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WARREN ELLIS LTD Posts

HOB’S LANE 23

Published September 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS was a television film – we tended to call them television plays until relatively recently – about several concerns of Kneale’s, built around the proposal that a group of people be abandoned on an island, left to fend for themselves, and filmed doing it. This is, of course, what we know today as SURVIVOR. THE YEAR OF THE SEX OLYMPICS was broadcast in July 1968.

More broadly, it’s about the pacification of the populace with pornography and constant streams of shitty video. About the passive audience and the post-literate audience, attenuated vocabulary and a jaded “youth.” It’s about what television does to people. A demon buried in a glowing glass container.

Tags: rf/HOB
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NINE BELLS post-search

Published September 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Came across that term in a Creative Boom article in July, which is when I’m writing this note. The full phrase is “a post-AI, post-search and post-social world.” Are we post-AI yet? I feel like what’s arrived so far is mostly empty promises. Post-social (media)? Well, yeah, but most people don’t see it that way yet. They even think TikTok is social media, and it’s not – it has no social graph, its algo is basically souped-up TiVo, it’s television with a comments section.

Sometimes I think old-style public access cable television ate the planet and nobody noticed.

But post-search. That feels right. Search has been crippled for a while now. Search being a fundamental function of the web, even saying the word “post-search” feels weird and worrying. Is that where we all are now? Hoping the “AI” “search” answer at the top of Google results is right?

I just found out that Searchblog is still running – https://battellemedia.com/ .

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MEGALOPOLIS On Blu-Ray

Published September 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Wherein hangs a bit of a story. I saw this pop up on Amazon around the turn of the year, and I thought, I’ll wait a bit. I was fascinated by the film, but I wasn’t necessarily up for paying full price on it. And then, back in July, I came across a curious fact. MEGALOPOLIS is not available for home viewing in the US and certain other territories. No streaming, no DVD, no Blu-Ray. Coppola reserved home video rights, and, instead, took MEGALOPOLIS out as a roadshow in the summer. He’s doing everything he can to preserve this as a cinema-only experience.

At which point I realised, eventually the European and UK home video rights will revert back to Coppola, and this Blu-Ray will go away. And I want to be able to study many of the film’s compositions at my own speed. So I clicked back to Amazon and found the price had dropped by a fiver. Therefore, I now own it, against the day when it becomes entirely unavailable.

MEGALOPOLIS (UK!)

CONNECTED:

Tags: film
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3sep25

Published September 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

TODAY:

OPERATIONS: Hitting my ancient iPad 2 with sticks to make its Downcast app work properly. I think the machine may have finally crapped out. Production and release schedules tentatively set. Today is scripting and hopefully getting back into a prose piece I’ve been fiddling with.
STATUS: 8hrs 8m sleep, but my body thinks autumn is here and is telling me to hibernate. Inbox 95. Browsing for new winter clothes. Reminder to self that I need to clean all my winter boots. Wearing the Timex Expedition Scout today, my signal to myself that I’m staying at least partly disconnected until 5pm.
READING: OUR DEBTS TO THE PAST by Ed James (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: Life is Exhausting by The Void Wanderer

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

Tags: war med pol
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morning computer happy astronaut

Published September 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Agus Putu Suyadnya.

A notable microtrend in 21st Century film has been the “sad astronaut” movie. It’s nice to see a happy astronaut.

I’ve long been a fan of Karen Jerzky‘s astronaut photos. Some of the series are entitled “Lonely Astronaut,” but, honestly, she often seems to be having fun on the weird planet she’s landed on.

Karen Jerzyk Photography: The Lonely Astronaut - Green Suit Edition &emdash;

I’ve mentioned Scott Listfield before:

ASTRONAUTS:

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

Tags: art astronaut
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MATERIA VIBRANTE, Susana Lopez

Published September 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

The album was built from field recordings captured at megalithic sites in Ireland, underwater sounds recorded with hydrophones in the rivers of Asturias, and electromagnetic wave scans from Birmingham. These sonic landscapes are interwoven with synthesizers, digital harmonium, experimental “sonic triangle,” multi-effects, percussion, and López’s voice — serving as a thread between the inner and the outer worlds.

It is a fantastic journey of a record. Something for the imagination under a summer sky. Which is how I enjoyed it. I have long adored Susana’s work, but this feels like a milestone.

Only available on digital or vinyl, but Susana knows my preference for CD and sent me this!

I remain a very lucky person.

PREVIOUSLY: STUPOR MUNDI, Susan Drone

Tags: music
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accessions 3sep25

Published September 3, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Adding to my pile of “serious reading for the rest of the year.”

CHOKEPOINTS, Edward Fishman (UK) (US+)

Tags: books
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HOB’S LANE 22

Published September 2, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Kneale’s other issue was that the BBC owned THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT, and so didn’t have to pay him a penny for the film versions. And therefore didn’t. He was furious about this, by all accounts.

The BBC eventually, in 1967, paid him £3000 (three grand in 1957 being the equivalent of nearly a hundred grand in 2025). But not actually for that slight. They called it an “ex gratia” payment in recognition of the success of the Quatermass series, not an admission of guilt or misdemeanor. This practice continues today all over the world. I got one of those – a lot closer to three grand than a hundred – in 2013.

This was how he returned to the BBC to write SEX OLYMPICS.

Tags: rf/HOB
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NINE BELLS pen note

Published September 2, 2025 by Warren Ellis

I love the Drehgriffel pen bodies, but I don’t love the refills they come loaded with. I swapped one out for the Parker G2 Quink Gel refill this summer and now it writes just the way I always wanted it to. All flow, no skip or thinning. You can buy two G2 Quink Gel refills for under a fiver over here. Not the cheapest thing, obviously, but it makes a beautiful refillable pen perfect.

You need good tools. An unreliable tool introduces friction and disrupts thought.

CONNECTED:

Tags: pens
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