Jon Bois and other Quarantine Rabbit Holes
Posted: Fri May 14, 2021 10:24 am
I don't know about you, but during the pandemic I found myself falling into YouTube rabbit holes regularly. Here are some that kept me sane.
Japanese fireworks and firework competitions:
The Kozoom channel's billiard archive:
I also did a bunch of woodworking in my basement hand-tools shop during the thing, and I remain indebted to the Paul Sellers channel.
But the most consistently rewarding watch has been the output of Jon Bois. He first got my attention with 17776, an absolute masterpiece, and continued with the characters and concept in a brilliant sequel, 20020. I'll admit that a lot of metafiction leaves me cold and I end up hating it and the writer for all the gimmicks, but these two, themselves an outgrowth of Bois's bizarre riff on Tim Tebow in the CFL, absolutely justify every odd little trick in the experience. That he did those while also knocking out terrific videos for Secret Base makes him easily the best sportswriter of the current era. There's a lot of it, so a typically good place to start is his series on the Mariners:
I've developed a kind of pavlovian response to hearing the signature smooth jazz Bois has settled on for his soundtracks, in that I find myself in a heightened state of alert the moment I hear a saxophone over a DX7 pad, anticipating a plot twist or emotional shudder.
Anyway, Jon Bois. He's good. Secret Base, good.
Japanese fireworks and firework competitions:
The Kozoom channel's billiard archive:
I also did a bunch of woodworking in my basement hand-tools shop during the thing, and I remain indebted to the Paul Sellers channel.
But the most consistently rewarding watch has been the output of Jon Bois. He first got my attention with 17776, an absolute masterpiece, and continued with the characters and concept in a brilliant sequel, 20020. I'll admit that a lot of metafiction leaves me cold and I end up hating it and the writer for all the gimmicks, but these two, themselves an outgrowth of Bois's bizarre riff on Tim Tebow in the CFL, absolutely justify every odd little trick in the experience. That he did those while also knocking out terrific videos for Secret Base makes him easily the best sportswriter of the current era. There's a lot of it, so a typically good place to start is his series on the Mariners:
I've developed a kind of pavlovian response to hearing the signature smooth jazz Bois has settled on for his soundtracks, in that I find myself in a heightened state of alert the moment I hear a saxophone over a DX7 pad, anticipating a plot twist or emotional shudder.
Anyway, Jon Bois. He's good. Secret Base, good.