Insomniac Dreams

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Written way-on-the-nose to “Pictures of You” and “Out of This World” by The Cure.

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To every beautiful-ass amazing-ass badass person who came to Insomniac’s screening of Open Doom Crescendo at Eyesore Cinema—I am forever grateful, humbled, and moved.

Tell everyone you can. Forget about me—this kind of creative giving (n.) that you give (v.) life and validation to will continue so long as you keep showing up for it. And you get to give it through whatever you may create, or even how you live your life.

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I’m not gonna be presumptuous, but I really do feel like something’s changing.

I’ve been saying that, and I’ve been asking for further opinions from the bonds over in TORONTO, cause Montreal apparently has no one around to bond with left in regards to what DIY cinema can be and I’m done digressing. I was writing to Khanh that twice this last half-year I’ve been to Toronto and left feeling that my time to connect was too limited. But despite that, the time I did have with them was living external proof that there is something to all this. . . . . I hope this momentum we’re collectively cultivating together keeps going, even when cities apart. Khanh believes in this momentum, and that Toronto to Montreal is not much of a distance. And with that, I feel just that bit less apart from basically everyone who’ll actively enable me.

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I was asking Mark (Hanson, photo below left) if he believes something is changing. He agreed, and we were standing on external proof at his workplace in Bay Street Video, where both mainstream and outsider cinema physical media co-exist.

Bay Street Video’s a movie rental and retail store where you can find the mangoshake blu-ray in the comedy section and right behind it a film starring Michelle Pfeiffer. It is the space where mainstream and outsider art are not at war with each other for that space, and rather the two compliment each other’s tastes—combined into aesthetic versatility. It is not coincidence that Mark would be the only critic—let alone writer—who would want to and did interview me about the outsider work I’m trying to lace as far as possible to the mainstream—this in a wider arts culture where outside of Bay Street Video, mainstream and outsider couldn’t be further apart. Hell no not here though.

Here is a physical media haven.

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Ethan (Eng, above) clearly doesn’t need my professional help; his underage worship doesn’t need my edging-senior-citizen jadedness. But he’s my primo hope for the future of cinema. Ethan—who at 13 years old in his senior year of high school pranked said entire school into believing that his docufiction saga was but a harmless yearbook graduation video—is trailblazing a path where maybe—Just Maybe—outsider and mainstream can operate the same ecosystem of public consciousness. And no I’m not underestimating Ethan one bit. My relatively unsuccessful a$$ just imagines the scenario of outsider art winning the day in conjunction with Sisyphus reaching the hilltop. But if anyone can do it, it’s Ethan Eng.

He’s not yet sick of letting me tag along when I’m not a liability, and it feels I’ll be owing him for as long as Sisyphus is pushing that boulder up the hill. But if there’s anyone to bet it all on, it’s him and the community he’s surrounded by.

With Annie (Koyama, below right), godmother of Open Doom Crescendo—giving us the rock star treatment at SOHO House:

When I think about a fellow innovative DIY filmmaker like Cullen (McFater, below right then left) who basically made Ethan happen (exploiting the faculty trust of their high school so Ethan can prank them all with said feature debut yearbook vid Therapy Dogs), I know we’re already half an Avengers-lineup enough of DIY filmmakers who believe in the same future.

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Montreal don’t expect me to represent you with pride; I just instrumentalized your post-corrupt pre-post-gentrified failures. How am I the only one I know in this concrete-cracked city waging a DIY revolution? And it’s your own self-insular political and cultural fault that all the cool cinema people are in Toronto. Well Avalon’s in Vancouver, which makes me feel that tad less separated, but she’s already like the new face of Canadian genre cinema. Still, distance can’t separate us, yeah? Yeah? Megabus roundtrip Montreal-Toronto is apparently 20$ this summer.

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When I think of curators like Nara (Wrigglesworth, above)—who made this screening happen—I can believe in a future where Asian representation is a naturalness within a DIY art scene of which can also be a naturalness in our wider creative culture. I believe Nara gets it better than anyone else I know. Also I got to hear their band Trespassing rehearse and they fuckin rule.

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Peter (Kuplowsky, below) won’t marry me (it’s okay I was joking anyway) but he keeps coming back for more.

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This trip probably set me back financially another year. But because my life at this point is definitely not about money cause I got none, I’ll do it all over again.

Soon enough again, I hope.

Til then it’s meant the world.

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Annex: Went to New York City, met my hero in real life, saw him perform and bring the house down on God and all his squires, met his family, bought his wife’s beautiful pottery. All Super Tight.

Dan Barrett and Giles Corey / Have A Nice Life:

Thao Hau’s Studio T Ceramics:

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