#37: don't heckle the moon!
Welcome to issue #37 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU. I meant to ship this issue a little earlier today, but I got sidetracked writing a short story using this stock photo as a prompt:
Only members of my Patreon will be given a chance to read that story.
No, I do not have a Patreon.
Highlights from Scottoworld
This year's annual Barnes & Noble preorder sale runs through today, so if you were waiting to snag the paperback of my latest novel WILD MASSIVE, you can get 25% off if you preorder via Barnes & Noble online and use the coupon code PREORDER25. It comes out in November, and it will be just as weird as the hardback edition, I promise.
Scottovision
"How My Grandmother Became a Chair" (2020) - An animated fable about a grandmother who loses her senses one by one as she - yes - becomes a chair. In case you want to know why she becomes a chair, the official description indicates it's a metaphor about how we care for our elders throughout the process of aging. But the story is mischievous enough to avoid handing you any easy conclusions on that front.
"The Moon Bombs in Its Newest Stand-Up Special" (2023) - Don't heckle the moon! Produced by Brooklyn sketch comedy troupe Hatched.
"Space Cowboy" (2023) - A pleasing recent entry in the "astronaut hurtles through space and sees psychedelic wonders" category of music videos, this time from the band flipturn (previous entries in this category include "Infinite Blue" by Billain and "The Mountain May Fall" by DJ Shadow). Animator Studio Space Dawg works in a retro Fantastic Planet aesthetic on this piece, but narratively it's a 2001: A Space Odyssey riff in the end. I'm okay with that.
"Miss Alien" (2023) - Singer/songwriter Pete Yorn's new video edits together clips from old sci-fi films to showcase how pent-up passions might've interfered with those big important space missions. (The only actor I recognize in the mix is Dorothy Stratten from Galaxina.) Yorn's tune makes it feel oh so quaint as these hapless astronauts try to confine their lust to long and lingering glances, while wearing ludicrously provocative skinsuits. All of this, however, reminded me of...
"Amore 3000" (2003) - ...a video by Seksu Roba, which edits together clips from a number of Japanese sci-fi films in pursuit of a similar goal. This one takes it to racier and slightly more bonkers territory, while still maintaining a whimsical vibe. (I think Dorothy Stratten's in this one too.)
"Parliament-Funkadelic’s George Clinton talks alien encounters and their influence on his work" (2023) - Mothership Connection was already in the can when Clinton and Bootsy Collins had the alien encounter in question. This charming and candid interview clip produced by NOWNESS lets Clinton do all the talking, interspersed with an array of amateur UFO footage and animated illustrations, to convey his conviction that aliens aren't just coming to visit us, they probably are us. "With the shit that goes on every day," he says, "aliens would be a breath of fresh air."
"Small Window On The Cosmos" (2023) - Director Thomas Vanz delivers the final music video from electronic artist Max Cooper's ambitious Unspoken Words project, a visual album mastered in Dolby Atmos. But this particular video is also a continuation of the story Vanz began in his video for Cooper's track "Hope," from a previous album. As Cooper describes it: "[Hope] looks at internal neuronal processes, finishing with the eye. Now we start with the eye where that left off, and look out of the body into the vastness as only Thomas can, with his secret concoctions of chemicals yielding chaotic fractal processes which tie the aesthetics of the micro to the macro scales of our surroundings."
"Globe" (2015) - A mesmerizing visualization of the Earth in its multiple roles as blind object hurtling through the cosmos, sensate hub in an energetic network of life, and locus of psychospiritual singularity. It's deft, intricate design and animation on display, and it's set to one of my favorite downtempo tracks, Groove Armada's "Edge Hill." A serene way to peer beyond astronauts and aliens into the gears of the universe itself. Produced by Complexity Graphics.
"Gauge Symmetry of the Gods (Prismatic Elegy)" (2023) - From the YouTube description: "A fire hydrant in Nashville, according to eyewitnesses, 'unscrewed its own stopper and began spraying a high-velocity, high-pressure stream of water on or about 3:14 pm of June 15th, 1995.' Onlookers reported that, when they viewed the stream at a 90-degree angle, between the rainbows that would appear as a normal result of the water droplets, a written message could be clearly seen hovering, as if projected, in the mist: a url. Onlookers with internet access quickly checked to see if it was a real website, where they received the then-strange message that 'h.265 codec not found.' Nearly thirty years later, finding the URL in an old newspaper clipping led researchers to locating this music video."
"100 Things to Do Instead of Smoking Pot" (2023) - Self-explanatory.
Exit Music
Sending you out this issue with a classic track: "Hyperballad," performed by Björk as the set closer for her appearances recently at Coachella. She was one of two acts who refused to allow their sets to be livestreamed to YouTube, but the festival later shared this and "I've Seen It All" as perhaps an apology of sorts to fans. Björk tours with two shows these days: Cornucopia, a complex & theatrical work, and Orkestral (the show she brought to Coachella), stripped down to just strings and voice. But she couldn't resist incorporating 864 drones, choreographed by Studio Drift, into her festival set, as you'll see throughout these videos. Their pattern at the end of "Hyperballad" is a throwback to the track's beautiful music video.
A YouTube playlist with this issue's recs can be found here.
Until next time, I remain your friendly correspondent, thinking of you,
Scotto
Scotto Moore is the author of WILD MASSIVE, BATTLE OF THE LINGUIST MAGES, and YOUR FAVORITE BAND CANNOT SAVE YOU.