Warren Ellis's Blog, page 140
April 18, 2011
Joss In The NYT Today
Fraction just tipped me to this interview with Joss Whedon, so I thought I'd put it up here to forestall another two hundred people telling me about it:
I talked at great length and planned at great length the idea of a portal and putting shows together, having an Internet identity and starting my own little micro-studio. Nobody in town was interested, and then by the time they were, "Avengers" came around. I was and will continue to work on a very, very different Internet mini-thing that I was writing with Warren Ellis, and I have a lot of ideas for things I want to put up there. I still believe it's a viable financial model, and a creative playground and I miss it. But in the year that I was supposed to do that, I instead decided to make this little Sundance movie that I'm making.
What he's talking about is WASTELANDERS. The deal is that, basically, whenever he's ready, I'm ready. We have a shitload of notes, and chunks of script. Although I need to rewrite all of my bits because they're terrible and I never showed them to him (not least because the poor bastard was busy enough at that point).
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GUEST INFORMANT: Si Spurrier
Simon Spurrier is a comics writer and novelist, and a very nice man even though he said some things on twitter the other day about Essex that I suspect were intended to insult and infuriate me. So I asked him to write to you about whatever was in his head today, and while he was doing that I shat on his bed. But he got his revenge in first:
You can find Si at his website, or on his twitter. Yes, twitter viewers, his hair really does look like that. His excellent new novel, A SERPENT UNCOILED, can be preordered at Amazon UK or at Book Depository for free worldwide shipping.
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GUEST INFORMANT: Charlie Huston (warrenellis.com)
GUEST INFORMANT: Carolyn Turgeon (warrenellis.com)
GUEST INFORMANT: Catherynne M Valente (warrenellis.com)
Simon Spurrier's A SERPENT UNCOILED (warrenellis.com)
Station Ident
(Markus Iskala)
Sent from my iPhone, from the garden, where I am writing. Good morning sinners.
April 17, 2011
The Revolution That Isn't There
Fascinating post at John Robb's about the stirrings of a supposed "Jasmine Revolution" in China. The full post is worth your attention, but I'm pulling these bits from his correspondent:
…several Chinese language, but overseas based, websites have been blogging on the creation of a 'Jasmine Revolution' in China. This… appears to have no real-world substance whatsoever, to have begun as a hoax at best, and to exist only in cyberspace, and cyberspace outside China at that. But the interesting bit is the real world effect it is having inside China, and the momentum it is generating.
The blogs and websites themselves are largely invisible to ordinary Chinese as the Great Firewall keeps them out, but they can be seen by the security agencies, who have been swift to react. The organizers, whoever and wherever they are, have repeatedly called on people to gather in a range of popular and public areas in the centre of major cities across China – shopping malls and university campuses – and go for a stroll every Sunday afternoon to call for minor political change. These public areas are, at that time of day, normally filled with young people and out-of-town domestic tourists, all now potential 'protesters'… but there are no genuine protesters, just some bemused local tourists and a lot of foreign journalists. So some young tourists get beaten up and taken away, and some journalists get smacked around.
The security forces are taking it seriously, the top leaders have come out in public to criticise the organisers for threatening social stability, and yet there is still no evidence of real-world substance to the protests, just China's vast security apparatus chasing shadows on the streets and on the internet, and closing down large sections of China's internet and SMS traffic…
A revolutionary movement that doesn't exist, but still causes the kind of crackdown we associate with revolutionary movements, generated by persons unknown either to illustrate what would happen to revolutionary protestors, or to foment genuine revolutionary protest. The new fog of war.
April 16, 2011
Bookmarks for 2011-04-16
"Prostitution is not your wife in her Christmas scarf announcing that she's going to the bathroom and will you stay behind and keep an eye on things. It is not the food court. It is not your kid's high school graduation in the same town you grew up in and your son's new girlfriend just looking at you, waiting. Prostitution is not obligation. It is not being alone. It is the same hotel, over and over. It's the virtue and luck and money that brings you to its doors, holds you within rooms without end. It is this patch of carpet without any blood on it, where they found her, where I stand."
(tags:peopleIknow writing )
Create a Live internet Radio Show Free | Spreaker Online Radio
(tags:radio )
April 15, 2011
Floating World
Or, more correctly, the announcement of the book deal was the concluding moment of five or six weeks of relentless work, which itself followed a winter that wasn't exactly easy-going. On Monday, She Who Gestated My Spawn said to me that I was starting to look a lot like the way I did before I collapsed, going on ten years ago now. So, since I don't really have time to be bedridden and mostly unconscious for six weeks again, I've pretty much taken the last four days off. I still haven't been out of the office a whole hell of a lot – although Tuesday I did see the boys from the BERG briefly for Yuri's Night and then had dinner with my new book editor, the excellent John Schoenfelder. I have, however, mostly caught up with email, caught up with some reading, caught up with some new music, scarfed vitamins, eaten almost three meals a day, and reintroduced my body to things like Water and Air. And, here on Friday, my eyesight is no longer juddering or blurring, I can form spoken sentences again and I generally feel less like falling over.
Which is all good, because Monday I recommence GUN MACHINE.
Right now, GUN MACHINE looks a bit like this.
Thanks to Cherie for pointing me in the direction of the progress meter she uses.
In order to deliver GUN MACHINE in good time, I have to write 5000 words a week for twenty weeks. I have decided that this horrible Death Bar will keep me honest. Visit me each week to see how I come up with new lies to justify the fact that I didn't hit my quota. See me weep and curse about the evil Death Bar and how it rules my life.
This thing will drive me insane. I can see it coming. It's going to be like the clock in STUDIO 60.
Also on Monday I intend to try and breathe some life back into this place. Over the last six months of heavy work, it's obviously taken a back seat to everything else. I'm going to attempt to bring it back up to some kind of speed. Not sure what shape that'll take yet.
And now I'm going back to listening to new Grouper records and reading Ed Vulliamy's AMEXICA. See you Monday.
April 14, 2011
Bookmarks for 2011-04-13
"In a breakthrough that may aid treatment of learning impairments, strokes, tinnitus and chronic pain, UT Dallas researchers have found that brain nerve stimulation accelerates learning in laboratory tests."
(tags:med neuro )
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