All Documentaries are Ghost Stories
On "Natchez" and "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel."
Hello, and welcome back to Burbank Industries! After an excessively fun start to summer, I’m putting my nose to the grindstone and opening up my books at Burbank Industries for the next three months. If you’ve ever wanted to work with me, now’s the time. Right now, I have reporting gigs and major editing projects lined up, and I also have (limited, selective) capacity for PR support for artists. Hit reply on this email if this sounds like something you, personally, could benefit from!
The fantasy of summer is over, the (still pretty nice) reality has sunk in, and this also means that paywalls will be returning to the newsletter. I am sorry! But/and/also you can subscribe for as little as $7 a month.
Don’t want to subscribe through Substack? Pay any amount on Venmo and I’ll comp you full access to the newsletter archives and new paid editions for a year. In this installment, we’re watching documentaries on the couch with a snack and some critical thinking onboard. But first, some updates from Burbank Industries:
What I’ve been reading: Two roommates were hanging out at their Lower Queen Anne home in Seattle (one was making coconut water; one was watching Married at First Sight) when a mass shooting broke out at Seattle Center. Moises Perez and William Large ended up sheltering a crowd of fleeing strangers. “I would do that any time for anybody,” said Perez. [The Seattle Times]
In NYC, Gen Z neo-Luddites are dressing as gnomes and destroying effigies of ChatGPT, all to joyfully resist AI. The Summer of Ludd will not be televised, but a reporter was there to see it [404 Media]:
Why am I writing this article, attempting to capture the essence of a movement and an event that—by its very nature and stated intention—refuses to be captured? Maybe it’s because journalism is best when it acts as a cultural placeholder, a blurry indication that something happened here, and perhaps will keep happening in the future. It’s also a kind of beacon for others to find—an indication that the “inevitable” future tech companies keep threatening us with is perhaps not so inevitable, and that humans aren’t so hopeless at finding each other and creating new ways to live.
Could Emily Wilson’s scathing review of Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey solve the literacy crisis? I think it could! [London Review of Books]:
Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.
An underreported casualty of the Cyclosporiasis outbreak? Berries for the berry-fiending toddlers of America! [The 19th*]
Hermit Day Movie Report
When my social battery is truly depleted, I know it’s time for a Hermit Day. Hermit Day usually involves catching up on my laundry and household chores and personal scheduling, maybe some kind of fun workout followed by a little treat, and eating snack dinner (self-explanatory) on the couch while watching a documentary by myself. Why a documentary? Because I’ll watch any documentary ever, even the really bad ones, and while I frequently and happily see movies with friends and loved ones, no one is ever like, “Wow, Megan, I really want to watch that twelve-part series on the Three Mile Island nuclear meltdown with you.”