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Back in 1990 I learned that the local public-access TV station would loan out video cameras for free. This was a revelation. I immediately signed up for the required two hour class and later that summer I had my first 24 hours with a video camera. I didn’t have a plan but I did have a time limit. I ran around filming whatever was happening. I recorded Rebecca making us dinner in our tiny apartment. I remember playing that back on TV and being so disappointed with how pedestrian it looked. I knew it wasn’t going to be a big screen movie but it just seemed so… not very special. I guess I could’ve embraced that but, that day I was obsessed with making this look different than what you get by default. What else could I do with the simple tools that I had?
<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Cover]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 3]]</div></div><img src="camera-tape-tv-vcr.png" width="1425" height="1069" alt="Illustration of a camera pointed at a TV playing a VHS tape.">
At one point I swung the camera toward the TV and noticed that I got these scan lines and other distortions. “Oh that’s kind of interesting,” I thought. “What else can I do here?” I set the camera on a tripod and zoomed in on the TV screen, cropping everything else out. Then I took the tape I’d been working with all day and played it in my VCR while adjusting the brightness, color, and hue. Inspired by my recent discovery of Bill Viola, I tried slowing things way down using the frame-by-frame feature on the VCR. Suddenly, a very small motion was turned into a 20 minute epic. But that was a little too slow and the frame-by-frame had an unpleasant pulse to it. To fix it I took my new tape, put it in the deck, and played it back in fast-forward.
<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 1]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 5]]</div></div>It was all kinds of magic! The motion was dreamy and the color an intense monochrome. I could further manipulate the texture by adjusting the gain and focus on the camera. Now, in the middle of the night, I was on to something!
I recorded Rebecca sitting in a chair, lit by candlelight. Then I worked on that tape for hours. In the end I had this five or six minute piece where she just puts her hand down and turns her head. To this day it’s still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever made.
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<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 5]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 7]]</div></div><img src="tapes.jpg" width="1425" height="1069" alt="The spines of Grey Matter Gravy VHS tapes.">
Now I was hooked and on the hook for a weekly 30 min show. Thankfully they let you re-run shows for weeks at a time. Over the course of 2 years I created 7 episodes of Grey Matter Gravy. I wanted a name that was aspirational—as in, what if you had so many ideas it was like your brain was on fire? I was also looking for something that felt punk rock. Grey Matter Gravy is what came out.
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This was the first time, as an adult, I struggled with restrictions and worked through them instead of quitting in frustration. I was happy and excited to find something beautiful that I felt expressed what I wanted. This is an important lesson I seem to have to keep relearning.
<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 9]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 13]]</div></div><img src="camera.jpg" width="1219" height="915" alt="RCA Pro Edit VHS Camcorder from 1992">
Christmas 1992 was pretty memorable. Mostly because, after just finding out ourselves, we let our family know we were expecting a baby the following August. I even have some of those moments captured on video. That’s because it was also the year that my mother-in-law gave me one of the most unexpected and amazing gifts—an RCA Pro Edit VHS Camcorder. It even had a flying erase head so I could edit. Now I didn’t have to schedule time at the public-access station and take a day off. I could shoot and edit whenever I wanted.
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<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 13]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 16]]</div></div><img src="faith-entropy.jpg" width="1425" height="1069" alt="Top half of the image is a distorted video image of a man's face, the bottom half image is two figures with an equation superimposed.">
<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 15]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 18]]</div></div>Owning gear comes with its own problem. There’s always better or different gear to be had. That’s avoidance-of-hard-work whispering in your ear. Don’t listen. Reading about gear, thinking about gear, and talking with people about gear does not make you better. Making things makes you better. Use what you have.
So I’m bringing back Grey Matter Gravy as a zine. Why a zine? Couldn’t this have been a short blog post or an email? Absolutely. But I love zines. My experience with them over the last few months has been one of connection with people—one that’s done with purpose. It’s totally different than and not particularly captured by liking a photo or reading a tweet. Also, it’s fun to make physical objects and I’ve been wanting to do more of that.
Why am I telling you this? Honestly it’s a note to myself. It’s an exercise in getting started.
<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 16]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 19]]</div></div><img src="sticky.jpg" width="1425" height="1069" alt="A sticky note that says, 'Just fucking do it already!'">
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<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 19]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 21]]</div></div><h2>Colophon</h2>
Grey Matter Gravy Issue 1
March 2021
By Michael Verdi
<a href="mailto:m@verdi.space">m@verdi.space</a>
Thanks for reading. I had a lot of fun digging through my old video archive to put this issue together. I printed it here at home, trimmed each page and assembled it by hand. I’ve been listening to Phoebe Bridgers on repeat this whole time. I took lots of inspiration from Zine Club Chicago and from zines by Liz Mason and Billy McCall. My plan is to make more. You can get them from my website, <a href="https://verdi.space/greymattergravy" target="_blank">verdi.space</a>.
<div class="navbar"><div class="back">[[Back->Page 20]]</div><div class="next">[[Next->Page 22]]</div></div><img src="titlepage.jpg" width="1425" height="1069" alt="An illustration of a brain on fire with the words, 'Grey Matter Gravy Issue 1 March 2021' below.">
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