#2: "Thumbs up! It good!"
Welcome to this installment of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU. Thanks for being here - it means a lot!
Please share this newsletter with anyone you like. I'm not promoting it widely yet, but it's not a secret, either.
Highlights from Scottoworld
Did you know you can preorder my upcoming novel, BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES, via bookstores or online outlets? It's true! Learn more about the book. Especially if you want a print copy on or around the release date in January, pre-ordering is a great idea; supply chain demons are all around us.
I received edits this week for my next book, due in 2023. Its future release has been announced, but the title itself is still under wraps, so I will use the codename PROJECT NEXT BOOK to refer to it going forward. This is to differentiate it from an additional book I've also written, called PROJECT NOT UNDER CONTRACT. I like my editor a lot and his suggestions are on point, and I also quite like rewriting and rearchitecting my work, so my next few months are looking good from a work perspective. This is not a writing process newsletter where I infodump about how the literary sausage is made, to be clear, but I'll share a few tidbits now and again about how things are going on that front.
I was on a podcast over the summer called Made You A Mixtape, a series of interviews with "people from different walks of life, discussing the music that makes them, inspires them and defines them." We discussed "writing for the page, stage and screen, bedroom DJ sessions and acapella sci-fi musicals." Hopefully more podcasts are to come. Actually if you know any that might want to chat with someone like me, let me know.
I made it out of the house twice this past summer for a lovely pair of outdoor parties, where I had the good fortune to play some music. I put together a nice little melodic house set that you might enjoy, called - wait for it - "summer melodic house live set 2021."
I'm in the midst of a quixotic quest to establish rudimentary presences on All The Things. This past week I got around to Flickr, Tik Tok, and Neocities, and spent a little time sprucing up Reddit. Oh, and I reactivated my old Ello account for no apparent reason. This began as an effort to claim web turf before squatters could get there, but evolved into weird performance art and I'm okay with that.
Scottovision
Here are some video artifacts you might enjoy:
teamLab Planets TOKYO - A project by teamLab, who describe themselves as "an international art collective, an interdisciplinary group of various specialists such as artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians and architects whose collaborative practice seeks to navigate the confluence of art, science, technology, and the natural world." teamLab Planets "is a museum where you walk through water, and a garden where you become one with the flowers." Imagine a gallery where all four walls, the ceiling, and the floor are comprised of giant video screens; this recently released promo video will show you a bit of what these "ultratechnologists" can do with that as a base stage.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" - In a week when the parody "Bohemian Catsody" went viral (don't click on that link, it's cursed), I wanted to share this inventive interpretation of the song from 2019 as a cleanser. Directed by Dougal Wilson, who directed music videos for the likes of Goldfrapp, Basement Jaxx, and Bat For Lashes; he also earned a nomination from the DGA in 2020 for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials. John Lewis & Partners was the client for this brand video featuring... well, it ain't cats, but you might enjoy it anyway.
"Plasticity Unfolding" - AUJIK defines itself as "an esoteric sect" that "generates rituals to harmonize the organic and synthetic realms." In practice, it's a multimedia arts group that has exhibited its works all around the world. Their description of this surprising five-minute animation: "The following video illustrates an interview between AUJIK member Mana and the ADI (Artificial Deep Intelligence) entity KIIA. Recorded in Yakushima. 12 may, 2013." That's all I knew when I saw this the first time, and I'll leave you with that here.
"Contour" - Electronic musician Max Cooper was tapped to compose the score for this unnerving animated short film, directed by Ryo Kitabatake and Takuma Sasaki of the WOW design studio and released this year. Max is renowned for his impressive music videos and concert visuals, so I figured if he opted to score someone else's project, it must be worth checking out. I couldn't possibly say what it's truly about, but the directors offer this: "Modern people, constantly exposed to information and living together with complicated human relationships. Our self-recognized outlines and boundaries fluctuate, change, and dissolve. A film depicting humans living this repetition with a foreign vividness." I would add, "weird floating people blob."
"Chapel Perilous" - A short film directed by Matthew Lessner, which won the 2014 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. Synopsis: "Levi Gold is paid an unexpected visit by Robin, a door-to-door salesman with nothing to sell. The ensuing encounter forces Levi to confront his true mystical calling, and the nature of reality itself. A metaphysical comedy trip-out..." Featuring the musician Sun Araw as himself.
"Ponpara Pecoruna Papiyotta" - In 2015, a mysterious Japanese band called 557230 - comprised of a unique lineup of 5 guitarists & 3 drummers - was recruited to perform a track written by Yoko Kanno (composer of the Cowboy Bebop theme song) for the 50th anniversary of a biscuit brand. They were actually the extremely famous members of a different Japanese band, disguised in character as 557230, releasing a small string of mysterious and zany promo clips leading up to the release of this full-blown music video, one of only two they ever made before resuming their regular day jobs. It's a bombastic masterpiece, with steroidal product placement. The director, Sojiro Kamatani, is responsible for a string of wild commercials, and also directed two of my all time favorite music videos. Which, no, I'll tell you some other time.
Holly Blakey Presents: "Phantom" - I don't really have the vocabulary to adequately describe contemporary dance, especially pieces like this that hit me so viscerally. The choreographer, Holly Blakey, describes "Phantom" as "a ritualistic summoning of something that never arrives." It's a devised piece for 14 dancers that she didn't audition herself and hadn't met before rehearsals, commissioned at a time when she was recovering from a miscarriage and felt like she was out of ideas. The final result, however, is full of complex signals. The film, released earlier this year, is designed to capture the dance piece in an intricate, close-up fashion, with the camera weaving in and out of the performers to get perspectives you'd never see if you were in the audience in a theater.
If you've got your beta reader hat on, I'm interested to hear if this section contains too much content to consume during the two week interval between issues, taking into account that no one will likely be drawn to watch every video, or if I should expand this section a little further. Like, I could round this section up to ten items, or I could shrink it down to five items; so as you can see, the options are literally endless.
(Pictured above: the Predicta Meteor limited edition custom-built television, inspired by the original Philco Predicta manufactured from 1958-1961 by Telstar. The Meteor is a modern affair, with all the right hook-ups.)
Inspirational POSI-AFFIRMATIONS From InfoChammel
If you haven't watched any of the surrealist TV-adjacent experience InfoChammel ("over one million colors!"), there's no time like the present to continue not watching it. But here are some inspirational screencaps from one of its regular features, POSI-AFFIRMATIONS. "Developed by the world's leading imaginary doctors and self-help gurus, POSI-AFFIRMATIONS seeks to make you the best you can be: One screen at a time!"
Closing Remarks
If you made it this far, thank you for humoring me! You'll see the next issue on Friday, October 29th. I suspect I will succumb to the temptation to make it a Halloween-themed edition. Of course, this is the bleeding edge of newsletter ideation here, and I'll run holiday content whenever I feel like it. Before we say goodbye to this issue, please enjoy the music video "Easta" by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
-Scotto