Forewarning- charge post incoming- plus poll/updates!!

As always, if you can't afford the support or want to scale it back, feel free. I wanted to give a warning before actually charging again.

Bowling Alone is my enemy and is really difficult to get through lol. In the time since starting it I've finished so much other stuff.

So sometime this week or next I want to do a charge update on analysis of what I've read of Bowling Alone so far plus on How To Blow Up a Pipeline (the book, not movie), which I did finish in full as part of my research for the video essay. Even as someone who is a staunch pacifist, I worry about being put on some kind of list for even talking about it lol, so I'm figuring out how much to talk about it in the video without being demonetized or etc.

IN ADDITION I can do some less academic analysis of something from the poll below in the post?? I tried to add some fun stuff y'all might want to hear me go into :)

Updates!!!!-

I was recently on the Haus of Decline podcast to talk about I Saw the TV Glow along with Something Rotten (Jacob Gellar and Blake Hester's podcast) to talk about The Station 8 and Platform 8 (Japanese horror games). I'm really happy with how both of those turned out and had a great time on both, so check them out!

Some other big and honestly some weird updates-

• I lost my main source of freelance income unexpectedly and have been taking a ton of odd jobs to compensate which isn't sustainable, so I'm currently in a trial period for a cool full-time job I am really hoping to get. Losing my main source of income also happened not long after I had dropped a bunch of money on a family vacation and a convention and a ren faire, so it wasn't ideal 🙃. I recently had a trial edit for another full time job I was excited about and didn't make it past the trial project stage which bummed me out more than it should have. Life has its ups and downs for sure. (If you've seen me promoting my Ko-fi more than usual on twitter, this is why lol, though I've been hustling with freelance and pursuing full time work again)

• I did the rough edit for a really cool podcast (with a video component) I'll post about here when it's out! One of my random freelance gigs!

• I'm doing voice acting for BLANKSWORD! If you played An Outcry, this is made by the same folks! What I've seen of it so far looks awesome!

• I also wrote an article on how to make video essays for passionfruit, but I'm not sure when that will drop.

• Preorders are closed (though it'll be available for sale later I assume??) but I was a contributor to a Sir Crocodile zine! I usually do fandom stuff like that under a pseudonym but this time figured "why not?" and just did it as myself.

• Nick Lutsko was shooting a music video in GA and needed PA help so I volunteered. I felt conflicted about working with someone I'm making a video on for a lot of obvious reasons related to impartiality. But it also felt kind of stupid/self-important to avoid helping an independent artist because of a passion project YouTube video I'm taking forever to finish that might get 5000 views then be forgotten in the algo void? I don't know.

The video essay is more of an umbrella political analysis that uses his work as a lens rather than a traditional review of his work, and the PA work was volunteer on my part (Nick has offered to pay me in the past to work on promo for his stuff and I've declined), and I have already "made it" as far as the stuff I do contract work on so I didn't do it for a leg up or networking or something. I wanted to support what he does and was fine spending a day doing PA stuff in the GA heat. (I did the same recently for my friends Devon and Graham who are working on a horror comedy short I'm excited to help edit at some point).

I'll definitely disclose this in the video and try to work through how this kind of stuff should inform what I'm doing, like if I should shift the focus away from Nick at all because of it (but obviously still include him). Right now I'm struggling a bit with it but it may end up informing the video in cool ways? Though it's not going to be My Best Friend or anything haha

Related- a lot of the random contract work I've been doing has been on web promo videos for movies. It's awesome work but I don't think I can be a film critic anymore in the way I used to if I'm doing this. Trying to ride the line between being an industry professional and a video essayist is really difficult.

• While in the woods working on Nick's video I got a spider bite that looked horrific. It ended up not being necrotic/infected (as far as I know??) but the shoot was the 6th and the bite is still healing lol (though it's much better!!). Not posting photos but (warning-graphic!) if you google "purple spider bite" or "purple spider bite blister" that will give you an idea. I did go to urgent care for it and while I was at the urgent care there was a live spider crawling around on the exam bed and in that moment I definitely felt like I was cursed. Also after the shoot I left my shoes outside for a bit and they had jumping spiders in them. Really felt like someone was sending spiders after me. Fortunately I'm not arachnophobic at all (but maybe I should be if I have this bad of a reaction to spider bites!!).