John Higgs's Octannual Update

Lynch events and more

Thanks to all who came along to the BFI on London’s Southbank on the first anniversary of David Lynch’s death, to hear me discuss my book Lynchian with Robin Ince.

It’s always a joy to do events with Robin - a cardigan-loving book nerd he may be, but he’s also the most punk man I know. He’s always interested, as well as interesting. His decision to walk away from the Infinite Monkey Cage series has been hard for him but it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down - if you see him gigging near you make a point of going to see whatever chaos he is creating, it is always unpredictable but mind-expanding.

I’ve got a few more Lynchian events coming up - including the Halifax Goth Festival on 14 February (this festival runs over Friday 13th and Valentine’s Day, it could not be more Goth), Faversham on 21 February and Kings Heath in Brum on 18 April. You can find links to all these here.

I’ve also been talking about Lynch on Josh Bernhard’s Highly Irregular podcast, you can find that here.

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NEW MOON LETTERS

I’m delighted by the response to the first of my New Moon Letters. The next one may be about American soft power, or possibly about Douglas Adams, or it may well end up being something entirely different - we’ll find out when the new moon rolls around, I guess.

The next New Moon Letters are for those who have a paid subscription, which also gets you a physical book, the 2026 Midsummer Annual, in the post - it’s all explained here. Note that if you do fancy being part of this, avoid upgrading your subscription using the iPhone Substack app, as Apple whack up the price by 30%. Doing it online, or on an Android phone, avoids this.

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ELSEWHERE

These are busy, overwhelming days and it’s very easy to miss a lot of the good stuff that is going on at the moment. If you’ve got any spare attention, there’s much that deserves it. Here are some examples:

If you haven’t seen Andrew O’Neill’s joyful History of Heavy Metal stand-up show, the full performance - complete with a live band - is now up on YouTube. It will get you in the mood for their new History of Punk show, which is playing at the 100 Club in London on 19 February - tickets are here.

Also in London, the Byline Times will be running some interesting looking discussion events at the Cockpit Theatre, under the title The Lure Of… These look at different aspects of modern life and the first, about the loneliness epidemic, is tomorrow, 2 Feb. More details and tickets are here.

In Bristol, a season of films and events from Andrew Kötting - with some help from his daughter Eden - has opened at the Watershed, and runs until 12 April. There’s lots of interesting stuff lined up - including a rare chance to see his film By Our Selves about the journey home of the poet John Clare, featuring Toby Jones, Ian Sinclair, Alan Moore, and Kötting himself as a giant straw bear.

I’ve talked a bit about Alistair Fruish’s extraordinary monosyllabic single sentence science fiction novel The Sentence before. This was always at its most trance-inducing when read aloud - and the full audio version is now up on Alistair’s website. Heartily recommended for anyone who wants to experience time being swallowed.

If you’ve not yet come across Los Highway, John Riordan’s graphic biography of William Blake, have a look at his Substack here. This now also includes examples of his William Blake, Taxi Driver comic strip that used to run in the London Time Out in the early 2000s - it’s well worth signing up for.

This Slow AI manifesto is well worth a read - an informed look at the state of AI art by Eric Drass, an artist who has worked with AI for the best part of a couple of decades, and what he makes of the fact that everyone now hates it. For context and contrast, it appeared on the same day as this sobering report about the impact of AI on the creative industries, produced by (among others) my trade union the Society of Authors.

In these stressful times, the new book by my wife Joanne Mallon might be just what you need - How To De-stress In Five Minutes A Day. Invaluable stuff, and beautifully designed, take a look.

Until next time,

jhx