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wavy

Published June 2, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Craig Hubbard.

Searching hard for my motivation today, because I am not particularly in my body or particularly with it. Not enough coffee in the world, everything is kind of wavy, and I really need to wipe down the boards and reset things. And also start backing things off this machine in prep for the arrival of the new one. But a musician has been sending me raws of her new music videos and maybe I’ll just sit and watch them for a while.

Received in post, a gift from the author as routed through my literary agent: A POCKETFUL OF HELLFIRE, Alan LaRue (UK) (US+)

Alan LaRue was a devoted reader of the Ken Socrates World News Organization when he was young. Like any fan, he read all the articles and books, he knew and adored the Gonzo journalism, the crazy adventures and the wild personalities. He was especially enamoured with Ken himself, the wildest and most Gonzo of them all. He had even written and sent in few fan letters full of glowing praise and insight only a truly dedicated follower would appreciate. The letters included his return address, and a joking offer of drinks on him, someday, should Ken ever find his way to Alan’s neck of the woods.

Then, after the sad collapse of the KSWNO, after its founder being missing, assumed dead for years, Ken showed up at Alan’s door, looking for those drinks, and his quiet life as a librarian and amateur pie baker was turned on its doughy little head. Humanity itself was under dire, imminent threat and, according to Ken, only they could save it.

TODAY

TELEMETRY:

  • Here’s the weird flex of the day: the cover of Charli xcx’s new record MUSIC, FASHION, FILM is a simple shot of… John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorcese. And an ashtray.

OPERATIONS: script and pitch
STATUS: The weather has turned cool and rainy, and the mancub is sad and needs comforting, as he’s been living in the garden ever since the top of the summer arrived. Or, as I have long suspected, he thinks I control the weather and he figures that if he’s nice to me I’ll bring the sun back.
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+) (hey, it’s a really long book)
LISTENING: “Vika Hidas,” Draamakuu:

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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retired: 1jun26

Published June 1, 2026 by Warren Ellis

After losing several hours yesterday to running every fix and check I could think of, I came to the sad conclusion that this laptop, a T580 from 2018, is now starting to fail and therefore must be sent to live on a farm. This machine has had its keyboard replaced twice over the years and kept on chugging, but now its chipset is dying. So I caught the end of the Lenovo May sale by a whisker and ordered a new ThinkPad. I doubt the new machine will have the durability of this faithful monster, which I will be sad to retire.

June already.

New newsletter went out yesterday.

TELEMETRY:

A biotech startup called Bexorg is doing something that sounds like it was ripped straight from the pages of a cyberpunk novel — or from the script of “RoboCop,” for that matter.

The company is extracting human brains just hours after their owners died and then hooking them up to specialized life support machines, Science reports. While the masses of pink mush no longer host electrical activity, most of their key functions remain intact, allowing scientists to test experimental drugs, such as potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, like never before.

You’d hope that the disembodied cerebrums are most assuredly dead. But according to the reporting, an extracted brain hooked up to one of Bexorg’s proprietary life support machines, BrainEX, “hovers between life and death.” There’s no spark of consciousness, and yet the brains are kept running on an artificial lung, kidney oxygenate, blood, and other fluids.

Georgia Hart.

How to fold and read an “infinity book” – tried to embed the video here from two sources but no luck

Dan Henry 1939.

OPERATIONS: got the new cover for a graphic novel reprint currently codenamed PROJECT WALLOPS, so we will be headed to solicits shortly. I need to get a script off the desk today and then figure out how to zero out all the fucking money I spent yesterday
STATUS: I am physically de-teched until such time as the Google app that replaced the FitBit app is fixed to the point where it no longer hallucinates bicycles
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: a musician sent me her two new videos last night and I am playing them repeatedly today.

Also, THE ECHOING GREEN by Zachary Paul and Celia Eydeland:

And, while I was walking: MNMT 516: Conflation Port, because techno is good for walking.


LAST WATCHED: THE HOLCROFT COVENANT
DRINK: Flint Vineyard Rose

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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19may26

Published May 19, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Annoyingly, this is just a quick logging, as I lost yesterday to trying to figure out new accounting software I’ve been told to use which doesn’t seem to want to work for me, inbox is at 160, I have three unopened packages, and I’m a few days behind on work production.

So on Saturday afternoon I went to the Jazz Centre to see blues guitarist Chris Corcoran play.

And on Saturday evening I went to Konsztrukting Soundz, which I’m going to try and note in a separate post at some point, but one of the performers was harpist Rhodri Davies:

Accessions:

Rhodri Davies was selling CDs, and I noticed the Eliane Radigue piece he and his sister played on that I discovered online in January, and grabbed his TELYN RAWN at the same time.

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cold snap: 11may26

Published May 11, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Another cold snap. Had to take a rootbound acer out of a pot yesterday and plant it in the ground, sowed some seeds around it, so of course I woke up today to discover the local wildlife turned over the ground and tried to dig the acer out.

New newsletter went out yesterday, in which we are trying something new.

Found on Taco Bell Quarterly:

I think looping and iteration are very much a part of the creative process. Often I find myself starting with a feeling or an idea. I know I want to get to a place and then it’s just a matter of putting in the time, the thought, and the effort until I get there. You can be looping and looping, and then sometimes you’ll have a conversation with a friend, or you’ll encounter new ideas about technology while you’re working, and that’s what kicks off new ideas. Maybe you’re running a lot of loops simultaneously and they’re all informing each other—so it’s not so much a closed, but expansive system. I don’t think of loops as a trap.

Simon Reynolds’ Hauntology Parish Newsletter.

Accessions: the new Laura Cannell arrived.

OPERATIONS: dev day. Too many half-finished ideas and outlines hanging
STATUS: running all the damn heaters in the middle of May
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+)

…when Timothy Leary, the counterculture icon who advocated the use of hallucinogenic drugs, wanted to travel to Jordan he was rudely rebuffed.


LAST WATCHED: Season 1 of THE BOYS.

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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sailing by: 6may26

Published May 6, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Alex Senna.

Public Domain Review.

“Internet Cinema” at DO NOT RESEARCH

Accessions:

OCEANINE, Jolanda Moletta: digital-only for me, as the only other offering is vinyl, but necessary.

Oceanine, Jolanda Moletta’s third album and her first for Beacon Sound, is a powerful and ethereal statement of artistic community. Expanding on her previous work, each track represents a collaboration with a different female vocalist (see list below), with the foundational elements being generated entirely by her own voice.

PLAYFORD 1, Barn Hoppit: also digital-only, but fuck it, I love these people.

OPERATIONS: scripting day, converting up development notes
STATUS: it turned colder, so I’m staying in
READING: THE REVOLUTIONISTS, Jason Burke (UK) (US+), THE PASSAGE OF POWER: THE YEARS OF LYNDON JOHNSON Vol 4, Robert A Caro (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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in the meantime: 31mar26

Published March 31, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Music for Intersecting Planes by Leila Bordreuil + Kali Malone

Aphelion by Isolde & Isobelle

Vision Transmissions by zakè, Christina Giannone, Tyresta

Bodies of Water (music for a performance by Iván Pérez / Dance Theatre Heidelberg)
by Rutger Zuydervelt

Racked up 580 release notifications in my Bandcamp folder while I wasn’t looking. I need to get two pieces of work out the door today, so there’s no time for anything but writing and listening.

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breathwork: 22mar26

Published March 22, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Another interesting night was had at Konsztrukting Soundz. Notably, Viv Corringham:

New newsletter is out.

I’m poking around the garden, assessing the winter damage – a branch snapped off an apple tree, most of the bulbs coming up blind, soil issues here and there – and getting myself back into the outdoor headspace.

STATUS: Taking a decompression day. Got tickets to see PROJECT HAIL MARY later in the week. As I wrote in January:

I actually liked the book, but I’m going to be curious to see if Drew Goddard addressed the underlying autistic note in and the apparent asexuality of the protagonist.


READING: THE VISIONARIES, Wolfram Eilenberger (UK) (US+)
LISTENING: The New Music Show: Icelandic Chill

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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sleep warm: 27feb26

Published February 27, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Mary Maka

It was 15C yesterday and 17C the day before that. My winter clothes hang unloved. I’m in a thin viscose base layer and a chambray snap-front in grey like it’s May.

TODAY:

New Stephen O’Malley record, not on CD ffs:

PREVIOUSLY:

New Jolanda Moletta record announced, also not on CD ffs:

PREVIOUSLY:

Accessions:

It was on sale for 99p, not certain how current it is but Jacobsen is a good writer.

PHENOMENA: US GOVERNMENT INVESTIGATIONS INTO ESP AND PSYCHOKINESIS, Annie Jacobsen (UK) (US+)

Previously: NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO, Annie Jacobsen

OPERATIONS: scripting, newsletter, processed an option offer
STATUS: Frazzled by schedule but generally pretty good. Really wanted to move the office to the deli today but I have too much typing to do. Printing off visa shit for herself, for the grand trip I’m sending her on for her birthday. Inbox 116.
READING: THE BIG THREE: SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, Neel Burton (UK) (US+) and THE VISIONARIES, Wolfram Eilenberger (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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tragic magic: 25feb26

Published February 25, 2026 by Warren Ellis

Klaudia Schifferle, Poem (For a Song, 2021), 2024, via Something I Saw

Gorgeous day out there, and I’m stuck indoors waiting on several deliveries and trying to get my head around a project whose first-stage parameters shifted last night, while also trying to solve the prose serial project and talking through a possible new and odd thing with an artist acquaintance.

I skimmed the news and decided I couldn’t really be bothered. It’s all the bloody same again. I could ascribe ennui to trying to cut down on the cigarettes again and still having this mange in my system, but it seems today like everyone is reporting on the same five things and I couldn’t give a shit about any of them.

TRAGIC MAGIC by Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore arrived in the post yesterday:

“In 2016, there was no way any of us could have charged for a link round-up.”

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Charmera: 20feb26

Published February 20, 2026 by Warren Ellis

I saw one of these on Valeluminal‘s IG account last night, and went straight to Amazon to look it up. I remember the Kodak Fling disposable camera from the 80s, and it turns out this is an intentionally low-res digital camera styled in a similar way. Charges off USB and runs off a TF card. There are six or seven different styles, and you don’t know which one you’ve got until the box arrives. Mine showed up eight hours after I ordered it.

Not my favourite of the designs, sadly, but it’ll do.

It’s about as long as my little finger and it comes with a keychain. The battery, according to reviews, gives out about three hours of steady use.

I have always loved digital cameras, but, if I’m honest, the better the iPhone camera got, the less interested I got. I loved the old digital cameras, that were a bit fuzzy and weird. I even did a photography book with an EyeModule, which was a black and white digital camera that plugged into a Handspring Visor PDA.

The Charmera comes, of course, with absolutely no instructions.

This was taken by accident while figuring out the pre-loaded image filters. I’m not mad at it at all. In fact, that was very much what I was hoping for. It’s going to get clipped to my day bag and I’m going to have some fun with it.

TODAY:

New Christina Vantzou, sadly vinyl or digital only:

Previously: Christina Vantzou

OPERATIONS: Many Things suddenly started Happening last night, right in the middle of me trying to dig my way out of all the things I’m behind on. Every time I walked away from my phone for five or ten minutes yesterday, I’d come back to another half-dozen notifications. And I still have to do Sunday’s newsletter.
STATUS: I have had to put the Apple Watch back on, which displeases me but lots of Things have suddenly started Happening. Also had to fight a cat for access to my office today. Inbox 141 and climbing.
READING: THE BIG THREE: SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, Neel Burton (UK) (US+)

Empedocles himself claimed to have already been a bush, a bird, and ‘a mute fish in the sea’. But now, as a doctor, poet, seer, and leader of men, he had reached the highest rung in the cycle of incarnations—and could, just about, count himself among the immortal gods. In a story that is almost certainly false but too good not to tell, he killed himself by leaping into the flames of Mount Etna, either to prove that he was immortal or make people believe that he was.

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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