exurb1r
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Whattup, you little rapscallions
🕑 Added 2018-04-30 04:08:10 +0000 UTC Hello gang.
How's everything proceeding? Are those new shoes? They look marvellous on you, if I may say so.
I hope you liked the last video. It confirmed what I already knew which is: it's a lot more fun to work on something longform, so I'm just going to do that for the foreseeable future. I'll try for something around 10-15 minutes each month, and start experimenting with some different shit. I hope you're cool with that.
The last month has been a fairly obsessive drive to finish the new book, and golly gee am I excited to be getting it out there. All that's left to do is a big tidy up and the thing will be real. As before, the first thing I'll do is put it up on here for download; the very least I can do for your support, really.
I'm a fairly obsessive follower of the Joe Rogan podcast, and a few days ago they had a neuroscientist on talking about sleep. It was an absolute treat to listen to. Did you know, for example, that your brain quietly stores up a record of how much REM sleep you've missed? This can go back as far as a year, if you're an alcoholic or drug user, for example, and you regularly miss it. And when the booze or whatever leaves your system, your brain jumps at the chance to reclaim some of that REM sleep. That blew me away
It's 6 in the morning here. For whatever reason, for the last week or so, I've been waking up after about 4 hours, unable to go back under. This tends to start sending one just slightly, then quite properly insane. Maybe you've experienced this too. Waking life becomes dreamlike. Coffee turns into a holy sacrament. All the systems usually used for following conversations or not yelling at people at the bank shut down and one turns into quite a different human. If you have a brilliant cure for this bullshit, do let me know.
On a sidenote, the cat and I were hanging out the other day and it got me to thinking how weird it is that lots of our distant evolutionary cousins on the planet β cats and bats and mice and, well, just about everything we share the land with β have two eyes, two ears, and a stomach, etc. Evolution finds a good way of doing something, then doesn't want to fuck around with the recipe. And that reminded me of this wonderful web series called All Tomorrows that follows the miserable future of mankind and what we turn into. Or...get turned into, I suppose. I think you'll really dig it.
And that also gets one wondering about where we really are going. I'm sure you know all about CRISPR. (If you don't, here's a great place to start.) Presumably we'll make small changes to ourselves at first, then start altering the brain, start altering our temperaments and inclinations. And that's odd. If we fundamentally change the human software, presumably what we want to change into next will also get altered. If we make changes that lead to higher aggression, for example, the next changes will be in an even more aggressive direction. Or likewise with passivity. We'll go off in even stranger directions. Then stranger. Then stranger. It's a kind of ever-accelerating feedback loop, feeding off of itself, making the whole game unpredictable. What a scary thought that is.
In other news, The Prince of Milk is finally out as a paperback, so that's fun. Only took a fucking year. I'm not terribly excited about doing the same for The Bridge to Lucy Dunne, but when the new book's finished, I'll get right on making that physical too.
Audiobooks have proven to be something of a problem. I've found out the hard way that one really, really needs a studio to record in, else the whole thing is a waste of time and features lots of cat noises. It's going to be more complicated than I thought, but bear with me.
I'm also playing with the idea of actually recording an album of piano music. It's something I've always wanted to do, and I'm not sure there's much stopping me at this point. Again, I'd gladly put it up for free for you lot.
In any case, that's the meat of the thing. I hope by the next time we talk, the new book will be out β and that's really what I'm aiming for. On top of that, I hope you're having a jolly old time with your own projects, or pursuing something exciting, or just enjoying the approaching lovely weather, and making the most of that carbon you've rented for 90 years or so.
As always, I'm eternally, eternally grateful for your support, and hope I'm making it worthwhile on your side. Occasionally someone in real life will ask about stuff online, and they're always quite surprised when Patreon comes up:
A: That it exists, and
B: That humans are actually altruistic enough to support creators with it.
I'm constantly amazed by the thing as well. So, as ever, just a massive fucking thank you, really. I couldn't make stuff without you.
In any case, please keep your movie and book recommendations coming; I always follow them up when I can. (I'm still indebted to whoever recommended The Three Body Problem...fuck me, that whole series was incredible.) Experimental and exciting stuff ahead, I hope, and all the very best May wishes to the awful lot of you rapscallions,
Ex.
Comments
Eoghan Hogan
I'm a bit late to the party on this post because I've just been through a few hellish weeks of uni exams. I only dreamt of dropping out like 5 times. Just wanted to say that the latest video was great and I've been forcing it on everyone I come across (slight hyperbole). I have found this seems to lessen the amount of people that want to be around me which from my point of view is a good thing at this time. Thanks for your content Ex!
deterakete
Thanks Ex for your awesome content!
