Suspicious Facts and Reliable FakesWednesdays from May 26When was the last time you really trusted a documentary-watched with a confident eye, all suspicion on hold? The documentary is in a state of delirious crisis, due in part to a brand of work that is falsified or fabricated-the infamous faux documentary. A response to the general mistrust of media, as well as to the critical complexities of documentary form, the faux doc offers (im)pure fiction masquerading in the tropes of truth. There are gradations, of course, shades of fact served up whole alongside equal helpings of fancy. And it is here, in the vertigo of verity, that the fun begins."Some of These Stories Are True" explores the transformation of the documentary as it sheds its veracity for the brighter plumage of fiction. The works in this series will do their best to confuse or deceive you-some question their own authenticity, while others dwell on suspicious subjects; still others fraudulently employ the tools of journalism, or simply dress fiction in the finery of fact. Whether they be droll docutainments or unannounced docudramas, faux docs and their ilk are exercises of the cultural imagination, try-outs for truth that have more to do with the tenor of a time than the practicality of real things. Given the influence of media in contemporary life, these witty, ripe, and contagious exercises in factual conception enter the day-to-day discourse with a special status: as good as true, maybe even better. And before we know it, faux has become friend and friends don't lie. We'll let you in on a little secret: each of the works in "Some of These Stories Are True" is a documentary. Or some semblance thereof.Steve Seid Special thanks to Sally Berger and Jesse Lerner for their advice.WEDNESDAY MAY 26 , 1999