This month’s newsletter is packed with neat stuff but I want to kick things off by inviting you to a little concert this Sunday, May 27th at 2PM in Chicago. We’re performing some more undiscovered music by the composer Eustasio Rosales (my great grandfather), including an unfinished violin sonata which we had to finish to perform it! The image in the header above is of musical archeologists Johanna Ortegon, Tom Clowes and yours truly trying to decipher this “new-old” handwritten sheet music. I was of little help but they’re quite talented!
I have no idea what this music will sound like, but I hope you’ll join me at National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini 2520 N Lakeview Ave in Chicago at 2PM this Sunday to find out with me (map here, more event info here). Of course, it’ll be free and open to the public.
I gave a speech the other day!
This was quite an honor: the well known storyteller Nestor Gomez recently invited me to speak at a fundraiser for immigrant students at Truman College in Chicago. Nestor knew my story about discovering that my great grandmother accidentally lost her American citizenship when she married an immigrant (my great grandfather the composer Eustasio Rosales).
I shared that story and a bit more in my talk which you can watch above.
My video essay of the month
I’m making a video essay every month this year as part of a silly New Year’s resolution I made. It took me several years to finish two big long documentaries, so working quickly is kind of a refreshing challenge!
Here’s my latest video essay in which I try to explain what caused The Great Recession in just a couple of minutes… using props! I made kind of a mess– see for yourself.
As a recap: my first video of the month was about a type of TV commercial I really want to get rid of. The second was the story of changing my mind about a hot button political issue. The third gave instructions for how to make $1 million (if you’re young). If you got something out of these video essays, please share them! They’re designed to be passed around.
Lastly, One Cool ThingTM
This is a new section in my newsletter where I’m sharing a neat link I found on the internet.
As both a documentary filmmaker and also now a person who’s now spent some time in front of the camera for my opera documentary, I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon… People have this tendency to become really stupid when you put a camera in their face. I think we all lose about 40 IQ points the moment we see a microphone.
So I enjoyed watching this short clip from a late night TV show where a producer took a camera and asked random people on the street to name a book… any book at all. Some of their answers were pretty funny as they desperately tried to think of the name of a book.
Until next month,
Arlen