You Should Shoot More B-Roll

First of all, thanks to everyone who saw my Instagram post and subscribed, I'm glad everyone wants to hear my idle musings. This one is about photography.

I've been going through a series of hard drives my parents had sitting in a closet over the past few weeks, with the goal of actually organizing and backing up the photos in a way that they can be useful. This is a remarkably fun and frustrating project—folders inside folders, no sense of organization— and this is just the digital media, I haven't even touched VHS and mini-DVD conversions yet. If I'm successful with those, I'll write another post, it will probably be very boring.

Most personal family photo catalogs contain, by definition, one's personal history. Birthday photos, first day of school photos, graduation photos, those are all the ones that end up as prints, in frames or in albums, or shared as email attachments (depending on the decade). What I think is really interesting, though, is the way these sets of photos also subtly document the history of the places you occupy, and the world around you, at the same time.

I included the cover photo for this reason. It's a somewhat unassuming picture, although I think the light is absolutely wonderful. But it documents a point in time through that subtle beauty – the old vinyl siding on the house, an early December snowstorm that are basically nonexistent in Massachusetts anymore, the azalea bush that keeps its leaves overwinter.

All that said, it's a really good reminder for me, and maybe for you, that the photos you take now might not be the ones you end up going back to a year from now or twenty years from now. It's also a good reminder to hang onto your photos at all costs – whether it's digital shots, or negatives from old albums, or 4x6 prints – you don't know what you or someone else will end up being entranced by in the future, so keep it all if you can.

Where I've been

I was up in Vermont this past weekend. By my account at least, this seems to be the best winter we've had in several years. There's something like three or four feet of snow on the ground, the skiing is fantastic, and the weather is cold as hell.

The cashier checking us out at the Craftsbury General Store (good sandwiches there!) said the winter was "like what folks remember winter being like as kids" so take it from her, not me.

I'm also finally above 50% of the total Jamaica Plain streets walked/ran (there are, in total, around 100 miles of unique streets in the neighborhood – this has been a multi-year project). I would highly recommend taking on a project like this if you want to explore the world around you and maybe drive yourself insane doing laps on dead ends (I use wandrer.earth for this).

What I've been watching

• Twin Peaks (1990): Carly and I have been watching this for the past few weeks and just finished – we started shortly after David Lynch passed. It overall holds up relatively well for a show that is now 35 years old – not perfect, but very watchable (and very nice to look at). I do also have a soft spot for Lynch putting in a trans character who's chief purpose wasn't for comedic effect (Denise is an imperfectly written but relatively well-formed character considering it was made in 1991!). The first season is stylistically fantastic, the second stumbles in the middle but ends really well. I have more thoughts for anyone who has watched it.
• Barry Lyndon (1975): I've been dying to see this in theaters and the Coolidge finally screened this in 35mm. This is a bizarre movie that Kubrick made in between A Clockwork Orange (which I have not seen) and The Shining (which I have seen many times). It's over three hours long, Kubrick adapted f/0.7 NASA lenses to shoot in exclusively candlelight for several scenes, and looks fantastic (even if the print the Coolidge had was very dusty). The couple next to me watched the Barry Lyndon × 21 Savage video at intermission. Another great night at the theater.

What I've been listening to

• Bag's Groove: Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson, Thelonious Monk. Horace silver, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke
  • This one was fully a "Phil at Tres Gatos seemed super excited about this so I bought it" purchase, but it's great! Really good vibraphone parts.

• Everything Is Peaceful Love: Bon Iver
  • We're getting Justin's first full-length record in six years, this track and Sable, the teaser EP he put out late last year, are both fantastic.

Anyways, all these things give me comfort given everything else going on. Hope to see you around soon!