onetet

• We opened a non-profit video store in Baltimore

  onetet

  July 2020
  Hey Strutters, popping back in here to say that Beyond Video is still going strong, and is now re-open (with masks and other social distancing measures strictly enforced) after some months of COVID shutdown. Don't imagine any of y'all have trips to Baltimore planned, but wanted to update you given the craziness of the times and your kind reaction when the store launched.
  
  We're up to about 16,500 movies now, and most of our members stuck with us and our $12/month membership donation even while we had to be closed, or have re-upped now that we're back open, so we've still been earning and growing even during the worst of this. I'm still updating our wish list regularly. As bad as the world is right now, I'm heartened that we were able to withstand the first major challenge to our sustainability since opening back in '18.
  
  Hope you and yours are safe, healthy, and as happy as can be right now!

  

• We opened a non-profit video store in Baltimore

  onetet

  July 2019
  
  

  
  Hey everybody -- long time no post. This is one of the projects that's kept me off the forums the last few years... not record-related, but most def physical-media-related. 
  
  Here in Baltimore, the land of John Waters and The Wire, myself and some friends (including another strutter, erehwon) opened a new non-profit, volunteer-run video-rental store in late 2018 called Beyond Video, very much styled after great video stores of yesterday such as Kim's in nyc and Video Americain here in Baltimore (where I used to work, and which is featured prominently in John Waters' film Serial Mom). Here's a little info on the project... and if you have any dvds or blu-rays collecting dust, we'd love to add them to our inventory. 
  

  
  

  Our collection was entirely crowdsourced, and we've put together an inventory of 13,000 titles and counting -- about 10,000 dvds, 2500 blus, and 500 rare VHS titles. We all donated items from our collections, we did a Kickstarter for some start-up funds, and I solicited donations and discounts directly from distributors like Criterion, A24, Cinema Guild, Kino, Vinegar Syndrome, and Oscilloscope. I've also created an extensive public-facing google-doc Wish List of titles we don't yet own which I update several times a week as titles come in; hundreds of individuals have sent us discs from all over N. America. 

  
  

  This is an all-volunteer endeavor; me and six friends do all the work for the love of movies and home-video. We have non-profit status under a local community group called Strong City. The store is open limited hours (Thursday - Sunday, 3-9) and members pay a monthly donation of either $12(individual) or $20 (duo) and then can rent as often as they like. 375 people have signed up for recurring monthly donations, meaning the project is very sustainable; we've been open since late 2018 and are signing a 3-year lease soon.

  
  

  Have any DVDs or BLUs you'd like to send us? Duplicates, old editions you've upgraded? We'll take *any* DVDs or Blu-Rays that are in their cases with original artwork and in working condition, with the understanding that titles we already own might be sold or traded for titles we don't yet own. 

  
  

  WISH LIST and DONATION FAQ here.
  
  
  

  
  

  Read more about Beyond Video in this Black List profile in their Essential Video Stores series, this article on A24's blog, and this article about our project in The Outline.
  
  And if you enjoy seeing the DVD/blu equivalent of reccord p0rn, we post weekly inventory updates on IG: https://www.instagram.com/beyondvideobmore/
  
  

  
  

  
  
  Thanks for reading! Hope you've all been doing well these last few years...
  

  

• How is Harvey Canal a good poaster?

  onetet

  February 2008

  It seems like every conversation I've ever had about, say, Israeli tanks bulldozing a Palestian scholar's home, eventually brings up the Holocaust

  
  well you just seem to be arguing with lazy people then.

  
  Really? Not trying to be rude, but I feel like you did just that on page 8 of this thread. I was talking about people calling me anti-Semitic for a favorable review I wrote about a documentary about Palestinian children, and you said the following:
  
  "but when a country the size of New Jersey, which is embroiled in a conflict that has claimed the lives of a fraction of a percent of the number killed in largely-ignored conflicts raging across the globe, but which nonetheless has entire movements, websites, political groups, magazines, editorials, TV specials, movies etc. devoted to criticizing it (and which also happens to be the one homeland of a global minority that has suffered horrific persecution since pretty much the beginning of recorded history)...well, you can forgive some Israel-supporters for occasionally jumping to conclusions."[/b]

  
  Read it again. I was explaining why some Jews suspect anti-Semitism when Israel is subject to constant criticism. To sum up my argument again: people can't seem to shut up about Israel, when in fact Israel acts like any other state under the circumstances; a lot of Jews see that as an extension of classic Jew blame; given the Jews' history, it's hard to blame many of them for seeing it that way.
  
  get it?
  
  my reference to the Holocaust had zero to do with any actions of the Israeli gov't or military as you suggest.

  
  You say that supporters of Israel occassionally jumping to conclusions -- i.e., believing the critic to be anti-Semitic -- is understandable given past suffering (which, you acknowledge above, is a reference to the Holocaust) -- in a conversation we were having about the Palestinian occupation.
  
  That's exactly what I was saying. The Holocaust, for some, serves a "trump card" that allows legitimate conversation to be silenced with implications that the speaker is anti-semitic -- but it's "understandable" if some people (anyone who criticizes the occupation) are occassionally inaccurately labeled as an Anti-Semite because, uh, anti-Semitism does exist. Nah. It's so similar to critics of the Iraq war circa 2003 being called anti-American or unPatriotic, it's painful.
  
  The idea that Israel "acts like any other country" in reference to the occupation of Palestine is not accurate. The list of countries that currently have military and police presences in lands they seized by military force in the past 50 years is lamentably long, but thankfully not all-inclusive -- and to my mind if that list were only one country long, that country wouldn't be any more or less wrong; the occupation of Palestine is a situation beyond Israel's control, it's a situation it originated. And for the record, I oppose British military/police presence in Ireland and US military/police presence in Iraq and other countries as often and as vehemently as I do Israeli military/police presence in Palestine.

  

• How is Harvey Canal a good poaster?

  onetet

  February 2008

  It seems like every conversation I've ever had about, say, Israeli tanks bulldozing a Palestian scholar's home, eventually brings up the Holocaust

  
  well you just seem to be arguing with lazy people then.

  
  Really? Not trying to be rude, but I feel like you did just that on page 8 of this thread. I was talking about people calling me anti-Semitic for a favorable review I wrote about a documentary about Palestinian children, and you said the following:
  
  "but when a country the size of New Jersey, which is embroiled in a conflict that has claimed the lives of a fraction of a percent of the number killed in largely-ignored conflicts raging across the globe, but which nonetheless has entire movements, websites, political groups, magazines, editorials, TV specials, movies etc. devoted to criticizing it (and which also happens to be the one homeland of a global minority that has suffered horrific persecution since pretty much the beginning of recorded history)...well, you can forgive some Israel-supporters for occasionally jumping to conclusions."[/b]

  

• How is Harvey Canal a good poaster?

  onetet

  February 2008

  
  just as there are organized, hateful anti-semitic web sites, books, campaigns, etc, there also exist presumably unorganized but equally loathsome people/groups in the US who get their kicks spending their free time hatefully attempting to silence all criticism of Israeli gov/army. Ergo, the death threats I rec'd... the vibe of which was "because 'my people' have suffered, I cannot tolerate any mention of -- let alone questions about or criticism of -- situations in which some of 'my people' inflict suffering on others."
  
  This is a sad form of entitlement I do not understand... what a better world it would be if anyone who has suffered emerged from that experience w/ an even deeper investment in the elimination of all human suffering, /gender/creed.

  
  If I understand your argument correctly, those people to whom you attribute a sense of entitlement are the type who send out death threats, and therefore at best a marginal fringe. Nonetheless, you imply that people who have experienced suffering ought to be more invested in the elimination of human suffering than their own. That's a noble sentiment and one well worth pursuing, but as a standard against which to judge the actions of those people who have suffered it fails miserably and is not a little patronising.

  
  Nah, that's not what I'm saying.
  
  I agree that people who send out death threats are a marginal fringe -- although I do find it interesting that I've never rec'd a death threat, or even a piece of personal mail, for anything I've published critical of any other nation's government or military (and the list of those articles is rather long), but have rec'd 2 death threats and over a dozen pieces of personal mail for two articles published about human-rights-oriented Palestinian docs -- articles that were humanitarian in tone, I should add, not "anti-Israel." Many of those letters I rec'd were hostile, and others condescendingly sought to "reeducate" me about Israel (interestingly, in many cases, with a Newsweek column by George Will from the 80s).
  
  What I'm saying is that bringing up one's past suffering may provide context for current events, but doesn't exonerate that person/entity for current misdeeds -- especially when the current misdeed is being perpetrated against a third party uninvolved in the past suffering. It seems like every conversation I've ever had about, say, Israeli tanks bulldozing a Palestian scholar's home, eventually brings up the Holocaust, or at least an allusion to past sufferings. Last time I looked, the Palestinians weren't calling the shots in Germany in 1939.
  
  Yes, the Israeli people have suffered. So did the Germans in the 1920s. That doesn't mitigate the Third Reich's horrific atrocities of the 30s and 40s one iota, even if it does help us comprehend the political atmosphere that paved the way for the Holocaust to happen.
  
  Some Israeli partisans do use the Holocaust as a "get out of jail free" card to silence critical discussion re: the Occupation. I don't see that as legitimate.