Come on babyTake my handStick with meMake a planWhere we goingBrighter daysHandsome heavensTruer waysThe road’s ahead It knows our songAin’t no right pathAin’t no wrongIt screams us forwardYells and shoutsDoes the boogie Turns it out One hand in And then the otherCome on sisterShake it brotherYou know this dance You’ve seen it doneDark days overHello sun

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Welcome to The ALIVE hour.

Illustration: Shannon ColonAudio mixing: Chloe RileyMusic + Narrative: Michael Ervin

Things found in real life

* This question from Louie Anderson’s book “Hey Mom: Stories for My Mother, But You Can Read Them Too”:

* This construction man, with a smattering of gold glitter:

Things found on the internet

* This piece from New Yorker critic Richard Brody looking at the use of archival materials in film — how a director can choose life (or not) through their relationship to the very materials they work with:

By eliding themselves from the process—by putting voices on the soundtrack untethered to the recording device, images without regard to their source—filmmakers render their relationship to archival materials impersonal and inanimate.

What’s missing from most approaches to the archive is filmmakers’ own sense of discovery, of experience, of being in the presence of a miracle.

* The film Swan Song, about a retired gay hairdresser who leaves his retirement home to style a demanding former client who has passed away. Read my friend Steve Nelson’s review here, as well as this interview here with director Todd Stephens:

I kind of wrote "Swan Song" in a way as like — in order to tell myself that I could still do what I loved. Pat has lost his purpose at the beginning of the film, and he's just kind of, like, passing the time till he passes away. And, you know, life is short, and we need to dance while we can.

Magic things

Like the music from today’s episode? Want to listen to the whole piece sans words? Head over to The ALIVE hour, *magic edition* here. ✨

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And thank you — every one of you — for listening.

We need to dance while we can.

<3 C

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thealivehour.substack.com