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Starting From Scratched

A few months ago a friend told me she had heard that you could fix a scratched DVD with toothpaste. There weren’t many details beyond that, but she assumed it meant you just rubbed some toothpaste over any scratches on the disc and that would fill them in somehow. Of course my mind jumped to trying to figure out how this might work, as well as to what the short term / long term degradation issues might be — not really to the DVD but more to the player. I don’t know if DVDs are that great of a format for thinking so long term about, but I really didn’t think it was a good idea to stick a toothpaste coated disc into a DVD player.

This was the same person whose father lost a number of paperclips in his computers disc drive while trying to poke around to make it run faster, so I wasn’t so sure about her technological reliability. That is until I saw this Wired Wiki post the other day on How to Fix a Scratched CD. There it was, tips not only on using (abrasive) toothpaste to polish out scratches on an optical disc, but also anti-glare spray, Brasso metal polish, wax or something called Meguire’s Deep Crystal Paint Cleaner which is for automotive use.

It sounds crazy, and normally something like this would send me off mumbling about archivally sound practices and how kids just don’t respect things anymore and grumble grumble grumble, but this time I didn’t have that same reaction. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to care about the piles and piles of commercially produced discs out there. Even without being loofahed, they aren’t going to last all that long.

Or maybe it’s because I’ve seen enough ad hoc or re-purposed tools being used in archives and on collections that these things don’t phase me anymore (audio engineers sometimes seem part mad scientist). Maybe these make-dos are not the best thing for the media, but the simple fact is that many of the tools we need to do our work have not been created or are no longer being produced. Cleverness and inventiveness are necessary traits of the archivist / preservationist, and who knows when some out of left field solution might be the correct one.

Or maybe it’s because these kinds of solutions, while dealing with digital content, are actually more about physical process. They are about solving the ways that physical degradation like scratches impede the mechanisms of disc reading.

That last must be it, because what bothers me about the wiki on “how to fix a scratched CD”  is the cavalier attitude about file formats and blindly trusting computers & digital distribution.

The authors conclude that “you don’t have to worry about scratching your MP3 like you can a compact disc,” as if that means you don’t have to worry about other issues with digital media. And they suppose that, “If you lose your music, chances are, in the future, your music store will replenish the music you bought from them for you at little or no cost,” which is a rather optimistic outlook that commercial media providers will suddenly turn so altruistic.

The kicker seems to be that they recommend using Error Correction when importing particularly damaged materials to something like iTunes as MP3. As our own Dave Rice has shown, digital file transfer and transcoding are particularly fraught areas in maintaining a persistent object. The audio of an error corrected CD may sound fine, but reformulating the digital makeup of a file is the same as reformulating its physical structure. Even though you cannot always see the results as you can with a physical object, the changes have occurred and should be taken with the same consideration as how you physically handle an asset or what kind of image storage/transfer decisions you make.

We’re moving toward the Cloud, but that doesn’t mean we should let our conceptual hold of our media become ethereal as well. You don’t have to understand every smidgen of code (that’s the technical term for a piece of code, isn’t it?), but working in a world where archives are becoming more digi-centric does require that you understand how file formats work and what their transfer and transformation mean. It seems like starting all over once again, but its better than accessioning 40 boxes of minty fresh smelling discs.

— Joshua Ranger

5 Tips For Effective Collections Advocacy

The human desire to classify and name is a highly personal and a greatly prized act. Naming the files we create is no different, though the number of files and tools used for managing them place a great need on consistent structure and application of file naming guidelines. What to do is then very simple – consistency. More to the point is what not to do in order to avoid pitfalls.

• 5 TIPS FOR FILE NAMING (PDF)

Top 10 Media Preservation Related Texts Published In The Aughts

The texts below contain words enough, so I’ll try not to add more to your burden. Criteria called for something more than articles, though not necessarily books; something related to preservation and archiving, though not necessarily strict instructional resources; something that helped advance the available knowledge base of the field, though not necessarily dry and unreadable.

10. Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists, Fred R Byers, 2003
Because they’re everywhere, but not for as long as was claimed.

9. Tinfoil Phonographs, Rene Rondeau, 2001
Because we are not immune to pictures and mechanical technologies.

8. Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use, 2005
Because, agree or disagree, action needed to be defined and taken in order to move the issue forward and make the stakeholders engage.

7. The MXF Book, Nick Wells, Oliver Morgan, Jim Wilkinson & Bruce Devlin, 2006
Because it’s the way things are going, and we need to understand the route.

6. Restoration of Motion Picture Film, Paul Read & Mark-Paul Meyer, 2000
Because we need to remind ourselves that we got this one down pretty good; magnetic and digital media are next.

5. The LCSH Century: One Hundred Years With the Library of Congress Subject Headings System, Alva T. Stone editor, 2000
Because taxonomies matter.

4. IPI Media Storage Quick Reference, Peter Z. Adelstein, published by Image Permanence Institute, 2004
Because not everyone has an iPhone, and this is reference information we need.

3. FACET Format Characteristics and Preservation Problems, Mike Casey, 2007
Because such thorough, systematic training with visual examples is hard to come by.

2. PrestoSpace Wiki, http://wiki.prestospace.org/
Because digital publishing is a valid resource, and PrestoSpace is a great resource.

1. The Film Preservation Guide: The Basics for Archives, Libraries, and Museums, National Film Preservation Foundation (U.S.), 2004
Because you gotta start somewhere

— Joshua Ranger

Clipp’d

The New York Times gave it short shrift by placing this as an Arts, Briefly article, but I think the new video site movieclips.com is pretty intriguing. The quality of the clips is a lot better than YouTube, and because the studios are behind it there’s not the risk of content being taken down. I also feel like this is an important baby step toward a new kind of distribution model for film. Allowing open access and reuse through embedding for these pieces of works may start opening some minds in different areas.

Sure, it is limited to studio films and curated clips which may not be from the finest films ever made, and it isn’t truly “free” if you have to give up your email address and your Facebook connections if you go through that app, but then again, you get to do this:

(Well, you get to do that if you adjust the object width and height to a 3:4 ratio if it’s not a widescreen film and disable the autoplay — the clip is fine on the site but the embedding code default stretches the image too much.) I made a comment on their beta site to change this aspect ratio problem. Looks like both issues have been addressed.

It may be pointless, it may be nefarious, it may be indispensable, or it may just be a fun little toy. I’m not interested in immediately proclaiming its potential for success and cultural value — that will play out soon enough. But right now I am interested in all the different permutations of its faceted search (Henchmen in an Elevator! Grabs of Forgiveness by a Cowboy! Scenes of Twinkies and Acceptance!). Looks like a busy weekend…

— Joshua Ranger

Top 10 Library Of Congress Subject Headings Added In The Aughts

Though The Library of Congress Subject Headings and similar stricter taxonomies have gotten a bad rap from the tagging / folksonomy crowd, there is something necessary and wonderful in classification structures. And in a way, the Subject Headings are their own form of “social tagging” — exploring newly created headings reveals how they mark the changes and trends in society and the larger culture by referencing the need for ways to describe the materials that are entering libraries. My Top 10 New Subject Headings below (and others) can be found at the Library of Congress’ list of weekly updates.

*Subject Headings are classified in the 15X fields, with explanatory notes listed below them in the higher numbered fields.
BT = Broader Topic
RT = Related Topic
UF = Used For

10. April 2009, The This American Life Effect

155 Compilation radio programs [sp2009025039]
680 This heading is used as a genre/form heading for radio programs that are composed of pre existing broadcast or unbroadcast radio programs, or portions thereof. Radio programs made up of different episodes or stories which are usually connected by a theme, event, location or original author, often having a wrap around tale, are entered under Radio anthologies.
455 UF Compilations, Radio
455 UF Radio compilations
555 BT Radio programs
681 Note under Radio anthologies

155 Radio anthologies [sp2007025592]
680 This heading is used as a genre/form heading for radio programs made up of different episodes or stories which are usually connected by a theme, event, location or original author, often having a wrap around tale. Radio programs that are composed of pre existing broadcast or unbroadcast radio programs, or portions thereof, are entered under Compilation radio programs.
455 UF Anthologies, Radio
455 UF Anthology radio programs
555 BT Radio programs
681 Note under Compilation radio programs

9. March 2000, Language, Naming & Structure Are Beautiful

(C) 150 Brown-headed cowbird [May Subd Geog] [sp 00004502]
053 QL696.P2475 (Zoology)
450 UF Molothrus ater
550 BT Molothrus

8. October 2007, Trends Serious…

(C) 150 Climatic changes—Effect of human beings on [May Subd Geog] [sp2007004712]
450 UF Anthropogenic effects on climatic changes
550 BT Human ecology

(C) 150 Gays in the military [May Subd Geog] [sp2006000714]
* 450 UF Gay Armed Forces members
* 450 UF Gay soldiers

7. October 2007, …And Trends Faddish

151 Hale-Bopp comet [sp 97000501]
* 053 QB723.H17
* 053 QB723.H17 (Comet) CANCEL
* 451 UF C/1995 01 (Comet) CANCEL
* 451 UF C/1995 O1 (Comet)
* 451 UF Comet 1995 01 CANCEL
* 451 UF Comet 1995 O1
* 451 UF Hale-Bopp’s comet

(C) 150 Nintendo Wii video games [Not Subd Geog] [sp2007007398]
450 UF Wii video games
550 BT Nintendo video games

150 Piracy [May Subd Geog] [sp2006001424]
* 680 Here are entered works on acts of robbery committed at sea for personal gain. Works on acts of armed violence at sea that are committed for political motives and are not lawful acts of war are entered under Maritime terrorism.
* 450 UF Maritime piracy
* 681 Note under Maritime terrorism

6. September 2001, Knowing Before It Was Known

(A) 150 Attrition (Military science) [May Subd Geog] [sp2001008445]
450 UF Wars of attrition
550 BT Strategy

(C) 150 Bomb threats [May Subd Geog] [sp2001009878]
450 UF Bomb scares
450 UF Scares, Bomb
550 BT Threats

5. June 2003, Signs of the Times

* 150 Armored personnel carriers [May Subd Geog] ADD GEOG [sp85007330]
* 450 UF APCs (Armored personnel carriers)

150 Christian conservatism [May Subd Geog] [sp2003001882]
* 550 BT Religious right

4. May 2000, Concerns & Their Usurper

(C) 150 Genetically modified foods [May Subd Geog] [sp 00006274]
450 UF GM foods
450 UF Genetically engineered foods
550 BT Food
550 RT Food–Biotechnology

(C) 150 Indians as mascots [May Subd Geog] [sp 00006248]
450 UF Indian mascots
550 BT Mascots

(C) 150 Islamic leadership [May Subd Geog] [sp 00005089]
680 Here are entered works on leadership within Islamic institutions and organizations. Works on Islamic views of leadership are entered under Leadership–Religious aspects–Islam.
450 UF Muslim leadership
550 BT Leadership
681 Note under Leadership–Religious aspects–Islam

3. July 2002, Everything Has Its Place

150 Aesthetics, Mongolian [May Subd Geog] [sp2002005582]
450 UF Mongolian aesthetics

(C) 150 Amusement parks–Uruguay [sp2002007551]

(C) 150 Chlorosis in literature [Not Subd Geog] [sp2002007624]

2. November 2008, On The Minds Of All Americans

155 Political radio commercials [sp2008025557]
455 UF Political radio spots
455 UF Political spots (Radio commercials)
555 BT Radio commercials (Advertisements)

(C) 150 Splatter films [May Subd Geog] [sp2008008408]
450 UF Gore films
450 UF Spatter films
450 UF Splatter horror films
450 UF Splatter movies
450 UF Torture porn (Film genre)
550 BT Horror films

(C) 150 Thriftiness [May Subd Geog] [sp2008005647]
450 UF Frugality
550 BT Finance, Personal

1. August 2009, Life Goes On

(C) 150 Latex garments—Erotic aspects [May Subd Geog] [sp2009007035]
550 BT Erotica

— Joshua Ranger

Top 10 Documentaries Using Archival Footage In The Aughts

Documentary is one of the most theoretically strict or austere of genres. I decided to lean more towards aestheticism than toward asceticism in developing my criteria. Simply put, it is the use of footage not originally shot or specifically created for the film as a basis of the film’s structure or narrative, or perhaps just as the source idea.

10. Ballets Russes
Had to include this because of the article in the Times Sunday Magazine a few weeks ago bemoaning the lack / difficulty of preserving dance. Yes, it’s a conceptually difficult prospect, but there are a number of efforts underway that the author neglects to mention, including the work going on at the Dance Heritage Coalition. Also, as Ballets Russes so beautifully shows, preservation is not always in the maintenance of the “object” itself, but also of its context and its experiential nature, which can be maintained through oral histories, written records, and audiovisual recordings.

9. We Jam Econo / End of the Century
Like watching home movies, not of a family but of a subculture that has just as tight of bonds. As we mature we leave behind those life & death emotions that we connected to music or other art forms and it’s fascinating to be reminded of those years. At the same time, it wasn’t just a connection of personal upheaval, but of cultural upheaval. As the subculture becomes mainstream, we forgot how original or dangerous it once seemed, and the repercussions it had in the wider culture. One of the powers of archival material is to help us reconnect or understand past states of mind. Finally, being able to see these rock and roll heroes behind the scenes or in personal moments helps remind us that they aren’t gods, but are just normal people like us who were just able to express what many people felt in a better way.

8. Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
I can’t really sit still to watch a sporting event, but I’ve always loved sports journalism, documentary footage (Hear Hear for NFL Films!) and the subsequent narratives from the event. A good story is a good story.

7. Bowling for Columbine
It was difficult to figure out where to place this one because of the conflict between my memory of seeing it when it came out (at a special screening in the student lounge basement at University of Virginia, because it wasn’t really playing anywhere else in Virginia) and my questioning of how well it has stood up over time, a judgment clouded by my assessment of Michael Moore’s subsequent movies. Though I have my doubts about the long term cultural impact of Moore’s mishmash style of talking heads, political theater, news footage, and humorous use of sponsored films & other archival footage, I have to remind myself that at the time it all felt fresh, fun, rebellious, and that it was actually doing serious work.

6. Capturing the Friedmans / Tarnation
We tend to have warm fuzzy associations with home movies, those gateways to the past that reconnect us with memories we have lost or that we want to share with others. But what happens when those memories are full of pain or questioning, or reflect something more sinister when viewed with some post facto knowledge? All families go through troubles, but they don’t always have the camera recording it all. There is something fascinating and disgusting about passively watching these problems play out, thus we talk about the exploitation of the subject in documentary by the filmmaker. But that seems to be negated by the fact of a family member documenting it all. What was the Friedman son thinking as he videotaped things, and why did he want someone else to edit and produce it for wider distribution? As Tolstoy says, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

5. The Five Obstructions
Perhaps a bit of stretch to include here, but this playful and entertaining documentary deserves to be on some list, especially since it reminds us that Lars von Trier is quite the trickster whose other work should be reviewed with that in mind. Von Trier’s challenge to his former film professor Jørgen Leth is in effect an argument in favor of the power and importance of archival material. Dig into the past. Let the memories retouch you and remind you, and use their inspiration to create anew. The results are something more than a mashup because of how they reengage Leth into the original creation and meaning of his images, developing meaning in the present by refinding it in the past.

4. Los Angeles Plays Itself
This has been sitting in my Saved Netflix queue for years with very little hope of it moving into Available. A delicious riff on the City Symphony sub-genre that incorporates too much copyrighted material to be commercially released any time soon. Perhaps an extreme example, but a beautifully made one that underscores the many problems low budget and documentary filmmakers have in repurposing material and releasing their films. Unless you feel like getting elected to Congress and rewriting American copyright law you should be scanning regional film festivals for the next time this screens.

3. The Case of the Grinning Cat
Uses Marker’s own stockpiled footage and archival materials from news and television as clues in an almost facetious mystery. “Almost” because, despite the slight smirk and guided Socratic method inherent in the film’s structure, the use of footage is truly engaging to the viewer. I found myself scanning the frame for glimpses of the grinning cat. When Marker “misses” one (i.e., tacitly lets the moment in some protest footage pass before going back to comment later) I felt myself light up and eagerly want to point it out to him. He leads the viewer to this Aha! moment, but a mark of great filmmaking is causing the audience to feel participatory in the story, not manipulated into reactions. Marker achieves this masterfully through his playful exploration of images.

2. Fog of War
Morris excels at exposing the human side of oddballs, geniuses, and monsters. Depending on your views, he’s potentially captured all three with Robert McNamara. I normally have problems with archival materials being used for aesthetic purposes that ahistoricize them, but Morris always does more with his imagery, whether archival or original. Something about being able to create a mood simultaneaous with the means for analysis through editing, repetition, and minimal narrative transcends my concerns through its combined expression of beauty and intelligence.

1. Grizzly Man
Another example like Friedmans of a filmmaker being hired to create a documentary from someone else’s materials with unanticipated and perhaps not happy results. The difference in this case is that there was plenty of back history to search through that should have given fair warning when engaging Werner Herzog. Good thing they did, however. Instead of some subpar basic cable hagiography they got themselves a masterpiece of the genre, and one that took Timothy Treadwell more seriously than it seemed to. Though almost confrontational, Herzog truly engages Treadwell’s theories, his life choices, and his filmmaking, trying to unpack it all and understand it in ways that a blandly positive documentary would not. Though Herzog may disagree with much of what he finds, his questioning, thoughtful approach is honest, personal filmmaking at its finest, and the resulting documentary approaches closer to truth than to history.

— Joshua Ranger

Top 10 Film Restorations / Reissues Of The Aughts

It’s that time of decade again! All lists themselves start off with a list (of criteria). I’ve expanded the sense of a restoration / reissue to included films that were restored whether major or minor, re-released to theatres with a restored or new print, or reissued on home video after being inaccessible or accessible only in poorer versions for an extended period. The dates refer to the year of re-release. Almost all should be available on DVD (or will be soon)… unless, of course, they’ve gone out of print again. Check them out and enjoy them while you can!

10. Metropolis (2009)
I suppose this has to be included because of the cultural importance of the discovery of new footage (and the corresponding obsession about finding the “complete” film), but I have to rank it last because Metropolis has just had too many most-complete-restorations. This position also represents many of the honorable mentions below which, for the most part, while important films or impressive restorations that were a long time coming, are ones that have not lacked critical acclaim/demand or previous restorations/reissues over the years.

9. The Monster Squad (2009)
It’s about time. My 20 year old VHS copy ain’t doing too good.

8. The Leopard (2004)
First, a display of the powerful toolset that home video can embody. The DVD release includes the original Italian version of the film and the dubbed, edited American version for comparison’s sake, as well as a whole bevy of information/education materials. Second, a fascinating quiet reworking of the idea of an epic film in the story of a man who participates in great historical events but ultimately shrugs at his role while acknowledging that history is much larger than one person. For all the films that pretend to a bottom up view of events by telling the story of an individual within an epic event, The Leopard does it more truly by avoidance of raising the individual’s importance to a level on par with that of those events.

7. King Kong (2005) / Baby Face (2006)
Mark these under Know Your Film History, Know Your Cultural History. The restored pre-censor versions of these films help defray the myth that the past was a more innocent, less savvy time. Conversely, they are also a lesson in the use of restraint and suggestion in story-telling that very well could have created a more engaged, better “reading” audience even at the level of B movies. On top of this are all the pretty faces: Barbara Stanwyck, Fay Wray, and a beautifully expressive King Kong. Outside of what Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis have done together, I really haven’t seen any digital f/x that create the same emotion and attachment as Willis O’Brien was able to instill in his stop motion work. What was a surprise revelation in the 16mm print I first saw this as captured the emotional core of my monkey brain in the restoration.

6. 36th Chamber of Shaolin (2007)
Not the first kung fu movie, but could be considered the ultimate expression of the genre that has spawned so many more and influenced countless other genres… and one of the ur texts for the Wu Tang Clan to boot! There’s something to the social connection made through the collective memory of poorly dubbed/translated kung fu movies – something that can run through Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker to RZA-ODB-GZA is pretty powerful – but being able to see a clean print in the original language takes the film out of the realm of grindhouse sensibility and easy parody and into its proper place as a well made studio film that engages a long cultural history in new ways.

5. The Girl Can’t Help It (2006)
Frank Tashlin has had a long delayed, well deserved renaissance of late with the restoration or reissue of much of his oeuvre. He has always been one of those people who created images that everyone knows, but no one knows where they came from or who made them. Like a Gene Krupa album, a Raymond Chandler novel, or EC Comics, Tashlin belies the belief that the 50s was a boring, culturally monolithic period without anything odd or dark or inventive being produced in the mainstream. Despite the comedy and the early rock music, I watched it with a tinge of sadness, knowing that the quality/style of color captured on film then will probably never be reached again.

4. Yakuza Papers (2004 American release)
I could have chosen any number of Japanese genre crime flicks that have finally been released stateside the past few years, but there’s something about the extent and cultural signifiers in this series that struck a chord in me. The way the crime syndicates were born out of the postwar upheaval. The old world meets new world (in the same world) with the mix of gangster cool and more traditional tattooing and Japanese garb. The way guns are used or thought of in a very different way than in American movies, re-imbuing them with the dangerous power that they hold, but also the reality that a single bullet (or even more poorly placed ones) will not kill someone immediately. And finally unmasking the engrained conception that the Japanese are all unfailingly polite businesspeople who don’t have any violence or upheaval in their society. It maybe doesn’t match up to The Godfather in our minds because it doesn’t feed our love of high melodrama, but the series certainly equally creates a full world of events and characters that reflect the wider aspects of society.

3. I Am Cuba (2005 restoration)
I still feel my jaw drop open in awe when I think about the stunning tracking shot through a rooftop cigar rolling workshop, out a window, floating several stories above the street and then gliding down amidst a crowd at street level. More so in the pre-digital days, there is a daring confrontation to keeping the camera rolling through a long take. Someone like Cassavetes uses these shots to expose a dramatic/emotional realism, forcing the viewer to watch as conversations play out through tension and mundanity. Kalatozov uses it to capture a social/temporal realism – this is happening here while this other thing is happening here – while also displaying a technical virtuosity/inventiveness that amazes.

2. WR: Mysteries of the Organism (2007)
Wow. I dragged a friend along to this in the theatre without giving much explanation of the film, just that it was some odd Yugoslavian movie from the 70s that was partly a documentary about a new agey / cultish doctor. That was pretty much all I knew about it too because I tend to only skim reviews so I keep a film a little fresh for first viewing. We arrived a little late to the theatre and walked in during the opening minutes… to the image of three naked people cracking open eggs and letting the raw egg run through their hands in an orgyish fashion. It just keeps going from there. An audacious mix of genres peppered with a dry black humor, it’s like an Eastern Bloc version of a Russ Myer movie. Also captures a cultural moment and ideology that is quickly succumbing to nostalgia and lingering mis-perceptions.

1. Killer of Sheep (2007)
Far and away the best of this decade and would have been stiff competition for many others. Simply one of the all-time greats. Precious is a pale derivative of Burnett’s unpacking of the ups and downs of everyday life that accompany the numbing pressures and failures of poverty. Even the heavy-handed flights of fancy in Precious are bettered by the almost surreal set pieces (the road trip that goes nowhere) and images (just try to get the image of the dog-masked girl or of the slaughterhouse out of your head) that are both original but also fit into the long history of film. I was so shaken after seeing the restored print that I had to walk home from Manhattan to Brooklyn just to soothe my emotions.

Honorable Mention: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song; The Red Shoes; The Exiles; A Woman Under the Influence; The King and I; Once Upon a Time in America; The Sorrow and The Pity

— Joshua Ranger

Thanks For The Memories

Like the person who always wants to order last at a restaurant because they haven’t made up their mind yet, I always get stuck at the dinner table on Thanksgiving trying to think up something that’s the right blend of witty and sweet for the “I’m thankful for…” round robin. It never quite comes out right (but then again, neither does the turkey), so I thought I might give it a little forethought this year by considering what I’m thankful for this past year in the archiving & preservation world.

I had a few thoughts running through my mind on this one (which I suppose is a virtual tidal wave of action compared to normal). I could go culturally significant and choose something like The Red Shoes restoration or the discovery of missing footage from Metropolis. Or I could go nostalgic route and choose the release of Nirvana Live at Reading (can you guess my age?). Or I could go the mind-blowingly amazing route: There have been some advancement on the Leon-Scott front, but nothing will beat experiencing the premiere of the earliest known sound recordings at the ARSC conference in 2008.

But, no, it’s Thanksgiving; the sentimental always wins out on holidays. So I’ll have to go with the transfers my wife and I had made of some of her dad’s family’s 8mm home movies through the Standby Program here in New York. I’m thankful there are still companies doing quality work in this area, and I’m thankful for having the ability to make these films and memories accessible again. I don’t think the family had even watched the films when they were first developed, but they watched the transfers over and over and over again when we gave them to her dad. To be able to see old friends, old family members who have passed, and to share the stories behind the images was a special moment.

More special than seeing Kurt Cobain wheeled out on stage in a hospital gown? We’ll have to let history decide that one, but at least now the home movies corner has more of a fighting chance.

— Joshua Ranger

Everything, Everywhere

“Do we really need to save everything from everybody?”

In the first part of November 12th’s episode of Soundcheck broadcast on WNYC in New York (“Vintage Soul Gets a Second Wind”), host John Schaefer spoke with Ben Greenman of The New Yorker and soul singer/producer Syl Johnson about the current (micro) trend in reissuing obscure soul-music albums from the 1950s-70s. Many of these mildly popular, regionally popular, or not at all popular performers have begun to tour again or play one-off shows nationally and internationally based on the new found interest in their work.

As discussed in the segment from the show below , and as I have personally witnessed at some concerts in Brooklyn, these reissues and concerts are most popular among a younger, primarily white crowd. The concerts might be at a predominantly African-American supper club, or maybe at a venue where The Mountain Goats sold out the night before. Whichever the case, it’s the same crowd trekking around the city to check out the latest soul revival, a group of 20 and 30 somethings grooving to the live beat of 60 or 70 somethings who haven’t performed in perhaps 30 years.