In partnership with

Hello from out here on the Thames Delta. I was watching an old episode of QI the other day and the subject of Hitler came up, with especial focus on his sister in law, Bridget Hitler, who apparently wrote a memoir. And all I could hear was BRIDGET HITLER’S DIARY. Was there a film version with Renee Zellwegger? Did Hugh Grant play Hitler?

So that’s how my week is going.

In this letter:

• reset

• vintage

• Thought For The Day with AJ Brady

• Raven Belasco drinks blood

• Rain DeGrey is still under ten feet of snow

• Unquiet fragmentation / our torn reality

OPERATIONS

• The graphic novella PROJECT LOST SIERRA should be out by the end of the year, I’m told. More about that when it’s announced/solicited by the publisher.

• Reset week here: the omni-mange is finally out of my system, so it’s No Fun Time for the next several weeks while I squeeze as much out of my days as I can.

• “I do think that thinking of creativity as being hygiene and daily. For me, I think of my writing as being as important as brushing my teeth and that I can’t wait for inspiration and that you have to show up diligently for those moments of inspiration to strike. And if you wait for them to strike, things will be rare and they will very rarely be finished. It’s very easy to have a great idea. It’s very hard to finish a book and finishing a book happens in small footsteps that happen every single day.” - Sophie Strand

• We are also working on bringing comics and serials to this newsletter. I came up with a plan late last year, those plans hit some scheduling roadblocks in the new year, and then I got the omni-mange, but I am now putting together new schemes.

• I found a Byblos shirt from the 1990s buried at the back of a wardrobe the other day. The damn thing fits. It’s a viscose/lambswool blend that I suspect hasn’t been on my body this century. I made some dietary changes over the last few years, dropped four inches off my waist, but I did not expect a shirt from circa 1995 to fit me. Freaky. 
  
  The dietary changes were brought on in part by becoming dairy and gluten intolerant. My family is not long-lived and a genetic switch threw, brought on by reaching an age where I no longer needed to be able to digest milk and wheat because I would be dead soon. WHY DOES THE HOST REQUIRE BREAD, FOR THE HOST IS TWO STEPS FROM THE FUCKING BONEYARD, HIS FAMILY TREE IS A STUMP MOTTLED WITH CANCER-MOSS, SOON HE WILL LEAVE THE VILLAGE TO EXPIRE IN THE WILDERNESS 
  
  And yet I live. I cut out most sugar years ago. I use a tablet called Lactojoy because I refuse to live without cheese, and something called Glutenease Extra Strength for the very occasional indulgence, but cutting out gluten and milk product made a bunch of weight go away. Probably in combination with working in the garden for a few years. Now I eat lean or oily proteins, vegetables and simple carbs. And wine and Fraoch heather ale. And buying new clothes and discovering old stuff fits.
  
  

• (After I wrote that I found another shirt from the same period by another Italian house, Victorvictoria. Damn thing fits too. And it occurs to me that these shirts are now... vintage. Which makes me shudder.)

• This makes me laugh: People Are Calling Meta Ray-Bans “Pervert Glasses”

Kek-W very kindly sent on his two most recent books, which you can find here.

Which, today, is simply that she has a big new exhibition on in Ipswich here in the UK, and if you can go along, you should.

Find her work at brady-pictures.com and her Instagram.

The theme of this week’s bizarrerie is “blood as food,” and you can guess that since I’ve been writing about vampires for years now, it’s a topic I’ve been repeatedly considering—and occasionally consuming.

The first thing to consider is that depending on what culture you live in, it’s either a religious no-no or can actually be very spiritually important. Obviously in many Christian sects, people believe that the Eucharist actually turns into the blood and body of Christ, so that’s not just eating blood, but human blood at that, which is pretty intense, when you stop to really think about it. (Judaism and Islam, on the other hand, are hard passes on consuming any blood and have lines in the Torah and Qur’an specifying that. So being part of a religion where you nosh upon 1/3 of your tripartite God has some perks!)

But for those who can eat animal blood without it being a spiritual issue, it turns out blood is super nutritious, comparable to lean protein. (This low-fat liquid diet might be why vampires are generally so slim-figured, one supposes?)

For cooking with blood, there are of course the blood sausage items, which are found in myriad cultures. For the Scots it was a “fast food on the go” because you could just drain some off cattle you’d raided, mix it with some oats you carried with you, and voilà, a filling meal!

There are blood pancakes, as well, from a variety of places in Europe. And blood soups and stews are truly international. Asia has a varied collection of types of “blood curd,” including the Chinese “blood tofu.” (And in the Philippines, a street food made from grilled chicken blood is still called "betamax" due to it being rectangular in shape. It may be the only Betamax still being sold!) The one blood-based dish I will definitely be giving a miss is consumed among the Herero people of South Africa, as it’s a mix of fresh blood and sour milk, and I think it’s likely a taste you must acquire.

To me, eating blood feels like it’s part of our oldest cultural recipes, harking back to times where no part of an animal was wasted. Whether you try out any of these dishes or not, they are fascinating to learn about, and to imagine back to the times when they originated.

Raven Belasco is the author of the BLOOD & ANCIENT SCROLLS series of novels and the novelette THAT LESBIAN VAMPIRE PIRATE STORY. Her website is at ravenbelas.co and her regular newsletter is at https://ancientscrolls.beehiiv.com/ .

Raven would like to add: I have been considering pursuing graphic novel adaptations, and would love to speak with any professional comics artists who might be interested in discussing this project. Drop her a note via her website or newsletters if that’s you.

Artist, writer and educator Rain DeGrey moved to the wilderness after a lifetime in California and this is the record of her discovery of the land and the seasons. This is her newsletter.

If you want to work together this year, or if you’re doing something creative you want more people to know about, or if you think there’s something Orbital Operations should be covering, hit reply to this newsletter to shoot a note to the office.

OPS

UNQUIET

Sometimes the book you’re reading - in my case, THE BIG THREE: SOCRATES, PLATO, ARISTOTLE - just bottoms out a bit and you lose the energy for it. You need something else. So I paid too much for bought THE BOOK OF COMMENTARY / UNQUIET GARDEN OF THE SOUL by Alexander Kluge, whose deep and off-kilter mind always sends me in new directions.

Which is all very well, but I also know that Kluge’s books tend to escape any easy description, so I’m off on a wander with the old man. And this is how I know it’s going to be the kind of walk I was looking for:

THE BOOK OF COMMENTARY / UNQUIET GARDEN OF THE SOUL, Alexander Kluge (UK) (US)

I was grubbing around my shelves for my CD copy of Lydia Lunch’s DROWNING IN LIMBO, because it contains her collaboration with Lucy Hamilton, THE DROWNING OF LUCY HAMILTON. I’m sure I have a CD copy - I had THE DROWNING OF on vinyl back in the 80s. I went to the web to look it up, and damned if the sainted Ms Lunch hasn’t uploaded it to Bandcamp. If you’re in the mood, THIS is some unquiet music.

SO TELL ME THIS

This one’s just for the creative types. I find myself curious about something. I hate the word “content” but at some point, I’ll have to accept it’s common currency now. And it’s been a long while since I did a check on who’s reading. So, for you creative types, here’s the deal: “digital creator” I would think is self-explanatory for those who work strictly online, “physical creator” denotes those who work in the analogue physical-object arts (print, paintings/sculpture/etc, records, performance, textiles etc).

Last week’s poll: Which of these 2026 films would you come and see with me?

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Is God Is (30)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Digger (40)
🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Project Hail Mary (186)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Dune Part Three (159)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 The Odyssey (196)
611 Votes

via @beehiiv polls

This letter has been zapped to you via Beehiiv and is sponsored by:

Every headline satisfies an opinion. Except ours.

Remember when the news was about what happened, not how to feel about it? 1440's Daily Digest is bringing that back. Every morning, they sift through 100+ sources to deliver a concise, unbiased briefing — no pundits, no paywalls, no politics. Just the facts, all in five minutes. For free.

Read the newsletter trusted by 4.5 million fact-seekers.

And that’s me, trying to come back to life. But if you need a rest from life today instead, that’s totally fine and you should give yourself permission to do that. We only come around once, and spending a day just hanging out is sometimes exactly what you need for tomorrow. See you next week.

W