WARREN ELLIS LTD Posts

We stood outside on the street and watched the eclipse. We were the only ones out there. It was glorious. That moment when there’s a crescent sun. We talked about going to see eclipse totalities and finding dark towns to watch meteor showers from. Some of the best things we’ve ever done were free.

We made one half-arsed effort at photographing it. But were really more invested in just watching it.

Not free: sending her off at the weekend to buy two cases of wine from Flint Vineyard. After I ordered four bottles of mead from Horns Of Odin because they are having an event overstock sale. But fuck it, we have to live.

For the record, I have one or two glasses of wine a day and occasionally another drink in the evening. But I’ve been thinking I need to get into the habit of aperitifs and digestifs.

Figs for breakfast. I once read that Keith Waterhouse always started the day with a glass of champagne. He died quietly in his sleep at the age of 80, so it clearly didn’t do him any harm. I think about that a lot. The champagne, not the dying. Champagne at breakfast sounds life improving, which must surely be life extending.

OPERATIONS: TOO MUCH: roughing to the end of a script, I need to pull out some new ideas
STATUS:

I only meant to have lunch and one glass, but the owner and I got talking, and then other customers started talking to me, and therefore I learned about Bremont Watches, and suddenly I’d been there nearly two hours. And was slightly pissed.

So I stopped off at the coffee shop for espresso and water on the way back, and a neighbour passed by and shook my hand, and we had a coffee together.

READING: finished MAIGRET AND MONSIEUR CHARLES, Georges Simenon (UK) (US+), and how lovely it was.

Also: disconnecting means returning to print.

INTELLIGENCE IS THE ART OF REMAINING FAITHFUL UNDER SHIFTING CIRCUMSTANCES, Alexander Kluge and Anselm Kiefer (UK) (US+)

Kluge’s final book.

LISTENING: OCEANINE
DRINK: Amaretto with a few dashes of orange and cinnamon bitters. The bottle comes with a dropper in the cap!

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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Spent last night reading a stack of issues of the TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT that had piled up over the last few months.

As I said in the newsletter the other week (Unphoning), I have been disconnecting from as much of the internet as I can. Yesterday I forgot to post here because I was hanging out chatting at the coffee shop and then had to bang out nine pages of work before cooking dinner because herself caught a bug at Bloodstock. Today I hope to see an eclipse.

My connected devices are off. Unmonitored. Most notifications off. Selectively informed. I was almost tempted to get a few daily newspapers, but that really wasn’t realistic. Today I saw an article in the WSJ about “datamaxxing,” people shoving the take from as many connected devices and inputs and possible into AI chatbots. There was a time where that would have made me curious.

I was at a gig a few weeks ago and partway through I realised I’d stopped listening because I was actually being left alone and there weren’t floods of parallel input and so my brain was just pouring out all the thoughts that had been dammed in by all the noise of my life. That was bad, and also fixable.

OPERATIONS: turning notes into scripts
STATUS: maybe I should become an eclipse chaser
READING: I wanted something simple and fun, so it’s MAIGRET AND MONSIEUR CHARLES, Georges Simenon (UK) (US+), the 75th and final Maigret book, which I’ve been saving for a few years.
LISTENING: TIDE REQUIEM FOR THE LOW SEA, Zake

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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Very quickly filling up a notebook with bad ideas. Which is the only way I know of to get at the better ideas.

Blew through my to-do list. Blasting through some script now. Ganzeer sent me an email the other day headed “Going Hard,” and that’s what’s happening until now and December.

Apparently smoking is cool again. Emily Sundberg has been reporting on US events over the last year or so where cigarettes have evidently been handed out as treats.

OPERATIONS: Amending the boards, just sent a pitch and checked on the status of an upcoming project, ideally I’ll have 8pp script down by EOD and then it’s into story development
STATUS: I texted the deli and they ran out of meat so I am indoors sulking
READING: PROTO, Laura Spinney (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: BE HUMAN, Violeta Vicci & Bruno Bavota

LAST WATCHED: TITANE (2021)
DRINK: Godfather

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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I am resting my brain and conducting a managed retreat to the outside world. Except, of course, I’m not actually resting my brain, I’m trying to supercharge it in the right direction.

I briefly looked at Threads, out of pure curiosity after reading an article, and that application is deranged. Apparently it doesn’t matter who you follow or how many people you follow, the feed is entirely algorithmic, shifting constantly depending on what you read on it, and is therefore a nightmare stream of late-stage machine-curated entertainment for human victims.

New newsletter out today.

OPERATIONS: clearing up the boards, rewriting an old pitch document, assembling the shape of everything I have to get done before the end of the year and putting a list of every artist who’s asked me to write something for them up on a new board. Also digging out the notebook for PROJECT ROANOKE, because it sounds like the artist will be ready to get back to it in six weeks.
STATUS: Grey linen trousers, shirt and jacket, and a breathable shoe – I actually got summer right this year.

An hour at the coffee shop and I had the story title I was looking for.

READING: finished BIOLOGICAL WAR: A SCENARIO, Annie Jacobsen (UK) (US+) last night
LISTENING: FISHERMEN’S SOUVENIRS, Teresa Hackel / Eiko Yamada

LAST WATCHED: rewatched BUGONIA
DRINK: Birds And Bees summer ale

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.

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