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Hello from out here on the Thames Delta. I had a lovely couple of weeks of farting around in the garden, going to wine-tasting events, watching films and falling further and further behind schedule. It is now time to reconnect and get moving. Which is hard, because, as I type this, the sun is out and it’s finally warm! We might even get a summer this year! |
…I’ve just jinxed that, haven’t I? |
Hope you’ve been well. This week is about catching up, waking up to what’s around me this week, and something Robin Sloan said in his newsletter the other week: |
What arewe doing with all these links, anyway? We’re weaving the web tighter. Making introductions. Maintaining provenance. It’s meaningful, especially now, as AI systems work in the opposite direction: denaturing the links, melting down the chains of connection. | | | | https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/golden-sardine/ |
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In this letter: |
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Letters about the creative life by Warren Ellis, a writer from England. Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe here for free. |
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OPERATIONS |
WRITER’S BOX |
 | that stick in the back is the prop for the cover |
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I picked this up for pennies on some dodgy Chinese online shop. It’s called a writer’s box, and they’ve been around in various forms for centuries. I decided to spend the pennies - and I think it was literally a hundred and twenty pennies - just to get a feel for one. |
Writing boxes date back to the beginning of writing. Monks used boxes, called scriptoriums, in the Middle Ages. Eventually, craftsmen mounted these on stands and later added legs, creating the first desks for doing illuminated manuscripts. The writing box, which came much later, survived through the 19th century. From the end of the 18th to the end of the 19th century, the writing box featured prominently on military expeditions, travels, libraries and in drawing rooms. People wrote dispatches, contracts, letters and postcards on their sloping surfaces. | | | | http://theantiquesalmanac.com/writingboxesstandthetestoftime.htm |
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 | guest appearance of cheap Muji gel pen |
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The idea was that writers should be able to set up anywhere, and have a little office in a box that can be slung over a shoulder. Having worked for years with Palms and foldaway keyboards, I can obviously see the appeal. These days, I tend to invent and develop on paper more, and am quite happy to fuck off somewhere, find an outdoor table and scribble away in my notebook. That said, when at home, I’d like a more solid option for working at the garden table. And, frankly, this cheap thing with its sharp edges and flimsy ribbon strap is not up for a journey to my favourite table on the shoreline. |
Galen Leather seem to make a much better one, and many and various versions of the writer’s box populate Etsy. |
I am very drawn to these. I am very much involved in the tactility of my tools these days - even the AI device I use, the Rabbit R1, has a physical push-to-talk button like a walkie talkie. With some tweaking and an accessory or two, a phone can do almost anything, but there’s something to say for an object that signals just one thing. The writer’s box is for writing. |
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There is a crazy version of the writer’s box: the “office in a trunk” that Louis Vuitton made for the conductor Leopold Stokowski. |
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And, as I write this, I’ve just been offered a local daytime berth where I will be set up with, in their words, “wine and an extension cord.” So I’m all set for the summer. |
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ORBITAL |
RECONNECTING |
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Basic Books sent me a copy of THE MAGIC OF CODE by Samuel Arbesman, which is out in June. It kicks off with a wonderful statement: “Software consists of spells of crystallized thought…. Code is spellwork and magic made concrete.” Sold. |
Here’s the website about it. |
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What came before your name? |
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Formerly Temple ov Saturn, Joan Pope’s new art project Archetype Vision is live. |
Click through to the “portal” for “episode 1” or to the blog. |
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Also sent to me this week: |
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Martin Hewitt is ten years old when he meets an abnormally large spider in the woods, and he’s immediately enamored by her violence and beauty. It seems she’s the only one of her kind, a lone Female without a Male. As the years go by, the two forge a secret bond: Martin feeds her, and she…well, she’s the only female who truly understands him. But to take their relationship to the next level, he must prove he is Male enough for her. |
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A 7700-word single by Tom Vandermolen available on Amazon (UK) (US) from Graveside Press. I have read it. it is, on several levels, fucked up. You’ve been warned. |
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If you’re making or doing something that you’d like to bring to a wider audience, hit reply. Let’s share the new things and weave the web a little tighter. |
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Now: THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast, DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM. 2025: FELL: FERAL CITY new printing, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition, the LIGHTS OUT Anthology. |
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Rowan E Cassidy has updated his art website. |
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OPS |
ELECTRICALLY CHARGED NERVES |
OPS (Orbital Piloted Station) was an unbuilt space station. (Actually, a series of them.) These are all the unfinished things circling around my desk in bits this week: |
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…and now he was obliged to speak of a siege, a staggering presence, in his view, threatening the existence of the country, indeed all of humanity, as well as societal order, a siege looming from ever more directions, but among which he must emphasize only the most important: the seemingly unanswerable distress signal emitted by natural philosophy in the course of the vacuum experiments, concealed within methodological descriptions—although it had come to light a long time ago, he himself had realized only now that in a completely empty space, demotically understood, events were occurring… |
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The master of the run-on sentence. We love a bit of Krasznahorkai here at Mission Control. (UK) (US) |
Paavoharju told me their friend, “outsider folk” artist Joose Keskitalo, is on tour in Finland, Sweden and the UK, so I went to have a listen and immediately got earwormed: |
 | Hard Food for Midas |
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As I write this, there are only a few dates left on his tour, but maybe one is near you? |
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While the rest of the world spins off its axis, contemplating itself with spherical astonishment, wringing its hands, I, in my glorious isolation, am illuminated by the marvellous incandescence of my electrically charged nerves. |
Manuel Maples Arce, from A Strident Prescription (1921). |
Found in 100 Artists' Manifestos: From the Futurists to the Stuckists, edited by Alex Danchev (UK) (US), a book I’ve been happily re-reading this year. |
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GOT MORE TIME? |
LTD |
I keep a digital writer’s notebook and you’re invited to read over my shoulder. |
Morning Computer: a few useful things first thing in my day |
Nine Bells: evening notes |
HOB’S LANE: new this week, parts 1-5 |
A Field Watch |
Notes on the film CONCLAVE |
Two new bites of FOGOU |
Notes on the excellent new Ian Penman book ERIK SATIE THREE PIECE SUITE |
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Made a few changes to the shape of the newsletter this week, which I hope don’t bother you too much. It, like me, is always a work in progress. The trick is to not worry about work still being in progress and to just keep working. Don’t worry about perfection or finishing, because there is no perfection and no end. Just milestones and a long wander out to enjoy, even its difficult bits. Go for a wander this week. It’ll do you good, and we need you around. See you next week. |
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