Two brothers learn about competitive birdwatching by becoming birdwatchers—spending a year living in a used minivan, traveling the country to compete in a ‘Big Year’.
This light-hearted, full-length documentary is one of my favorite things I’ve seen in quite awhile. The entire film is currently on YouTube and well worth it—maybe especially worth it—even if you know very little about the culture surrounding bird watching.
I also have advice. Everybody loves reading advice on the computer, so I’ll share it: the best thing you can do right now is log off as hard as you can. Go outside, talk to people in real life where it’s actually kind of rude to talk about the news, try to actually see the friends you usually just text message. Go for a long drive and turn the phone off while you do it. Get back into your hobbies or pick one and learn it for a while. Watch one of those studio movies that reviews called “wildly miscalculated” and you haven’t seen since high school. Play an album you like but find embarrassing. Go to free community events even if they sound stupid. If you take the freeway, try the surface streets. Go to a bad diner and just order some bad coffee because even bad coffee is good coffee.
I didn’t know of Kaleb Horton by name before he passed away, but I know I read his writing in several publications. I recently found his blog and the posts there are raw, personal, and human in a way many writers only wish they could achieve.
Bonus: this missive on crows:
They’re such a pest, and the worst part is you have to respect it. They’re fat and happy and they thrive. They’re annoying in a way that suggests profound intelligence. If they could get around to inventing money, they should get tickets for littering. Treated like equals. I have met crows that should be in jail. There’s one in my neighborhood that seems to have a problem with me personally. They’re my favorite bird.
Some lovely, distracting lifestyle voyeurism. I too would like to own a classic vehicle and serve coffee (and my own gin label), from my tiny Tokyo bar.