Inspiration

Pieces and links that might kickstart ideas

Inspiration

Messy Nessy

The Messy Nessy website is extraordinary. Do not click if you're on a deadline.

Inspiration

My Lockdown Reading List

As we prepare to batten down the hatches, I've arranged a pile of books to retreat to. The pile is a work-in-progress, because there are a lot of unread books on my shelves but these are the ones I'm going to hit first and I'm REALLY hoping I won't have

Inspiration

On the upside...

Dolphins in Venice!

Inspiration

Liquid Iron Rain

Here's a writing prompt, if ever there was one...

Creativity

David Byrne (video)

Filing this under "still got it".

Creativity

New Systems for 2020

A New Year and some new methods of productivity/procrastination.

Inspiration

This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory

It’s finally complete; Kirby Ferguson’s latest episodic online documentary “This Is Not A Conspiracy Theory” posted its seventh and final episode last night.

Inspiration

Ridley Scott's The Seven Worlds

This is from earlier in the year, but I only just saw it. Ridley Scott made this short film for Hennessey and it is stunning.

Inspiration

Night Of The Living Podcast interview

I did an interview last night with Freddy and Kelley from the Night Of The Living Podcast. It was easily the most fun interview I've done but I haven't listened back to it, so there's a decent chance I talk a lot of nonsense.

Inspiration

INFODUMP 33 is now live...

It'll be in your inbox if you subscribe (or your junk mail folder if you're smart) or you can see it HERE [https://mailchi.mp/e20164f9f8ba/3tvbt58cwu-2331393?e=c45bcdb407]. If you're new to it and you like it, there's a subscribe box up there on the top left when you

Inspiration

Robert Richardson

Robert Richardson's work on Oliver Stone's movies and on Scorsese's films represents the pinnacle of the cinematographer's art. Latterly he's been doing amazing things with Tarantino and here he is talking to Deadline about "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood".

Inspiration

A piece on Lovecraft

I'd completely forgotten being interviewed for this piece and so I didn't think to look for it until today.

Creativity

On walking

This, from the peerless Brain Pickings: https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/01/10/kenneth-grahame-the-fellow-that-goes-alone/

Creativity

Seven Days Walking - Box Set

This has been the soundtrack to all my writing this year. Now Ludovico Einaudi's SEVEN DAYS WALKING project is complete (it was originally released over seven months). The download is around now, but the CD box set is available from November 1st. This is perfect Autumn music, perfect writing music

Inspiration

Hotel Okura

Monocle made this 5-minute film about the Hotel Okura in Tokyo. The whole thing is a wonder of 60s Japanese design. https://monocle.com/film/design/end-of-an-era/

Inspiration

Is Social Media Over?

That's a stupidly broad question, to which the answer is very obviously "no". But I can't be the only person who has grown to loathe the circular conversations and pointless fights on Twitter and Facebook and who has started avoiding Instagram because it just seems to be a lot of

Inspiration

Incredible picture of the Russian volcano eruption, taken from the ISS

Sharing this from Colossal: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/07/raikoke-eruption/

Writing Featured

Research material

Some research material for the second season of the podcast...

Inspiration Featured

Suzanne Moxhay

Suzanne Moxhay is an artist working with photographs, which is to say that she has an incredibly intricate process, inspired by the matte painting technique movies used to use.

Photography Featured

Suffolk Landscapes

At the end of last week, I spent a couple of days up on the Suffolk coast, on a research/inspiration trip for the second series of our Mystery Machine podcast. I also found some time to experiment with some landscape photography.

Photography

Some Amsterdam images

An impromptu evening visit to the NDSM wharf; an old dockyard being transformed into a cultural enclave and artists' colony. Pictures taken last year on a Fuji X-E3 with a 35mm lens. Starting off at going through Centraal Station to ferry at the backWaiting for the ferryCrossing the waterAn old

Inspiration

These images are incredible

Tennis Balls and Swim Caps Crowd the Frame in New Time-Lapse Compositions by Pelle Cass More to be seen at COLOSSAL [https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/05/new-photos-by-pelle-cass/]

Inspiration

Fugitive Writing Machines

The exciting news is that I have ordered a typewriter. It’s a Hermes 3000 which was manufactured in Switzerland in 1965 and is, I am reliably informed, “the Rolls Royce of typewriters”. This is a peculiar draw for me, as I’ve never had any interest in owning an

Inspiration

Digital Minimalism

I’m reading DIGITAL MINIMALISM [http://infodump.blog/] by Cal Newport, author of the excellent DEEP WORK. From the Amazon blurb: > The urge to pick up our phones every few minutes has become a nervous twitch that shatters our time into shards too small to be present. Our addiction to

Inspiration

California Typewriter

I finally caught up with the documentary feature CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER last night and now I’m obsessed with finding a good reconditioned typewriter (I have an old Remington Rand that weighs a ton, but I’m after a Smith Corona Silent or maybe a Hermes). This is the perfect documentary