justing.net

Week Notes No. 29

By Justin G. on

This week happened.

Almanac

Warm this week.

[I’m leaving these notes to myself as a marker of the before times, literally and literally.] Discuss the surreality of automatic clock changes for the end of DST. Vestigial acts for those unconnected items like old ovens and old microwaves. And physical clocks on the wall that do the whole tick tock thing.

NOV03MON

Flying back from Denver. The thing that I am the most surprised about is how close together Denver, Golden, Boulder, and Morrison (Red Rocks) are to each other.

NOV04TUE

I can’t watch. We are finishing Whitechapel instead.

NOV05WED

This is awful. Somehow I work. It is even reasonably productive.

NOV06THU

Does Thursday happen this week? I forget if we’re having Thursday this week. Oh yes, game night. Game night is a bright spot.

NOV08FRI

Good conversation with B.

NOV09SAT

In order to be prepared for some HVAC work we are clearing out the west wall of our garage. This is a good forcing function for clearing out the garage ahead of finishing it, which is nominally the next project.

NOV10SUN

Is it me or are people extra grumpy now? Many of the other customers at Costco seemed especially inconsiderate. Not all of them, but a lot. Emboldened or grieving, I don’t know. Just consider your fellow humans too, it’s not that much to ask.

The Trader Joe’s customers are a little happier, which is counter intuitive since the available space is so much less.

Media

Thinking about moving this section to a different day.

Movies

Dune, part 1 was our escapism this weekend. Boy they screwed up the intro, the first 20-30 minutes. There was no storytelling here. I guess it’s too much to introduce so they just tell it to the audience. Or inaudibly whisper at us. Very frustrating. I preferred the Lynch version, as cheesy and campy as that is. After that things improve a bit. Or something. It’s generally filmed beautifully, and the costuming is pretty neat. By the end I enjoyed it; I’m looking forward to seeing the second part.

I maybe have a proto-theory that these days directors would very much like to just skip the dialog and tell the story with imagery. But sometimes information must be transmitted in words, so they’re forced to have the actors say some things even though the director would very much rather they didn’t. In the silent film days that minimal dialog was handled by text cards, but that’s not yet back in fashion. So they whisper some of it, or talk with a lot of background noise. “Characters talking is happening.” No one knows how to tell stories, or the story is killed in committee and we’re left with whatever is left. Awful.

Dune, part 2 fast followed the next night. There was a lot of killing.

Television

YouTube

Scavengers, “prequel” to Scavengers Reign which is now on Netflix, and also not renewed.

Music

Some CRi: Live from Mile-Ex, Live from Carré de Gaspé, Anjunadeep Edition 441, Danforth Music Hall.

Some Dosem: Open Air LA, Empire.

Reading

Buncha post election coverage, not worth mentioning. I want better, more accurate information going forward. OK, a couple were that, but I can’t reconcile their calmness with the rest of it. This is one and this is another.1 Sure, I want some of the bellyaching, finger pointing, post mortem-ing stuff too. It’s cathartic, or at least helpful for processing… this . May it be less bad than our worst fears. It will still be bad, but less would be better. Good luck to us all.

Not much other reading, no Odyssey, only a little of Nexus.

  1. Idk if either of these are “correct.” I’m just saying I appreciated them. Maybe this one too

Email me your bright spots.

Posted: in Notes.

Other categories: week notes.

Back references: none.

Tags that connect: [[running]] Week Notes No. 32, Week Notes No. 30 and 31, Week Notes No. 28, Week Notes No. 27, Week Notes No. 26, Week Notes No. 25, What I'm up to this week, Week Notes No. 24, Week Notes No. 23, Week Notes 22, Week Notes 21, Week Notes No. 20.

Tags only on this post: none.