Iām not going to mansplain Adam Curtis.
In the year of our lord 2024?!?
Just watch the films and zone out to layer after juxtaposed layer of archival footage intended to āunpack how we live in a society designed around the individual, but where people increasingly feel anxious and uncertain.ā
Our premier docu-collagist recently gave a fantastic interview with Crack Magazine where he opines on the various maladies of our planet, its broken political and journalistic systems⦠his usual lighthearted stuff.
Curtis wraps up with a bar:
My theory is that the map we currently have in our heads no longer matches the territory we are in. Weāre waiting for someone to draw a new map, and until then, weāre just going to witter away to each other on podcasts.
I wonder if heās up on HolottaCheese?
Hers is the latest in a series of brain-burning music videos by NoahSoCold that have left me feeling legitimately insane.
In that sense, it is the art of our times.
NSC is a young director, editor and VFX artist whose aesthetic can best be described as āfried.ā On paper, you may find his subject matter similar to other low-budget rap videos filmed in and around gas stations in open carry states, but the end result is sui generis.
Bizarro overlays and lysergic AI transitions.
Cut-and-paste editing thatās rapid fire even by modern music video standards.
All of it is glued together with a pixelated texture of digital decay that feels like a screenshot of a screenshot of a screenshot (on an Android phone).
Itās the language of memes, livestreams and infinite scrollā¦
Adam Curtis live from the 7-11 parking lot.
Hereās AC again, from a 2021 New Yorker profile:
Fragments. Thatās how people think now. They make associations, and thereās no meaning. Thatās the world we live in.
He came to this epiphany while reading a frontal lobe-BBQād memo from the JFK assassinationās lead investigator (!!!) Jim Garrison, entitled The Theory Of Propinquity.
NSCās vids are stuffed with Heavenās Gate logos and breaking news graphics. Is he a conspiracy theory guy too?
I have questionsā¦
Is it nihilistic to be lit?
Transcendent?
Both?!?
These music videos are less āno meaningā than āpost meaning,ā IMO. A crucial distinction, and a not-illogical response to existing in the present.
While reading a Jake Paul Menās Health profile (lol) I was struck by the following:
If you squint, Paul really is an avatar of misspent youth, the frontman for the first generation to go through puberty with a like button. Scientists are still trying to figure out how to measure the damage (or where to send the bill).
When I showed these to my wife, she said they look like Nutter Butter TikTok (and would like to get back to watching standup on YouTube, please).
If our own silverback millennial minds break a little bit more with every daily headline, I can only imagine how NoahSoCold and his zoomer cohorts feel about the State Of Things.
Harmony Korine fired up some of my surviving synapses when he told the Venice Film Festival that streamer IShowSpeed is āthe new Tarkovsky,ā which is very, very dumb but not wholly incorrect.
These fests are part of an aging, celeb-driven industry ā itself a microcosm of an aging, celeb-driven civilization ā that has largely struggled (if not actively refused) to keep pace with the voices and energy of now.
For all their CrAaAaAzY ViBeZzZzZ, Noahās vids feel viscerally and unapologetically like the present...
Which in and of itself is an accomplishment!
Butthole Surfers On The Deranged And Damaged 1980s ā nice memory lane sesh to go along with the bandās new reissues. āWe werenāt really giving it a whole lot of thought. Because thinking gets you into trouble.ā
The Oral History Of Rich Gangās Tha Tour Vol 1 ā more reminiscing! RIP Rich Homie Quan. This piece is fantastic and I could read a whole version thatās just Birdmanās āclient feedback.ā
Zenana, āWitchesā ā rediscovered goth electro from 1980ās Cornwall.
New Orthodox, Freak Heat Waves, āBottomed Outā ā more creeper jams, from 2024 this time! Will dive into more FHW / Cindy Lee soonā¦
Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! ā having only seen it on mute in nightclubs, been wanting to give this weirdly unavailable cult classic / mood board a proper watch forever. Salute, Roku Channel.
Playlists updatedā¦