Dive into Memphis magic with our 26th Annual Southern Music Issue!

From Al Green to Elvis, explore iconic photography and fresh takes on legends through stellar writing from Zandria Robinson, Robert Gordon & more.

Become A Member Shop Login

SOLIT: TEN MINUTES OF STUPIDITY

Texas inmate Michael Lee Ford's spectacular and heartbreaking autobiographical drawing, "Ten Minutes of Stupidity," tells the story of a haunted puppy, a dead chicken, and the painful repercussions of a single choice. This piece, shot by Dave Anderson and guest-directed by multi-talented filmmaker/musician Amman Abbasi, is a first for the Oxford American: a short film inspired by and based upon a piece of folk art. 

Director: Amman Abbasi
Photography: Dave Anderson
Editor: Amman Abbasi
Motion Graphics: TJ McCoy
Music Composed By: Amman Abbasi
Music Arrangements & Editing: Amos Cochran
Violins by Ryan Cockerham
Poem Read By: Thomas Cochran
Prison Footage: Markus Wittmann
Art by: Michael Lee Ford 
Support: Yousof Abbasi
For the Magazine: Roger Hodge, Eliza Borne
Executive Producer: Ray Wittenberg


SoLit is an innovative new online video series by filmmaker Dave Anderson, the National Magazine Award-winning creator of SoLost and Southword. SoLit visually interprets pieces of writing originally published in the Oxford American, bringing great literature to life on the screen. By employing a variety of visual and acoustic treatments that occupy the space between the literal and the abstract, Anderson has created a kind of transmedia hybrid that could perhaps be described as the literary version of a music video.