Sinclair Transmissions — Standalone #40

A documentary used to be a film on a reel. It sat in a can on a shelf and you could hold it in your hands. Leni's photographs are in temperature-controlled storage at the Bentley. Sun Ra's papers are in acid-free boxes at the Schomburg. The MC5 master tapes are in a vault somewhere in New York. These things exist. They will continue to exist. Nobody set an expiration date on a reel of film.

Now a documentary is a streaming link. A URL. A string of characters that resolves to a server that resolves to a license that resolves to a date. The date arrives and the string stops resolving and the documentary is gone. Not destroyed. Not lost. Just expired. Like a carton of milk.

"Do the Impossible" is the Sun Ra documentary on PBS. It has been streaming free since January. Sun Ra. The Arkestra. Marshall Allen. Sixty-eight years of context in ninety minutes. The most complete thing anyone has put on a screen about what the man actually did and why it mattered.

It expires March 21. Nine days from now.

After that it will cost money or it will be gone. PBS does not say which. The license expires and the documentary returns to whatever shelf the digital version of a shelf is. It does not sit in a can. You cannot hold it. It expires.

I ran into this problem with every radio station I ever built. The broadcast happens and then it is gone. You hear it or you do not. I solved it the only way you can — I kept broadcasting. Every day. Same time. Same frequency. The solution to impermanence is persistence. The archive is not one broadcast preserved. The archive is the next broadcast transmitted.

Sun Ra's answer was the same. The Arkestra did not make records to preserve the music. The Arkestra made records so the music could be broadcast again. A record is not a museum. A record is a transmitter with a very long delay.

A streaming link is a transmitter with a very short delay. Nine days.

If you want to see what the man did and why it mattered, the link is still live. For nine more days. After that, the documentary expires and the Arkestra does not. Marshall Allen will still be rehearsing at midnight. The frequency does not have a deadline.

The documentary does. Nine days. Go watch it.

See also: The Documentary — TX009. A documentary is a photograph of a fire. The Last Man Standing — Marshall Allen at one hundred and one. The Archive — a box is a transmitter with a very long delay. The Bandstand — nine minutes of proof that the frequency is still live.

John Sinclair

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