start anywhere i need an excuse. a particle of dust to condense onto. but that could be anything. right? voyage of discovery you can just like i did. a challenge.

i like filmmaking bc I like finding and working the images and being part of a team. i like the outward-facing in-the-world ego-blanking energy of doing it (together) but also riding it (together) like a rollercoaster. At a certain point there’s just faith and letting go and seeing how it turns out. i like writing bc it’s … because I like making the words and conjuring the world by myself. the total sense of freedom and possibility. mind set free. playing this instrument. the losing myself in thought. the being a camera, the making a movie in my head that projects itself into yours.

this is the the pleasure of finding things out. writing is a mind’s-eye, a personal teleporter pad, a portable portal. filmmaking is a heart with a pulse, a vehicle to captain-and-crew, a ride to take with others. take your pleasure seriously. i want to find out, see, know, discover, express, bring back, give back, bring along, make a way, show a way.

what do i want to discover about

• it’d be awesome to make a film about Douglas Englebart and the mother of all demos. the sense-maker. Motherboard?
• it’d be awesome to write a natural history of brains. on the origin(s) of experience. the baby steps of how, when, and where that-which-it-is-something-to-be-like emerged out of that-which-merely-is. Trace it from the muck of nervous goo in a primeval starfish or jellyfish along through the insects and arthropods and fish and birds and reptiles and mammals and us-es and I’s and the “new goo” that we are culturing in digital networks. Planet Brain, Brain Planet, Nervous Planet. A World Awake. A natural history of brains. How Earth went from life-supporting to inhabited. How it began as a planet, but became a world.

what can’t I shake

because only I can bring these things to life.

• The Tale of Tin and the Ten Thousand Candles (picture book)
• Planet Brain (nonfiction book)
• NP-Compleat (short film math dream)
• Vampire stories music video (Everybody’s everybody)

where do i begin? anywhere.

how do I begin? just break the seal.

• Tin: you’ve already begun. Now you can keep going. But I’m scared! scared it won’t be perfect! that’s ok. you can make it imperfect. you can make it bad!
• Planet Brain: you can ask someone what the steps might look like. You can define a “safe” spot and use it as an anchor (pick one strand to start finding out about, pitch as a mag piece?)
• NP-Compleat: start by listing out the 21 canonical problems.
• Vampire stories: start by diagramming the song, and ripping the films (Blade 2 (?); Coppola Dracula; LTROI)
• Englebart film: ask Pasternack, or Erin Lee Carr about how Motherboard video collabs work.

when do I begin?

create time. 5am-6am, every other day? M/W/F.

Portal

[that pic of jellyfish with the silhouette of the guy]