#3: "rabbit donut"
Welcome to issue #3 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU, the newsletter that has the guts to ask the important questions, such as:
"Am I... am I adding value yet?"
Highlights from Scottoworld
Advance review copies of my forthcoming novel BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES went out to reviewers and booksellers a little while ago in these shiny envelopes that match the cover, enabling one bookseller (Kelecto the Ninth on Twitter) to make the book appear to glow via some fancy photographic trickery or some such. (Something to do with light, probably? It's a mystery.) You can learn more about the book by visiting scenic Scottoweb. Pre-ordering is super helpful if you think you'll want to pick it up!
I'm frequently asked (as in, it happened more than one time) if the ebook or the hardcover is better for me in some way. The answer is: not meaningfully, so you should get whichever version you are most likely to enjoy reading.
My novella, YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU, was recently included in a list of books in which music plays a prominent role. The squee factor is appearing on this list right after THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, a comic series by Keiron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie that was so influential to me that I did cosplay as a series villain at Emerald City Comic Con one year. When the novella came out, unbeknownst to me, my publisher asked Kieron Gillen to read it and provide a pullquote, which he did (comparing it to Ziggy Stardust), resulting in a Twitter exchange between us in which I got to show him a photo of me dressed up as his villain. Layers of meta-squee happening here. I will not be sharing that photo at this time.
I'm on Pinterest a lot lately, and I've noticed its algorithm is very responsive. Two of the major topics I explore there are DJ culture and fashion photography. I'm pretty sure the algorithm cleverly attempted to crosspollinate those topics, and when I detected the resulting pattern in my feed I leapt into action, so now I have a new Tumblr blog called Fuck Yeah Posing With Disco Balls. It's unclear to me how seriously I'm taking this. If you need to know how it works, check out the rules.
Scottovision
Here are some video artifacts you might enjoy:
"Interesting Ball" (2014) - Probably the most singularly batshit nutso short film I've seen in recent history. Short description: "A red ball bounces past a cafe and a couple folks’ houses and then goes to the beach." This synopsis, while technically accurate, is exquisitely underplayed, and I might've already said too much myself. Brought to you by the writing/directing duo DANIELS, who appear in one of the film's several vignettes as well; this team has also directed an impressive list of excellent music videos for the likes of Foster The People, The Shins, Passion Pit, "and more!" This is the most ambitious of their roster of short films, in which increasingly ludicrous action somehow earns a surprisingly moving conclusion.
"Cry Like A Ghost" by Passion Pit (2013) - As long as we're on the topic of DANIELS, here's my favorite music video they've directed. It's an intense whirlwind of a dance piece set in a forest, in which a woman named Sylvia relives highs and lows from her past relationships, always swinging like a pendulum back to a lonely place. The choreography is intricately woven throughout the bars and bedrooms and phone booths that frequently emerge out of nowhere and then disappear back into the trees, and the film frequently rewinds and runs in reverse, as though Sylvia is reluctant to sink into certain memories. The music is bursting at the seams with compassion for her, though, and the track made me a fan of the band. (The video's closing slate teases an extended cut of the video; it features a one-minute intro sequence, but unfortunately it has disappeared from public view.)
"Exposed" (2021) - Directed by Anna Fredrikke Bjerke. Synopsis: "Ingrid, a young drama student, finds herself in the middle of an increasingly uncomfortable situation, as her ensemble and the play’s director discuss whether she should be performing a full-frontal nude scene." The discussion is incisive and the film is crisp and a little unsettling. "Sacrifice everything for your art" is a philosophical engine that will carry you places for sure, but here it clashes (rightfully) with a critique about the subjective value of this particular artistic choice in this particular cultural moment.
"Pile" (2019) - Directed and "computered" by Toby Auberg. Synopsis: "Water then food. Agriculture then industry. Old then new. Critical then extra. Simple to complex. Concrete to abstract. Dirt to clouds. Real to unreal." This three and a half minute animated tour de force takes you from the earliest stages of humanity all the way through to our hypothetical ascension into a technological singularity, using the conceit of the "pile," a mountain where each layer of history is piled on top of the previous. This was Auberg's MA graduation film from the Royal College of Art.
"Rosewood" and "Tides" by Bonobo (2021) - Hey look, Bonobo is back! The vids for the first two singles from his new record, Fragments, are pleasingly psychedelic eye candy.
"Next To Me" by RÜFÜS DU SOL (2021) - Directed by Osk and billed as "an artificially intelligent music video." How it worked: "Osk trained their A.I. on hundreds of thousands of images of landscapes, architecture and cityscapes. As it learned, the A.I. developed a neural model of our natural and built environments. Once this process was complete, Osk then 'flew' through the multidimensional latent space of the A.I.'s neural model, traveling across the seamless, fluid terrain." Creating music videos with machine learning is still a relatively new technique, but here Osk pushes this whole visual subgenre forward quite a bit. It's especially pretty in the back half of the video when cityscapes come into focus.
"Little Runmo" (2019) - An animated short produced by Gooseworx, in which an adorable character in a side-scrolling video game learns the meaning of life. Chilling stuff, really.
"Barbie Girl" by Netta (2018) - The Israeli singer Netta won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2018, and on her way to that victory, she performed a cover of the classic Aqua track "Barbie Girl" on an Israeli singing show called "The Next Star." In this performance, she beatboxes, loops, and sings the hell out of this song, her excellent voice tearing right through the absurd amount of autotune she's using. After you watch, you might want to hear a clean audio version without the commentary from the TV hosts.
"The Denial Twist" by The White Stripes (2009) - I recently did a deep dive into the music videos of director Michel Gondry, and came across this for the first time. In 2009, I doubt I could tell you who The White Stripes even were, but uh I'm caught up now; they collaborated with Gondry several times. Before you watch this video, watch this brief clip of the band being interviewed by Conan O'Brien in 2003. Then watch the video, then if you're inclined, watch the making of the video, which reveals the brilliance of Gondry's shooting techniques.
(Pictured above: the Sharp 3LS36(P) 3.5 inch portable television, manufactured throughout the 1980s. Animated gif via The History of Television.)
Scary Halloween Section of Scariness
In the spirit of Halloween, here are several horror-themed shorts and videos for you to consider, which feature varying amounts of gore, splatter, shock, brutality, monsters, killers, demons, evil magic, and general auras of despair and doom. I don't seek out horror as a rule. Most of these videos met some other criteria I was tracking, and I only discovered the horror elements in real time as I auditioned them. I survived relatively unscathed, although I'm not sure I need to watch some of them again; once was sufficient, thank you.
To mirror that experience and maximize potential shock and surprise, the descriptions in this section are deliberately minimalistic. And if you're sensitive to horror or if it's just not your thing right now, feel free to skip ahead - the section after this one is designed to be a delightful palate cleanser of lighthearted merriment.
"Summoner Pts. 1-4" by Big Black Delta (2020) - Directed by Warren Kommers. Parts 1-3 are brief prelude vignettes, part 4 is a music video for a track by the electronic rock act Big Black Delta that ties the whole apocalyptic sequence together.
"Metachaos" (2010) - Directed by Alessandro Bavari. This short film's a bit like watching security camera footage of an undocumented maintenance level of hell.
"Streaker" by TOBACCO (2014) - Directed by Eric Wareheim (of Tim & Eric) for the always-weird band TOBACCO. Do not get a massage at this joint.
"Being" by Millington (2016) - Directed by Josh Thomas and Darcy Prendergast of Oh Yeah Wow. The highs and lows of dating a parasitic alien.
"Withorwithout" by Parcels (2018) - Directed by Benjamin Howdeshell. A slasher music video starring Milla Jovovich.
"Peacebone" by Animal Collective (2007) - Directed by Timothy Saccenti. Monstrous weird things in love.
"You're Next" (2015) - Created by Lee Hardcastle, who specializes in "claymation that's not for children!" This film's a Simpsons couch gag gone horribly wrong.
"A Short Film About John Bolton" (2003) - Written & directed by Neil Gaiman. Needed a vampire film on the list.
"I Love Sarah Jane" (2008) - Directed by Spenser Susser. Needed a zombie film on the list.
"House of LSD" by Mater Suspiria Vision (2019) - A "video tribute collage" by Cosmotropia De Xam. Needed some freaky occultism on the list.
"Dance Macabre" by Ghost (2018) - Directed by Zev Deans. Needed a silly dance number on the list.
In all my searches across the internet, I've only come across three videos that I truly can't unsee and wish I could (none of them are on my list above, of course). They're truly horrific, as opposed to being horror, if that distinction makes sense. No, I won't share them in this newsletter. After all, I might start a Patreon someday and I'm gonna need rewards.
Delightful Palate Cleanser Section of Lighthearted Merriment
We close out this edition of the newsletter with some media confectionery to cleanse the palette,
"Hi Stranger" - The classic two-minute stop-motion film by Kirsten Lepore.
"Open Spaces" - A giddy, breathtaking commercial directed by Megaforce.
"Hands: They're Here To Stay!" - Written & edited by Tyler Russo. Self-explanatory.
"Rocks react to other rocks!" - The action-packed reaction video by Roger Kilimanjaro.
"Pink and Fluffy Africa (All Night)" - My epic mashup of Andrew Huang's "Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing On Rainbows" with Lionel Richie's "All Night Long (All Night)" and Toto's "Africa."
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
-Scotto