Le Newsletter | The Video Essay & Modern Cinema Verité as Pop-Art Legacy

Plus, news on a rare Warhol lithograph for collectors

The strongest earthquake I’ve ever personally experienced, along with the aftershock, earlier today.

A walk around the corner & into a Carnaval route sometime last week.

Like Mardi Gras, Carnaval in Peru (where I currently am) & many other parts of the world falls before Lent & during Ramadan. It is a time to celebrate abundance & joy before renunciation as spiritual observation.

It is also becoming an annual marker & initiator of a renewing time that marks shifts in my own life, usually unplanned. This personal tradition began around four years ago, when I attended Mardi Gras with my family before beginning a Vipassana meditation course at the start of Lent. Ten days later I was visiting my mother’s home, done with life as I had been living it beforehand, & finding out about a new widespread virus that was something previously whispered about in a news piece here & there as a vague threat happening someplace else.

Today is March 3rd & I am considering the impossible ambition to create perfection while scrolling through Pictures from An Exhibition.

Patti Smith for Kuzamutto Gallery in NYC

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Today (the day I return to this unfinished draft to complete the latest edition of Le Newsletter) is March 4th, & I woke up (for the second time this morning) thinking about being in Lafayette & having Community Coffee with a splash of Tito’s, a slice of King Cake, & a couple of chicken salad sandwiches likely seasoned with Tony Chachere’s & served on a catering tray - ordered for visiting guests (my mom & I) who drove in from TX the night before. It’s a quick breakfast before meeting up with the other cousins who will all start our drive to New Orleans for the big parades after weeks of attending the smaller Parish ones. “Parishes” are what “counties” are called in Louisiana. The ties to Catholicism run deep.

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I know that there are shifts that unlike the earthquake are imperceptible to me now, but will become clear sometime in the future. What is perceptible to me now is the importance & remembrance of truth. The truth about people & our capacity for true compassion, connection, & care - things that require more than using the language of healing™ or being present in spaces ranging from small mountain towns or even South American mushroom ceremonies. Things that can be felt, instantly changing our entire perception of what life is & gets to be.

Photo Credit: Monty Marsh. | Lest anyone think it’s clever to call it appropriation… This photo of singer/songwriter Dawn Richard (Pronounced Ri-Shard), from a 2019 Mardi Gras celebration featured in a Vogue article by Rachel Hahn shows the musician in a hand sewn & beaded costume that is the result of the continuation of collaboration between Natives (specifically the Washitaw Indians) & Black people in Louisiana. It is the sort of collaboration that produced not only the now generations old tradition of the Mardi Gras Indian Parade & associated garments, but also the distinct cultural group to which I belong - Louisiana Creoles. The one thing that they had in common was the art of dance & the art of sewing: the garb, the costumes, & that became the communication between the cultures that led the Mardi Gras festivities for us, says Richard of the Washitaw & the Africans who began the tradition - going on to emphasize that the collaboration created the opportunity for Black people [to] come out in their garb & show each other what ward & what tribe sewed the best. …it gave them an identity where it had been stripped away. Richard worked alongside her stylist Joey Thao to bead & sew the costume - which is accented by the headdress of Chief Montanna - a faux feathered headdress in honor of Richard’s veganism. After Chief chooses a theme & a color, everyone goes to work. It takes a year, a year & a half sometimes, to sew & create the piece that they want to step out with.

This truth is an understanding & experience that is easy to forget & hard to live without. Glimpsing it started me on a path of travel & living abroad years ago, before openness to the fact that “real life” could & does look like all sorts of things started to feel like naivité. When I was fresh off the lesson that feeling & observation, Mardi Gras & Lent, were two sides of the same coin - neither of which require attachment. Both of which come from embrace of being.

Now as ever, it’s time to feel.

Tonight I put on a golden yellow silk skirt & charcoal grey/mossy green blend knit - colors referential of those present at Mardi Gras celebrations all over the great state of Louisiana right now - & enjoyed a meal at Pizza & Pasta Smith, an accidental find after directionless wandering through an industrial part of town. Indulging in abundance found through pure-hearted sharing, I spoke & listened to others speak of illusion, pure love, & deep truth. Smells of various foods wafted out of restaurants, & the sights of vendors & open shops lined the streets along with families & people of all ages walking & biking around me.

There on the streets of Lima at night - swerving through crowds & listening to the sounds of music, traffic, & talk on every corner, life itself was a Carnaval.

The follow-up was a sit under the open skies for an informal, French-accented seminar on seperation as manifestation of ego - which inspired the shape of this introduction.

From here, I’ll be examining the video essay as a lingering element of the legacy of Pop-Art in various ways (including subject matter & the 15 minutes of fame theory), exploring the mediums connection to Cinema Verité as it is contextualized in our time, & looking at take-down journalism inspired limited series like the Belle Gibson centered Apple Cider Vinegar to do so.

I’ll also let you know how to get your hands on a very special Warhol lithograph.

This section of the newsletter is paywalled, available to members only as an act of necessary gatekeeping.