The Fisherman's Daughter - Tzarevna Scaling (2020)

A fishmonger's daughter drinks some tea rumoured to cure insomnia and enters into a hallucagenic fairy-tale world where she must complete a series of tasks to determine if she has what it takes to become a Tzarevna (the daughter of the Tzar). Click on the image above to be taken to the full film.

'Musical Holdouts' (1975)

An expansive survey of 1975 American musical subcultures that steadfastly refuse to be blanded by mainstream consciousness. Directed by John Cohen(1932-2019. From front porch banjo pickers in Appalachia and the Bluegrass Festival circuit to black children on the Carolina sea islands, cowboys, and Cheyenne and Comanche Indians, they have all retained their cultural identities despite pressures from the mass media and popular culture.—Folkstreams

Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King

Filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig documents the strange career of Jad and David Fair's avant-garde rock duo, Half Japanese. Formed in the pre-punk 1970s and originally releasing their music on self-distributed cassettes, the brothers quickly gained renown in the fringe-rock underground due to their lo-fi recording style and deliberately minimal musical skills. The film includes interviews with both brothers as well as famous fans like magician Penn Jillette and Velvet Underground drummer Maureen Tucker.

Fear of a Black Hat (1993)

Fear of a Black Hat is to Hiphop what Spinal Tap is to Metal.

Fear of a Black Hat is a 1993 American mockumentary film on the evolution and state of American hip hop music. Written and directed by Rusty Cundieff in his directorial debut, the film stars Cundieff, Larry B. Scott and Mark Christopher Lawrence. Fear of a Black Hat is similar in format to the satirical film about early 1980s heavy metal, This Is Spinal Tap. It is told from the point of view of a graduate student who is documenting the hip hop group N.W.H. (which stands for "Niggaz With Hats", a reference to N.W.A.) for a year as part of her thesis.

The title is derived from the 1990 Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 1993, and was later theatrically released on June 3, 1994. While critically acclaimed, it was a box office bomb. Its stature has grown in the years since its release and the film has acquired a cult following.

Good Vibrations

Engaging biopic of punk pioneer Terri Hooley, who opened a record shop in 1970s Belfast and helped foster the city's underground music scene.

Good Vibrations is a 2013 comedy-drama film written by Colin Carberry and Glenn Patterson and directed by Lisa Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn. It stars Richard Dormer, Jodie Whittaker, Adrian Dunbar, Liam Cunningham, Karl Johnson and Dylan Moran. It is based on the life of Terri Hooley, a record-store owner instrumental in developing Belfast's punk rock scene. The film was produced by Chris Martin, with Andrew Eaton, Bruno Charlesworth and David Holmes. Holmes also co-wrote the soundtrack score.

The Naked Zoo (1970)

A seductive matron lives in Miami with her wealthy, wheelchair-bound husband. Frustrated, she beds a young author. The gravy train abruptly derails when her husband finds out, and murder ensues.

Canned Heat perform in the party scene, playing "One Kind Favor", from the 1968 record Living the Blues.

A cracker of an album:

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg

The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg is a 1993 film by Jerry Aronson chronicling the poet Allen Ginsberg's life up to that point, along with his views on death; Ginsberg was in his mid 60s when the movie was first released, and died at age 70. The film has been completed and released a number of times due to changing technologies and world events. The first release of the film was in 1993 at the Sundance Film Festival after which it enjoyed an international festival run and USA theatrical run. When Aronson showed him the film the poet is reported to have nodded his head thoughtfully and said, "So, that's Allen Ginsberg."

After Ginsberg passed in 1997, Jerry Aronson decided to update the ending of the film to include the poet's passing, added a shot of Ginsberg's headstone in New Jersey, and added a new recording of Paul Simon singing Ginsberg's "New Stanzas for Amazing Grace" for the closing credits.

Liquid Crystal Vision - Documentary about Goa Trance

Liquid Crystal Vision (2002) is a 60-minute cult documentary exploring the spiritual and cultural roots of the global Goa trance movement. Directed by Omananda, the film features interviews with pioneers like Raja Ram and Goa Gil, featuring footage from Goa, India, and global parties, highlighting themes of dance as a, "global peace prayer," and personal evolution.

Features insight from key figures, including Goa Gil, Raja Ram, System 7, Youth, Swami, and Alex Grey. Features music by artists such as Shpongle, Irresistible Force, Banco De Gaia, Space Tribe, and Nick Doof and includes scenes from Goa (India), Portugal, Cambodia, Laos, and Burning Man.

The film explores the freedom to dance, the psychedelic experience, and the connection between ancient rituals and modern technology.

(פצצות בדרך לסוף העולם) Psychedelic Zion

"Psychedelic Zion" follows the ups and downs of three rave organizers who operate under the banner "Peace and Love Production." Filmed over the course of two years, director Isri Halpern follows the trio from their first ecstatic parties on the hillsides of the Galilee, into the living rooms of their religious, working-class families, and deep into the fray of their eventual and sometimes violent clashes with the police. In the midst of a public furor, they take their case to the government and the Supreme Court, fighting for the right to live out their psychedelic dreams. Full film in Hebrew with English subtitles.

Music Is My Drug : Psychedelic Trance

A documentary from 1995, and therefore one of the earliest attempts to document the scene that centered on Goa in the 1990s. It focuses on the movements between Isreal and India, which was huge when I was in India in the 90s. The thing is, the Isrealis I met were not interested in the politics of the region. In fact they were against the whole bloody thing. But they had no choice. Isreal is a machine that eats its own young. The Trance scene was a higher plane. Here is a window on it.

The Scandalous Lady W (2015)

An 18th-century drama detailing the scandalous life of Lady Seymour Worsley. Starring: Natalie Dormer, Jessica Gunning, Aneurin Barnard.

Lady Worsley was rumoured to have had 27 lovers. In November 1781 she ran off with Bisset, a captain in the South Hampshire militia, who had been Worsley's close friend and neighbour at Knighton Gorges on the Isle of Wight. In February 1782 Worsley brought a criminal conversation case against Bisset for £20,000 (equivalent to £2,918,500 in 2025). Lady Worsley turned the suit in her favour with scandalous revelations and the aid of past and present lovers; and questioned the legal status of her husband. She included a number of testimonies from her lovers and her doctor, William Osborn, who related that she had suffered from a venereal disease which she had contracted from the Marquess of Graham. It was alleged that Worsley had displayed his wife naked to Bisset at the bath house in Maidstone. This testimony destroyed Worsley's suit and the jury awarded him only one shilling (2015: £5.28) in damages.

Bisset eventually left Lady Worsley when it became apparent that Worsley was seeking separation rather than divorce, meaning Seymour could not remarry until Worsley's death. Seymour was forced to become a professional mistress or demimondaine and live off the donations of rich men in order to survive, joining other upper-class women in a similar position in the New Female Coterie. She had two more children: another by Bisset after he left her in 1783, whose fate is unknown; and a fourth, Charlotte Dorothy Hammond (née Cochard), who she sent to be raised by a family in the Ardennes.

Lady Worsley later left for Paris in order to avoid her debts. In 1788, she and her new lover, the biracial composer, conductor and champion fencer Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, returned to England, and her estranged husband entered into articles of separation, on the condition she spend four years in exile in France. Eight months before the expiration of this exile, she was unable to leave France because of the events of the French Revolution and she was probably imprisoned during the Reign of Terror, meaning she was abroad on the death of her and Worsley's son in 1795. In early 1797, she returned to England, and she then suffered a severe two-month illness. Owing to the forgiveness of her mother, her sister and her sister's husband, the Earl of Harrington, she was then able to move into Brompton Park, her previous home, but which the laws on property prevented her from officially holding.

On Worsley's death in 1805, her £70,000 jointure reverted to her and just over a month later, on 12 September, at the age of 47 she married 26-year-old newfound lover John Lewis Cuchet (d. 1836) at Farnham. Also that month, by royal licence, she officially resumed her maiden name of Fleming, and her new husband also took it. After the armistice of 1814 ended the War of the Sixth Coalition, the couple moved to a villa at Passy, Paris where she died in 1818, aged 59. She is buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Pervert's Guide to Ideology

Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj Žižek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes (The Pervert's Guide to Cinema) for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. With infectious zeal and a voracious appetite for popular culture, Žižek literally goes inside some truly epochal movies, all the better to explore and expose how they reinforce prevailing ideologies. As the ideology that undergirds our cinematic fantasies is revealed, striking associations emerge: What hidden Catholic teachings lurk at the heart of The Sound of Music? What are the fascist political dimensions of Jaws? Taxi Driver, Zabriskie Point, The Searchers, The Dark Knight, John Carpenter's They Live ("one of the forgotten masterpieces of the Hollywood Left"), Titanic, Kinder Eggs, verité news footage, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and propaganda epics from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia all inform Žižek's stimulating, provocative and often hilarious psychoanalytic-cinematic rant.

Celebration at Big Sur (1969) Festival

 

Celebration at Big Sur is a film of the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival in Big Sur, California, featuring Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and others.

Songs: 

"I Shall Be Released" – Joan Baez

"Mobile Line" – John Sebastian with Stephen Stills offstage

"Song for David" – Joan Baez

shown rehearsing offstage, with stage performance of same song cut in

"All of God's Children Got Soul" – Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs Sisters

"Sea of Madness" – CSNY

"4 + 20" – Stephen Stills solo performance

Stephen Stills introduces this number discussing his interaction with a heckler in the previous scene

"Get Together" – Joni Mitchell with Crosby, Stills & Nash and John Sebastian

"Put a Little Love in Your Heart" – Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs Sisters

incomplete

non-musical footage of nude sauna, audience happenings

"Swing Down Sweet Chariot" – various

offstage, incomplete

"Rainbows All Over Yours Blues" – John Sebastian

"Woodstock" – Joni Mitchell (playing piano)

non-musical footage of self-identified "freak" with Woodstock-themed bus

"Red-Eye Express" – John Sebastian with Stephen Stills

"Changes" – Mimi Fariña and Julie Payne with Stephen Stills

incomplete

"Malagueña Salerosa" – Carol Ann Cisneros

"Rise, Shine, and Give God the Glory" – The Struggle Mountain Resistance Band

incomplete

"Down By the River" – CSNY

incomplete, over 7 minutes

folk musician improvising outside the festival

"Sweet Sir Galahad" – Joan Baez

"Oh Happy Day" – Dorothy Combs Morrison and the Combs Sisters with Joan Baez

opens with Joan Baez rehearsing same number with Dorothy Combs Morrison

Directed by – Baird Bryant, Johanna Demetrakas

Produced – Ted Mann, Carl Gottlieb

Cinematography – Baird Bryant, Johanna Demetrakas, Gary Weis, Peter Smokler, Joan Churchill

The Stones And Brian Jones / 2023, BBC4

At the age of 14, Nick Broomfield met Brian Jones by chance on a train. Brian was at the height of his success with the world at his feet - yet six years later he would be dead. The Stones and Brian Jones looks at the relationships and rivalries within The Rolling Stones in those formative years. It explores the iconoclastic freedom and exuberance of the 1960s, a time of intergenerational conflict and sexual turmoil which reflects on where we are today. Featuring revealing interviews with all the main players, and unseen archive released for the first time, The Stones and Brian Jones explores the creative musical genius of Jones, key to the success of the band, and uncovers how the founder of what became the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world was left behind in the shadows of history.

F for Fake Orson Welles (1973)

F for Fake (French: Vérités et mensonges, "Truths and lies") is a 1973 docudrama film co-written, directed by, and starring Orson Welles who worked on the film alongside François Reichenbach, Oja Kodar, and Gary Graver. Initially released in 1973, it focuses on Elmyr de Hory's recounting of his career as a professional art forger; de Hory's story serves as the backdrop for a meandering investigation of the natures of authorship and authenticity, as well as the basis of the value of art. Far from serving as a traditional documentary on de Hory, the film also incorporates Welles's companion Oja Kodar, hoax biographer Clifford Irving, and Orson Welles as himself. F for Fake is sometimes considered an example of a film essay.

In addition to the 88-minute film, in 1976, Welles also shot and edited a self-contained nine-minute short film as a "trailer", almost entirely composed of original material not found in the main film itself. Here is that trailer:

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles (2014)

Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles looks at the remarkable genius of Orson Welles on the eve of his centenary - the enigma of his career as a Hollywood star, a Hollywood director (for some a Hollywood failure), and a crucially important independent filmmaker. Orson Welles's life was magical: a musical prodigy at age 10, a director of Shakespeare at 14, a painter at 16, a star of stage and radio at 20, romances with some of the most beautiful women in the world, including Rita Hayworth. His work was similarly extraordinary, most notably Citizen Kane, (considered by many to be the most important movie ever made), created by Welles when he was only 25. In the years following Citizen Kane, Welles's career continued to change as he made film after film (some never finished, many dismissed) and acted in other projects often to earn money in order to keep making his own films. Magician features scenes from almost every existing Welles film, from Hearts of Age, (which he made in a day when he was only 18 years old) to rarely-seen clips from his final unfinished works like The Other Side of the Dream, The Deep, and Don Quixote, as well as his television and commercial work

The Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988

In September 1980, Iraq invades Iran. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is convinced that now is the time to strike, since Iran is still shaken by its Islamic Revolution, and he expects victory within weeks. Instead, the conflict will last 8 years, cost hundreds of thousands of lives , threaten world oil markets, and draw the US into the Persian Gulf for good. It’s the last total war of the 20th century.

If you want an indication of what a land war in Iran might look like. Watch this.....Does nobody remember the Iran-Iraq War? It was 8 years of absolute hell on earth (1980 - 1988). The US funded, armed and trained Iraq. There was no quarter given. It was brutal (think genocide . ethnic cleansing, mass murder, deportation, chemical warfare, enforced disappearance and counterinsurgency). The war caused around 500,000 deaths (excluding numbers from the related Anfal campaign - another 50,000–100,000 dead), making it the deadliest conventional war ever fought between regular armies of developing countries. Most of the present-day leadership in Iran are veterans of the Iran- Iraq War. They have seen things that Trump cannot imagine.

Trump is either bone stupid or insane (maybe both). Iran will fight until the bodies are piled high. But we still have this ridiculous speculation on the part of even so-called progressive media in the West:

"Despite launching the attack on Iran, with Israel, the White House does not seem to have fully anticipated what was likely to follow. Iran had few good military options for fighting back, but attacking US bases, US allies and merchant shipping in the Gulf was the most obvious response – to try to impose costs on the west." - The Guardian

Iran will not surrender until the armed forces (a million people, including the special forces and security forces) are destroyed. It will be brutal in the same ways the 1980 - 88 war was. The Americans have clearly not considered this.

Day of the Triffids (1963)

After meteors enter Earth's atmosphere, blinding much of the planet's population in the process, plantlike creatures known as Triffids emerge from the craters and begin to take over. Military officer Bill Masen (Howard Keel), one of the few sighted people left alive, meets with other survivors in England and tries to find a safe haven from the vicious vegetation, as scientist Tom Goodwin (Kieron Moore) desperately seeks a way to defeat the leafy extraterrestrials.

"The Center Street Cut-Ups"

"The Center Street Cut-Ups" is the abbreviated title of the latest Third Mind Books original presentation, "HAVE A PLEASANT TRIP... 210 Center Street NYC 1965: the Cut-Up Life of William S. Burroughs," -- crafted with monocle at the ready by TMB founder & Ann Arbor eminence, Arthur S. Nusbaum with the assistance of Joe Provenzano (VP of Operations at Third Mind Books, and Nusbaum's protégé in life and literature). 

The focus, here as elsewhere is on WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS -- the Patron Saint-Demon of Third Mind Books -- and even more specifically, on a tranche of documents acquired at auction belonging to the painter, David Prentice. Prentice was a close, personal friend to Burroughs and his Papers document

document a very key time in the development of the Cut-Ups as both a literary technique and original philosophic contribution. 

The presentation was first delivered at the European Beat Studies Network Conference (ebsn.eu) in Paris, France in September of 2023, and was re-recorded with narration by the author in December of that same year.

Text & Narration by Arthur S. Nusbaum

Original Research by Arthur S. Nusbaum & Joe Provenzano

Paper/Research, PowerPoint & Film © Third Mind Books, 2023

Summer Storm - Tatsumi Hijikata (1973)

“A Summer Storm by Hijikata Tatsumi” primarily consists of the legendary Japanese dancer Hijikata Tatsumi's legendary performance shot in Kyoto in 1973, and is a tribute to this extraordinary talent. Now, thirty years later, it is still funny, sad, and infinitely gripping. Hijikata was the pioneer of the reputed Butoh dance. Butoh, performed in slow, unique movements by dancers, with their bodies painted white and bent-forward, is an antithesis of the traditional Western dance. As the only remaining footage in color of his performance, the film shows Hijikata as an eternal punker, rebel, and sufferer.

The Monumental and Domestic Architecture of Neolithic Scotland

Tristan Hughes goes on a road trip of a lifetime to discover more about the mysteries of prehistoric Scotland.

In Part one, Tristan heads to Orkney to investigate its astonishing 5,000 year old Stone Age remains.

In Part two, Tristan sees the beautiful carvings of adult red deer, the first animal representations in Scotland. This is just one of the remarkable finds in one of the most extraordinary prehistoric landscapes in Scotland: the magical and mysterious Kilmartin Glen.

In Part three, Tristan ventures across Scotland to investigate prehistoric skyscrapers - brochs.

Included in the documentary is the absolutely incredible Maeshowe. Maeshowe (or Maes Howe; Old Norse: Orkahaugr) is a Neolithic chambered cairn and passage grave situated on Mainland Orkney, Scotland. It was probably built around 2800 BC. In the archaeology of Scotland, it gives its name to the Maeshowe type of chambered cairn, which is limited to Orkney.It was not only constructed for contemporary spirtual and social reasoning. Maeshowe was intended to last forever, giving us an indication for a conceptual relationship to time held by the builders of Maeshowe.

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV

Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV is a 2023 documentary film by Amanda Kim about video artist Nam June Paik. The film traces the life of the artist from his privileged childhood in Japanese-occupied Korea up until his death in 2006. The films uses archival footage, interviews with fellow artists who knew him best and written letters to personal friends John Cage and others narrated by Academy Award-nominated actor Steven Yeun.It premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival before being acquired by PBS Films and Greenwich Entertainment as an episode of American Masters. Click on the above image for the full film.

Arise! - The Church of Subgenius

A brain-crushing collage of music and video presented in the form of a religious recruitment video. The topics covered (in deadpan narration) are basic psychology, the origin of the human race, spiritualism, religious dogma, UFO's, the end of the world, and the group's figurehead, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.

The Church of the SubGenius is a parody religion that satirizes better-known belief systems. It teaches a complex philosophy that focuses on J. R. "Bob" Dobbs, purportedly a salesman from the 1950s, who is revered as a prophet by the Church. SubGenius leaders have developed detailed narratives about Dobbs and his relationship to various gods and conspiracies. Their central deity, Jehovah 1, is accompanied by other gods drawn from ancient myth and popular fiction. SubGenius literature describes a grand conspiracy that seeks to brainwash the world and oppress Dobbs's followers. In its narratives, the Church presents a blend of cultural references in an elaborate remix of the sources.

Ivan Stang, who co-founded the Church in the 1970s, serves as its leader and publicist. He has imitated actions of other religious leaders, using the tactic of culture jamming in an attempt to parody better-known faiths. Church leaders instruct their followers to avoid mainstream commercialism and the belief in absolute truths. The group holds that the quality of "Slack" is of utmost importance, but it is never clearly defined. The number of followers is unknown, although the Church's message has been welcomed by college students and artists in the United States. The group is often compared to Discordianism. Journalists often consider the Church an elaborate joke, but some academics have defended it as a real system of deeply held beliefs.

Oils on the Water (1985)

Here's the entire Oils on the Water concert from Goat Island in Sydney Harbour from 1985. I was 16 when this was broadcast. I had been listening to Midnight Oil for over a year. I had been introduced to them by a girl I had a brief thing with, and we went on to become lifelong friends (its been over 40 years now anyway). Midnight Oil changed reality for me. Prior to hearing their music I was a good little colonial boy. When I was 12 I wrote a 10 page essay on Winston Churchill, from an admiration. When I was 15 I won a school writing prize for a story about nuclear war being conducted like a cricket match. That change was largely due to the 1982 Midnight Oil album 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. Songs like US Forces taught a generation of Australians about the history of their nation that was not being taught in school. I was told in school that Aboriginal Australians were an "evolutionary dead end" and they would die out. It was only a matter of time. My discovery of Midnight Oil was the beginning of my awareness. It was shown on national television and broadcast in stereo simulcast on Radio JJJ - it was the 10th birthday for the station. Enjoy and think of Rob Hirst the drummer who died yesterday.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore (2003)

"Escape the limitations of your origins" - Alan Moore
The Mindscape of Alan Moore is a psychedelic journey into one of the world’s most powerful minds; chronicling the life and work of Alan Moore, author of several acclaimed graphic novels, including “From Hell,” “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta.” It is the only feature film production on which Alan Moore has collaborated, with permission to use his work. Alan Moore presents the story of his development as an artist, starting with his childhood and working through to his comics career and impact on that medium, anarchism, and his emerging interest in magic.

Be Here To Love Me - A Film About Townes Van Zandt (2004)

Directed by Margaret Brown, Be Here To Love Me chronicles the often turbulent life of American singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt. The film includes interviews of Van Zandt's immediate family and contemporaries such as Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle and Guy Clark, along with "home movies, old TV performances and, especially, mid-Seventies footage originally filmed by James Szalapski for his outlaw country documentary Heartworn Highways.

Anita: Dances of Vice

Anita: Dances of Vice (German: Anita – Tänze des Lasters) is a 1987 German avant-garde film directed by Rosa von Praunheim. The film premiered at the 1987 New York Film Festival and was also shown at, for example, the 1988 São Paulo International Film Festival.

The film follows a delusional elderly woman who believes she is Anita Berber (1899-1928), a German dancer who, along with her partner Sebastian Droste, epitomizes the decadence of 1920s Berlin. Nude dance performances, cocaine use, and an excessive sex life characterize their lifestyle. Anita Berber's story is told through the thoughts and memories of the old lady (played by Lotti Huber) who is being held in an "insane asylum". Scenes from Anita's scandalous life are replayed also in her dreams.