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:
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:
Snow-generating stickers. This is a weird one. Stickers that express chemicals on contact with snow, which rise up into the sky and seed clouds… so ski resorts can have more snow.
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.
So I got given these lovely A6 notebooks the other day:
Atoms To Astronauts make some gorgeous notebooks. However, they’re A6. Which means they don’t fit the Wanderings Passport notebook cover or the newestor Field Notes-sized cover, or the Field Notes-sized cover I’ve ordered from a maker on Etsy. So I had to order one of those randomly-generated-Chinese-company-name leather notebook covers in A6 (UK), because I got bought nine of these notebooks and I really want to get working in them.
That’s the third stage of the new notebook system, and I’ll write a separate post about that at some point. And when the other cover comes in from Etsy, that will be the fourth stage. Because I’ve decided that this year is all about going deep on working on paper and thinking on to paper.
I wanted to pre-order thar CD for herself, but Napalm Records’ shopping system is broken.
OPERATIONS: contracts processed, setting up another reprint project (fingers crossed), scripting and planning and printing off research notes to paste into one of the above notebooks STATUS: wearing the field watch today. Email at a dreadful 154. Still not back at full power, but getting there. READING: THE BIG THREE: SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE, Neel Burton (UK) (US+)
Pythagoras had always been a paragon of humility, declining to be called a ‘wise man’ [sophos] and preferring instead to be called ‘a lover of wisdom’ [philosophos]—thereby coining the term ‘philosopher’.
LISTENING:
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
OPERATIONS: still zero energy, so today is for scriptment – that version of scripting where you just slap down dialogue and vague directions and then go back when you feel human to convert it up into full script. STATUS: two steps from the boneyard READING:A FIELD GUIDE TO REALITY, Joanna Kavenna (UK) (US+)
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Today I feel like I might have hit the midpoint of The Mange, as I feel a little stronger and clearer. Currently deleting some distraction apps and putting the AI devices in a drawer – the Bee can no longer access current information, it tells me, and the Rabbit can’t perform scheduled tasks without a reminder to perform them, which kind of defeats the purpose of scheduling tasks. Currently shopping for new notebook covers – I have a passport-sized Wanderings notebook cover and a newestor leather cover sized for Field Notes notebooks, of which I still have a ton from years of being on the Field Notes subscription service, and I have a feeling I need at least one more of the latter. Although this might also be the year I crack and get myself a Roterfaden. Scriptorium-monk mode!
STATUS: it is time to blitz out my inbox, my RSS feed and my podcast queue. Having to clean-slate everything barely six weeks into the year is not where I thought I’d be. READING: finished THE ART OF WAR, Sun Tzu (UK) (US+) last night. As previously noted, I tend to use winter to read the books I should have read/re-read years ago. LISTENING: Oh my god, this. I discovered Barn Hoppit last night and this is extraordinary:
LAST WATCHED: FIRST BLOOD. There are, as far as I’m concerned, only two Rambo films: FIRST BLOOD and RAMBO.
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
There’s a new Shackleton record. I thought he’d retired.
OPERATIONS: managed to get a script out yesterday, need to get 8pp out today, but I suspect the day will get in the way. Had to process some foreign right and film-related stuff last night and follow up on some production schedules. STATUS: apparently I am going out for lunch, presumably so I can infect the outside world with The Death. I’ve ordered a case of beer as therapy. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) (this book is going on forever) LISTENING:Monument Waves 008 : Atomic Moog (live) podcast
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Still gripped by plague. The weather outside is dismal and has been for days – the garden has become an intractable bog and I have new plants sitting in buckets of water, waiting for the possibility of me having two days without rain and the ability to move without coughing or otherwise dripping.
OPERATIONS: work is for people not drowning in their own fluids STATUS: ded. Less than 7hrs sleep. Inbox 150. Connecting the Retro Nano to the phone and doing podcasts all day. READING:SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+)
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Fashion writer/editor Tish Weinstock‘s newsletter is a riot.
There’s nothing like landing in LA to make you realise you’re definitely not as hot as you thought you were. In London, I rarely leave the house unless I’m going to dinner. i.e.under the cloak of darkness and wearing copious amounts of slap. And if, by some freak chance, I am out during the day, I won’t be travelling by foot, which means I’ll never be caught en plein air. But even if I was, because it’s so grey and depressing outside, I find that my wrinkles, bags and jowls tend to be miraculously, mercifully obscured. Well, not in LA, they’re not. Bathed in the golden light of the Chateau Marmont, I was reminded how old I really was: 185.
THE MEDIEVAL DRONE SOCIETY by Laura Cannell arrived and has been on repeat.
OPERATIONS: I did manage to get a foreword written for someone. But, honestly, I’m looking at that grindcore piece and thinking that’s not the worst idea. STATUS: all is plague READING:SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING: Ambient Daily 47 podcast LAST WATCHED: BLOODSPORT. We rarely turn off a JCVD film in this house.
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Konsztrukting Soundz is a wonderful local event of experimental music that I try to attend every month. Last night’s event was really good.
The standout for me was Mandhira de Saram’s absolute storm of looped violin work with electronic intrusions. She has no website I can find, but she’s on IG and I found a couple of collaborations on Bandcamp, none of which seem to approach the force she brought to bear last night, so, given what was said at the top of the performance, I suspect she’s testing a new style.
I was also impressed by Angharad Davies, who’s one of the players on this Eliane Radigue piece I didn’t know:
And here with John Butcher, which is much more reminiscent of what she did with Rie Nakajima last night:
I can’t tell you how much better I feel after one of these gigs. Three hours on airplane mode, just listening and thinking.
OPERATIONS: scripts, foreword, prose series development, outline, newsletter probably a dozen other things I’m forgetting STATUS: I have a thousand things to do so of course I’m going out for lunch instead READING:SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING: Door 200
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Abruptly stopped feeling like winter at all. It’s like 9 or 10 C out there today.
I’m posting this late because I’ve been trying to assemble flatpack storage boxes to collect CDs into so that I have a little more space in the office to throw shit out so I can get new shelving in here to unpack all the CDs into. Which is a ridiculous vicious circle because I have nowhere to put the boxes I’m filling CDs with. We’ve been living here more than thirty years and we’ve filled the fucking place. And the kid moved out a dozen years ago, so it’s just the two of us and three cats. Very much reaching that “what if I just put the cats in boxes, put them outside and then threw a lit match into the house” point.
Molly Crabapple’s new book finally entered pre-orders for Kindle, so I bought one now for delivery in April. It is getting some great blurbs and early shouts.
I recently read da Empoli’s THE HOUR OF THE PREDATOR (notes to come), which was very good, so when I saw WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN on sale I snapped it up.
HERE WHERE WE LIVE IS OUR COUNTRY, Molly Crabapple (UK) (US+)
THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, Giuliano da Empoli (UK) (US+)
Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore’s TRAGIC MAGIC just released – my CD copy will be in the post next month, apparently, but I’ve grabbed the mp3s down and they’ll be stuffed onto a SD card for my mp3 player sometime this weekend.
OPERATIONS: picked up a new consult job yesterday – the next thirteen days are rammed and I need to move faster. STATUS: Slept better, but now it’s time to resume the work of properly disconnecting from the phone in the evenings. Trying to hunt down my old cookbooks – where the fuck did I put the Faviken and Noma books? Everything in the house feels very chaotic and disorganised and I don’t have enough hours in the day. Need to make more blood orange orangeade tonight – herself has discovered she likes it with elderflower tonic. READING: SPIES: THE EPIC INTELLIGENCE WAR BETWEEN EAST AND WEST, Calder Walton (UK) (US+) LISTENING: Ultimate Calm, currently LAST WATCHED: MOONSHINERS: MASTER DISTILLER. Three episodes. Because I unashamedly love that fucking show.
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
