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21aug26

Published August 21, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Millions of people finish short video after short video every day; a new brain-scan study shows that the very act of finishing a clip they like temporarily quiets the brain regions that normally help them stay focused and weigh longer-term goals. When people watch a short video they enjoy enough to finish, two brain regions involved in cognitive control show significant deactivation.

Chinese startup DaxAI has shown off a “Cyber Horse” quadrupedal robot that visitors of the recent 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing, China, could actually ride.


STATUS: Too much to do today, so I’m posting this and moving on
LISTENING: OBSTRUCTIONS, Elyse Hart / John Pisaro
LAST WATCHED: Rewatched PROJECT HAIL MARY, which definitely stands up – it’s just a very well made entertainment. I spent more time listening to it this go around, and that score is very clever and very joyful. Just a smartly done piece of work all round. May the saints preserve us from a sequel.

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

Tags: tech
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20aug26

Published August 20, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Did you ever think about the number of films you don’t get to see because you’re self-harming your own brain cells with aggressively mid streaming shows?

I remember when the binge watch was a new and often joyous thing. I cleared a day to watch an entire season of the US HOUSE OF CARDS, and that was a good show in its first two seasons. Now a weekly release schedule is treated like a novelty. It occurred to me the other evening that the bingewatch and the doomscroll are the same thing: a symptom of having given up control of your life. But I had been drinking mead, so…

OPERATIONS: marking up the boards and laying down notes
STATUS:

The date window on the Ingenieur is being cranky!


READING: IN HER MIND A DARKNESS, LS Johnson
LISTENING: THE MODERNS ep 430
LAST WATCHED: I’ve been looking forward to watching IS GOD IS (2026) and it didn’t disappoint. Twins mutilated by a house fire are sent by their mother on a mission to kill their murderous shitbag of a father. The filming is a little bit Tarantino, but more literary, more heightened, more emotional. It is VERY well written, even though the top of the third act derails a touch. Some terrific acting. Cameo from Janelle Monae playing against type and killing it. Hell of a finish. The writer and director is Aleshea Harris, and it’s based on her play, and she is now on my list of instant purchases. Prime Video.
DRINK: some random sparkling white

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

Tags: film
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19aug26

Published August 19, 2026 by Warren Ellis

AirPods with cameras in is a good thing because for a year they’re all anyone will want and proper earbuds will get cheaper. And then there’s a fair chance that anyone with camera AirPods will be shunned as unnatural and there will be a whole Conversation about them and I can ignore it all and read a book while listening to music over IEMs. Which I had no idea even existed until around 2013, when Fred Armisen was sitting in the airplane seat opposite me and using IEMs to review footage on a tablet, and when he took them out I leaned over and asked him what the hell those weird earbuds were.

OPERATIONS: I need to nail down a long essay today.
STATUS: I should be thrilled that it’s temperate again
READING: finished THE KILLER’S MARK, MW Craven (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: CELLOSCAPES, Emma Caterinicchio & Pete Swinton


LAST WATCHED: FLUX GOURMET (2022), which probably hits a bit different if you DON’T go and see a lot of experimental and improvised music gigs. And I’m not sure how many people can relate to third-division writers with gastric issues, but I personally wanted the ailing protagonist, a bad writer with a bad stomach documenting the performances of sonic artists exclusively using culinary techniques to make sounds, to win everything and become king. The film is actually very good, earthy and jagged and trippy with a marvellously gross ending. It’s just an incredibly niche satire. Sonic catering. Double-barrel it with THE MENU, made in the same year, or, perhaps more fittingly, Peter Greenaway’s THE COOK, THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND HER LOVER.

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

Tags: film
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18aug26

Published August 18, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Me too, mancub, me too.

Herself incubated what may possibly be plague at Bloodstock and is therefore in the Plague Cell (our daughter’s old room) once again. The internet is acting like an elephant is sitting on it. The humidity continues to be fucking terrible. But I am not ready for summer to end. I still need to get down to Old Leigh!

(Nightmare scenario: we are already talking about Xmas planning)

OPERATIONS: script/dev/essay/newsletter
STATUS: breathing soup
READING: THE KILLER’S MARK, MW Craven (UK) (US+)

‘Agreed. You want overt or covert surveillance?’

‘Surprise me.’

‘Covert it is then. Having a scrap with a bunch of Bruce Lee wannabes will let the boys vent some of that pent-up anger.’

‘Who you gonna use?’

‘Best you don’t know,’ Towler said. ‘But rest assured they’re fucking animals. Half of them still eat with their feet.’


LISTENING: IF WE COULD HEAR, Natalie Beridze

Yes, I am playing it in the CD drive! Like an Old!


LAST WATCHED: LET THE CORPSES TAN (2017) on MUBI, a Belgian film which roughly approximates what you’d get if you stuffed Sergio Leone full of speed and told him to direct a Seventies crime drama. With Saul Bass in the back yelling ANTS ANT ANTS and Ben Wheatley close by whispering spells from A FIELD IN ENGLAND.

It is drunk on style and very fun.

DRINK: herself brought some vile cherry “soda” home, which I saved with a shot of O’Donnell’s Very Cherry Moonshine like an hero

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

Tags: film
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17aug26

Published August 17, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Imagine a story where the events in our lives that happen online are never depicted or mentioned. A day would seem twelve hours long and the protagonists would spend two thirds of that time asleep.

I was gifted this Panerai Table Clock by a client a few weeks ago. I should be keeping it in its box, as it’s crazy expensive. But what’s the point in having things and not enjoying them? So it lives on my work desk, sitting on top of the little box containing a medal I was given in Ireland years ago. It’s a reminder to myself that I need to stay disconnected from the internet. Testing a site blocker on the laptop today.

Had dinner at the local haute restaurant on Friday night and it was as ever fully insane. There was a mushroom risotto with walnuts, walnut ketchup, fresh Parmesan and riced mushroom in place of the rice that was simply MAD and they made it just for us. We also got experimented on with a few dishes and god damn please keep doing that. We have been informed that we are Regulars now, and that is delightful.

I had an Idea on Saturday and realised I’d lost the day to sitting thinking about it, which was annoying, so I’ve booked myself a gig for next Saturday to make sure I leave the house. I am naturally so bad at leaving the house and I really need to.

ACCESSIONS:

MAIGRET IN VICHY, Georges Simenon (UK) (US+) was on sale, and it’s one I haven’t read.

MUD DUCK, Travis Malone (UK) (US+), because the author emailed me yesterday and since it’s currently free on Kindle (in the UK at least, I dunno about the US right now) it was easier to just grab a copy there.

Recently divorced and having drank himself to unemployment, Iain McHughes has no idea who he wants to be anymore. When his former rehab roommate offers him a second chance he hasn’t earned by way of a business opportunity he can’t afford to pass up, he loads everything he owns into his car and points it west on I-10.

Somewhere between San Antonio and Las Vegas, in the miles of nothing between the man he used to be and the man he hopes to become, mania, anxiety and a CB radio are the only tools left at his disposal that can help him rewrite his eulogy. Mysterious towers dot the countryside, phantom voices bleed through his radio, and Iain struggles to ascertain whether his mind is deteriorating or the world around him is. When Iain’s new business partner inadvertently pushes him into the middle of a dangerous business transaction, Iain must finally determine the legacy he wants to leave, and what it will cost him to leave it.

OPERATIONS: updating the boards, getting into scripting with one hand and story development with the other
STATUS: slow to get started.
READING: THE KILLER’S MARK, MW Craven (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: THE REGYKLA VARIATIONS I-III, ASHTORETH & ONSTURICHEIT

LAST WATCHED: PORTH TRETHEK, Mark Jenkin (2020)


DRINK: Black Cherry Mead.

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

Tags: music film ambient books library
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14aug26

Published August 14, 2026 by Warren Ellis

It is fiercely hot. I won’t be heading out for a while. I also have a mead delivery on the way from Horns Of Odin. Hopefully it won’t boil in the van. Did I mention it’s FUCK OFF HOT?

I joined the BFI, because I’ve decided I should go to London and watch more films.

The mead has arrived!

STATUS: Tropical nights mean poor sleep even with a fan and a standing AC unit blasting.
READING: THE KILLER’S MARK, MW Craven (UK) (US+)

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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13aug26

Published August 13, 2026 by Warren Ellis

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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12aug26

Published August 12, 2026 by Warren Ellis

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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10aug26

Published August 10, 2026 by Warren Ellis

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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