I’ve been telling myself since the Project began that if only I could have a really long stretch to work solely on the Project, to watch movies and write essays, I’d zip through the whole thing. And it’s true that right now, on the twentieth day of this monthlong vacation vacation, I’ve watched 26 movies and, if I can sustain the momentum, am slated to watch more movies in this month than I’ve watched during any other month of my life. Not sure I’ll live up to the goal I set myself of 50, but we’ll see.

            Anyway. Yesterday I watched Report, an insanely obscure thirteen-minute documentary that features some crushingly sad reporting from the day of the Kennedy assassination, I watched a disorienting political thriller out of Brazil called Earth Entranced, and then in the evening I had Elle come over and translate a half-hour documentary called Mad Masters—which I should have watched a year ago but for the fact that I can only find it in French and a DVD with English subtitles would’ve cost over $200. Elle speaks French and translated the documentary as it played.

            Mad Masters was even more upsetting than Report (the latter, incidentally, features some pretty horrible footage from bullfights), showing some tribe of men in Africa going insane one day of the year and claiming to be possessed by demons. They kill a dog as sacrifice and then cook and eat it.

            Really upsetting.

            So I watched three movies yesterday, it only took about three hours, but they were taxing. The movie I watched prior to those was Tokyo Olympics, which was interesting but also a three-hour effort. Stimulating as a three-hour movie might be, it’s a lotta stuff to keep in your head. It’s a prolonged stretch of focus. It’s depleting.

            I’m feeling beat. I’m not sure if it’s because all the movies I’ve watched over the past few days have been kinda taxing, I’m not watching any comedies or engaging modern-ish Hollywood stuff, but I’m here at Pasion, I’ve been here for an hour, and apart from posting a pre-written essay about Diabolique to the site I’ve kinda just been putzing. Waiting, I guess, to watch a movie. I’ve got two of them open in different YouTube tabs. I’m just having trouble steeling myself to do it.

            Also waiting for an assignment the ghost writer said he was gonna send me. Heading to Bob’s place in a half hour or so to watch a movie and think I might jump ahead to The Wild Bunch. Something colorful and exciting.