ArtiFact: Books, Art, Culture automachination
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- Arts
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The ArtiFact Podcast is a long-form show on books, culture, painting, and music hosted by Alex Sheremet, Joel Parrish, and a revolving door of co-hosts and guests. Each subject is covered in depth and at length, with past shows featuring the Epic of Gilgamesh, Charles Johnson’s “Oxherding Tale”, Leonard Shlain’s “Art & Physics”, John Williams’s “Stoner”, and more. Opinionated, controversial, and prone to making enemies and friends of friends and enemies, ArtiFact delivers new perspectives on the arts by artists of talent.
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The Arts Naked & Up Close | ArtiFact 61: Erik Hill, Alex Sheremet
Author and filmmaker Alex Sheremet sits down with Erik Hill of Erik Hill Reviews @erikhillreviews to discuss all things art: the relationship between filmmaking and poetry, how the Harlem Renaissance and rap music changed Alex's life, the perils of Steven Pinker, and fresh insights into Alex Sheremet's and Joel Parrish's new film, "From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet".
This discussion can also be watched on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1QPNsQlZRk
This interview first appeared on Erik Hill's channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBE0DeormUQ
Donate to "From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario
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 Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination
Timestamps:
1:35 -- Alex Sheremet's background; from the USSR to Brooklyn, NY; Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice; the Harlem Renaissance & artistic hierarchies; how Alex's book of film criticism, "Woody Allen: Reel to Real", helped shape his own filmmaking
5:53 -- what makes a poem great; Countee Cullen's "Heritage"; Alex's atheism doesn't interfere with appreciating theological poetry; art should omit ideology in questions of craft; the artist's manipulation tactics
10:46 -- art's trajectory over time; one needs to do sufficient reading to recognize quality or flaws; why Alex abandoned Vladimir Nabokov
14:45 -- the role of politics in Alex Sheremet's artistic life; how rap music shaped Alex's artistic views; hip-hop & the stakes of masculinity; the destruction of attention span; being a 20th century man in the 21st century; many elements of human culture can disappear, but books totally shape human civilization
21:45 -- discussing Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of our Nature" & "Enlightenment Now"; human violence over time; bad neighborhoods vs. hunter-gatherer societies; those who believe in progress are incentivized to ignore stagnation
26:30 -- our film on Bruce Ario; Erik Hill reviews the film's first 8 minutes; Erik's experience with classical music set against visuals; how Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish use visuals to "explain" Bruce Ario's poetry; why most poetry documentaries fail; using footage in arresting ways; choosing a film title
35:05 -- Bruce Ario's novel, "Cityboy"; Alex: it is a great, short novel but a difficult read; why Bruce Ario allowed his book to get destroyed; "Cityboy" captures mental illness very well; an example of great, unconventional writing in "Cityboy"
40:45 -- defining Bruce Ario's disabilities and mental ills; memoir vs. veiled autobiography vs. a "mere" novel; the "morality" of Bruce Ario's novel; art requires order, discipline, and consistency from the artist; Bruce Ario's interactions with homeless people; Robert Grudin: Time and the Art of Living
47:56 -- Bruce Ario's "innocence"; all cityboys must learn that all cities are the same
51:00 -- poetry recommendations for beginners; poetry is like learning a new language; how Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky changed Alex's life; Alex learned to read books by summarizing every paragraph on index cards
Tags: #filmmaking #politics #books #poetry #cinema -
I Made The Film Nobody Else Would | ArtiFact 60: Destin Davis, Joel Parrish, Alex Sheremet
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
Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4DApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEVAmazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxBPodbean: https://bit.ly/3yzLuUoiHeartRadio: https://ihr.fm/3AK942L
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 -
Why White People LOVE Thomas Sowell | ArtiFact 59: Alex Sheremet, Dan Schneider
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/
Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV
Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3dSQXxJ
Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB
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
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 -
How Jared Taylor WASTED His Life | ArtiFact 58: Alex Sheremet, Dan Schneider
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 -
Lust for Survival in Shakespeare's ANTONY & CLEOPATRA | ArtiFact 57: Laura Woods, Keith Jackewicz
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
Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB
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 For Socialists? | ArtiFact 56: Joshua Davila, Alex Sheremet
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
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV
Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3dSQXxJ
Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB
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