John Higgs's Octannual Manual #50

50 newsletters young

It’s the 50th edition of this newsletter - that’s something I feel I should celebrate. It means that I’m still going and still writing six and bit years later, which has to be worth something.

I recall that when I started, email newsletters were seen as a bit old fashioned, but probably still worth doing. Fast forward to the present day, and they now seen as one of the few pieces of the internet that isn’t fundamentally broken.

The digital world’s woes have been analysed at length elsewhere. Cory Doctorow’s concept of enshittification has been a helpful tool here. So is Ted Gioia’s analysis of the algorithmically optimised degradation of culture - in which culture is shifted from art to entertainment, and then from entertainment to distraction, and finally from distraction to addiction, as the internet slowly poisons itself.

I doubt anyone can say for certain what percentage of the web and social media is bots talking to other bots, but it does seem to be increasing, especially now that AI is doing much of the work. Perhaps the current wave of Kate Middleton Truthers slowly grasping how little they can believe of what they see and read may, in time, be part of the growing realisation that much of the current internet is just a waste of everyone’s time.

When I started this newsletter there was still the sense that tech entrepreneurs offered us useful and exciting things. Since then, they’ve offered us crypto bubbles and fraud, the empty metaverse, bored ape NFTs, Web 3.0 zealots, confused homicidal self-driving cars, the cultural pollution of AI image generation and ChatGPT virtual carers, none of which can be said to make the world better. Given the potential and the radical nature of the original internet, this is all quite heartbreaking.

Perhaps it is a blip, and technology will recover from this stumble. Or perhaps one day we will look back and say that 3D TVs were the moment an era ended. We shall see. Fortunately Spring is starting to show its face. It is tempting us away from screens and out into the green. If we are wise we will log off, and head out, and perhaps find that we don’t miss the promised online utopia quite as much as we feared.

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EAST SUSSEX PSYCHEDELIC FILM CLUB

Since the East Sussex Psychedelic Film Club - ESPFC - started in the Westgate Chapel in Lewes in February, it has fast become my favourite night of the month. Interviewing director Ben Wheatley after a screening of A Field In England was a particular highlight, although there are plenty of equally special treats coming in the months ahead.

It has been a bit of a victim of its own success. It tends to sell out very quickly, which gives us a few problems and shatters any hope of hassle-free guestlist politics. If we were sensible we’d move to a bigger venue, but we’re not sensible, and we love where we are. Set and setting is of course a vital part of any psychedelic film club.

As a result I’m setting up a mailing list, that will alert people when tickets go on sale and let you know what’s coming up. You can sign up for that here.

Photo by Jak Hutchcraft

There are also t-shirts. Here’s one I modelled at last night’s event for Richard Norris’s ace new memoir Strange Things Are Happening. For those who can’t make it to Lewes, they’re available from his Bandcamp.

The fanzine-style programmes that we make for each session seem to be getting a bit of a following of their own. If you’ve fallen for James Burt’s brilliant short stories, I highly recommend signing up to his mailing list, which will send you a new short story every Thursday. There will be many times, I guarantee, when it will be the best email you receive that week.

James is also launching a Kickstarter soon for a book called True Clown Stories, which sounds messed up but is probably worth keeping an eye on regardless.

While we’re on the subject of all things Lewes and psych - if you haven’t yet listened to David Bramwell’s Oddfellow’s Casino, their new live album The Lewes Psych Fest Sessions is the perfect introduction to their genteel pagan yearning. It’s quickly become my favourite Oddfellows album. Available physically from Bandcamp, and also streaming on Spotify.

Although I keep saying I don’t do interviews about The KLF anymore, I do seem to keep doing them. Especially if it’s for someone like Greg Taylor at the Daily Grail. Here’s a recent video chat we had.

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ELSEWHERE

There’s lots of epic stuff around at the moment - here’s a few things well worth having on your radar…

As unbelievable as it might seem, the Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic by Alan Moore and Steve Moore is going to be released this year - only about 17 years after it was first announced. If you are not aware of this family friendly distillation of the two Moore’s occult philosophy, the artist John Coulthart has written a great piece about his involvement which is well worth a read.

The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge currently has an exhibition called William Blake’s Universe, in which the work of Blake is placed alongside that of the German romantic painters Philipp Otto Runge and Caspar David Friedrich. I’ve not seen it yet but am keen to do so. Details are here.

Another artist with the Blakean spirit was the late Jamie Reid, and his memorial exhibition Into The Light is currently running at John Moore’s University in Liverpool. It ends on March 29th, full details here.

Joel Morris - the comedy writer who co-created Philomena Cunk among many other achievements - has a book out about how comedy works which looks fantastic. It’s called Be Funny or Die, and if you want to get a sense of how brilliantly it analyses jokes, you should watch Joel’s analysis of two minutes of The Simpsons. You might recall I talked with Joel about Classic Doctor Who on his Comfort Blanket podcast.

That’s probably enough for now. Let’s see if we can last for another 50 newsletters…

jhx