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I am someone who is very concerned with the flow of information, the use of information, and the preservation of information, including archives. I first heard about Marion Stokes when the Internet Archive began digitising all of her tapes that she had recorded 24/7 for 35 years, and I remembered her again when someone recommended the Internet Archive's now available section of the aforementioned digitised work. I heard about this documentary on her but I only just found one that was accessible to me and I thought I'd share it. I would say more but I literally finished watching it 10 minutes ago so I am still sitting with it and thinking thoughts, as one does. My initial thoughts are that it does a pretty good job of emphasising the significance of information as access, a means for knowledge and defining how people interact with the world, my other thought is that given how this documentary focuses on Marion Stokes the person (as it should imo) I'd love to see the director do another documentary, this time with an in depth focus on the process of digitising the tapes that Marion had. But yeah it is worth the watch.
Oct 11, 2024
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On a big ol’ documentary kick and have been steadily working through Adam Curtis’s filmography.
More than being informative and engaging, they’re almost like multimedia collage pieces. I read on his Wikipedia that he cites Robert Rauschenberg as an influence and I definitely see and feel that. Beautiful stuff. Great soundtracks.
He goes in so many different historical, geopolitical, cultural directions and somehow it doesn’t feel insane or boring or overwhelming. It‘s almost relieving to have someone articulate so clearly the depth of the mess we have made.
Most of his work can be found for free on YouTube/Internet Archive. Proceed w caution, may contribute to feelings of anger and frustration.
Mar 16, 2025
such a good documentary!!! i would've become obsesseddddd with this when i was in film school. as a music agent i'm always talking about the importance of knowing your copyright and *personality* rights as an artist, and this does a great job of highlighting that.
Oct 3, 2024
I have watched a couple music documentaries recently, ones on Arthur Russell and Judee Sill, and have enjoyed them. They are somewhat formulaic biopics so they aren’t super hard to process but offer a lot of information on the artistry of a person I find interesting and their music plays in the background and it gets in my head! They are also usually pretty short so you can throw them on if you have a spare hour and a half.
May 3, 2024
Top Recs from @ngaatee
Whether you need inspo, are curious about the discourse over the last few decades, want to get into a new hobby or whatever else, you can download open source magazine issues from decades past. They have magazines from as early as the early 1900s too! I have been obsessed with old video games lately so I have been looking at the old club nintendo magazines and it has been so fun. Like look at some of the covers these magazines used to have
Aug 7, 2024
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There is something about seeing someone be unconscious about something that they really love. The sincerity of it, the way they forget to be quiet if its in public, the way they gesture with their hands more. Its great 10/10 would recommend being passionate about your interests!
Jul 10, 2024
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Originally I went in with a double major in sociology and communications because I felt like I needed to major in at least one "sensible" major so I chose communications. But I took philosophy as my sequence and I fell in love with it. My then lecturer invited students to this philosophy symposium and he saw my interest in philosophy (I had never dared even think about why I kept choosing philosophy modules during my degree) so he said I could speak to philosophers there and ask them about their work so that I could also see what the field was like.
I almost didn't go but I went and I knew that philosophy wasn't a passing fascination for me. I didn't want to go because I was scared of having to tell my parents that I wanted my double major to be philosophy and sociology i.e. two interests that people told me were not a sensible career path. But I loved it and I realised that I could actually just go to the offices and change my majors and no one could stop me so I did. People were dubious of my decision but I ended up tutoring second years in modern philosophy, African philosophy and the ethics of AI, and now I am doing my masters, so I would say that it is a moment where I exercised my free will that worked out. It isn't my favourite because it worked out though.
It is my favourite because I was willing to risk it not working out. I exercised my free will fully knowing that it might "go wrong" and I did it anyways because I decided that the chance of it going right was worth it and I trusted myself to live with whatever the outcome would be. I still feel the electric sensation of being assertive in a decision that I made on the basis that I wanted to do something because it would make me happy, not because I was concerned with the shame of not meeting people's expectations.
Funnily enough I actually loved communications and I still keep up with research in it, its just that my favourite parts about communications are also not the "this will get you a job" sensible aspects of it, those parts were just okay to me. This decision had a domino effect on how I live my life, it got me back into making art, it made me interested in film, made me realise that I love teaching, and perhaps most importantly it made me brave. There is a version of me somewhere that is too timid and afraid to really live but instead, because of that one moment where I said "fuck it" and just did what I wanted to do without overthinking it, I am passionately and intensely alive. And prone to getting my hopes up lol.
Sep 27, 2024