Date Archives → March 2024

POEM: “Thought Our Film Would Say It All”

Alex Sheremet's black and white photo of an abstracted train, train graffiti, and a white overcast sky in Minneapolis. It is used in his film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, The Minneapolis Poet".

[This poem first appeared in the AUTOMACHINATION literary magazine. Read more about our film, From There To There: Bruce Ario, The Minneapolis Poet.]

THOUGHT OUR FILM WOULD SAY IT ALL

And then some scumbag wanted money for the footage
Of my friend. Well, HIS friend, as a fact
Was a ponderer’s poet, while he cannot

Think. Well, he IS thinking
Of himself, bobbing down a perfect sea
Storm loosened from the surface

Of our lens. Guess which had a brain
Injury and you’d guess wrong. Say CHEESE
Bitch! Or that’s what HE did at any rate

Offered. Not even poets deserve riches.

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If you enjoyed this piece, consider supporting us on Patreon. This will help the growth of the AUTOMACHINATION literary magazine and the ArtiFact Podcast on our YouTube channel.… Continue reading →

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What The Al-Ahli Hospital Bombing Really Meant

The Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza, in 2014.

[This essay first appeared in the AUTOMACHINATION literary magazine. You can watch an in-depth discussion on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital bombing with Alex Sheremet and Keith Jackewicz here.]

Yesterday, the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza was hit by an IDF airstrike or a “failed rocket” launched by Palestinian militants. In some ways, this felt like an existential moment for Israel—more so than even the Hamas massacres on Israeli territory two weeks prior. That’s because despite America’s claims of an “existential threat” from terrorism in 2001, or Israel’s perceived security needs in keeping a stateless population at bay, terrorism rarely poses serious (i.e., existential) danger to nations, and most terror campaigns fail. Of course, there are exceptions. Jewish terrorism in Mandatory Palestine forced Britain to disengage in the midst of political assassinations, kidnappings, and a hotel bombing for which Israel was awarded the legal right to statehood. Palestinians soon adopted these tactics, yet lacked the strength, and, until recently, sufficient public opinion to achieve their aims. In the meantime, Israel has become a nuclear-tipped hegemon with an identity crisis. Many young Jews want nothing to do with what the UN and human rights groups call an apartheid state, while Israel itself has become increasingly corrupt, right-wing, and religious. So when news broke of (yet another) potential war crime in Gaza, Israel needed to respond—and quickly.

As in previous situations, Israel’s behavior inspired little confidence. Hananya Naftali, who works for Benjamin Netanyahu on “media content”, tweeted, then … Continue reading →

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Art As Masculinity In “The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie” (1976)

A shot from John Cassavetes's "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie", featuring the text of the title stylized across the screen, as reviewed by Alex Sheremet of AUTOMACHINATION.

[This review of John Cassavetes’s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie first appeared in the AUTOMACHINATION literary magazine.]

Though I’d been watching John Cassavetes’s The Killing of a Chinese Bookie quite regularly the past decade – had reared my second childhood upon it, as a fact – I only recently understood the import of a key anti-noir scene. As Cosmo Vittelli (Ben Gazzara) breaks into a triad compound, he is not confronted by a benumbed gangster taunting him to shoot, but by an old man splashing water in a pool. It is as if he has regressed to adolescence, down to his childlike interest in the much younger woman bathing him. This much I’d already known, but this time, I realized Benny Wu’s (Soto Joe Hugh) mumbling wasn’t mere sound. “I’m real bad. Real bad,” Wu suddenly confesses to his killer. “I’m so sorry.” The triad is then shot dead, yet it is not so much the death that is tragic as is Cosmo’s inability to digest it: he was sent with a task, and is thus precluded from engaging with its largest moment. And how could it be otherwise? Time is money, the film suggests, whether it’s the time it takes Cosmo to get out of debt, the unconscious zeal with which he is once again indebted, or the fact that, as a private enterprise, criminality is as wasteful as any other – down to its paring away of “useless” self-indulgence, like pondering death and death’s dimensions. The triad … Continue reading →

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Where To Find Alex Sheremet’s Work

A grainy, black and white photo of an industrial Minneapolis scene, featuring wires, a white sky, and a bird. Taken by Alex Sheremet in the Fall of 2023.

This website serves as an archive for my writing, photography, and videography.

The AUTOMACHINATION literary magazine features my latest work, and our YouTube channel hosts our long-form video essays and the ArtiFact Podcast.

Joel Parrish and I have finished our first feature-length film, From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet. It chronicles the life and work of America’s greatest unknown writer, drawing on Bruce Ario’s personal files, interviews with those who knew him, and original footage of Minneapolis. Bruce Ario’s Selected Poems are now available, featuring a 100+ page critical introduction from his literary executor. More information about the restored version of Bruce Ario’s classic coming-of-age novel, Cityboy, can be found here.

The ArtiFact Podcast features long-form analysis on art, literature, history, and politics, including discussions of Shakespeare, climate change, films like Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver and Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car, panels with Palestinian refugees, and more. Guests include Israel/Palestine scholar Norman Finkelstein, Ukraine academic Ivan Katchanovski, political scientist Benjamin Studebaker, the poet/novelist Dan Schneider, Jadaliyya‘s Mouin Rabbani, and others.

Additional content is available through Patreon. I can be found on Twitter at @automachination.… Continue reading →