Long Short Story

Nothing fails. There’s space. Formats once thought contemptible get multiple seasons. On stream. Box set. So much product. This shoot, this director, has notions. Wants gloss. He tells me: those shows in old times, those 70s shows, everything shone. Those bleached scenes, harsh edges from video stock. Everything told you: this is a show to watch. I’m not disinclined. We, all of us, crafts and trades, want resumes with name recognition. To say: yeah, I did that show with billion numbers. That show of which people talk fondly, when they’ve a thousand channels. Yeah, I was behind the lens on that show your sister streamed on her honeymoon night. We all want that. We want to believe this director isn’t some blowhard. So he wants gloss on everything. Gritty. Gritty gloss.

Fidel Castro, the man who had banned Christmas, was increasingly concerned about reports he had received about the apparition of a Holy Lady to an Afrocuban sixteen-year-old at a small grotto near a river close to the city of Holguín. The girl was apparently saying the Holy Lady appeared to her in blue and white robes – dressed exactly like Cubans’ Our Lady of Charity is portrayed – and had given her sundry messages about the fate of the Cuban people and its leader.