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I have been accused of going goblin mode. So I will embrace it. Sunday’s newsletter actually covers a big part what slowed me down this past week. But mostly I just don’t have my shit together enough yet and now I’m behind by an extra week.
Anyway, I’m staying shut down here until May 29th.
I need to spend this week getting a proper hold on a bunch of things, and to finish off a few things, so I’m shutting some activity levels down again.
The sycamore tree is now in full leaf. I have a lot to do in the garden, but I have more to do indoors.
ON DECK: Trying to compress three days’ work into two, because I’m recording on Friday, apparently. I dunno which episode of DEPT. MIDNIGHT we’re recording, but I’ve been told to hold the day, so holding I am.
INBOX: 70. Catching up.
READING: Just finished PIRANESI, casting around for what’s next.
OUTSIDE: “Police arrest man in gimp suit who jumped in front of motorist in Somerset”
Totally lost track of time today, so here’s a photo of the squirrel that wrecks all my plants every day. He is a criminal and should be in prison. However, it is the law in England that if one traps or otherwise imprisons a grey squirrel, one is legally obliged to kill it and is subject to legal sanction if one releases it, because it is a destructive invasive species. So I continue to let it wreak havoc, and am putting chicken wire around the young trees and over the vegetables so he cannot kill them. And, yes, I give him peanuts.
Newsletter went out Sunday. I am scripting, I have a lot of reading to do, I’m scheduling recording sessions, I’m in a few conversations, and I’m… I dunno. Slightly behind the curve, slightly frustrated. I spent the long weekend in notebooks and have nothing much to show for it, just some germs of ideas. Onward. More coffee.
The film posters of Cruz Novillo; I’m about to lose 30 minutes of work time to this link.
Newsletter is done and ready to go out Sunday morning. Just fed all the plants. Inbox is probably around 100, and it’s Bandcamp Friday, so my Bandcamp inbox is probably bulging at the seams. But I am scripting with one hand and developing new ideas with the other, and I don’t care. Am avail on email and messaging apps, but expect time delays. Back here on Tuesday, as it is Old Man Gets New Hat National Holiday on Monday. Happy weekend to both of my readers.
Remember when Instagram mostly existed as a repository for photos of food? Happy breakfast time
Allergy season seems to have come off its peak, but it’s tooooo late for me.
Lovely selection of Ian Miller illustrations over here. Ian Miller was the art editor at INTERZONE magazine for a time, and made that magazine a joy of artistic discovery – you’d pick it up in real anticipation of what he’d done that month. Here’s some more from that time.
This week so far has been about thinking a lot about black and white art. (Hi, L! Hi, A!)
Inbox is at 85, mostly because there’s stuff there I want to keep handy for the moment. There will be time delays on responses today but I’m around. A scripting and brainstorming day.
The WGA are on strike.
Restrict AI Illustration from Publishing: An Open Letter. Because, let’s be clear:
AI-art generators are trained on enormous datasets, containing millions upon millions of copyrighted images, harvested without their creator’s knowledge, let alone compensation or consent. This is effectively the greatest art heist in history. Perpetrated by respectable-seeming corporate entities backed by Silicon Valley venture capital. It’s daylight robbery.
Album title of the day: THEIR POWER REACHED ACROSS SPACE AND TIME-TO DEFY THEM WAS DEATH-OR WORSE
I have scripting to get into and my inbox is at 81 because I’m suddenly having a lot of conversations with artists and publishers about stuff and also I subscribe to too many morning newsletters.
This turned up in Steve Cook’s excellent newsletter SECRET ORANGES. I remember owning this. I would have been five years old.
I’ve spent the last three days in the garden, and today is a national holiday because an old man is getting a new hat, (correction, it’s May Day, old man gets his new hat later) so I’m just going to roll with it and return to work tomorrow. I’ve been putting off breaking down a vast pile of dead wood and filling and turning the compost bins, so I’m getting that done this afternoon, then sitting and reading a pile of magazines and making notes. Which should finish out the current “daily” notebook, and I can crack open the new one tomorrow. Setting up to blast through a consultancy job Tues-Sat.
Newsletter went out yesterday – read it here. Turned out to mostly be about working practises and music. Which is kind of funny, since I have a listening queue about 200 records deep and work-wise have done nothing but brainstorm and free-associate into a notebook for the last three days.
