1) FILM / TELEVISION
MY OCTOPUS TEACHER - Documentary - (Netflix)
The winner of the 2021 Oscar for best feature documentary does not disappoint. Craig Foster is a South African documentary filmmaker who takes a plunge near Cape Town, and comes away with an extraordinary look at a world we as humans rarely interact with.
PLOT - “A filmmaker forges an unusual friendship with an octopus living in a South African kelp forest, learning as the animal shares the mysteries of her world.” -Netflix
The film is compiled from over ten years of underwater footage by Foster, a filmmaker who has spent a lifetime documenting nature and the wild animal kingdom that encompasses it. The relationship between man and octopus is something that most of us have never witnessed before, and it is worth diving into every minute of this documentary to experience just that. Here is the trailer for My Octopus Teacher:
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2) MUSIC / PODCASTS
DISSECT - Podcast - (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, others)
“Dissect is a serialized music podcast that examines a single album per season, one song per episode.” - per Dissect website: https://dissectpodcast.com/
I have decided to include podcasts into the Music category moving forward because, well, why not? I get a lot of value and entertainment from podcasts. They actually fill a lot of my auditory time space when I am in between work tasks, or driving to my next gig.
I recently came across Dissect, in particular the Mac Miller season, which has drawn me into this excellent take on a combination of reporting and creative discovery on musicians that the podcast features each season. It truly “dissects” the music that these artists create, in a way that gives you more depth and insight into the lyrics and song dynamics than you may normally be aware of.
It is a well produced Spotify Original series featuring the likes of Kanye West, Beyonce, Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar, and others.
3) ART
FABIANO MILLANI - (Brazilian Hyperrealism Artist)
Hyperrealism art has been catching on as an extraordinary form of painting and drawing. May artists will use oils, graphite, charcoal, and even a blend of several utilities to create stunning works that look like photographs to the eye. However, when you zoom into the frame itself, you are caught up in the fine intricacies of these artistic creations.
Fabiano Millani, a Brazilian hyperrealism artist has been fine tuning his paintings over years of practice, to give the viewer an experience that likely questions whether the work is real or not, painted versus photographed. It is a fun artform that I highly suggest one looks into, as there are hundreds, and even thousands of artists taking on this style.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/fabiano_millani/
Here is a look into a bit of Millani’s process:
4) BOOKS/WRITING
JOSEPH CONRAD - (An excerpt from Heart Of Darkness)
“He was the only man of us who still “followed the sea.” The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them — the ship; and so is their country — the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as Destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.”
— Joseph Conrad
PURCHASE Heart of Darkness: https://amzn.to/3zemPq7
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5) PHOTOGRAPHY
NAN GOLDIN - (American Photographer)
“Nan Goldin is an American photographer known for her deeply personal and candid portraiture. Goldin’s intimate images act as a visual autobiography documenting herself and those closest to her, especially in the LGBTQ community and the heroin-addicted subculture.” - Artnet.com
More of Nan’s work can be seen here: http://www.artnet.com/artists/nan-goldin/
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