26oct26

It’s a touch damp out there today.

It’s Monday.

everybody’s getting back on X The Everything App. And by “everybody” I mean:

• Platformer writer and Kevin Roose podcasting bestie Casey Newton, with evident and well-earned shame, because he feels that “it’s important I engage with [the AI crowd], even if doing so makes me feel like I’m coworking inside a Port-a-Potty.”

Nope.

Hannah Hauxwell (1926-2018) lived alone and maintained a farm “in almost unendurable conditions of farmers in the High Pennines in winter,” notes a film producer. Upon the deaths of her immediate family, then 35-year old Hannah took over management of the farm and made it her life dwelling in solitude.Hannah came to media attention in 1972 when a random hiker told a researcher about Hannah. She was the subject of successive television documentaries chronicling her solitary life in the Northshire wilds: “Too Long A Winter” (1972), “A Winter Too Many,” (1989), “Innocent Abroad” (1992),

New issue of The Modernist magazine. First thing learned: those generic one-piece plastic chairs you see everywhere have a name. They are Monobloc.

OPERATIONS: This week is Beast Mode. Got a script out the door yesterday, need to get at least half of one out today. My to-do list takes up a whole index card, vertically. And I have to get next Sunday’s newsletter started, as I’m on the road this coming weekend.
STATUS: Frantically trying to get my focus back! Last night I made roasted cabbage with black truffle sea salt as a side, and it was surprisingly successful. I now have a freezer compartment filled with chopped fruit. Already blew a bunch of time talking to the bank and dealing with accounts and I still need to call the phone company. See, this is why Brandon Sanderson has a team of a hundred people. Being a one-man-band for thirty-odd years is fucking exhausting.
READING: THE ROUSE, China Mieville (UK) (US+) and aforementioned magazine.
LISTENING: SOAKED, Philip Jeck + Jacob Kirkegaard

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