Last week I spent a long night playing Wingspan with old friends who recently became new neighbors¹. It ended in the modern mixtape tradition of starting a communal Spotify playlist, to be fostered over time with our most thoughtful and annoying submissions and played on shuffle when we meet.
I am devastated to find that Spotify does not have about half of the best songs (notably the bonus track Terminals from Relient K’s Forget and Not Slow Down), defending my position that rare media will never die. As distribution approaches the limit of zero friction, there will always be one notch of effort above the default, and that is where obscure media will live, lost media will disembody, and collectors will reanimate.
To this end: a live-action 1995 Halloween special of The Magic School Bus was vaguely remembered by some, but only in 2016 found on a garage sale VHS. Sadly I don’t have the tape, but if you do please bring it tonight to
¶. Tonight 7pm: Open VCR Night of the Living Dead Media
In-person at Wonderville and in bits at twitch.tv/wondervillenyc, tonight is the pagan holiday known as Last Monday of The Month, celebrated with the ritual of Open VCR Night. There are three rites:
- BYO VHS, or borrow one of ours.
- Anyone may eject, at any time.
- If you eject, you must INSERT TAPE.
While I don’t have the Halloween M.S.B., I will be bringing psychological thrillers you are welcome to INSERT such as:
- Jan Švankmajers’s Food (all three courses, not just the Lunch bit everyone has seen on YouTube)
- Becoming a Master Student: What Do You Want? from the Houghton Mifflin College Survival Series (closed captioned).
- Tape Appeal: Issue 009, a Seattle-based punk rock VHS fanzine
¶. Future: Undersigned, A Psychological Thriller for and Audience of One
The previously pending review for my first and only foray into immersive theatermaking has dropped, and we will be adding more dates, soon.
¹ A rarity recently, as this decade’s cultural/economic tidal forces are washing 20-somethings and 30-whatevers toward LA and Philly and South America, I think