S4.2: Sydney Perkins: Of Kaiju, “Right People” and How Little COVID-19 Has Changed Life as an Archivist

******** UPDATE TO BLOG *********
Since this was recorded, my guest made some wonderful positive discoveries about herself and moved forward on them. Unfortunately, that made some of the information in this recording no longer valid and rather painful.
A statement from my guest:

“I do not go by the name used in this episode or later ones anymore, and even at the time I was privately aware of the distress that name was causing me. It is completely unacceptable to ever refer to me by that name or record it in any context anymore. Also my pronouns are she/they now.”

I have thusly changed all blog information (including photo) to match her truth, and you will only find the aforementioned references within the recordings. We both felt (as archivists) that it would be a shame to completely delete the podcast but it is my responsibility to support and platform my guests and not do them harm.

I believe that changing information based on these critical life issues need to be attended to, now and always. I hope others do the same.

*******************

I’m thrilled to pieces to welcome my beloved friend and colleague Sydney Perkins to Archivist’s Alley. More importantly, she is my first REAL GUEST from my new home base here in Paju, South Korea!
I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I liked having it.
She is a really special person to me in all kinds of ways and beyond talented. She is funny, charming and delightful. I wish you could all meet her in person. When I say on the podcast that I respect her and wish that I was as talented as she is, I am not even lying. She’s impressive. We should all be so lucky to be as engaged, passionate and gifted in our chosen line of work as my darling pal Sydney is.
As usual, profile and bio below, plus a few frames of the super cool font presentation we talk about on the ‘cast!!!

QUICK NOTE:
As I’ve been here and as things have been getting weirder and more worrisome all over the world, I decided that, as an archivist, archival activist and advocate for change (especially in terms of platforming invisible voices via my podcast) I wanted to cover how COVID-19 is hitting (or not hitting) the people in our community. So if you are reading this and you are a media specialist, historian, information professional of any kind and identify as POC, LGBTQI, differently abled, woman-identifying, or any other marginalized group that my privileged white ass may have not covered (and for which I deeply apologize), please hit me up here archivistsalley@gmail.com

Sydney Perkins is an enthusiastic film arqueervist who loves handling and researching film and thinking of creative approaches to restoration. Currently she is unemployed and probably working on a shitpost for Archivist Memes.

One of the brilliant intertitles that Sydney created
Another one of the brilliant intertitles that Sydney created
Sydney is just a rock star.

Dr. T.J. Tallie: Queered Power Structures, Polygamist Archive Studies and How to Survive the Non-Stop Fiesta of Sadness

If I could shout it from every karaoke bar and academic institution that has ever existed, I would take up ALL THE SPACE yelling and singing about how much my dear friend (and glorious glamour queen) Dr. T.J. Tallie rules.
He has taught me so many things about how to be a better person, historian, activist and friend.

THE GREATEST THING IS THAT AS OF THIS LAST WEEK, THE BOOK THAT WE TALK ABOUT ON THIS PODCAST IS AVAILABLE FOR SALE AND YOU SHOULD ALL BUY ONE!!!!!!!!

The link is right here and it is available on Barnes & Noble and all kinds of online book sellers as well as the one I linked to.
This is what it looks like:

Buy this amazing work!!!

However, my convo with T.J. will be the second to last podcast that I do from the US. I will do one more and then….well, you’ll hear in the next podcast!!

Just check out this truly amazing and fun conversation with one of the greatest young professional minds/academics/historians and Missy Elliot Karaoke Singers of our time. ALSO- NO ONE LOOKS BETTER IN A CAPE OR VICTORIAN COLLAR THAN DR. TALLIE. This is just fact. Trust me on it.

As usual, bio and links under the podcast…

BIO:

T.J. Tallie is an Assistant Professor of History in the Department of History at the University of San Diego. His work focuses on questions of gender, race, colonialism, indigeneity, Africa, and sexuality. He is the author of Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa. He is from Los Angeles originally and is a sassy unicorn of knowledge and justice.

Links:

https://read.dukeupress.edu/glq/article/3/4/437/9940/Punks-Bulldaggers-and-Welfare-Queens-The-Radical

Mo Henry: Negative Cutting, Orson Welles Restorations & Women’s Power in the Film Industry

Mo Henry!!! Mo Henry!!! She is so cool!

I wish you all could meet her and hang out with her! I hope that you get a good sense of how cool she is from this episode because she really is one of the most fun-to-hang-out-with women I have ever met.

If you had told me that we would end up being friends when I first saw her talk about her work on The Other Side of the Wind, I would’ve doubted you. She’s genuinely amazing, inspirational and….well, we could have gone on for a few hours more with other stories…

So I hope you enjoy this conversation and I hope that you read all the articles that I’m including here because they are AWESOME. Much like the magnificent Mo!

Bio:

Mo Henry is a film negative cutter acclaimed by many as one of the greatest in her field. Her works include franchise film series such as Spiderman, Batman, The Matrix, and Harry Potter, cult classics such as Mulholland Drive, The Big Lebowski, El Mariachi (uncredited) and Apocalypse Now Redux. Mo worked exclusively for many years on Clint Eastwood’s films and on all of Frances Ford Coppola’s restoration projects. More recently, she cut several of Christopher Nolan’s films such as The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and Inception.  According to The Internet Movie Database, she has been a negative cutter on over 300 films, although Mo claims IMDB has many inaccuracies, missing many films that she has cut and including her on films on which she was not involved, and her ultimate total far exceeds 300. In addition, she cut a fair number of adult films under the alias Ruby Diamond. Despite her low profile she has amassed a fan base over the years, and many fans are known to stay during the final credits to see if Mo’s name appears.

She is a fourth generation Henry negative cutter, starting at Universal at 19. Her first cut feature film (uncredited) was Jaws, a film she was told (by her boss/father) was likely to be a flop, so he allowed her to train on it as a novice. She took a break from negative cutting to be a real estate agent in Beverly Hills in the eighties (with, as she describes it, “Big Hair and Big Shoulder pads”), and as a production coordinator on television commercials and rock videos.

She is left-handed, which initially made it harder for her to learn to cut negative, however, she says her obsessive-compulsive disorder works to her advantage, as it allows her to remember numbers and because she checks everything repeatedly, she has rarely made a mistake.

Mo is a Los Angeles native and a first generation American on her father’s side of the family, the Henrys having immigrated from Ireland.

LINKS:

https://www.aintitcool.com/node/80117

Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez: the Minority Majority, Community Involvement & Our Plea to Stop Being a Jerk!

I am so glad that I am able to come back to the Podcast-waves with this episode.

Some things are a *little* out of date since we recorded this episode waaaaaaaaay back in April but most everything is still incredibly relevant and very very real.

I am so thrilled to have been able to have Elvia on this show. What she is doing in Irvine is so important and her drive to make sure that the future is a better place is so clear. I am incredibly impressed by this University archive and they are quite lucky to have Elvia. She is an incredible person who respects and values the voices that ask to be heard.

This is the rarest thing. I hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as I enjoyed having this conversation. ELVIA IS AWESOME!!!!!

As usual, bio is below the podcast link!

Elvia is the Assistant University Archivist at UC Irvine where she is responsible for providing physical and intellectual access to University Archives and Faculty Papers. She was previously the Processing Archivist for Latin American Collections at Princeton University. She earned her Master’s in Library and Information Science (MLIS) at the University of Pittsburgh, and holds a Bachelor’s of Art in art history from UCLA.