Proof of life 👽

+ the Telepathy Tapes, the surrounding controversies, how experience is weighted over fact in documentaries

Events & Releases

Starting this month, I’m excited to work with the Southern Documentary Fund’s mentorship program, which offers free consultations to program members and fiscally sponsored projects. Consulting on samples, budgets, grants, talking through goals, and envisioning how to produce a film, or general “filmmaker life advice” are all topics I’d love to discuss with folks, please sign up. Learn more here.

I will also present a webinar in September through SDF for this mentorship round. September will be a busy time, please stay tuned for those details!

35 mm scan, 2025, Durham.

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Musings

Reading & Observing:

• July 22 is the Feast Day of St. Mary Magdalene. Last year, I visited the relic of her foot in Rome. One of my favorite icons of her (or anything) exists in Florence in the Accademia where the David is. She’s featured with a full dress of her hair and surrounded by tableaus of her story.

  

  Iphone, Florence, 2023.

• I completed, after many months, Salman Rushdie’s 1985 novel “the Satanic Verses.” The whole text was exactly what many say it is: a work of staggering literary vision to stand the test of time. With a magical/religious realism that created a gorgeous and grotesque world, Rushdie presents a sprawling work about belief, Eastern vs Western/ India vs London society, and what (good? evil? envy? race? fame?) genuinely might govern the hearts of men. The final chapters wander into Dostoevskian melodrama, but overall it reminded me how much I love reading. I’ve been able to be consistent about reading more since I finished this book. I don’t think I expected to drop so completely into the book but once I picked it up; even when I had to trudge, I was entirely motivated to finish the nearly 600 pages.

• Following TSV, I picked up “Beautyland” by Marie-Helene Bertino which was recommended to me on IG. I’ve read a bit of it and it’s really special. Excited to read. (It [sort of] relates to some of the comments I am making below about astral planes and aliens and the weirdness of our moment. Are we all feeling the looseness of time’s fabric, how gravity barely holds us down these days?)

• Watched Tarkovsky’s Mirror, among other opaque Russian and French films over the last couple weeks. “All is immortal.” Another view from here.

Kodak 35 mm is the only good film.

• I tried to watch Love Island USA, out of the goodness of my heart. But alas, could not.

• Puerto Rican hero Bad Bunny making history with his 30-concert residency. Paradigm maker and shaker, nostalgia poet— we love him.

• New Geese album is going to tear up my heart. This very special video made me think maybe art will make a comeback… eventually. We saw Cameron Winter open for Waxahatchee back in May and it’s been an upward spiral ever since. Highly recommend his weird and wonderful solo album Heavy Metal.

• The royal wedding of Charli XCX and her Mr. George XCX was very cute and romantic and simple. It was a much better than destructive Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezo’s weird celebrity cruise wedding in Venice.

congratulations.

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Evidence vs. Experience: The Telepathy Tapes controversies

Recently, I listened to the entirety of S1 of The Telepathy Tapes on a long car ride after a friend recommended it. In no time, I had listened to almost every episode. This highly controversial podcast tells stories of non-speaking autistic individuals who, with the help of their caretakers, claim to communicate telepathically—and even commune with spirits on an astral plane they call “The Hill.” None of the claims in it are proven, and there is significant pushback particularly around the use of “facilitated communication”, a method where a supporter helps a person point to letters or type. Some facilitated communication techniques have been previously discredited because of evidence that disabled persons being supported to type are often being manipulated by their caretakers. (.)

Image: The Telepathy Tapes

There is a lot to devour in these stories, and a lot to digest.