CJW: Whether you’ve been with us since the start, or you’re joining us for the first time, welcome!
This issue you’ll notice we’re experimenting with the layout. Normally we open with a salvo of articles, but with the combination of a looming climate apocalypse and our late-capitalist dystopian reality this can be a pretty grim way to start things off. So, this time around we’re opening with some pop culture chatter just to lull you into a false sense of security before whacking you with the rough stuff.
You’re welcome.
The Team
Corey J. White (CJW) - author of the The VoidWitch Saga. Newsletter facilitator. Naarm/Melbourne. Tweets @cjwhite.
Marlee Jane Ward (MJW) - Author of ‘Welcome To Orphancorp’ and ‘Psynode’. Host of Catastropod. ADHD, spec fic, feminism, cats. On Wurundjeri land in Melbourne, Australia. @marleejaneward
Austin Armatys (AA) - Writer/Teacher/Wretched Creature // Oh Nothing Press // MechaDeath physical edition available now // @0hnothing
John English (JE) - Photographer - Solvent Image. Writer of upcoming comic CEL. Based in Brisbane, Australia @Herts_Solvent
m1k3y (MKY) - Wallfacer / Apocalyptic Futurist / #salvagepunk / @m1k3y
Books
MJW: I’ve just been to the US and to the World Science Fiction Convention, so you know my suitcase was crammed with 20 kilos of books on my way home (I was 500 grams under the weight limit!) I started on Alice Bolin’s Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving Books in Seattle, and when I went to purchase it, they said, ‘oh, the author will be in tomorrow for a talk and signing’, which was amazing luck. While not exactly the exploratory critique of dead girls in fiction that I was looking for, this book has some fine essays on femaleness, place, and Twin Peaks for good measure. Bolin says, ‘I slowly began to realise that my book was maybe not about the noir but about those forces of which the noir was a symptom, not about dead white girls but the more troubling mystery of living ones.’
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MKY: DEATH’S END by Cixin Liu (Book 3 of the A Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy)
I’ve been gripped by this incredible series for months now, slowly working through each novel as time/commitments/attention allowed. I just finished and am speechless, but can still type… these books terraformed my consciousness, creating a new land occupied by the Dark Forest. I have become a new being, capable of sympathising with those fools studying Existential Risk at Oxford… in part. What grokking ‘the Earth as system’ does to your conception of the planet, these books will do to how you think about the universe, its evolution and likely occupants… indeed, there’s key sequences in it about this and… I could go on and on and on, but I’ll just end with the take I sent a friend:
exploring a universe shaped by billions of years of intelligent life is like way more interesting than a cold, empty void full of dead worlds... even if its a billion times more scarier.
Let’s go… find the Culture?
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MKY: To Our Friends - The Invisible Committee
When you’re house sitting in a leafier part of town, largely occupied by the bourgeoisie, and the first thing you have to do is disable all the google snitch boxes - fully crushing the vision of a ‘smart house’ that’s lived in my mind since Cable crashed through a safe house in whatever issue of X-Force that was - obviously the thing do is load the audiobook of the english translation of To Our Friends onto your non-networked mp3 player #fuckyeahcalmtech. Cue me sitting in a park as my dog chased drones and the InvizComm told me i was in the middle of a zombie apoc, and walking along the waterways we use as catchments for pollutants and so on as they declared war on mankind, and their allegiance to the Earth #teamearth. With chapters like Fuck Off Google! and Let’s Disappear I was never gonna not like this.
Movies + TV
MKY: THE SINNER (s2)
I’m not sure who else agrees with Emily Dare and me that the final season of Key & Peele is the legit second season of True Detective, but… The Sinner s2 is def season 3 True Detective adjacent. (Why does everything I watch seem to involve weird, often apocalyptic cults? Why haven’t I finished s2 of The Leftovers???)
MJW: My crime-drama-loving-ass watched The Sinner in one long binge. I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THERE WAS A SECOND SEASON!?!
MKY: yeah, I binged s1 on NetFlix in one big session too. Actually interesting watching the second one episodically…. Which maybe brings us to this ep of Our Opinions Are Correct.
JE: I ABSOLUTELY LOVED the Sinner, it had that perfect crime novel vibe that I'd get from reading my Mums books as a kid. Can't wait to watch this. After the excellent Ozark of course.
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MKY: Trump Culture vs Illuminati Culture
For my sins, I watched the first few eps of the new Jack Ryan series… it wasn’t until the cuckolding scene in the third ep that I realised what I was watching 100% pure Trump Culture. Now, not even my teenage crush on Daria… I mean, Darlene (Sara Gilbert)… could get me to watch that trainwreck of a Roseanne return, but I will watch anything spy-fi’esque… ‘least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Waterboard away.
I feel like there’s a really interesting take to be had comparing the ideology of spy shows with the culture around them, but fucked if i’ll watch a second more of that show…
Whereas Lodge 49 is a great slow burn… I wanna say mystical surfer noir? Still in the early eps where the mysteries are just getting hinting at. If you read Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea’s books (especially the Historical Illuminati prequels), you’ll nod along with the show. If you think the Illuminati control the world, watch Jack Ryan.
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AA: ADVENTURE TIME - SERIES FINALE
Adventure Time aired its final episode recently, and the show went out in its own inimitable fashion. The 45min finale, titled “Come Along With Me”, featured a thousand-year time jump, visceral extended fight sequences between Kaiju-style monsters, a Chaos Entity, surreal explorations of trauma, a heart-warming kiss shared by two key characters of the same gender (which will send Tumblr into conniptions, no doubt) (Tumblr still exists, right?), bucket loads of well-earned poignancy, and plenty of satisfying plot resolution. It was a fantastic culmination of 8 years’ worth of incredibly subversive, experimental animated storytelling.
During its 280 episode run, Adventure Time dealt seriously with some of the existential conundrums of life – the ebb and flow of love, the bonds (and disappointments) of family, the quest to give existence meaning, the nature of time and reality - in a genuine and uncompromising way that most so-called “adult” programming mostly fails to match. I think the over-exposure and marketing hype behind the show in its early years turned a lot of people off, but it’s their loss - the show grew into something truly strange and wonderful. I mean, what other show would be brave enough to give David OReilly (creator of Please Say Something / The External World) his own episode?
My son is a bit too young for Adventure Time right now (he’s more of a Peppa Pig kinda guy), but I can’t wait to go through the whole journey with him in a few years.
CJW: You should skip AT and take him straight from Peppa Pig to The External World. (This is why I can’t have children.)
Comics
MKY: INCREDIBLE DOOM [http://www.incredibledoom.com/issue01]
It’s been a minute since I read, let alone sought out, a comic. But sometime after casually clicking through from an installment of Joanne McNeil’s newsletter, All My Stars, I’d read every issue of Incredible Doom and would’ve kept on reading ‘til the heat death of the universe… maybe. For me, it was a welcome trip back to the few times I managed to hit up a BBS on my cool uncle’s Amiga and a vision of what my youth mighta been like if I’d had far more access to the early internet.
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JE: The Superior Spiderman
I'm an unapologetic web-head and don't care who knows it. I'm pretty excited for this week's Spiderman game on ps4 so thought I'd read through this Dan Slott run from a few years ago. The story is pure campy goodness, a dying Doctor Octopus tricks Peter Parker into switching brains with him, leaving Parker to die in his body as he becomes spiderman. It's a hell of a lot of fun.
Podcasts
???: ECOSHOCK: Climate Denial is Human
There are some profoundly interesting ideas discussed by physician-scientist Professor Ajit Varki in the first half hour of this show - Varki’s theory is that human beings attained their status as Earth’s dominant species through a unique combination of two attributes: firstly, the ability to understand and model the thought processes of others (which Varki identifies as “Extended Theory of Mind”), and secondly, an inbuilt predilection towards denial. Varki convincingly argues that on their own, either one of these traits actually constitutes an evolutionary disadvantage, but when manifest together they allowed humankind to overcome the paralysing fear of mortality that comes as a crippling side effect of group-and-self awareness.
I’m probably doing a shit job of explaining it, but listening to Varki’s theory provided the sort of dense info-burst that seemed to have immediate, profound implications. Varki’s theory is discussed on this podcast in reference to human denial of climate change, but it also has much broader applications. I’m looking forward to reading his book to learn more. The Ecoshock podcast itself also seems very considered and reasonable, although tbh I’m currently fatigued by contemplating inevitable environmental collapse & would prefer... I dunno…. watching the Adventure Time finale again?
Music
AA: Check out this great music video from moody beatmaker Lorn. The genius production team behind it are called Geriko and you can see lots more of their stylish work via their Instagram and Vimeo.
CJW: Love this track, love the visual style, and love the sc-fi concept underpinning the whole thing.
I’m a big fan of Lorn. The MAZE TO NOWHERE EPs are a constant writing soundtrack for me, and I had to jump on his new release REMNANT which dropped this week. I’ve only had a chance to listen to it a few times, but already I think it’s some of the best work he’s done.
JE: Thought I'd add this directly pasted from Lorn's facebook
REMNANT IS OUT NOW.
i'm about to board a flight to poland with my good friend dolor and instead of releasing my album from some mobile device in an airport i've decided to release it early from home. in my shop, surrounded by family, friends, a sweet little cat, the glowing lights of old and new synthesizers, racks of tubes and transformers that have tempered the sound. it is always wednesday and you've waited long enough, anyways...
it took a lot for me to finish this record. it's the first one i've ever made sober and remotely healthy in mind and body. i don't remember much of making NOTHING ELSE, remember nothing of making ASK THE DUST, and a few rare moments here and there of THE MAZE TO NOWHERE and VESSEL. so many years lost or willfully and recklessly thrown away because of alcohol and/or drug abuse. over a decade of isolation, daily panic attacks and just delaying or worsening the depression, anxiety and who the fuck knows what else. so many times nearly giving up.
but creating, fighting through and finishing REMNANT marks the beginning of something new. i can feel it. it's a worn old 3-sided koin that i ripped out of the noise and have tossed down the well with a wish. now it is falling and falling and falling and falling until you might catch it.
i hope you enjoy it, take time to find its hidden shapes and discover things i could not see.
it's out on bandcamp NOW and should be available on spotify, google play, itunes, amazon, etc tomorrow.
thank you to my beautiful son and wife, the few friends and family members that've had my back
and thank you for your respect and support as listeners and fans.
i could not and would not do this without all of you.lorn / marcos
(stay tuned for more in early 2019 because i'm not fucking stopping now.)
Articles
CJW: How social media took us from Tahrir Square to Donald Trump - Zeynep Tufekci at MIT Technology Review
Facebook helped Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte with his election strategy and was even cited in a UN report as having contributed to the ethnic-cleansing campaign against the Rohingya minority in Myanmar.
One more time for the people in the back: delete your account.
It’s almost unbelievable. Think back to your days on MySpace when the biggest thing you had to worry about was not pissing anyone off by leaving them out of your “Top Friends” selection. Now imagine if someone told you the next social network to replace MySpace would also contribute to literal genocide.
And honestly, that’s just a throwaway paragraph in an article that does a great job of distilling the real power of social media in negatively impacting politics and society in the past few years.
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CJW: The Untold Story of NotPetya, the Most Devastating Cyberattack in History - Andy Greenberg at Wired (via Sentiers)
Crippled ports. Paralyzed corporations. Frozen government agencies. How a single piece of code crashed the world.
This is a really fascinating article about Russia using Ukraine as a testbed for cyberwarfare technologies, and one of their attacks that spread further and did more damage than anyone could have guessed. Written in such a way that I can almost imagine a stream-lined Hollywood take on it hitting cinemas soon.
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CJW: See No Evil - Miriam Posner at Logic Mag (via danhon)
We consumers are not the only ones afflicted with this selective blindness. The corporations that make use of supply chains experience it too. And this partial sight, erected on a massive scale, is what makes global capitalism possible.
Interesting article about the systems behind global supply chains. Of interest to anyone who enjoyed Alexis Madrigal’s Containers podcast series.
Repeat after me: there is no ethical consumption under capitalism:
Bellissimo, a Swiss chocolatier, sued Chocolonely in 2007, allegedly claiming that “slave-free chocolate is impossible to produce.”
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CJW: The Great Chinese Art Heist - Alex W. Palmer at GQ (via Sentiers)
Is the Chinese government orchestrating a series of art heists to return priceless artworks and antiquities stolen by Western imperialists?
I fucking hope so.
The other option is that sophisticated art thieves noticed that Chinese antiquities were selling for record amounts (thanks to patriotic Chinese billionaires repatriating stolen goods), and got to work, but that's far less interesting. Alas, until some of these re-stolen items resurface, we can only guess.
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CJW: Is artificial intelligence set to become art’s next medium? (via Sentiers)
As part of the ongoing dialogue over AI and art, Christie’s will become the first auction house to offer a work of art created by an algorithm.
Take this with a grain of salt, as it’s from the auction house’s own website.
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CJW: World on track to lose two-thirds of wild animals by 2020, major report warns - Damian Carrington at The Guardian
This is the first horrifying prediction I’ve seen that is just around the corner.
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MKY: The Melting Arctic Is a Real-Time Horror Story — Why Doesn’t Anyone Care? - Jeff Goodell at Rolling STone
JE: It’s not that no one cares, it’s that it IS too far away for us to care. It’s the bystander effect on crack. If we could parse everything wrong with the world at once, we’d be a cowering wreck, and yes sometimes things break through this, but watch them trend on social media. They will be a flavour of the week at best. This is why climate change should be handled by governments, it’s their responsibility to take care of these global issues.
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CJW: The Genetics (and Ethics) of Making Humans Fit for Mars - Jason Pontin at Wired (via Dan Hill)
In the first stage of his plan, Mason is combining human cells with a gene called Dsup, unique to the indestructible tardigrade, that suppresses DNA breaks from radiation.
I would like to offer myself up as an experimental test subject to become the first human-tardigrade hybrid. Also, this: “Elephants have many copies of p53 and seldom die from cancer,” makes me think of Brooke Bolander’s utterly brilliant The Only Harmless Great Thing.
MKY: When i was in Cali briefly it just happened that I ended up pleading with a rogue geneticist to be just such a test subject… he said no. And on my birthday, no less!
CJW: And he called himself a “rogue” geneticist. Back in my day, a geneticist was only rogue after they’d cornered children on public transport and injected them with locust DNA to turn them into ravenous/chitinous horrors.
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CJW: War Without End - C.J. Chivers at New York Times (via Dan Hill)
The War on Terror is almost old enough to vote. This long read looks at combat on the ground, and how soldiers’ lives can be so far removed and abstracted from the political decisions made back home.
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MJW: This Author Forecasts a New Wave of Serial Killers in 2035 - Mack Lamoureux at Vice
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MKY: What if ET is an AI? - Caleb Scharf at Aeon
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JE: A Chelsea Manning non interview
When Chelsea is questioned over how she felt about a certain piece of information she leaked, the interview is cut short.
CJW: Yeah, this is a weird one. Could be that it was cut short for possible legal reasons, could just be Chelsea's media managers being too overprotective. Either way though, I can't really bring myself to give a fuck about Hack anymore. On more than one occasion they've given a platform to white nationalists and other pieces of shit who - as has been discussed at length on social media - have no desire for debate, and will only use your platform to spew their hateful bullshit. I’m sure Tom Tilly thinks he’s a good enough journalist to skewer them, but frankly he isn’t, and it never happens. More likely they come out looking good, because no one likes a condescending know-it-all, which is precisely Tilly’s vibe.
It’s actually gotten to the point with Tilly/Hack that I have to wonder if he received a head injury at some point in the past few years. I swear when I listened to Triple J regularly a few years ago, Hack was a great source for a progressive look at Aussie politics and current affairs.
JE: He is one of the worst interviewers I can remember and it's a shame he wasn't fired in the recent funding cuts. He is the titular hack.
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JE: Ouch. All the people Eminem disses on surprise album ‘Kamikaze’ – and their responses - Hannah Mylrea at NME
There has been a huge beef brewing after the release of Eminem’s new album “Kamikaze” which is equally entertaining and hilarious, and might just be what hip-hop needs right now.
The Process
MJW: I put this in ‘The Process’ and not the ‘Self-Promotion’ because I’m not so comfortable with it being seen as ‘promotion’, I guess. I worked out a series of events that occurred recently by writing about them publicly. Good move! My piece, Invisible, until… was written, submitted and published in less than 24 hours. It appears in Overland and comes with a content warning for sexual harassment. When I wrote it, I was mad. The first iteration made no sense at all. I managed to tease it into something that I hope shows a continuum of behaviour. I didn’t want it to specifically be anything, and certainly not my #metoo moment. I just wanted to work things out in my head and the best way for me to do that is on the page. I mean, what I earn from the piece is about the standard cost of a therapy session, so maybe I’ll put the article fee towards that. The response has been overwhelming, wonderful but also exhausting and I’m taking breaks from some of the social medias because of it.
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JE: I spent this last weekend participating in the Canon Light Awards - in which a master photographer sets a 24 hour challenge to the entrants. My chosen category was “Creative Composites” and my “master” was the commercial wunderkind Damien Bredberg.
Our brief was to conceptualise, stage and shoot a multi image photo in 24 hours, without moving the camera. Known as a “lockdown” because you don’t move the tripod, you shoot multiple exposures and layer them together in post.
I’ve wanted to do my idea for a while now, a kind of crt ghost in the machine satanic ritual, so I had a lot of the props already. Thanks to the help of my illustrious brother Matt we constructed the set in about 2 hours.
I had already lined up Leah and Paddy (our models) so they arrived shortly after and we got to work lighting the scene. I’d never really done anything to this level before (I usually shoot separate images and composite them later) so it was a bit daunting. But taking that time to do the lighting right really paid off. Basically I sat with the scene in front of me as it looks above and got the lighting right for the background first. We then lit a keylight around the back of the set in 3 or 4 different exposures before bringing Leah and Paddy in. This whole thing was exceptionally challenging because as you can see there is barely any room around the set. Furthermore the shrine thing Matt built from broken fence palings was dangerously sharp and unstable. Not to mention the heavy ass crts balancing above Leah and Paddy. To add to this it was extremely windy, it’s a miracle we got an exposure with the candles lit at all.
But we did it.
After this it was a matter of getting the right expression from Leah, she hadn’t modelled before but she was great. I prefer to use regular people, as they give a kind of energy that you can’t really get from trained models. In saying that you never know what’s going to happen, but I’m really really happy with how it all turned out.
The ultimate happy accident occurred right at the end of the shoot, we realised the capture software (the camera was tethered to a laptop so there’s no chance of bumping it) was mis-reading the red in the photo. It was all wrong. Leah had gotten up to leave at this point and had this amazing denim jacket on, so when I corrected the lighting she got the pose and expression perfect, one take and the jacket made the photo.
Then it was over to photoshop to bring it all together. The process starts with picking all the exposures you want to use, then basically dumping them in a document and painting them in one by one.
Here’s a video with a layer by layer animation:
The faces we took later that night and as it came together I realised I need more, so I’d go back out to the shed and get capturing stuff until I was happy. All in all the whole image took about 14 hours to finish. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done in that it looks exactly as I had in my head and is technically ok.
In the end I came runner up in the competition, but I really don’t care. The whole weekend was a huge leap forward for me technically and I can’t wait to do my next image this way.
The final product:
CJW: And that's a wrap for this issue. Drop us a line by hitting reply if there's anything you want to tell us. We'll be back in two weeks' time with another dispatch. Until then, take care of yourselves, look after your loved ones, and don't let the bastards get you down.