Thomas Flight

A few more pictures from my time at the Cannes Film Festival, had an especially great time hanging out with fellow Nebula creators @thomasflight.nebula.tv and @patrickhwillems.bsky.social

I'm Not There (2007)

Art is political not just in its capacity for resistance or revolution, but in its capacity as refuge.

You don't make countercultural art only in hopes of changing politics (though that's a fine aim), you make countercultural art so that there's a vibrant, appealing and beautiful alternative culture for people to participate in and find meaning within.

Searle's paper, titled "Dazed & Confused: A Large-Scale Real-World User Study of reCAPTCHAv2," found that Google's widely-used CAPTCHA system is primarily a mechanism for tracking user behavior and collecting data while providing little actual security against bots. The study revealed that reCAPTCHA extensively monitors users' cookies, browsing history, and browser environment (including canvas rendering, screen resolution, mouse movements, and user-agent data) — all of which can be used for advertising and tracking purposes. Through analyzing over 3,600 users, the researchers found that solving image-based challenges takes 557% longer than checkbox challenges and concluded that reCAPTCHA has cost society an estimated 819 million hours of human time valued at $6.1 billion in wages while generating massive profits for Google through its tracking capabilities and data collection, with the value of tracking cookies alone estimated at $888 billion.

Oh.

YouTube video by Thomas Flight The Top 10 Films of 2024

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IonP... The Top 10 Films of 2024 by @thomasflight.nebula.tv

This 100% except it's nothing new. Production has been increasingly divorced from actual needs of consumers since the 1920s thanks to Edward Bernays. I think it's just harder to notice the "needs that are constructed by advertising" that around at our birth vs. the ones created in our lifespan.

Title card reading "TWIN PEAKS Visual Soundtrack MUSIC COMPOSED BY ANGELO BADALAMENTI"

External shot of a wooden building with a prominent sign reading "BIG EDD'S FAMILY DINING"

Two men fishing in a river with a Japanese subtitle reading (italicized) "あなたの微笑みを見た時"

Nine slices of pie (cherry in the middle)

Due to recent events, this week's laserdisc rip is the Twin Peaks Visual Soundtrack. A Japan-exclusive disc from 1992 featuring Angelo Badalamenti's score set against a bunch of B-roll that a Japanese film crew captured of various places in Snoqualmie, Washington

His book on effortless mindfulness and the whole concept has definitely given me tools to much more easily "flip that switch" into a mindful headspace.

Yeah this has been my feeling as well.

The deep irony of course being that X was one of the most most significant tools of propaganda last year. Not enough people talking about "The Art of The Surge" as highly produced, pure, unadulterated propagandistic TV that co-opts documentary aesthetics to create the appearance of objectivity.

YouTube video by Loch Kelly Guided Meditation to Relieve Anxiety at the Root

One more to share, I really like the "effortless mindfulness" approach these days, which is taught by Loch Kelly here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fDc...

But I'd say just seek out whatever teachers/system feels more accessible and comfortable to you!

Good luck! If you start the journey of exploring mindfulness I hope you find it beneficial. It's not necessarily easy, or a linear path, but like I said in the video, starting is one of the single greatest things I've ever done for myself.

Meditation is like exercise. You're stretching and expanding an internal posture, a way of perceiving yourself and the world, an orientation of the mind. And the more you exercise that the more time you can spend in that awareness, even when you're not meditating.

YouTube video by Adyashanti Guided Meditation — Who Are You?

These days I'm more drawn to the style modeled here by Adyashanti: youtu.be/vhdU15aJJxk?...

YouTube video by Secular Buddhism Guided Meditation - Threefold Mindfulness Meditation

This is literally the first guided meditation I ever did: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dovO...
It's a great, easy way to start.

When you notice your mind wander you want to gently and non-judgmentally guide it back to wherever you want your attention to rest.

By sitting you're building the mental muscle to just relax and pay attention, and your mind eventually learns to quiet on it's own. You get better at resting your awareness where you want it to be, and that gets less distracted.

A lot of people bail on meditation or give up because they have an idea of what it will feel like or what the goal is. They sit and their mind is racing and they get distracted and they think "I can't meditate." But that's what the meditation is for!

The most important thing for any of them is to just do it. Sit comfortably in silence, choose a place you'd like your attention to rest (a mantra, your breath, the feeling of your feet on the ground, etc) and just be wide awake and listen.

Happy to! There are many ways to approach meditation/mindfulness and I've tried a lot. You can get caught up in the dogma, or finding the "best one" but just start trying some and you'll find the approach that clicks for you.

Who will we choose to be?

Okay it turned out this wasn't "the next one"

YouTube video by Thomas Flight David Lynch Really Was One of The Greats

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB8X... David Lynch Really Was One of The Greats by @thomasflight.nebula.tv

What hypothetical dream films would you greenlight if you could?

I'd love a gnostic gospel adaptation by Eggers (starring Dafoe) so much, don't get my hopes up like this Robert.

David Lynch changed how I think about art. Very sad to hear of his passing today. I wrote a bit about what his work has meant to me over here:
open.substack.com/pub/thomasfl...

I'm having fun with this next one.

My favorite little character trope in tv and film is when they pour a ridiculous amount of sugar in their coffee. You're like "Oh... this guy's got personality... He's just a little bit *unhinged*"

Every day there are people who wake up and their aspiration in life is to make the world of Blade Runner a reality.

filmmaking