#71: “coming together & whirling apart”
Welcome to issue #71 of THIS NEWSLETTER CANNOT SAVE YOU. I’ve been off gallivanting in the woods, but now it’s time to get down to the serious business of newsletter publishing. If you’re a new subscriber, I know what you might be saying:
But have no fear. You will acclimate to these unusual treats soon enough, and this issue is as good as any (no comments from the peanut gallery please) to get started with your journey into stylist mayhem and feats of artistic boldness and insanity. The path we walk is sparsely populated indeed, but the rewards we reap are beautiful and strange.
I don’t knmow why I’m feeling the feels right now. Don’t worry — it’ll pass without a trace I’m sure.
Scottovision
“Two of Hearts” (2024) - Two adult siblings face off against each other in an increasingly tense showdown of generosity in this cryptic, stylized short film from writer/director Mashie Alam. You always love to see such deep commitment to the bit.
“The End of History” (2020) - On the day a physicist finally cracks the formula that allows time travel, she’s not alone - unbeknownst to her, a time traveling tourist is watching. She’s not simply inventing time travel, she’s inventing recreational time travel. The short film is written and directed by David Matthew Olson, who also stars as the tourist quietly observing history being written. The film doesn’t shy away from exploring the implications of such a preposterous scenario, and if you have an appetite for it, Olson created a follow-up film, “A Brief History of Time Travel,” that significantly deepens the lore of his world, and dives even more headlong into its superficially utopian philosophies.
“Gilbert and George” (2025) - Stuart Warren-Hill (aka Hexstatic) released this unique music video starring “two men who together are one artist: Gilbert & George.” They’re visual artists primarily with a bit of performance art thrown in for good measure, and in the course of this track, you get a healthy dose of their artistic philosophy (“their art depicts the modern world as brooding, lonely, disrupted, portentous, mad, cosmic, melancholy, monumental, chaotic, ordinary, desolate, dream-like, dull, monstrous, violent, blasphemous, infinite”) set against a backdrop of the Pictures, giant colorful (and occasionally controversial) paintings they’ve been making for decades. Warren-Hill’s track acts as a Kraftwerk-esque promo for “Death Hope Life Fear,” the latest exhibit at their own gallery, the Gilbert & George Centre.
“Verbal Diarrhea” (2025) - This short autobiographical video essay appeals to the part of me that understands being a frustrated artist looking for the means of expression while being ground down by a workplace that doesn’t care. In this case, the essayist is a dancer and filmmaker, Miriam Gabriel, and the story gets a bit more complicated, but if you’ve trod this path yourself, it’s easy to find empathy for her storytelling as her perspective shifts during the pandemic from fierce protectiveness of a dream to acceptance of an alternate but potentially worthwhile path.
“The Wandering” (2025) - The latest music video from singer/songwriter Patrick Watson is a collaboration with Jacob Jonas The Company, purveyors of fine dance films. The lyrics seem to hint at a loneliness that follows Watson even when he’s with someone he loves, and the restless quality of the choreography provides a chaotic but sharp expression of a “coming together & whirling apart” sensation.
“Soft Gradient Beckons” (2025) - Electronic artist Rival Consoles provides a unique music video experience with his new track, first showing us an intricate, evolving, abstract stop motion animation, then taking us behind the scenes with animator / painter Anthony Dickenson, who provides a walkthrough of the animation process for the video. I happen to love behind the scenes pieces, and this is a particularly good one: Dickenson is quite articulate and expressive about the human quality of his work and his willingness to experiment versus a desire to attain perfection over the course of nine months making the video. The end result feels beautifully hand-crafted in a way you couldn’t capture with the smooth output of AI.
“The Arbiter” (2024) - Two opposing teams in a game of their own devising have nearly come to blows over accusations of cheating. Suddenly who should appear but confident, debonair Pasquale, the Arbiter, to enter the fray and resolve their conflict. But is Pasquale the magic mediator he seems to be, or is he a charlatan of the first degree? In this amusing short film by writer / director Kati Skelton, only the wheel of fate knows the answer.
“Circumstantial Forgiveness” (2025) - Game night goes awry for a group of twenty-somethings when one of them is outed as a miscreant, but the miscreant is not without a bliztkrieg defensive strategy, in this raucous short film written and directed by Alex Sovoda. The tension mounts in a ludicrous fashion and yet there were whole stretches where I couldn’t look at the screen because it was too uncomfortable. This is cringe comedy at its finest.
“Gygax” (2025) - Maximalist animator Kokofreakbean packs a dizzying amount of wild imagery into this two minute clip that was commisioned to be projected onto the side of the Daniels & Fisher Tower in Denver. They’re one of the artists who contributed a sequence to the legendary “When I Was Done Dying” music video for Dan Deacon, and was also responsible for such masterpieces of weird as “Pizzocalypse” and these tour visuals for Marshmello. I imagine seeing this explosively surreal vortex in the skyline while walking through downtown Denver is quite a trip.
“City Cook” (2025) - Strange giantess awaits her meal. Sentient seasoning shakers prepare it. The meal itself is all too eager to be fired by cannon into her mouth. But there is purpose in the startling result. What ritualistic mayhem is this? I simply couldn’t say. A music video for a track by the electroswing group Caravan Palace, from the album Gangbusters Melody Club. This is not their first strange AF video.
Exit Music
Sending you out this issue with a house/dance set I played at a recent festival, suitable for late night parties and such. I went on at 1:30 AM, played for an hour and a half, and as is customary in these troubling times, ended the energetic set with Toto’s “Africa.” Don’t sleep on it - check out Shangri-La Mix 2025.
Here's the YouTube playlist with (most of) this issue's recos. Please enjoy responsibly.
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.
See also: