a writer's notebook
Charles Avery. Great title for an exhibition: The Eidola, Pigs and Blades of the Inner Vast.
Ross Hansen’s ghostly lamps.
morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.
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Comments closedThe sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.
The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds.
HEART OF DARKNESS, Joseph Conrad
Essex and the Thames Delta, my life.
Comments closedJohn Krausbauer and Kaori Suzuki present their third collaborative duo recording, “Dream Visions of the Illumined Axis”(Debacle Records), for the thirsty and attuned ears of the dröhnengruppe. The music features the duo performing on multiple reed sources and metal percussion, combined with amplified delay systems. Previous efforts include their 2021 “Night Angel of Dual Infinities” (Beacon Sound) and the recently released “Suspension Blues” (ANTS)– the audial source of their internationally exhibited immersive A/V work by the same name.
Their mutual musical aims lie heavily in the physio-psychological effects produced in deep listening and trance sound-environments, rather than a “creative or musical statement” of some sort. It is a post-aesthetics music: durationally long, timbrally focused, harmonically dense and micro-melodically complex— potentiating music as transcendent thought-defeating experience.
Marvellous. A breathing, resonating space. Sadly digital-only at this point.
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One of those flawless blue winter days. Bright cold light and not a cloud in the sky.
I, however, am not.
OPERATIONS: Today is for new things and thinking.
READING: BARTHES (A VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION) (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: New Music Show
LAST WATCHED: rewatched CRANK while thinking
THINKING ABOUT: (from the Barthes book)
Apparently gratuitous descriptive details, for instance, by their ‘failure to relate to any of the codes advancing the plot, revealing character, contributing to suspense, or generating symbolic meaning, produce a ‘reality effect’: by their very resistance to meaning they signify, ‘this is the real.’
I found it interesting that someone codified the part of novel writing that I think of as “writing.”
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter. Now: DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast. Forthcoming 2025: FELL: FERAL CITY new printing THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition, The LIGHTS OUT Anthology
Comments closedA massive bacchanalian frieze spanning three walls has been discovered in a banquet hall in the ancient Roman city Pompeii, the archaeological park announced in a press release.
And:
The frieze is located within the Casa del Tiaso or House of Thiasus in Regio IX in Pompeii. Thiasus is associated with the presence of Dionysus and followers. To become part of the ancient cult of Dionysus, initiates were required to participate in secret rituals.
The thing about these cults, like the Eleusinian Mysteries, is that much of their material is lost.
Archaeologists reveal the enigmatic burial practices of the Southern Jê people of Brazil. There was a time when they buried their dead in caves, before moving on to mounds.
The researchers noticed a potential pattern: most (88%) of the analyzed caves were located near water features such as waterfalls, rivers, and streams. According to Southern Jê mythology, water is the only element that connects all three levels of the universe: the underground realm of the dead, the earth-level realm of humans, animals, and untouched forests, and the celestial world of the stars, sun, moon, and gods. This connection to water may have thus helped the deceased souls transition from the earth level into the underground realm. While still preliminary, future geostatistical studies may help determine if this is a mere coincidence of geography or a deliberate act. Interestingly, the researchers also determined that burial caves were usually hidden in hard-to-reach areas and not visible to surrounding villages.
It’s tempting to associate this with the River Styx, and some kind of ur-myth around water and the dead.
A timber circle has been found in the Vesthimmerland region in Denmark, marking a significant discovery of a Neolithic cultural site much like the famed Stonehenge in England.
Timber circles are a circular arrangement of wooden posts or tree trunks set in pits and postholes that were likely used for rituals, ceremonies, astronomical observations, and social gatherings. This particular timber circle dates to 2600–1600 B.C.E. with a diameter just shy of 100 feet and consisting of at least 45 wooden posts spaced over six feet apart.
We have a “Woodhenge” in Britain. There seems to be a link between Woodhenge and this place, The Bell Beaker Phenomenon:
The Bell Beaker phenomenon was a widespread cultural movement from around 2800–1800 B.C.E. that spread across Europe, marked by distinctive bell-shaped pottery, advanced metalworking, and changes in burial customs. Archaeological evidence suggests it played a key role in the transition to the Bronze Age, influencing trade and social structures.
Everything is connected.
CONNECTED:
Comments closedEssex is a county full of colourful characters, and we have a fine selection of eccentric folk to share with you this month…
Lifelong Essex man here.
Comments closedMeditations on Forgetting by Dayin. Digital or cassette only.
Comments closed“Meditations on Forgetting” is the second Dayin release on Mahorka, after the extended cassette reissue “Warm Like Crystal Throats” in 2023. It was inspired by the unexpected and unstoppable process of memory loss. “Meditations on Forgetting” was created to honor the souls slipping away from the world they built for themselves. A transition that is equally scary and intriguing. One can only hope there are other, more beautiful and worthy realms beyond.
Testing wordland.social as a posting option. Chrome on iOS isn’t thrilled with it, which makes it a bit fiddly to use, but it does feel a little faster and more frictionless than opening the WordPress app. I may try adding it as a Safari app. The trick with writing on a weblog these days is finding ways to do it that are as easy and slick as using a social media app. As previously noted, personal publishing is a deprecated function on internet enabled devices now.
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Beautiful day, but bloody freezing. I’m stuck indoors with a full day at the keyboard required anyway. Tomorrow’s newsletter is already in the scheduler.
OPERATIONS: Art pages to process, email to clear, outline to solve, shorts to develop and much notebooking to catch up on.
STATUS: Inbox 84, because one of my many bad habits is emailing links to myself. Email and messages are on today, as I’m going to be dipping in and out of pieces of work.
READING: HEART OF DARKNESS, Joseph Conrad.
LISTENING: preview of COMPENDIUM OF BEASTS VOL 2
THINKING ABOUT:
It is probably not pushing things too far to connect the functions of shamanism and witchcraft documented in ethnology and folklore with the catalogue of images contained in literature. On the contrary, I think that the deepest rationality behind every literary operation has to be sought out in the anthropological needs to which it corresponds.
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter. Now: DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast. Forthcoming 2025: FELL: FERAL CITY new printing THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition, The LIGHTS OUT Anthology
Comments closedIn Wind or Dust by From the Mouth of the Sun.
Classical post-rock. A complete suite, with a clever arc to it. No CD release, digital only.
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