"I’d like Cult Leader Warren back soon, I liked him."

Long-awaited CD-R from Kemper Norton and friends. “Wrong folk, drunktronic laments, granular pop, pagan death anthems, chirpy digitalis and electric crayon landscapes. Or something.” It’s wonderful.

And yes, that is indeed a sample of beach sand in the plastic sachet. I don’t dare open it, Kemper might’ve pissed in it or something…

It’s Friday, it’s past noon UK time, so the new episode of FREAKANGELS is up, right here.

And you can all do me a favour today, if you feel so moved, by posting a link to http://www.freakangels.com on your blog or website, just to remind people we’re still here and still pumping out free comics episodes once a week.

Hell, you could even use the FREAKANGELS RSS Window, which auto-updates every Friday:

Monkey-controlled robots have upgraded from leg control to arm control, it seems. I don’t consider this a useful advance. Monkeys are well known, after all, for, well… non-consensual sexual activities. And I frankly refuse to end my life desperately trying to fend off a monkey-powered robot fisting. I mean, is that really the future you wanted? "Day 184. Still can’t go outside. Monkeys waiting to fist me with robot arms." No. You’re not even going to get a jetpack with which to evade the mechanical rape arms of the Simian Love Patrol.

And even if you did, the monkeys would learn how to fly them.

Giant Bird is a London-based theatre company, and EMPIRE OF FEATHERS is their next production. At the link you’ll find a wonderful animated trailer for the piece, which ends with details of the performance (Camden, end of June):

A roaring industrial age of concrete oceans and steel-scraped skies draws to a close and three men set off in search of the infamous Red Sylvester, the rarest bird of all. Rifle Lancaster, a ruthless hunter hopes to look death in the eye; Lucey Fair, a decadent painter seeks to create a work of pure truth, and Ball Manhattan, a tycoon socialite strives to bring proof of magic back into the world. In this world, everyday objects transform into the extraordinary: a crumpled map becoms a mountain range and a string of fairy lights an endless waterfall in this vivid adventure.

At some point during (San Diego Comics Convention) weekend, the writer Warren Ellis will realize he’s not in San Diego and will spend the next 20 minutes dancing joyfully like Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof.

The Comics Reporter

A new thread started for the popular Muxtape trades, since muxtape.com shat itself the other day. The monthly self-portrait thread continues to fill up.

What’s the strangest music you ever heard? Am I the only person on Whitechapel interested in the whole hauntology thing that’s been playing itself out over the last 18 months or so?

"Pharma-Metanoia" (full view)

Originally uploaded by William Joseph Dunn.

William Joseph Dunn “Pharma-Metanoia” (full view), 2008 mixed media on found objects. 27″ x 36″ (approx) ©2008 WJD

FORTHCOMING: a 576-page signed & numbered hardcover book collecting STRANGE KISS, STRANGER KISSES, STRANGE KILLINGS, THE BODY ORCHARD, STRONG MEDICINE and NECROMANCER.

Seriously. I do not come out well in photographs. Never have. All my friends, however, seem to really like this photo of me that was taken by this guy in Oslo a couple of days ago. Personally, I think the processing makes me look like I’ve got a skin disease, but, like I say, other people like it, so thanks, Gunnar. (Can’t tell that I hate having my photo taken, can you?)

(all sizes)

Unerring Pub Sense brings me to the platz at the top end of Karl Johans Gate, where I now have an outside table, cigarettes, and a glass of the local energy muck, Batteri. Cloudy and cool — a lot of people acting like it’s early summer. Folkie-hipster dude in an unfortunate hat is trying to sell a plastic-wrapped magazine to passersby. Quite a few tourists: Germans with insane moustaches, Danes in waterproofs, a shivering Japanese couple, an enormous black man in pink shirt and powder-blue tanktop photographing everything in the square. A plalanx of six women working the square with flowers, crooning ”Romani. Please give. Romani.” They have hard eyes, years past the point where you just resent people for having coins in their pocket. A lone military officer strides past, wearing one of those peculiar caps with the tassel hanging in front. The back of his shaven head prickles with the chill wind now driving into the square.

I’m in the hotel, wifi is running, there’s a fridge full of Ringnes pilsener, BBC World News is on and I am smoking indoors.

Getting here was frankly a bit shitty — Stansted Airport is fucked at the root — but all you have to do is wait patiently for joy, and the world will bring it to you. I spent half the flight watching the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in years. And Ise was waiting at the airport for me (blaming me for the late flight, of course).

Good night from Oslo.

At the pub, fuelliing up with Red Bull. Car service picks me up in a couple of hours. With a bit of luck, I should be setting up Mission Control in a hotel room about nine hours from now. Air travel has gotten fucking ridiculous, really. Oslo’s only a couple of hours away by air.

Travel kit is now reduced successfully to the laptop (an ultralight Thinkpad X61), this phone, a Nokia N95 8GB, and the bluetoothed keyboard I’m writing this on. The phone is now armed with things like Worldmate, keeping me abreast of local weather (rain, what a surprise) and adjusted world times, and Joikuspot in case I have to turn the phone into a wifi hotspot in order to get work sent off the laptop. The phone’s music player is loaded up with the new Paavoharju records, Burial, Philip Jeck and Nurse With Wound, and I think I’m all set.

All I’m missing is the presentation I have to give tomorrow, which I haven’t written yet…!
See you on the other side.

Ben Templesmith versus a school bus. FUCK YOU, SCHOOL BUS.

Eleven women accused of being witches have been burned to death by a mob in the west of Kenya, police say.

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Kenyans burn alive 11 ’witches’

I’m outside the pub, soaking in some heat, because I’m off to Oslo tomorrow and it is probably not hot in Oslo. It also occurs to me that I’m going to be too early for strawberry season in Oslo. They sell them in big barrows, and the scent fills the street.

I still haven’t written my presentation for the Norwegian Film Institute. Had no time. God only knows what I’m going to do. The time I’d blocked to think about it got eaten by a minor work crisis. I may just have to wing it for an hour and hope for the best.

They got me a smoking room in the hotel. I foresee a Thursday night spent bent over a notebook, fuelled by cigarettes and coffee. And I won’t reach the hotel until midnight.

Still, after the doomed presentation, I get to look at a new, Lovecraftian MMO game that’s being created in Oslo, which I’m looking forward to immensely.

Time for lunch.

This will please my daughter.  Steven Moffat takes over the running of DOCTOR WHO from Russell Davies for the 2010 season.  Moffat has written most of the best episodes of the revived series so far.

The world’s largest military hovercraft. (more images, and video, at link.)

CLASSWAR KARAOKE: 0001 SURVEY is a compilation album by the new netlabel/collective made available for free download on last.fm.  Includes a piece by the utterly mad Ice Bird Spiral.

This is really just a test of the post-by-email system using my Nokia N95 8GB phone and the little foldaway bluetooth keyboard, which I’ve fallen out of the habit of using. I need to get back up to speed with it. I’m carrying too many devices that only do part of the job right now, so I’m trying to fix up the phone so that I really only need to carry it and the keyboard for short trips.
I’m taking it and the laptop with me to Norway — it’s gotten to the point where I need a laptop if I’m away for more than a day or two, sadly. With Quickoffice installed, I can do a lot on this phone, right down to studying spreadsheets for the Artbots Festival — but international data charges for the phone are still onerous. Ten pounds per megabyte, as opposed to seven-fifty per 500MB/month at home (which still ain’t great). So in Oslo it’s going to be a laptop and praying for wifi…
Anyway. Let’s see if this works.