Something Good #29: Midsummer Interlude
Summer!
There’s nothing I can tell you about this season of plague, fire, bear-threatened Olympics (or whatever the hell is going on over there), etc, that you don’t already know, so I’m not going to bother you with any original insights.
Instead, as I am off in the countryside, I would like to invite you along; to distract you from troubling thoughts with a peaceable midsummer interlude in newsletter form.
First: a video.
Over a decade ago, I shot Last Night at the Lake from the bow of a canoe, not far from from where I now sit. It is a mood piece, a slice of sunset, meant for a short midsummer zone-out. Music is borrowed from Brian Eno (“Spider and I”). Full-screen is encouraged.
If you enjoyed this, you may also like a couple of other videos I made around then. In some small, fragmented way, they are a diary of my life at the time.
Next: can I offer you a beach?
Years ago, I was lying on a beach in Cuba, my eyes closed. I tuned in on the sounds around me—the waves, the murmur of multilingual crowds, the breeze, the birds—and an idea came to mind for an art project.
I would go around the world recording the sounds of various beaches and create an installation in which you would lie on a lounger wearing a blindfold and noise-cancelling headphones. At heat lamp would be suspended a few feet above.
Your ears would be full of the sounds of a distant shore. You would be able to briefly, vicariously, be able to transport yourself there. Of course I would call it On Some Faraway Beach.
Did I ever complete this art project? No, of course not. I barely even started it (though I considered applying for a travel grant for “beach research”). However, I did make several field recordings at various vacation spots around the world.
You now have the chance to recreate my failed art project in your own home or wherever you’re comfortable. Lie down on the couch—close your eyes—listen to one of the following recordings. (If you have a heat lamp nearby, great.)
The first was recorded on the small Cuban island of Cayo St. Maria. Picture the soft white sands and warm, crystal-blue waters:
The second isn’t strictly a beach, but I’m including it anyway. I recorded by a river in the jungles of Khao Sok National Park, Thailand. There are a lot of very interesting sounds in this recording that I lack the knowledge of Thai insect and bird life to identify. But it should be transporting regardless.
Enjoy, and please tell me if you take the opportunity to zone out with these sounds.
I was delighted to be invited to join Alex Rancourt on the excellent new podcast Saucer Cinema to talk about 2001: A Space Odyssey. We discuss some of my favourite topics: 2001, non-humanoid aliens, food (expanding on my theories here). I think it was a really fun chat! You can find Saucer Cinema on the Apple Podcasts, your favourite podcast app, or at its website. The podcast focuses on aliens on film, and I am really enjoying it so far—highly recommend you check it out if that sounds up your alley.
This week’s very apropos #nojacketsrequired comes courtesy of Paul Isaacs. As always, if you have any unjacketed discoveries to share, please send them to me at my email address, [email protected] (don’t reply here as attachments don’t make it through).
I was blown away by the wave of interest in last week’s Satoshi Kon interview. I knew I had something special on my hands, but it was astonishing to see the emotional response on Twitter and elsewhere to his rediscovered words.
The Animation Obsessive newsletter used the interview as a jumping-off point for a truly wonderful deep dive into Kon’s storyboarding technique, which I highly recommend if you have any interest in his process. I was also tickled to see my name on the Criterion website, which featured the interview in their Daily column. Both Paprika and Kon’s Millennium Actress are now playing on the Criterion Channel, which is for my money the best deal in movie-watching right now. (Also the most guilt-inducing—why aren’t I watching it every night?)
Bonus track:
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