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Documenting Lost Documents
In Praise of Rescuing Lost Stories
Whenever I come across a broken link, I gasp. I pull up Archive.org, the vast backup of broken links, and I indulge the impulse. I noticed this first in 2012, when I tried finding full footage of the Watch the Throne documentary. I caught wind that there was a full 45 minute version out there, and the 10 minute one was definitely not enough…
Obsession is one of the most useful tools in creative work. Think Yayoi Kusama and polka dots, Robert Caro and LBJ, DJ Khaled and ad libs. (“We the best!” since 2005.) One of my obsessions is looking for lost documents. The more lost the document is, the greater the pull, the stronger my motivation to find it.
After I looked for the aforementioned documentary for hours, I decided I needed to let go and move on with my life. That was the moment I also realized, letting go of obsession sometimes is one of the best things one can do for their creative work. Ship it or give it up, but don’t fixate.
This particular obsession is useful at this moment; a lot of valuable, previously published, information gets lost. Mostly, this happens because someone forgets to renew a domain, or makes a decision to not renew it. Years of hard work, dead to the world. The website legacy of Lucky Peach would have been all but lost were it not for…
