Warren Ellis's Blog, page 71

Bookmarks for 2012-04-01

Against an Aesthetics of Noise (Ray Brassier interview)
"My conviction is that the sources and structures of human experience can and will be understood scientifically, but this integration of experience into the scientific worldview will entail a profound transformation in our understanding of what it means to be human — one as difficult for us to comprehend from within the purview of our current experience as the latter would have been for our hominid ancestors."
(tags:interviews neuro )

SPEKTRMODULE 09

SPEKTRMODULE
09
Misty Eyed
27 minutes and 30 seconds

 

Direct mp3 link.  Press Play on the player then find the menu button in the bottom left for other functions.  iTunes link.

@warrenellis / warrenellis@gmail.com / merch

An uninterrupted mix for late nights and early mornings.

1.  logotone

2.  "Fly Like An Eagle" – Tickley Feather   (album: Hors D'oeuvres)

3.  "watercolor rabbit" – aloonaluna  (album:  bunny)           

4.  "Goddess Eyes I" -  Julia Holter  (album:  Ekstasis)

5.  "Thirtieth/Pilot Reprise" – Philip Jeck  (album: An Ark For The Listener)

6.  "Player" – Starbird   (album: Nanook Of The North)

7.  "Ouroboros" – Oneohtrix Point Never  (album: Returnal)

8.  "Introducing Rocket Skeleton Summer" – Concessionaires   (album:  Artificial Interface)    

9.  "Hollow Life" – Frankie Rose  (single: Thee Only One)

10.  "Brother Of Sleep" – Soap&Skin  (album: Lovetune For Vacuum)

11.  logotone

 

Lack of speech in this edition is mostly down to the fact that I've been on phone conferences for the last two days solid and my voice is reduced to a worse rasping cacklehorror than usual. 

 

PREVIOUSLY: 1 – Fire Axes In Space | 2 – The Lane | 3 – Comfort And Joy | 4 – Long Count| 5 – Underfoot | 6 – The Chamber | 7 – Spark Gap | 8 – Death Is No Obstacle

The Chronicles of Professor Elemental

A crowdfunding attempt to produce a Professor Elemental video series.  You remember Professor Elemental and his "Cup Of Brown Joy," don't you?  Course you do.  Behold.

Station Ident

(Maika)

AWOL Again

My friend Cassandra Melena has released a new postcard.

All attempts to keep up a certain posting frequency here have been thwarted.  I have been in a lot of phone conferences and a lot of email chains over the last few days.  While still technically "unemployed" – I haven't settled on the subject of my second novel in the Mulholland Books deal yet – I seem to be talking to a lot of people about things.

I've got at least two phone conferences booked for tomorrow, now, and more will probably be added, and they are all with very interesting people and I am looking forward to them, but of course they are not the sort of thing you can talk about.

I'm sure some other stuff has happened, but I can't think of any of it right now.

 

TRANSVERSE by Carter Tutti Void is a very good record.

Read full review of Transverse – CARTER TUTTI VOID on Boomkat.com ©

The Sunderland Wreck

"The Sunderland Wreck," by Moongazing Hare is a sort of ghostly, deconstructed, folk music, echoing out of Denmark but really sounding to me like a Northern European answer to the likes of Scott Tuma and his strange, doomy alternate-world country drones. It's beautiful, if somewhat chilly and alienated — sometimes it sounds like you're in a field, sometimes it sounds like you're on a patch of remote wasteground surrounded by bent and wrecked cars with grass growing through the tears in the tin and the only other human in fifty miles is laying face down dead in the shallow oily puddle at your feet and –

Well. Have a listen.

The Sunderland Wreck by Moongazing Hare

Related articles

logotone (warrenellis.com)
Ghost Milk (warrenellis.com)
ZONA by Geoff Dyer (warrenellis.com)

Bookmarks for 2012-03-26

Did El Salvador cut a deal with the gangs to bring down violence? | FP Passport
"With the world's second-highest homicide rate, (around 66 per 100,000 people) it's not surprising that El Salvador might take drastic measures to stop the killing. But a sudden drop in homicides is raising questions about just what the infamous MS-13 gang is getting in return…"
(tags:crime pol )
When a Parking Lot Is So Much More – NYTimes.com
"A better parking lot might be covered with solar canopies so that it could produce energy while lowering heat. Or perhaps it would be surfaced with a permeable material like porous asphalt and planted with trees in rows like an apple orchard, so that it could sequester carbon and clean contaminated runoff."
(tags:eco architecture cities )

STATION IDENT

(Eric Mahler)

Quote Of The Day

Jez Butterworth:

"Harold (Pinter) never read reviews. He once told me he knew that not a single person who was writing about theatre in a newspaper wouldn't swap places with him instantly, given the chance."

GUEST INFORMANT: Stoya

This is the place where I ask my friends, who are all cleverer than I am, to write to you about… well, whatever's on their minds today.  Today, the aerialist and adult performer Stoya sent this to you from darkest Russia, where, she says, "They serve vodka here at dinner like it's water. My beaten and pickled liver may be affecting my brain, so I might be completely off my rocker here, but…"

 

During my years as an adult performer, I've spent more time talking to press and interacting with people on the internet than I've spent actually having sex. It was, for me, one of the unexpected parts of being a contract star. Most of the porn industry interviews are pretty standard. They want to know what our favorite positions are, how long we've been in the business, what turns us on, and who we'd like to work with next.

The interactions with the mainstream press are where it gets interesting. Radio personalities, reporters from newspapers and magazines sold without plastic shielding their covers – they ask more complicated questions. They want to know why we have sex on camera for a living. They want to know how our parents feel, what we think about the effect of our jobs on society's view of women, whether we believe we're setting feminism back or moving it forward (the answer is neither). They want to discuss the issues people get worked up about.  They want to talk about condoms vs. testing, the idea that porn molds sexual behavior in a way that reaches beyond the consumers of it and the people they have sex with.

All I ever have for them is an opinion. Usually my opinion is a bit different than the opinion of someone who hasn't spent time with sex workers. After this opinion has been given the reporter wants to discuss it. Debate it. Play a metaphorical volleyball game where this opinion is tossed back and forth until one side is convinced that the other is speaking truth. I had to fake knowledge of volleyball during the filming of a xxx remake of Top Gun last year. I wasn't so convincing with the sports, but when it comes to debating the case for a healthy place for porn in sexuality I've had a pretty decent success rate.

Perception equals truth. Before the 18th century, people knew that everything revolved around the Earth. Galileo couldn't argue convincingly enough against the Catholic Church and if you stand outside without the benefit of what we consider basic scientific education it really does look like our planet is the center of everything. One viewpoint might be scientifically wrong, but both beliefs are true to the people who believe them. Galileo went down historically as right because he doggedly presented evidence that corroborated his beliefs on heliocentrism until the day he died.

Sometimes people quote things I said at the beginning of my career and I wonder what I could possibly have been thinking. In retrospect I think some of the statements I've made were over simplified or just incorrect, based on bad information and faulty logic. Somewhere out there are people who started out disagreeing with me and ended up agreeing. It doesn't seem like it matters whether I'm right or wrong. What matters is how convincingly I can defend my position.

In politics, there is actually a campaign tactic referred to as the 'charm offensive.' It's not about whether you're right or wrong, it's about how charming, personable, and stubborn you can be when someone sticks a microphone in your face.

Which brings me to something resembling a point: Question… vocally. Question the things I say, question your newspapers, television reporters and favorite blog. Question the things you thought and the things you think now. It's the only way any of us are going to grow…

…or maybe I'm wrong.

 

You can find Stoya at her tumblr , and on the twitters at @stoya .  Thanks, Stoya, for being kind enough to do this while on the road (and swimming in vodka).