These past couple of weeks have including a pretty insane amount of traveling considering the fact we shouldn’t be traveling at all. I’ve been to Long Island, Albany, Poughkeepsie, and Orlando for certain amounts of time. I’ve probably covered it least 5,000 miles in the past 3 weeks easily. It’s pretty crazy to wrap my head around it. I’ve felt like Forrest Gump just traveling the country, running aside. I’m positive I didn’t get anyone sick or vice versa though. It was very cool to the countryside along the way though. Watching the scenery change from the barren trees in the northeast change the farther south you get on I-95 is interesting to see over the course of a couple hours.
It’s been pretty crazy to think about the fact that I’ve been in Florida now. I’m used to a full year of winter and spring going into the hot weather of summer, but I didn’t think that I would be feeling warm weather already. It’ll nice to skip to summer weather, I’m not a huge fan of the cold. There are definitely worse places to be though during this crisis. I wake up every morning now to that distinct smell of Florida humidity and plants. I run at dawn to avoid the intense heat during the afternoon, but the humidity makes it just as unbearable. I’ll sit out in the sun sometimes being thankful that all of the bouncing around has calmed down for now, and all I have to do is get back to running and class.
Back before the corona virus, I used to play on my Xbox when I wasn’t in class, at track practice or hanging out with my housemates. One of my now favorite games I’ve played is called Red Dead Redemption 2. It’s kind of a cowboy gang, gun slinging, wild west era game, but the story line is nothing short of life changing. The themes of loyalty and moral redemption are masterfully laid out.
So here I am. Finally. Catching up with all of my schoolwork this week has definitely not been fun, but the burden off my shoulders that I’ve been carrying since the corona virus began is worth it. I do find comfort in songs sometimes, and because we’re encouraged to use you tube videos and sound cloud links, here’s a song I like from Vampire Weekend. I didn’t just like the sound of it, but the lyrics are also great. I try not to get all sappy, but this kind of song is where I’ll make an exception.
A particular scene that I want to draw attention to is during the end of the first part of the film. During the first part of the film, Bill appears to suffer from a seizure and is taken into a hospital where his doctor concluded that he was going to die. After a couple of days, Bill has a rebound in his health and his doctor changes his mind and says that he isn’t going to die. This is one of the first instances where we begin to see more than just black and white drawings as aesthetics in the film. The very last scene consists of Bill going to a bus stop on his way to work a couple days after he leaves the hospital. When he goes to the bus stop, it is pouring rain and for the first time in the film we are able to see color and real pictures. The rain shown are actual droplets falling on the ground. However, what really completes the scene is the music. A symphony of violins with ranging volume going up and down, combined with a view of Bill in his seat on the bus looking around at the rain is the first context clue we have into the theme of the film, and is one of the first scenes that taps into raw emotion which impacts the viewer.
The important thing to understand for someone who hasn’t seen the film is the first sight of a real scene after nearly watching for half an hour is monumental. Black and white stick figure pictures and out of context scenes will perplex the viewer at first, but after a couple of minutes it makes the film interesting enough to be glued onto for the full hour and a half. In regard to the emotion felt in the last scene, it can only be described as subtle sadness and existential despair. While all of these emotions are brought up during the actual scene of rain at the bus, the foundation of these emotions are built up right after the doctor concludes that Bill is not dying. Once Bill’s mother and his uncle find out about this news, they seem annoyed. The narrator explains they go through the task of having to return the casket that they pre-bought for Bill, and his mother also goes into his hospital room and takes away the flowers.This, along with the last scene, make you almost feel bad for Bill. It seems his mother and uncle just wanted him to die so that they wouldn’t have to care for him and his mental state any longer.
It’s Such a Beautiful Day is an animated art film created about 5 years ago by Don Hertzfeldt. In a roller coaster of out of context scenes shrouded in randomness which slowly turns into an emotion plateau that can touch even the coldest of hearts, the film does an excellent job in displaying what we, as average people, want most out of our time on earth: a clear and meaningful experience.
The film is actually 3 short films tied together as one, each smaller film being made at a different time. Hertzfelt said that he had the inspiration to create the overall film from learning about a WWII survivor who, during his “death march” through his hometown, saw everything in a much more unique and wider perspective. Things that the man had seen everyday and considered to be mundane were amazing to ponder about and appreciate, but only at the what seems to be the end. People that he recognized but did not care about, particular aesthetics on homes, even street lamps all gave him euphoria that was not experienced in everyday life.
To summarize, the film’s one and only protagonist is a stick figure named Bill. Bill has an unknown mental illness that forces him to see everything from a closed and blurred perspective. He has his mother and an ex girlfriend as companions who seem to check up on him at certain points throughout the film. As his condition worsens, he begins to forget where he is, distorts past memories to the point of falsehood, and cannot tell the difference between the past and present. When his illness comes to a peak, and his death is imminent, the black and white stick figure animations and closed perspective shots suddenly turn into color and real life footage, representing Bill’s sudden change of perspective of his existence.
The overarching theme that seems to touch most people is the idea that life and our routines appear to be mundane until we are put into a circumstance that breaks that routine. We tend to see life in a closed and blurred view due to our boredness. This is represented by the extremely unique shots that the film is made in: black circles with every picture being a little out of full view and unclear context. The result, in the end, is something that touches you to the core. You begin to see that life has meaning and even the smallest entities that are considered insignificant become so impactful that it seems to rock the spectrum of what triggers certain emotions. It makes you want to simply say “It’s such a beautiful day”.
So around 3 weeks ago I made a post about how I was starting to make money with my other friends trading options on robin hood. About that. Now that this coronavirus is causing a global panic, the stock market has now crashed, we’ve almost lost all of our money and I’m back to being a broke college boi. Sick.
I am unusually tired this morning. It doesn’t make any sense though. I “napped” from 1:30 to 5 pm yesterday are being in Boston and slept another 7 hours last night. Thank god we don’t have to run today though. That would be an absolute shitshow considering the state of how my legs are feeling. I still have to see Pete though. He’s gonna tear me apart, that race was really bad. I better have my act together before MAACs.
Aside from the fact of being able to make crazy and out of the ordinary photoshop images, there are also strange ways to print them. The advantage of using photoshop digitally is the fact you can skew them as large or as small as possible, and configure image schemes that wouldn’t normally be able to make. In real life, you can print them on articles of clothing that you can custom order online, make temporary tattoos, make big portraits, and even use machines to print them out onto walls in a house.
The app called Robinhood brings stock market trading to the hands of basically anyone who has more than one brain cell and a working smartphone. Once you deposit a sum, you can buy and trade shares and options with any stock traded on the NYSE, and do whatever strategies you want to try and turn money into profits. For a New Years resolution, myself and 3 friends decided to try our hands in the market, and so far it’s been a wild ride. Just this morning, I made $200 trading an option on Ford after the price crashed with a poor earnings report. One of the most successful people so far was my close friend named Tom, who decided to trade options on the car company called Tesla, just as the stock was soaring at a pace almost never seen before. He has made almost ten thousand dollars, which proves to us that, for it least the long term, if we keep at it, we can try and have financial freedom that the 99% don’t have.
Pats Website 