May production diary: who has two thumbs and no bugs?

IT'S ME, BABY!

A few days ago, our neighbours texted us to let us know they thought they had bedbugs. I've dealt with my share of household pests before (#renterlife), but this seemed really bad, I've seen them properly mess up lives! Dealing with this possibility sort of derailed my whole week, as I scrambled to wash and dry all our stuff, toss it into garbage bags, vacuum every inch of the house, and so on. It was really preoccupying... so imagine my delight when I learn those bugs our neighbours found were not bedbugs at all! They're like, probably fleas from their cat, which they're already treating her for – my sanity is safe. Well, as safe as it was before, anyway.

TL;DR, everything is exactly the same as it was before. But I just needed to share.

The new video

As mentioned in last month's production diary, my next video is titled "Can Art Change the World?" and I made the terrible mistake of telling you it would be easy to make. It was going to be easy, then I read every book under the sun and realized there was a ton more depth to the topic than I realized. Who could've guessed the thing that happens every time would happen this time, too? 😅

I really enjoyed what I read for this one, including Susan Sontag's "On Photography", and some stuff from the Journal of Art for Life. The most impactful read, for me, was Paolo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, how the prevailing way of teaching can make us feel powerless; he outlines an alternative method that feels like it might... cure doomscrolling? And help with revolution and all that.

Trying to condense all my takeaways into a reasonably short video took a while – I don't want to fall into the habit of making every video 60+ minutes – but after two unwieldy drafts, I finally hit my stride after ditching my Google doc and writing the whole thing out on paper.

No shade intended by that crossed-out line

I might have to do this every time! It was a blast.

The video will be out late May or early June. Partly to justify the longer wait than I'd hoped, I've decided to get really funky with the video shoots. I want each segment to highlight a different kind of art-making: if all goes to plan, I'll deliver one segment while my partner throws pottery, and another while my friend– oh man, do I even want to spoil it? I don't think it's been done in a video essay before!

Hint about what he'll be doing... albeit not a helpful one

Once the shoots wrap in a week or two, I'll report back with some behind-the-scenes shots. Until then, enjoy a few things I've been enjoying:

TL;DR (the Time Lily Does Reviews)

Digital Dialects w/ me and Alexander Avila

The man, the legend, the YouTuber Alexander Avila had me on his podcast to talk gender, Marxism, and video essays. This was in the thick of my struggle to write "Can Art Change the World?", and I got to work through some of my ideas in real-time. I think Alex is a super insightful thinker, on top of being a cool guy – I really enjoyed our talk.

The podcast is on his Patreon – if you sign up, you can listen here.

Willi Carlisle - Critterland

Is it too early to call AOTY? My pal Boundo (the best music YouTuber) put me onto this album, and it had me crying like 90 seconds in. It's an emotionally heavy, but deeply sweet country album about Carlisle's love for all the life around him. If you like the spiritual/philosophical angle in my videos, I bet this'll be up your alley.

Listen here.

–

Talk to you again soon, folks!! Hope you have some time to take it easy this weekend.

<3

Lily