2026-08-05

so, i return. like some odysseus to the page. the blinking cursor, that waits like the waiting hand, to write and having writ moves on.

i'm in sigoules with sylvie, cheryl and xavier. nearing the end of a month together. today is overcast, a welcome break in the heat. even if not in the extremes of the high 30s, the last days have been "etouffante" – suffocating. At the end of the days, the heat has lain on the land like a blanket, making it hard to move, to go outside.

we are without air-conditioning. but carefully stewarded, the stone walls of the farmhouse can hold their cool into the evening until the temperature begins to drop again.

now that it is summer, the air is sprinkled with dutch and english as much as french, at least here at the cafe.

what calls me to its creation, what does the whole want?

maybe more than anything, it simply invites the act, the pathway of words on the page, shots on the screen. and, more than that, joy, a playfulness in it. however hard that is. however much that seems alien not only to me, but so many who make. making films is like watching grass grow. the making is so much estranged from the experience: hours or days to make a few seconds. a million dollars spent per minute.

And I am committed to defying that inexorable logic. trust the joy. trust the eros (that word once so alien is growing on me; maybe we do need to re-appropriate it from the erotic, which itself needs rescuing from the pornographic).

and at the same time, we makers need timelines, commitments (to others) to encourage us to let our never-finished creations go. to let them flow and thrive (and die) in the world and minds of others.

• History in Bits
• Second Axial Age
• Dreams of Future Beautiful
• The Nihilist
• A Once and Future God
• Meditations on Moloch: Collective Action and Better Futures
• More, so much more