Tom Bubul .info
tombubul@gmail, @tombubul. Initial post 12/25/2020, last modified .
Good stuff in 2020
Presented in no order, one possible END OF YEAR LIST of good stuff from 2020:
Ren's tour blog
Ren started blogging road tales from his many tours, largely through what was the early 2000s American noise sub-underground. The blog is just incredible, as both a) an account of a time that remains largely undocumented and weirdly indeterminate in "the cultural mind", and b) as a document of a form of "band tour" that seems to be poorly recognized or understood (within the broader contexts of "a generation of artists," "a national arts identity," and even just "'seeing what's out there' as a form of arts education") except by those who have themselves formed, toured in, and been in the worlds surrounding "these kinds of bands." That said, the blog's not heavy, generally not advancing any particular thesis (other than on the twinned value/folly of touring itself), and isn't shooting for "literary" or whatever... Ren's just an obviously great storyteller sharing bonkers adventures at face-value. Most of the posts so far are in the beloved category "stressful at the time, fun to recall later," and told from a kind of bemused, disembodied perspective that keeps things dialed to hijinks even when they've descended into open danger, chaos, or hostility. The whole project is just so fun and extremely generous, thank you for doing this Ren!
Bryan on twitter in 2020
News events really muddy the waters on twitter so 2020 was unsurprisingly a truly terrible time to be on there in general... however the overall experience was saved p much single-handedly by Bryan, who I felt had the best account of the year.
Visiting the castle
Jacob has been publishing again, which in itself is great - he's one of my favorite artists, writers, and people, and I love to see anyone in even one of those categories dropping new ones. (While it's hard to picture the reader who doesn't already know his quotidian-cosmic / worldbuilding-worldflipping style, it's a great time to become acquainted if that is in fact somehow you.) But the extra thing here is that he also got really into updating his website this year, which imo, of website projects happening in the "new html" era, is a real gem. In the model of Laurel's "What is a website?", Jacob's answer is, "it's a castle." Dig around in the new and old writing in the library, but also... click around in general. As with all of my favorite artists I could say way, way, way more here, but I already did so in a lengthy essay for a thing "coming soon", so for this post I'm gonna leave it at that. New ones on Tuesdays!!!: fujichia.com.
NSOTM
Drinking in parks in NYC
NYC seemed to tacitly decriminalize drinking outside this summer and the endless-seeming string of parklife lawn hangouts this allowed for was just the best. This was the main/only way I saw many of my friends this year, and in the dreamlike interval between "early quar paranoia" and holing up at Studio Judy felt like a full-blown era unto itself. I never stopped finding it moving how the permission to gather this way always seemed to manifest so peacefully, especially given the consistently harsh & even openly sadistic approach cops took to many of the year's other important organized or semi-organized outdoor gatherings and expressions of what it means to live in a place with neighbors. Looking around the lawns especially during the golden hour and seeing hundreds of people having small seshes, just doing regular stuff in a regular way in the space available... it all felt just so civil, and as fresh and innocent as if the scene had just risen directly out of the ocean fully-formed, experienced as a perfect picture of one aspect of what I love about the city, and a new way to love Brooklyn Bridge Park especially.
New routines
I kept a handwritten diary starting early this summer, and started meditating this fall, the latter via my new job. I find both of these to be useful additions to my primary existing toolset ("take a bath" "go for a walk" "ride my bike" "drink some water") and recommend them.
Drinking wine & eating cheese at home
I've always enjoyed both of these a ton but in the pretty gaping absence of eating and drinking at spots and people's houses this year, wining and cheesing at home became the special food event. At Studio Judy Shea & I started keeping a little wine journal with "tasting notes"... we keep the journal in the pantry with the wine, not in one of our studios, which to me is itself really fun in its own way... makes me want to get a notebook to keep in the glove compartment to log notes in about wherever we drove the car to, etc. etc. Dare I say send recommendations?! And also dear god I can't wait to eat food in the world again.
Movie night
In my household, the regular call that stuck was a weekly one with Jed & Reebs, in Minneapolis, to watch a movie. The setup we've been doing is, someone acquires and shares a movie, two laptops are setup to do the zooming, two other laptops are setup to project, and we do a countdown to play to sync them up, and talk over the movie thruout. For Halloween, Jed put together an extremely nice compilation reel, and I did a similar one around Christmas. Always nice to have a reason to use youtube-dl and ffmpeg; feel like it might even be worth writing up a quick tutorial about it, because I would love for it to be easier for everyone I know to quickly be able to put together (and send me) compilation videos. Eternal reminder that you can use computers to make and do fun stuff with your friends, that the tools to do stuff independent of if not entirely outside of the platforms exist.
Movies in general
I found it difficult to watch movies for most of covid but still managed to watch a few, and fortunately the hit ratio felt good. I might do yet another post about movies specifically, but great ones this year for anyone looking for recs over the holidays are Diamantino (2018), Daddy longlegs (2009), Russian Ark (2002), Happy as Lazzaro (2018), Portrait of a lady on fire (2019), Farewell My Queen (2012), Kaili Blues (2015), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), My Beautiful Laundrette (1985). Every Mike Leigh movie I watched this year (Mean Time, Life is Sweet, Happy Go Lucky) was great, and I sorta suspect they all might be. Aniara (2018), Enemy Mine (1985), and Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) all really good too.
Studio Judy
I was unemployed for 10 months this year, which aligned well with my big "only during a pandemic" twist/windfall - the opportunity to rehab an apartment in my family zone in Pennsylvania for my further general usage. Long live Judy for hooking it up and letting us stay here in pandemic "at large" mode; really looking forward to all the funky things having this space is gonna unlock hopefully not super far down the line. Visit Studio Judy :)
And
All Salad Editions time <3; listening to every single Move D mix; hikes/rides/spots in the Studio Judy environs (esp riding to my brother's house); the two particularly great days I had riding, first with Jeff to Little Hell Gate Salt Marsh to eat sandwiches, second with Alfie to Ft Tildon to eat subs and look at the horizon upside down; learning to love drawing again/in a new way for the millionth time via making cartoons; every time I got irl mail from anyone; every irl hangout
Looking forward to 2021. :)
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