That First Cold Whisper

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Hello from out here on the Thames Delta, where autumn feels like it’s arriving a week early. Hanging up the linen clothes and thinking about batching meals. It’s raining outside. Soon the world will turn gold.

Look at this idiot soaking up the last of the summer warmth:

THE WORLD SERVICE

THE BITTER STUFF

Lynch was a complicated person, but sometimes he spoke very simply.  And I think this is one of the clearest and truest things he ever said.

I briefly knew a writer who was famous for their constant anger.  I once suggested to them that that anger got in the way of their creation and that there were a boatload of things they never got out into the world because of it.  And they said to me, "yeah, sure, but you can't let the bastards get away with it."  That writer should have been the American Borges but is instead largely remembered for the fights they had.  It's a fucking tragedy.

It's my feeling that you have to learn to let go of the bitter stuff.  We're not here for long, and using up that time on anger and bitterness not only isn't all that productive, but it wastes days that could be spent on better things.

But also:

Mia Woolf just sent me this and I love it:

Full Moon; Doodle Beach Island / Oil on panel / 4 feet by 8 feet

OPERATIONS

HEIDI WIGMORE

Stopped in at an exhibition of the work of Heidi Wigmore at the weekend:

Graphic novella GHOST DRIVE STATION by myself and Lordess Foudre is out on November 18.

The order code/UPC is: 70985304934000111. If you want a copy, drop a note to your local comics shop or bookstore, or stop in there, and give them that code. Nobody orders for the shelf any more, so if you want to be sure of getting a copy, tell your store.

Graphic novella PROJECT EXPLOITS RIVER has now moved to lettering phase, with an old colleague of mine taking care of that.

THE PLANETARY COMPENDIUM is now out, from DC Comics, and there’s at least one other major reprint project in the works from them that I’m writing a large essay for right now.

OCEAN is being reissued from Image Comics on November 24.

Find more Lordess Foudre work at her Instagram and Substack.

ORBITAL

• Emmy and Ringo award-winning comics creator Dean Haspiel is now offering Dino's Down & Dirty cardboard art: for a hundred bucks each. Pick your favorite character and you’ll get an ink-sketch on cardboard mailed to your home (USA only). Or make it a gift. Because Christmas is coming! DM him via Instagram, Substack or Facebook for details. https://www.instagram.com/deanhaspiel_art/
  https://deanhaspiel.substack.com/
  https://www.facebook.com/dean.haspiel

• my old friend Sarah Froelich programmes movie nights at We Luv Video in Austin TX. The next instance of Blood Shed Theater is on September 24, and if you’re in the area, these nights look like a lot of fun, especially if you’re into straight-to-video horror films.

• my old friend Ramona Robinson is running a community group “for people curious about consciousness, expanded states of awareness, perception, human potential, and the nature of our experience” using Monroe Institute practises, both in-person in Wilmington DE in the US and in online virtual gatherings. Here’s the website.

• Robert Monroe briefly shows up in Annie Jacobsen’s PHENOMENA, which I wrote about here a few months ago

• Comrade of the newsletter and media inventor Jay Springett continues to make new things:

This is clever. Also, I know a lot of you are up for “occult internet culture.”

• Longtime reader Nathan Cabaniss made me aware of his new podcast, The Alan Moore Cast, in which he and a guest talk about a different piece of Alan Moore’s work in every episode. Those guests include Joe Casey, Kevin Mellon, Dan Watters, Paul Jenkins and Peter Hogan so far.

The second one and the fourth one were insanely good.

Note: organic wine. Something like 25 years ago, we went to this wonderful hotel in Cheshire called Frogg Manor. I’m not sure it’s still there. It was an incredibly eccentric place. Our usual room there had a secret door that opened into the bar. Our first time there, we ordered wine with dinner, and wonderful John Sykes, the Chief Frog, said to us, “I warn you, these wines are organic, and so they are quite strong.” She and I laughed this off, for we were Professionals. With a knowing smile, John poured, and an hour later we were utterly shitfaced and the bottle wasn’t even finished.

BEWARE ORGANIC WINES, O MY COMRADES

That annoying thing when you realise you’ve found a use for the half-idea you had four years ago, you go through your painstakingly indexed notebooks you store in the large box, and you can’t find the fucking thing. The benefit of writing things down by hand is that it helps fix things in memory, so I recall enough of it to do a partial reconstruction. After I’ve written it, it is almost guaranteed that I will find the lost notebook and whatever’s in it will be so much better than what I reconstructed that I will be kicking things for days.

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.

Todd Blackwood is the creator of NOSFERATU: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL. See more of his art on his IG.

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

New Laura Cannell album. This one came with a gold-leafed hagstone.

THE WILL OF TONGUES, Sarah Davachi:

It’s an immense thing, worth streaming from that link FOR FREE and living in for an afternoon.

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AND FINALLY

SOEUR L’ENFER

Soeur L’Enfer is dropping material on her IG. 

I remember standing in Chinatown in Melbourne a year after I’d been to the Arctic Circle and thinking, Christ, I’ve been around the world. How the hell did that happen? Aside from everything else, I have had an absurd amount of luck. I remember going and sitting by the Yarra (they called it “the upside-down river” at the time because they tried a cleaning process on it but it only cleared the bottom layer of the river) and just sitting with the amazement of it. 

I bet you’ve done two things that amaze you when you think about them. Think about them today.  See you next week.

W