Monthly Archives: February 2021

“If you like that, you’ll love this…”

Film, mass media, media, Revolution, ,

“Can’t Get You Out of My Head” grew out of Curtis’s response to the populist insurgencies of 2016. Curtis was struck by the fury of mainstream liberals and their simultaneous lack of a meaningful vision of the future that might counter the visceral appeal of nationalism and xenophobia. “Those who were against all that didn’t really seem to have an alternative,” he said. –Adam Curtis Explains it All

I’ve been watching this terrifying docu-series made by Adam Curtis lately and I’m always watching it late at night and it is terrifying but I can’t stop watching it. The most recent of his films that I just finished viewing is “HyperNomalisation.”

I feel like I’m learning something I’m not supposed to. Which is probably why I keep watching, because, like many people, I get off on defiance and anti-authoritarian behavior but according to Curtis, revolution and uprising may just be another long way back to the old models of power we have no alternative to. This seems to be what he is suggesting using uniquely disturbing editing devices and a deadpan voice over that at their most brutal simply state the truth about power and society that no one wants to know.

It’s a hard pill to swallow and yet the way Curtis strings together alarming connections using footage and rarely seen before rush cuts of violent political coos, wars and upheavals spliced with popular film and television clips and scoring them darkly and ironically with a range of songs that accent and emphasize the hard truth, it’s hard to press pause. And each of these videos, narrated by Curtis himself are about 2 hours or more long so that’s saying a lot for me. Raoul Peck used a very similar editing device of disillusionment using jarring visual juxtapositions in his film “I Am Not Your Negro” which I’ve watched multiple times and highly recommend.

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HERE I AM

Books, Creativity, culture, expression, Writing

How long has it been since I wrote here? I mean I write everywhere else. In journals, on the backs of envelopes in my living room, on social media posts, in my head. But not here. And there’s been a lot going on. And a whole lot of nothing as well. All at the same time.

Lets start with the fact that that I submitted one of the last pieces I wrote here to be published in a collection of writings by over a hundred talented souls of a writing workshop that I began attending last year when there was some really rough shit going on in my life which I never talked about.

The writing workshop itself was announced by Kevin Powell, a writer, journalist, activist, filmmaker, publisher and more whom I’ve been following forever, like since before “following” was a thing. I saw his announcement of the workshop sponsored by the Nuyorican Poets Cafe on his IG feed. It was free. I, like so many of us have been shut in since the beginning of the pandemic, employing various means of not losing my mind and when I saw the announcement I just thought, why not? I mean, I do write. I’ve been writing forever. My friend Cece who is friends with Kevin also joined the group so I felt that at least I would know someone there. I know it’s ridiculous to require peer support at my age but then again, maybe it’s not. What’s ridiculous is we’re all on Zoom in our PJS. How much more comfortable do we need to be? LOL!! But I’m still nervous, still want to be on time, still want to challenge myself the way I would if we were meeting in a physical classroom or space.

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