Poulomi Basu – Centralia

Poulomi Basu’s Centralia is a disturbing and violent book of a disturbing and violent subject. It’s not for the faint of heart, it’s equally not for the hard of heart. Basu calls it “an Indian docu-fiction” that “…push[es] the boundaries of my own documentary practice – to construct a narrative that borrows from the tropes of science fiction to create a hallucinatory reflection…” And I think she succeeded.

Centralia was Charcoal Book Club’s Photobook of the Month for March 2020, and without them, this book probably wouldn’t have come across my radar.

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Nate Matos – ‘Resort Town'(s)

I’m something of a Nate Matos fan, I guess. I came late to his Serif & Silver series, and every 6 or 8 months, I pop into his website and buy most or all of the zines he has on offer, leading to the acquisition of his ‘Blandscapes‘ and a group of other zines.

Now, we have the ‘Resort Town’ series, three zines about three resort towns: Rockaway, NY, site of the long-gone Playland amusement park; Anaheim, CA, home of Disneyland; Bombay Beach, CA, who was one of the earliest casualties of human-caused climate change.*

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Anil Mistry – ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’

Anil Mistry‘s Goodnight Sweetheart: A miscellany of morose, misanthropic middle-aged musings and mattresses is a collection of photographs featuring discarded mattresses, paired with statements, aphorisms, poems from some friends. As a middle-aged man myself, it hits some buttons, for sure…

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Keiko Nomura – ‘Otari — Pristine Peaks’

Keiko Nomura’s Otari — Pristine Peaks was the Charcoal Book Club selection for April 2019 (if I recall correctly) and documents the people and lifestyle of a small village in Japan. It’s not a book I would’ve likely come across on my own, and so I’m once again glad to be a Charcoal subscriber.

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Expired Film Day 2020… 160-S edition.

Once again, I’m a sponsor for this year’s Expired Film Day. I’ve missed a bunch of the announcements and submissions so far, but there’s another 10 days or so before I need to judge… and that means you have about 10 days to get your submissions in! So get to it!

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