Hollywood during quarantine

Last week, I made it out of the house and up to Hollywood Cemetery. This is the time of the semester that I usually walk my class through the cemetery on a field trip. But of course there is no opportunity for a field trip this semester. So I tried to recreate the experience as best I could by recording the walk on video, shared on YouTube here: A Walk Through Hollywood Cemetery. I didn’t offer too much narration, and it seems a little slow, but hopefully it does give a useful view of several elements throughout the grounds.

What will remain with me from the experience was the feeling being there during the pandemic. First, I didn’t know whether the cemetery would even be open. It was, of course. Then, I wondered about the numbers of visitors. It was surprisingly busy with lots of families out walking. Folks seemed to be keeping their distance. At Presidents Circle, I had to wait a good ten minutes before the numbers of visitors moved on so I could get a clear video. I turned and looked out over the river and back toward the city’s skyline. It was a view that had seen a lot of change over the centuries. I knew I was in the midst of one of those changes. So the video becomes a record of that, oddly.