✍️🏆
In the late ’70’s - early ’80’s Nick Zedd (RIP) began unleashing a series of edgy zero-budget assaults on the status quo of the downtown film world. Disgusted with the academic leaning avant-garde work of the day, the conformist, film school driven “indie” scene and pretty much any form of arthouse culture splattered across the pages of the Village Voice, film festival programs, etc., he pushed forward with his own brand of antagonistic underground cinema. With a handful of degenerate collaborators he began showing mostly Super-8 films in local bars, nightclubs, storefronts and micro-cinemas. The only problem was nobody knew about them. And worse, the ones that did hated them! He went years without receiving one positive review while simultaneously enduring the “censorship of omission” aka no one giving a fuck. The solution? In 1984 he launched a self-published magazine called The Underground Film Bulletin. He edited it under the alias Orion Jeriko and wrote the articles under a slew of additional pseudonyms. It was a way to FINALLY get good reviews, boost his peers, and frame his work in a historical context. It was in these pages that The Cinema of Transgression was born. The narrative finally caught on and Zedd declared “That's how I became a part of history.” A helpful reminder that “history is whoever gets to the typewriter first.”
Apr 7, 2022
Related Recs
📙
I adore music zines. Always loved them. I don’t mean full-on glossy magazines, though I love those, too. I mean the handmade, typewritten, toner-smeared kind made out of printer paper and staples and a burning desire to participate in a tradition of creative writing, interviewing, art-making, and whatever other form of creativity one feels like stuffing into its pages. At the moment, I’m obsessed with a few: Hallogallo, which is run out of Chicago by Kai Slater (of the bands Lifeguard and Sharp Pins) and just published its 10th issue featuring an interview with Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier; Love Injection, a long-running club culture zine by NYC’s Barbie Bertisch and Paul Raffaele; and Shadow Wolf, the handiwork of Holland-based electronic artist Legowelt.
Mar 19, 2024
📕
This Zine should be way more popular. It’s most recent (AW22) issue is a beautiful fabric-bound hardcover book featuring legends such as Chloë Sevigny, John Waters, Paloma Elsesser, Richard Kern, Dasha Nekrashova, John Wilson, Eartheater, Caveh Zahedi, and Patti Smith. The list goes on and on, but you get the idea, it's a Zine that’s chock full of cool people being interviewed and photographed in or around the legendary Chelsea Hotel in New York City. What's not to love?
Jan 5, 2023
💎
My friend Jay recently mentioned in passing a 2010 story in The New Yorker, "Sleeping With Weapons" by Tad Friend, about the totally batshit feud between the actor and musician John Lurie and his protege John Perry. It's like 8,000+ words of mayhem and mental illness and I can't believe the magazine ran it or that I'd never read it, especially since there was a whole controversy afterward, including a hunger strike. It reminded me that there's just an endless array of weird old stores from 10 years ago, from 50 years ago, from last year, and you can just mainline them in one subway ride for no money. I always go back to stuff like Nancy Jo Sales on the Pussy Posse or the Golden Suicides, or Chris Heath's Fiona Apple cover story for Rolling Stone from 1998, or Tom Wolfe's "The Last American Hero Is Junior Johnson. Yes!" or Ta-Nehisi Coates on MF DOOM. (Use Pocket to get around paywalls.)
Nov 9, 2022
Top Recs from @michael-m.
🎟
Is this currently my favorite movie theater in NYC because they premiered my new film and hosted a complete retrospective of my work? Duh! But it’s deeper than that. Two years ago I was convinced the arthouse theatrical experience was doomed and that the future was ramshackle cine-clubs for a handful of scorched psychos. Turns out I was wrong. Things are back to normal and on any given night now there’s a surplus of amazing programming all across the city again. The biggest plot twist, though, was the rise of this posh, art deco, single screen theater beneath a fancy hotel in the heart of Tribeca as the new epicenter for contemporary indie cinema. While other venues floundered at first, the Roxy reopened with a bang, finally giving a theatrical run to Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Spree (which never got a proper theatrical release due to covid). Next thing I knew they gave Project Space 13 a run there too, despite not having played any festivals or any of that shit… and it was selling out! They’re doing the same for Betsey Brown’s Actors right now, which keeps getting extended. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a theater tap in this hard. Recent events with Abel Ferrara, the Ion Pack, Alex Ross Perry, and more have been unforgettable. Seeing ASAP Rocky hop on stage to freestyle with Abel after the Siberia premiere is one of my all time fondest memories there. It’s tight being able to see new films like The Scary of Sixty-First, Zola, or El Planeta balanced perfectly with rep fare like Screen Slate’s Bad Habits nun series and Sean Price Williams and Nick Pinkerton’s monthly ‘City Dudes.’ Head programmer Illyse Singer and her cohort Mitchell are heroes. Bonus points for being walking distance to the best new record store in town, Paradise of Replica.
Apr 7, 2022
🌲
It’s not just the most GOATED tree in Washington Square Park, it’s the single oldest tree in all of Manhattan! For over 300 years it’s been posted up on the corner of Waverly Place and MacDougal Street in the northwest region of the park. On any given morning, afternoon, or evening you can find throngs of wack jobs enthusiastically ingesting every type of narcotic while acting shady af around it. When the city was in lockdown I’d have all my “important” meetings there. The bulk of Project Space 13’s pre-production was hatched out under its shade. In the last few years alone it’s been privy to crazy all night raves, historic protests, Van Damme level fight clubs, and bizarro performances (from every end of the spectrum). The most outré shit you can think of is just another day at the office for this towering Ulmus procera. It even beat the murder allegations! People love to claim it was used for hangings in the American Revolution, but there’s little to no evidence supporting this. There’s no plaque or anything drawing attention to it either. Salute this OG tree when you see it.
Apr 7, 2022
🛴
Shout out to everyone racing around on electric unicycles, drinking bubble tea (or White Claw), yapping into selfie sticks, blasting un-Shazamable dubstep, and weaving through oncoming traffic. While face masks and plywood dining shacks have completely altered the contemporary urban landscape, this scene’s the cherry on top in our journey (descent?) into some kinda cyberpunk meets Burning Man future. I never thought vape pens or Bluetooth headsets would catch on because they looked so ridiculous and shamelessly sci-fi… But they did. Don’t wanna be wrong side of history again, so I’m all in on the e-scooter renaissance!
Apr 7, 2022