G’night, reader.
WARREN ELLIS LTD Articles.
Good meditative film, very much in the zone of Things I’ve Been Thinking about: 24 FRAMES, the last film by Abbas Kiarostami. He was thinking about the relationship between his two passions, photography and filmmaking. But he starts with a painting by Bruegel the Elder. It’s, obviously, a still image, filling the screen. And then the smoke coming from the chimneys begins to move, and the birds hop along the snowy branches and the painting breathes. It’s limited, clever and tasteful animation.
(I work in comics, and I work in animation, and I work in film and television generally, so, yes, it would seem obvious that I would be interested. But I’ve also been in a k-hole of thoughts around slow cinema and the black-and-white image for a year or two now. God knows what that will output as.)
It is, in fact, 24 frames. Frames that are still, and then move. Until you can no longer tell the difference between a still and a long take. 24 frames per second, of course, is the speed of analogue film. It is mesmerising. There’s a whole lot to unpack about the frame itself, about the screen as window – and the windows on/in the screen and the image – (-and, maybe, the panel?-) – and it is generally a lot bigger, conceptually and textually, that “a film about 24 frames” would suggest.
I bought a goddamn Blu-Ray drive to watch this.
I loved it.
This is extremely useful, from Venkatesh Rao at ribbonfarm:
A traditional blog series is a waterfall-planned longer work that’s something like an ersatz book for lazy vanity publishers. A blogchain on the other hand:
1. is improvised rather than planned
2. is responsive to salient events in the environment
3. evolves at a certain tempo
4. acts like a themed, bite-sized commitment ratchet; gradatim ferociter
5. …but without the oppressive intention-debt of a traditional series
6. is designed for sustainability, more sitcom than movie
7. is suitable for multi-author collaboration like my Worlding Raga
8. is structurally a way to build over time (“construction”)
9. is capable of supporting an inter-process messaging protocol with adjacent blogchains
10. has no necessary or scripted “ending” but more of a crash-only/infinite game character
I’d been looking at forms of serial writing here, but was getting tripped by intention-debt. Yes. Useful thinking.
I am writing the introduction to BETTER THAN IRL, a forthcoming book of essays about the early social internet, which you can find out more about at this link here. Fiction & Feeling, run by my old friend Katie West, will be launching a Kickstarter for it sometime this month.
It appears that auld comrades Molly Crabapple, Damien Williams and Melissa Gira Grant are also writing pieces for it, which is obviously Very Good.
My friend Kristen Sollée, with whom I attempted to drink How The Light Gets In dry last year, has a new book announced. She’s very good, very smart, and if you read WITCHES SLUTS FEMINISTS you already knew that.
This is the write-up:
“Interweaving historical research, pop culture, and original interviews, Kristen Sollée reclaims the cat archetype as a source of feminine identify and sexual power.
“The cat: A sensual shapeshifter. A hearth keeper, aloof, tail aloft, stalking vermin. A satanic accomplice. A beloved familiar. A social media darling. A euphemism for reproductive parts. An epithet for the weak. A knitted hat on millions of marchers, fists in the air, pink pointed ears poking skyward. Cats and cat references are ubiquitous in art, pop culture, politics, and the occult, and throughout history, they have most often been coded female.
“From the “crazy cat lady” unbowed by patriarchal prescriptions to the coveted sex kitten to the dreadful crone and her yowling compatriot, feminine feline archetypes reveal the ways in which women have been revered and reviled around the world—in Greek and Egyptian mythology, the European witch trials, Japanese folklore, and contemporary film.
“By combining historical research, pop culture, art analyses, and original interviews, Cat Call explores the cat and its indivisible connection to femininity and teases out how this connection can help us better understand the relationship between myth, history, magic, womanhood in the digital age, and our beloved, clawed companions.”
Out in September. Up for pre-order now: (UK) (US)
Catching up on my long queue of “stuff I marked to listen to later” at Bandcamp.
MUSIC IN THREE MOVEMENTS FOR WHEN THE WORLD FALLS APART by Dag Rosenqvist is, indeed, useful music for when everything else is moving at sloppy speed.
MITHRA by Ager Sonus is misty atmospheric time travel.
Stag Hare is always great, and I’m filling in gaps in the discography. Long shimmering tones and drones.
Commencement speech to the graduating class of the University of Essex at Southend
On the occasion of having been made an honorary Doctor of the University
Delivered 31 October 2017
Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea
I’m going to keep this short, because I just got back from Amsterdam, and I’m sure some of you know how that goes.
(This actually got a big laugh, which led me to make a comment along the lines of “Oh, I see what kind of crowd we have here.”)
I’ve been asked to say something inspirational and uplifting to you on the happy occasion of your graduation. Which, given that you’ve worked very hard for your qualification and I just wandered in here and got one for free, seems faintly obscene. So I could lead out with a cautionary tale about how life is fundamentally unfair and old white guys steal everything. But, you know, I left education at 18, and by the time I was your age I was living in a six foot by six foot rented room that used to be a dark room and would sometimes go out at night to punch pay-phones to get them to spit out loose coins that I could use for food money. And here I am. Life is unpredictable.
Sometimes you start out at the bottom. Sometimes you’ll trip and fall down. Sometimes you stay there for a good long time. Sometimes all the lousy luck in the world only ever seems to wash up at your door. I’m telling you from experience that sometimes you’re going to feel like giving up on your chosen path. Maybe you’re even worried that you don’t actually have a chosen path yet. There’s going to be a day when you say to yourself, the hell with it, I’m going to leave a note blaming my teachers for everything and I’m going to go and sell all my organs to medical science while I’m still alive.
Don’t.
I’d been working as a professional writer for seven years or so when I went on my first American tour. On the first stop, at the signing table, this big guy comes up to me, with wet eyes, and told me about the story I’d written that saved his life one night when he’d been down so long that he didn’t see a better day ahead. Whatever was in that story, it gave him something to think about, a goal to stay alive for. I don’t tell you this story to explain what a wonderful person I am, though of course that’s true and now I have a doctorate to prove it, which I’m going to use to drive my family absolutely insane for the rest of my life. I tell it because life is unpredictable and you never know what’s going to happen to let in the light. And I say that as someone who used to literally live in a dark room.
The focus and dedication and determination that got you into this room is what’s going to keep you going. You know how to aim at a goal and reach it. You know what you want. Keep it in sight. Hold on tight. Maybe you don’t know what the specific goal is yet. That’s fine. You’ve got time. Even if you don’t know the shape and name of it, you know in your gut where you want to be. Aim for what makes you happy. For what feels valuable to you. Put yourself where it’s going to count.
That’s where I need you to be. You’ve lead lives that had structure and clearly defined ends, and now you’re entering a world where people watch Jeremy Kyle on purpose. Nobody predicted how weird it’s gotten out here. And I’m a science fiction writer telling you that. And the other science fiction writers feel the same. I know some people who specialized in near-future science fiction who’ve just thrown their hands up and gone off to write stories about dragons because nobody can keep up with how quickly everything’s going insane. It’s always going to feel like being thrown in the deep end, but it’s not always this deep, and I’m sorry for that. But we need you to be out here with us now.
I hope you have the fire in you that my generation had at your age, that most generations have at your age – the fire to fix things, and the fire to make new things, fly new ideas, create the new sound that nobody heard before. You’ll notice that my generation didn’t fix everything, and also released Piers Morgan on the world. We’re sorry for that, too. We made mistakes. You’ll make mistakes too. Don’t be afraid of that. Making mistakes happens when you’re trying something new. It’s how you know you’re bending the envelope. Making mistakes is how you learn, and sometimes a mistake gives you something valuable. Brian Eno made a set of cards with weird notes on them that he used when he was working with David Bowie, among others, and one of the cards reads, “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” You’ll find that’s a lot more useful than Keep Calm And Carry On.
Don’t worry about making mistakes. You’ll learn something, and that will be added to the commonwealth of our knowledge, and we all take one step forward.
Today isn’t the end of anything, really. It’s the beginning. You’re just getting started. You’re going to do great things. You’re going to surprise yourself with what you’re capable of and what you achieve. I’ve seen it happen, over and over again. All you have to do is not quit. Take a day off, but don’t quit. Keep fighting, keep thinking, keep making, keep trying something new. Hold on tight to what matters to you, stand up for what’s right, and keep your eyes on the horizon. It all starts today. It all starts with one step forward.
Congratulations to you all on your achievement. It’s time to begin the bigger and more exciting and more important part of your life. The part where you make a difference. I look forward to seeing you all again, in the future that you help create. Time to get started.
LTD 002
Well, this thing is bloody huge. Didn’t look that big in the photos. It’s A4 and two and a half inches thick.
I am essentially stuck at my desk for much of this year, so I am improving my mind by buying the DVDs and Blu-Rays of the films I want to watch and study that cannot easily be found on streaming. I had therefore decided it was way past time I did a deep dive on Ingmar Bergman’s career, as I’d been having a lot of thoughts lately that seemed to me to intersect with his work.
I was not aware that I was ordering a paving slab.
If you too want to go nuts and you have space in your office for a paving slab, take a look. (UK) (US)