ArtiFact: Books, Art, Culture automachination

Filmmaking can be highly technical, or not. As first-time director Alex Sheremet argues, finding the right topic and having an artistic blueprint in mind are far more important to master, as no amount of technical training will overcome bad ideas and artistic choices.
Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish sit down with Destin Davis of the Benton Courier to discuss their upcoming film, “From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet”.
You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/o-eerpxlDlw
Watch the film’s first 8 minutes on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination
Donate to "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario
Destin Davis’s article: “Upcoming documentary chronicles the life and legacy of Minneapolis poet Bruce Ario” – https://www.bentoncourier.com/news/upcoming-documentary-chronicles-the-life-and-legacy-of-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario/article_d4da549e-fe6e-11ee-8200-37b686dd31bf.html
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Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com
Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachinationTimestamps:
1:18 – Joel Parrish discusses his art; transitioning into film work
3:01 – why Alex Sheremet wants to get back to writing; creating a film vs. executing on the page; writing must always stand on its own
4:32 – Destin Davis on newspaper writing; for film, the editing experience is quite different from shooting
5:50 – Alex on their DaVinci Resolve workflow; splitting up tasks; color grading vs. audio; Destin: the only way to shoot a film is to go out and do it; Joel: how photography is different from videography; Alex caught the photography bug
9:58 – Destin reviews the film’s first 8 minutes; Joel’s and Alex’s film equipment; Alex: you can make a great film under $10,000; pick a film-friend and split shooting duties
16:15 – how to take advantage of cheap equipment; technical deficiencies should be turned into strengths; the importance of having an overarching artistic blueprint; how the opening credits were designed; using composite and biographical material
19:05 – how Alex & Joel knew Bruce Ario; Bruce’s art and person; why we decided to do a film on Bruce Ario; even a non-reader of poetry can quickly ‘get’ Bruce’s poems
25:35 – how Alex used Bruce Ario’s poetry as the film’s framing device
28:00 – Minneapolis as the film’s center; Alex on how his book, “Woody Allen: Reel to Real”, prepared him to make a movie; Alex and Joel’s cinematic influences; Terrence Malick’s cinematography
35:20 –Terrence Malick’s “Badlands”; lo-fi aesthetics in film; preparing for a 30 minute rough cut; Destin Davis on the sameness of film festivals; people don’t talk about or read poetry anymore; poetry has the phantom of “uselessness”; Alex on an audience’s artistic discrimination; Joel: there is no Bruce Ario juvenilia, only the fully formed adult Bruce; how the brevity of Bruce’s poems helps the film
44:30 – understanding film vs. prose, poetry vs. prosaic scene-making; how to keep a film from being too prosaic
51:00 – timelines & practical considerations; film festivals; how filmmaking changes one’s film viewing habits; the faux documentaries of Werner Herzog; the lo-fi qualities of “Harlan County, USA”; influences from “Mr. Untouchable” and “Finding Vivian Maier”; Joel on “Searching for Sugarman”; the difficulty of reviewing John Cassavetes’s “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie”; Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage”; how Woody Allen’s films changed Alex’s life; distinguishing a character’s likability v

Thomas Sowell has a reputation for unorthodox positions and intellectual chops, but does he deserve it? His comments on slavery, equality, freedom, and philosophical concepts are rather thin, while his claims about the public commons are hypocritical. In this video, authors and cultural critics Alex Sheremet and Dan Schneider go through some of Thomas Sowell’s core beliefs, breaking down his logical fallacies, double standards, inconsistencies, and more.

You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/d3LUO8mXbcg

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Dan Schneider’s YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@cosmoetica

Dan Schneider’s Cosmoetica: http://cosmoetica.com/

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Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com


Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Background photo by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels.


Timestamps:

0:00 – Thomas Sowell in the grand scheme of things

1:46 – Thomas Sowell talks freedom, egalitarianism; notions of equality; growing up in poverty; the word “processes” as a scare-tactic; re-defining freedom; the “states’ rights” argument around the Civil War; does Thomas Sowell have any original ideas?

7:35 – “people have an ascribed status”; Thomas Sowell on affirmative action; Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, WEB Du Bois were all socialists; crafting polling questions; equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity; special privileges granted by government; slavery in a zero-sum game; how the rich exploit the public commons; Bill Gates depended on government services; welfare hypocrisy; libertarian arguments exempt themselves from pre-existing privileges

18:48 – a cartoon of Thomas Sowell saying cartoonish things; Thomas Sowell mislabels “cosmic justice”; Thomas Sowell’s Freudian slip; Thomas Sowell makes the worst possible boxing analogy

31:55 – Thomas Sowell vs. John Rawls; Thomas Sowell describes his great public school education; did a white teacher save Thomas Sowell’s life; Thomas Sowell’s hypocrisy; the role of teachers vs. other public servants; Thomas Sowell is not meeting his purported intellectual standards; Thomas Sowell likely benefited from de facto Affirmative Action

46:50 – is Thomas Sowell now “the mascot”?; why white people LOVE Thomas Sowell; do men lie for their ideals; Thomas Sowell’s mistakes on Vladimir Lenin; why does Thomas Sowell think he himself is not an “idealist”?

Tags: #politics #blackhistorymonth #sowell

Jared Taylor was born in Japan, traveled the world and became fluent in several languages, yet has wasted his life on white separatism. In this way, he extracted all the benefits of diversity—personal, professional, developmental—then decided to shut the door behind him. A longtime white supremacist, Jared Taylor nonetheless looks down on the vast majority of whites, telling Phil Donahue that he wants to be at “white cocktail parties” in “wealthy neighborhoods” full of “good-looking people”. After Donald Trump emerged, Jared Taylor was forced to reinvent himself as a Trump-style populist interested in the plight of the white working class.
In this video, Dan Schneider and Alex Sheremet dissect Jared Taylor’s appearance on Phil Donahue, his lies and omissions on immigration law, his ignorance of history and the plight of former Soviet nations, his new, politically-correct brand of white supremacism, Jared Taylor’s Freudian slip-ups, and much more.You can also watch this discussion on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/TA1UWUI5A-0
To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination
Dan Schneider’s YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@cosmoetica
Dan Schneider’s Cosmoetica: http://cosmoetica.com/
Jared Taylor on Danielle Romero’s on NYTN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QWz5uwyFQc
Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4DApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEVGoogle Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3dSQXxJAmazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxBPodbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUoiHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L
Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com
Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination
Timestamps:
0:00 – Jared Taylor as a politically correct white male; the NYTN (New York to Nashville) channel; Danielle Romero & ethnic ambiguity; how YouTube censors racial language
5:46 – Jared Taylor on Phil Donahue; Jared Taylor puts a slick corporate face on his personal biases; Jared Taylor’s racial Catholicism; why Jared Taylor is not an anti-Semite
11:05 – are immigrants taking over America; is Texas a Spanish state; the Mexico-Texas conundrum; the US creates refugees; Jared Taylor doesn’t know what he doesn’t know; Jared Taylor sneaks his way around 9/11 & questions of terrorism
19:24 – immigration & GDP; Jared Taylor lies about the 1965 Immigration Act; prior immigration systematically excluded ‘undesirable’ Europeans such as Russians; Jared Taylor calls Arabs “shifty eyed”; Jared Taylor flip-flops on overpopulation; “if diversity was so great, the Indians should be happy”
33:24 – Jared Taylors fails to say WHY “New York looks like Afghanistan”; Robert Moses demolished black neighborhoods; Alex goes OFF on “white comradery”, “white consciousness”, & “white culture”; Alex: only other Russians have put me in dangerous situations; Jared Taylor has little curiosity about the world
43:30 – Jared Taylor has WASTED his life & squandered every opportunity; Jared Taylor reveals his condescension & hatred of white people; Russians, Uzbeks, and Koreans vs. ethnicity; Native American solidarity
01:09:26 – Jared Taylor & anti-Semitism; shtetls, ghettos, & European identity; South Africans & Zimbabwe whites as “persecuted minorities”; Jared Taylor is inconsistent on the role of homosexuals in his white ethnostate
01:23:49 – Jared Taylor’s appearance on Danielle Romero’s “New York to Nashville” show; Jared Taylor’s modern strategies for a new racial world; critiquing “it’s OK to be white”; Dan Schneider’s experience being pulled into a KKK rally; Taylor is reserved with a younger woman he wants to “educate”; many Soviets would consider Koreans “white”; if we assume Jared Taylor is a straight white male, should we expect him to find black women attractive; race & se

Myths of Rome and the Orient, as well as questions of race and sexuality all play major roles in William Shakespeare’s underrated play, Antony and Cleopatra. It follows the final years of Roman triumvir Mark Antony and Egypt’s queen Cleopatra VII, as they engage in affairs, neglect their imperial duties, and wage war against Octavius Caesar (Augustus). In ArtiFact 57, authors Laura Woods, Alex Sheremet, and Keith Jackewicz discuss Antony & Cleopatra through the lens of Roman history, key aspects of Shakespeare’s writing, and ways of assessing the play as modern readers.


You can also watch this discussion on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/igBzg1B9Wro


To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination


Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV

Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3dSQXxJ

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Podbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUo

iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L


Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination


Cleopatra thumbnail photo by Siednji Leon on Unsplash.


Timestamps:

1:00 – introducing Antony & Cleopatra; Irish poet Laura Woods on Antony and Cleopatra in the Shakespeare pantheon; how Shakespeare manages length; sexual innuendo in Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra; Keith Jackewicz: Antony and Cleopatra has no obvious villain; do readers have empathy with a “soft” & emotional Antony; Cleopatra, race/ethnicity, and Orientalism

15:48 – how 17th century conceptions of race crystallize in Shakespeare; there are no great (extended) soliloquies in Antony & Cleopatra; tensions between prosaic and poetic elements in Shakespeare; austere Rome vs. Egyptian fantasy; moments of humor; why elites ignored the Eastern Roman Empire

25:30 – Alex on the ancient tension between Roman citizens & Greek migrants; Homeric vs. Hellenistic Greece; Roman history never seems to hit a true Golden Age; Roman propaganda as “public morality”; offstage action; greatness of Antony, Octavius, and others is based on mass perception

34:55 – Shakespeare’s decision to bring the action offstage; the male craving to study ancient Rome; Cleopatra’s death as a grand affair with posthumous needs

41:53 – Antony’s dead wife, Fulvia; Fulvia vs. Cleopatra in the historical record; why does Antony want Fulvia dead; feminist, post-colonial, etc. readings tend to be anachronistic; Fulvia as paragon; feminine manipulation vs. making excuses for one’s poor choices; the psychopaths writing young adult literature

1:01:08 – Fulvia’s death as a bargaining chip; Antony & Cleopatra as narcissists; Jordan B. Peterson is a fraud for never discussing the play’s “feminine chaos”; viewer reactions to Robert Altman’s MASH in the 1970s vs. today

1:11:55 – Cleopatra uses sex for political survival; male arguments about “feminine wiles” are very effeminate; Alex relates the story of his own conniving Cleopatra; ambiguity of love within the play; unconscious behavior; how Shakespeare leverages unclear action; how Cleopatra wrestles control of the narrative; the snake’s symbolism

1:30:45 – Alex: it was refreshing to watch leaders worrying about future perceptions; past glory; how Antony & Cleopatra plays with chance/destiny; does political power at the highest levels entail determinism; Augustus Caesar as Shakespeare’s agent of fortune; the role of ego; 1 of Cleopatra’s greatest & most modern lines; why Act 3 ends perfectly

1:40:35 – Patron show preview

Tags: #cleopatra #ancienthistory #books #shakespeare #booktube

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are a hotbed for right-wing ideologues, but Joshua Davila argues this technology is not going away and ought to be used for left-wing activism. Bitcoin, for example, is not inherently capitalistic, while projects on Ethereum and other protocols have been more exploratory and experimental. In ArtiFact 56, Alex and Josh discuss the concept of blockchain, why it’s valuable, on-chain models for political organization, NFTs as supportive of, and destructive to, genuine art, and expose crypto-idiots and other unsavory personalities.

You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/un8jqcrQ70k

Buy Joshua Davila’s “Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It” – https://www.amazon.com/Blockchain-Radicals-Building-Beyond-Capitalism/dp/1914420853

Joshua’s Twitter page: https://twitter.com/TBSocialist

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: left vs. right-wing conceptions of personal responsibility; every crypto Twitter ad is a scam; account abstraction for added security; froth vs. fundamental value; how crypto adds a premium; investment vs. utility; Alex: most of my crypto acquaintances are sociopaths; why Alex hesitates to release his art as NFTs; bitcoin ordinals encourage spam art; the art world has been scamming for centuries; NFTs place anti-art expectations upon artists; Solana’s Degen Poet is like a 10 year old; Josh: most art does not have value; why Alex is annoyed by DCInvestor.eth; how NFTs work; NFTs add inalienable rights on top of authentication; crypto idiots: Balaji Srinivasan makes a $1 million bitcoin bet; debunking the Network State; Roger Ver gets imprisoned over pipe bombs; bitcoin and energy consumption; Bill Ackman won’t be getting laid for months

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

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Podbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUo

iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L


Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com


Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com


Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

0:42 – introducing Josh Davila’s ”Blockchain Radicals”; understanding crypto, blockchain, and bitcoin is critical for left-wingers; the bitcoin ETF; cryptocurrency at an inflection point; right-wing vs. left-wing conceptions of monetary debasement

11:25 – is bitcoin dead for left-wing projects; how WikiLeaks and SciHub leveraged bitcoin against financial sanctions; the inflation hedge argument; why bitcoin is not “money”

21:24 – beyond financialization in blockchain; markets vs. commoditization; human nature and incentive structures; the value proposition of blockchain; the implications of crypto-mediated ownership; why the Tezos hicetnunc NFT marketplace imploded; how crypto adoption is a regressive tax; open source crypto projects; how NFTS are misunderstood

38:42 – how crypto cultivates certain audiences; the Uniswap airdrop vs. government stimulus; private, public power; why Joshua used the DAI stablecoin over USDC for Breadchain

46:30 – privacy and digital identities in crypto; why Joshua took time to dox himself; how anonymity can build trust; cryptocurrency businesses invade privacy even more than generic corporations; crypto dystopias; how the creator of ProtonMail made Alex change his mind on Monero

58:57 – crypto as a double-edged sword; no “obvious” answer on anti-state privacy; how states leverage financial sanctions; code is law vs. social consensus; the 2016 Ethereum DAO hack and Ethereum classic; bitcoin ordinals vs. bitcoin maximalists

01:07:09 – Ethereum philosophy = Ethereum innovation; is Vitalik Buterin a socialist; Heavy Bags: why right-wing goldbugs hate bitcoin; patron sh

Norman Maclean’s ”A River Runs Through It” is a great American novel, which is particularly shocking since it was Maclean’s first book and written in his 70s. In essence a memoir, “A River Runs Through It” follows the relationship between two brothers in 1930s Montana. Alex Sheremet and Keith Jackewicz dissect the book’s strengths, its powerful imagery and controlling metaphor(s), and unique structural decisions.

You can also watch this conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqXGKkRzTDY

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: videos depicting A River Runs Through It encourage trite imagery; spinning cliched images into something fresh; Norman Maclean uses the cosmic scale; Biblical imagery in Herman Melville; the use of elision; escalations in the Gaza conflict; a conclusion without conclusions; martyrdom in Scottish-American culture; God and country, or Country and God in nationalist-religious movements; art and ego; motivated reasoning; literary neglect; Alex’s New Year Resolutions; can Alex limit himself to reading the news once a week; academia’s abuse of “liminal spaces”; steady multinational escalations in the Gaza genocide; is Israel trying to pull America into a wider war; Joe Biden’s 2024 trap; is China / Taiwan a Boomer fixation; the smearing of John Mearsheimer, Ivan Katchanovski; a strange economy; Harvard & the disciplining of Claudine Gay; the golden mean in the 1990s

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Podbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUo

iHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L


Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination


Timestamps:

0:36 – introducing Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It”; why Keith is skeptical of Robert Redford’s film; memoir vs. The Great American Novel; Norman Maclean leaves out his narrator’s name; it’s important that Maclean wrote his first great novel in his 70s; how Maclean’s character/experiences shaped this book; lack of experience in today’s writers

13:01 – Norman Maclean’s individualistic lines; assessing the opening paragraph; how the novella uses text for physical distance; the lack of melodrama in A River Runs Through It; Neal’s function as character; bait-fishing vs. fly-fishing; Neal pretends he has sunburn, then actually gets sunburned; Keith’s “hell itch” and Alex’s sunburn in Puerto Rico

27:34 – the use of foreshadowing; Paul gets into a fight & jailed; themes of Scottish emotional repression; seeking, rejecting, offering help; Paul as artist and storyteller; some beautiful lines

41:41 – understanding the police sergeant/jail scene; how Maclean mirrors dream states; 1930s Montana; Alex and Keith stumped by Prohibition; love of language vs. MFA repetitiousness; Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” sucks; Norman Maclean as academic; A River Runs Through It is respectful of your time

58:04 – what might a modern iteration of this novel look like; A River Runs Through It vs. Moby-Dick; the bias for length vs. depth and substance; Keith: Moby Dick’s whaling scenes are hilarious


Tags: #booktube #books #review