Donna Kalil has plunged into canals in the dead of night, straddled two-hundred-pound serpents, and been bitten more times than she can count—all in the name of killing a thing she loves and playing a game she can’t win.
Fantastic piece in Garden & Gun on Donna Kalil, a professional, full-time Python hunter. Don't like to read? Here's a short video. But you should read the article. How could you not with a pull-quote like the one above.
Via Metafilter
Being a big walker, I listen to a lot of audio — mostly Podcasts and Audiobooks and occasionally music. One of my favorite podcasts is one that I never hear anyone else ever mention: Everything Is Stories.
They describe themselves as "an ongoing survey of personal histories. Each episode is a first person narrative from someone who has lived through consequential changes to their notion of self and the world... Sometimes these stories explore the philosophy of outsiders. But most importantly, these stories examine what it is to be human...We don’t record to defend or demonstrate an idea. Rather, we create a document of what was seen and felt during their transformative experiences."
Episodes are released sporadically and, with the exception of being top shelf quality and first person narration, the stories have little in common with one another. The current story, The Disorientation of Survival, is a multi-part piece about a gay fraudster growing up in the era of AIDS.
A good starter episode might be Reviled and Maligned: "Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam & Mahoney funeral parlor in Worcester, Mass., found himself thrust into the national spotlight in the spring of 2013 amid a damning controversy. With implications that still linger to this day, Stefan and his team faced the question of where to draw the line on who deserves a burial. EVERYTHING IS STORIES explores the morality behind such decision-making and how one man—during a time of universal anger, fear and sadness—stood up for what he thought was right."
The part they're keeping hidden in that description is that Stefan and his team were burdened with the task of burying one of the Boston Marathon bombers. Here's the trailer:
Or what about this episode from last season:
"Charles Farrell could be labeled a number of things: pianist, writer, boxing manager, and hustler. As a teenager, Farrell lived in the streets of Boston, playing piano in mafia-owned clubs. With a love for boxing, he started gambling on high-profile matches while also managing fighters. He fixed an array of professional fights by using code-talk with trainers, foolproof matchmaking, and buying referees and judges. In this story, the highs and lows of gangster culture are explored as Charles Farrell describes the ease of taking advantage of society’s vulnerable parts."
That's Season 3, episode 6: Sesquipedalian. Here's the "trailer":
Everything Is Stories is, of course, available for free wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen online.
As a sidenote, EIS is now funded by Oscilloscope, which was founded by Adam Yauch (Beastie Boys' MCA) and David Fenkel. Yauch died of cancer in 2012. That same year, Fenkel left Oscilloscope to co-found the wonderful distro, A24.
I prefer to experience Canadian winters from afar. Though I did that successfully for many years, it hasn't happened since Covid. Now, with an aging dog I don't want to be apart from, I'm looking at spending another winter here.
As I did last year, I will run weekly screenings for friends in my loft. The sudden drop in temperature has me thinking about what to project this year and I thought readers of A Tiny Bell may be interested in these works as well.
Here's some what I'm considering:
d. William Kentridge
Streaming on Mubi
This is a 9-part series about art and its creating. Kentridge is a South African artists and made these ~30 minute episodes during Covid. Here's the official description, the trailer, and an overview:
Inspired in part by Charlie Chaplin, Dziga Vertov and the innovative wit of early cinema, pioneering South African artist William Kentridge offers a cinematic experience of the creative process during the plague years of COVID. Interconnected yet distinct episodes introduce us to William and his collaborators in action, inviting us to step inside the intimacy of the studio as shared discoveries about culture, history and politics, and profound truths about the ways we live and think today are uncovered through the making of works of art.
d. Jacques Becker, based on the novel by José Giovanni
Streaming on The Criterion Channel
Le Trou is my favorite prison film. I think it's astonishingly good and can't believe Hollywood has never remade it. So, so tense.
d. w. Asghar Farhadi
Streaming on Hoopla, but I own the blu-ray.
Farhadi has had some controversy the past few years and I don't side with him on it, but this is an all-time favorite of mine and an exceptional way to introduce people to Iranian cinema.
d. Sidney Lumet, w. Paddy Chayefski
Streaming on Apple TV+
I used to assume most everyone has seen these 70s classic films but last year I screened Dog Day Afternoon and no one who attended had even heard of it before. So, this year it'll be Network. All the acting is incredible — Beatrice Straight's ~5-minute performance earned her an Oscar — and the script is impeccable. There are few films as prophetic as Network. See if it you haven't. It has never been more relevant.
d. Mike Nichols, w. Buck Henry from a novel by Charles Webb
Streaming on The Criterion Channel
Another film that I assume most people have seen. However, the people I asked last year seem to only vaguely recall watching it as kids. I think many people dismiss it as a bawdy comedy, but it's a meticulously constructed film. The performances are great, and the direction, camera work, and editing are top-notch. Howard Suber, a film prof at USC, did an audio commentary for the laserdisc years ago. I learned more about storytelling from listening to that then I did in four years of film school.
d. Nuri Bilge Ceylan w. Akin Aksu, Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan
On the fence on this one for two reasons: I have not yet seen it, which means I'd have to watch it twice as I only screen films I've seen, and it's 3 hours and 17 minutes. Certainly looks interesting, however, and the reviews were excellent.
d. Nadine Labaki w. Nadine Labaki, Jihad Hojeily, Michelle Keserwany
Stream it for free on Hoopla
A critic in the trailer says, "Prepare to be blown away." That is certainly my experience with this film. I've seen it twice and it's remarkable. The child playing the lead, who was not an actor, but an illiterate Syrian refugee, is mind-bogglingly great. He's now a teenager and thanks to the film was able to relocate to Norway where he attended school for the first time in his life.
d. Pete Davis and Rebecca Davis
Stream on Netflix
Recent documentary on Robert Putnam, definer of Social Capital, and author of Bowling Alone, which I, along with everyone else, read in the 2000s.
d. Hayao Miyazaki
Stream it on Netflix
I once had a promising relationship go sour after the woman noticed my utter boredom while watching her favorite film, My Neighbor Totoro. I've pretty much hated Miyazaki films ever since. However, I really like herons and art that explores grief, so gonna give this one a shot.
I'll make new posts in the future listing the screenings so that people can follow along if they wish.
Some beautiful new work from Keita Morimoto.
Morimoto has a new book out as well — might be Japan only. Their site is here. Morimoto studied at OCAD.
Of all things, The Pudding does a wonderful breakdown of the Canadian board game, Crokinole. Many of my Canadian readers will already know the game, but it's not very popular outside of southern Ontario. That link describes the rules and references this semi-final World Championship match.
More on the One-Cheek Rule.
Who doesn't want to watch Black Rhinos goring and eating pumpkins?
Hearing Things is a new worker-owned music site with a roster of founders that have worked at Pitchfork, The Fader, Vibe, Spin, Gawker, and Jezebel.
I stopped reading music journalism altogether in 2003 when Pitchfork gave my favorite album that year, Bobby Birdman's Born Free Forever, a terrible review. Obviously I know "different strokes for different folks," but I still remember the eye-roll I did while reading it and it was sorta just the final straw for me on seeking the opinions of "experts". However, I know a lot of people do like reading music sites, and I've been happy with some of the other sites that are the creations of "supergroups" of ex-employees of other sites, most notably 404 Media, which hits it out of the park daily.
I wish Hearing Things luck! And here's that Bobby Birdman album:
Cabel Sasser, one of the co-founders of Panic, makers of Playdate (and many other things), gave this delightful talk at the most recent (and final) XOXO. If you watch it here on the embed, jump to 3:55 on the timeline to get to the talk, proper, and then watch to the end.
Delightful, yes? It gets better, because Sasser has created a website for Wes Cook's art. You can see it here.
Folly offers off-grid sanctuaries for the discerning traveler. They've locations in the Mojave Desert (where these pics are from), as well as Joshua Tree and a farm in New York state.
See all their properties on the Folly Collection website.
On a recent episode of the NYTimes Modern Love podcast, actor Andrew Garfield reads Chris Huntington's wonderful essay Learning to Measure Time In Love and Loss (both gift links).
Not only is the essay terrific and Garfield's performance excellent, but during it, he breaks down and the moment is rather extraordinary for how uncommon it is in today's culture and media. Some actors would have asked for the piece to be edited to be seamless — some podcasts would have done it without being asked — but offering it up whole was the correct decision and I urge you to listen to it.
In the opening, before he reads the essay, Garfield unknowingly quotes Stanley Kunitz's The Testing-Tree when he says, "The heart lives by breaking." The full quote is, "In a murderous time, the heart breaks and breaks and lives by breaking." It's a wonderful line that's grown in meaning for me as I've aged. (Kunitz's book, Passing Through, is one of the many books in my bathroom. I've always kept books in my bathrooms. In more recent times, they're an excellent encouragement to not take my phone with me. You're just sitting there. Read a poem!)
You can read Kunitz's The Testing-Tree here.
Garfield mentions that Huntington's essay brings Rilke to mind. Specifically, Robert Bly's translation of The Man Watching:
I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister
The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.
What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.
When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.
Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.
I know little of Garfield, but that he was in The Social Network and was one of the Spidermans, but the few interviews I've heard with him have shown him to be thoughtful and intelligent. His thoughts on grief are particularly admirable. If you enjoyed the above, you might appreciate his interview with Marc Maron from a few years ago.
