life like they are constantly inside a Starbucks where some semblance of music is playing but they don’t have to actually engage with it. This is why he can make watered down Funkadelic or in the case of this new album, some combo of imitation meat Prince, Solange, and Radiohead. People like it because it reminds them of the better versions that they grew up loving and it makes them feel sophisticated because this music carries the veneer importance. In actuality it’s just repeated garbage that is too boring and redundant to even passionately hate.