Indulging a Second Look
Hi, my name is Dane Benko. I’m a filmmaker and artist based in New York City and Indulging a Second Look is my sandbox for out loud musings, glitchy experimental videos, uncanny short stories haunted by various entities that dodge your direct line of vision, and… movie recommendations, because I want good movies to be seen more often.
Symposia+
Indulging a Second Look was originally created as a place to publish my submissions to the Soaring Twenties Social Club’s monthly Symposium topics. The Soaring Twenties Social Club is an online cooperative of writers, artists, and flaneurs who post three times a week to the above linked Substack and publish a digital monthly magazine called The Symposium.
I use the Symposium to launch sketches, explorations, visions, and bogarted inspirations from dreams. It keeps me exercising my creative muscles and as a result I’ve been able to build larger projects outside Indulging a Second Look.
Feel free to follow my progress here or just enjoy the creative work that comes out. Topics are divided into
Musing Outloud - Newsletter and essay-ish posts about what I'm up to and thinking about. These aren’t tied to specific themes but dealing with the challenges of making art under a deluge of digital content comes up frequently.
Experimental Videos - Ambient narratives, glitchy antinarratives, experiential non-narratives, and cinepoems for you to watch full screen and in dark rooms.
Uncanny Stories - Short fictional stories not so much about things that go bump in the night, but about things you realized stopped bumping in the night and you’re not quite sure when.
Movie Recommendations - A feature length film I have seen recently that I sincerely urge you to watch because I love it and I want everyone to love it too. These are not 'reviews' or 'film criticism' as more like when a friend tells you 'Oh my god, you HAVE to see this movie!'
Subscriptions and Schedules
You can subscribe to whichever section you are really interested in or subscribe to the full Indulging a Second Look experience. I don’t necessarily draw major distinctions between who I am as a person and the type of art I make so I believe I tie these elements together strongly enough.
I make one Symposium post a month and my guarantee has always been at least that one post. I prioritize my Uncanny Stories and Experimental Videos and so those should show up more frequently. If you’re a fan of my Musing Outloud essays, I’m excited that you’ve found me, but the bad news is that I am not really sure how many or how often I’ll be posting them.
The latest Uncanny Story, Experimental Video, and Musing Outloud is free to all to read. When I post new ones, I paywall the previous post. A free subscription to any of these sections or Indulging a Second Look as a whole should mean you have access to anything new I publish as I go along. A paid subscription gets you access to the archives.
Some posts remain free forever if I feel they’re important enough or offer something other than my work. A good expectation is if I’m shilling or talking about someone else’s work, I’ll keep it free.
Movie Recommendations happen whenever I see a movie I just have to write about, which doesn’t run on a schedule. Sometimes I have recommendations that go unwritten due to time.
Movie Recommendations are always free. The entire purpose of them is to get people to go see movies I like, so there’s no value in locking them behind a paywall.
Please Participate
I would very much love to know how you found me and why you chose to subscribe. Absolutely feel free to send me emails or messages, tell me about yourself. I look forward to hearing from you!
I’m on Substack Notes, come hang out. I don’t know what I’m doing there and I don’t care to find out. I’ll stop if it stops being fun. If you hang out with me there it’ll be fun.
