Reed sent couriers over to all of its Methuen authors who were being asked to novate their contracts—essentially to update their contracts, with the same terms and conditions, to the new legal entity. A motorbike courier duly went to the home of Lady Antonia Fraser, whose acclaimed historical biographies we had been publishing for many years, to get her signature, Unfortunately, the door was answered by her partner, the dramatist Harold Pinter, and in the course of the exchange with the courier an altercation arose. The notoriously short-tempered Pinter became extremely annoyed at what he saw as the impudence of the request. Shortly afterwards, not only did Pinter announce he was moving all of his copyrights from Methuen to Faber, but his great friend, the playwright Simon Gray, wrote to tell us he was doing the same. We never got to the bottom of exactly what happened on Lady Antonia’s doorstep, but it proved costly for us and was a lesson in how easily in the literary world one can wreck an author-publisher relationship.
WARREN ELLIS LTD Articles.
My favourite piece of Barthesian advice runs in a different direction: ‘It’s when you lift your head that you’re really reading.’ The greatest gift a work can bestow might be the semi-free association it inspires. ‘Barthes applied this floating quality to the entire sphere of language, to reading, to every utterance, to all conversation,’ Bois says, and follows up with a tip of his own. Wait for ‘the click’ in your response to a given piece, ‘that sudden, insouciant turning of the key’ that releases a rush of ideas. ‘Let a swarm of thoughts bounce off a snap; let the signs proliferate over and around an opposition, an analogy, before putting them in order.’
A fringe of loyalists such as Valery Gergiev, a conductor, and Vladimir Mashkov, a theatre director, openly embrace the war. At the most grotesque end of the spectrum is a new wave of Z-culture, which the Kremlin has actively promoted. So far the most prominent artist to have broken into the mainstream is the musician Shaman, who has taken to performing hits such as “I’m Russian”—“I’m Russian/I go to the end/I’m Russian/My blood comes from my fa-aa-ther”—for the already war-shocked citizens of Donbas in occupied eastern Ukraine.
Some unlikely figures have also begun dabbling in the arts scene. The warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin—whose Wagner brand is better known for executions by sledgehammer—has opened a “cultural” and “co-working” space in St Petersburg.

In a 497-acre wild forest, among rolling hills, creeks, streams, and wetlands, New York-based architecture studio Marc Thorpe Design has created ‘Crystal Lake Pavilion’: a stunning concept for a meditation sanctuary in the middle of a sublime, motionless lake.
The gallery is gorgeous.
Between 1989 and 2004, Walid Raad developed a collection of both found and fabricated materials—documents, notebooks, photographs, news clippings, interview transcripts, and videos—related to the Lebanese Civil War (1975–91). His archival displays, presented under the guise of an imaginary foundation named “The Atlas Group,” blend fact and fiction to deconstruct the truth claims of documentary media, and bespeak distrust of official narratives, while also exploring the links between history, memory, trauma, and fantasy.
Some deep nerding on the perfect notebook box. I have my used notebooks shoved into a couple of go-bags.

Speaking of organ adoration, and despite the book’s title, there is very little explicitly sexual here. Describing the lingam worship of Hindu Shivaism, which takes place under “an umbrageous Bael” or “fine Ficus” — and, if both are lacking, “the poor god is often reduced to the stump of a tree” — the author cautions a potentially salacious audience: “My readers must not fancy that this worship is indecent, or even productive of licentiousness. It is conducted by men, women and children of modest mien, and pure and spotless lives.” He proceeds to admit that, at certain seasons, “the passions are roused and the people proceed to excesses” — but these are, he thinks, significantly less common than in the rites of Eastern Christianity.
Although published anonymously, the Phallic Series is undoubtedly the work of Hargrave Jennings (1817–1890), whom Paschal Beverly Randolph heralded as “the chief Rosicrucian of all England”.
Recent advances in human stem cell-derived brain organoids promise to replicate critical molecular and cellular aspects of learning and memory and possibly aspects of cognition in vitro. Coining the term “organoid intelligence” (OI) to encompass these developments, we present a collaborative program to implement the vision of a multidisciplinary field of OI.
Organoid Intelligence!

I see my creative process as a two-part thing: there’s the idea and the actual creation process itself. My habit is to always keep “ideas” in stock. I have a notebook (music notation paper) that I carry with me all the time and there’s also a folder on my PC with snippets of audio. So I try to keep a log of “ideas” to be used as a spark for a creative process. Sometimes using an idea that’s 15+ years old (and I can’t quite recall where that came from) takes me to unexpected places. I guess this habit made me avoid the “Blank Page Syndrome” for ages…
St. Andrew’s Cathedral was believed to be haunted as early as 1890. Construction had only just begun on the new cathedral, when a lone gunman shot and killed an innocent man—David Fee—as Christmas Eve Mass was letting out. According to court records, during the subsequent trial, the defendant’s lawyer argued that his client had mistaken David Fee for “a ghost.”
I just found this story buried at the bottom of my email – seems I sent myself the link at some point.
It wasn’t long before Francis Fuller—the Irishman—began to demonstrate symptoms of “insanity.” By today’s standards, Fuller would have likely been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He heard voices, for example, saying that his travel companions were part of a conspiracy to kill him. When the French labourer disappeared, the priests believed that he had simply become tired of Fuller’s increasing instability. In later years, reporters would speculate that he might have been Fuller’s first victim.
Bishop Seghers believed he could control Fuller, despite the concerns of the other priests. Frustrated with the situation, the bishop sent the priests on a side mission while he and Fuller carried on with three First Nation guides. One of the guides left the party at a trading station. The remaining members continued on their way. Fuller began to act more and more erratic.
On the morning of November 28, 1886, Fuller shot Bishop Seghers through the heart as he leaned over to gather his gear. The man died instantly in front of the two horrified guides. Fuller immediately began to act even more bizarre, shaking one of the guide’s hands while expressing to them that “the man” needed to be killed. The guides wrapped up the body and left to get help with Fuller accompanying them willingly.
The party reached the village that day. No one knew what to do with Fuller. He wasn’t immediately incarcerated, but was instead sent to another village for the winter, away from two local white women who had expressed “terror” at being in his presence. Fuller continued to act strangely over the duration of the winter, apparently changing his story as to what had happened several times.
Taking a moment to look back on my mark-making here recently and pick out the pieces I thought worked better than others, mostly for my own consideration going forward.
Recycling Digital – “I’m big into recycling stuff to use in the kitchen and garden. Recycling requires you be aware of what you already have and be aware of what’s coming into the house.”
DUNE: The Throat Singing – (best bit of the film)
YELLOWBACKS – an obscure British tv play
The Real Gray Man: BACK BLAST, Mark Greaney
The Garden Is Frozen – digital gardens
FOLKLORE OF ESSEX, Sylvia Kent
THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT – new project announcement
Morning Routine And Work Day, January 2022
How Do You Choose The Medium For Your Story?
ROOM TO DREAM, Kristine McKenna and David Lynch
It’s Okay To Smile: My Personal History With Depression And My Father