I CLOSED MY EYES AND HEARD ELECTRIC WIZARD

Hard 8: Jarett Kobek, the Transcendental Layer, and Greenlights.

🖊️ AUTHOR NEWS

I’m writing a novel while editing a different novel.

The one I’m writing is THE COLLAPSE (Book 4). That will be the last Gold Coast book for the time being, and will be out in 2027. I’m still in the early drafting stage, maybe 15,000 words in.

THE CASINO is on its third edit. That book is Book 3 in the Gold Coast Quartet and it’s out early January 2026, via Ultimo Press.

Juggling both projects is always an interesting phase (by ‘interesting’ I mean difficult), but I’m ploughing through it. Stress levels are good.

There is a reason this…

🧘‍♂️ ADDRESSING MY BULLSHIT BY DIPPING INTO THE TRANSCENDENTAL LAYER

I have a day job at a university and the main thing I’ve learned from this is that academics are cooked in the head. Turns out putting a bunch of obsessives, strivers and teachers together in a neoliberal office environment is like self-selecting for mental illness. Our reputation is well deserved.

Thus, at my work, a bunch of researchers are investigating the effects of transcendental meditation on stress in academia. They’re doing this by teaching people like me to meditate.

I’m a few months into addressing my bullshit by dipping into the transcendental layer, but I have to say, it’s pretty fucking good.

Boiled down to its essence, transcendental meditation teaches you to take two breaks a day. That’s it. The practice is every bit as basic as a two-minute Google search will reveal: you say a mantra over and over again with your eyes closed, twice a day.

Turns out you need this spell, this little break, no matter who you are or what you’re doing. It's good for you.

Everyone needs a rest.

Twice a day.

📚 NEW JARETT KOBEK

Jarett Kobek has no social media and no desire to promote himself.

He just writes his books and puts his trust in a strange melange of cybernetics and astute book packaging. This is a guy who has sold 10,000 copies of his self-published XXXTentation book, and the thing virtually has no description on its Amazon page.

I’m almost loath to mention his new book — Invocation of My Demon Brother, about Kenneth Anger’s film — lest I pollute the occulted cultural loop that returns readers to his doorstep. At the moment, this thing is selling about 10 copies a day in the US and I have not seen a single mention of it online. I only know it exists because Jarett sent me an advance copy a few months back, and I figured, ‘Maybe it’s out by now? Let me check.’

Anyway, just buy it. He’s my favourite American writer. His new book is available here and here, and it’s really good. You should read it. Blah, blah, blah.

Here’s the blurb:

Clocking in at under 12 minutes, Kenneth Anger’s 1969 film Invocation of My Demon Brother is a terrifying journey into the rotten underbelly of the 1960s. Featuring a host of notorious San Francisco denizens—such as Bobby Beausoleil, later convicted for his involvement with the Manson Family murders, and Church of Satan founder, Anton LaVey—Invocation has been the source of much speculation and misinformation. And while this unforgettable screed of existential dread gives viewers a peek into both Anger’s own personal demons and the horrors lurking beneath the counterculture, it has never been explored within the context of the horror genre—until now.

Drawing on original interviews (including a new, in-depth interview with Beausoleil), unpublished archival research, a shot-by-shot analysis of the film, and the author’s personal relationship with the late director, Jarett Kobek’s Invocation of My Demon Brother illuminates the cultural significance—and unique horrors—of Anger’s seminal film and traces the myriad events leading up to one of the most notorious murders in American history.

“Insanely thorough research with Kobek's customary iconoclasm. One of the most idiosyncratic, in-your-face, and provocative biographies of a filmmaker.” – Thom Anderson, director of Los Angeles Plays Itself*

🚦GREENLIGHTS BY MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY

The thesis of Matthew McConaughey’s memoir is this: if you can manage it, be Matthew McConaughey instead of your sad little self.

This may sound like a bleak pitch, but there’s something refreshing about how goddamn honest this book is. This is a guy who is not like you. The very first thing he says on screen is ‘Alright, alright, alright,’ and he wasn’t even supposed to be a lead in that film. Such is the immediate, overpowering charisma of the man.

This charisma is so clear and effective in Greenlights — especially in the audiobook version — that you will not be beaten down by the facts of Matthew McConaughey’s glory. You will be charmed by it, as I was. You will locate in McConaughey some sort of platonic standard for holding your cards loosely.

We have a lot to learn, it seems.

Red light!

🏋️‍♂️ DOOM METAL AT THE GYM

I listened to Greenlights at the gym while trying to fight the effects of middle age. It was perfect for this, but I'm now trying to rebalance my psyche by listening to Dan Franklin’s book about heavy metal’s greatest purveyors of the red light: Electric Wizard.

It’s fucking bonkers. I’ll be posting about it for sure. I’m also enjoying a deep dive back into their catalogue. Great band. Their best album has an illustration of Satan pulling a bong on the cover.

🎧 CURRENTLY LISTENING

I’ve tried hardcore band Turnstile a few times over the years, but now that they’re going head-on into high-gloss pop, it’s finally working for me. The Michael Mann-styled shot of singer Brendan Yates on a jet ski unlocked it:

Also loving the most recent Viagra Boys record, Viagr Aboys. I know this is effective rock music because my children immediately respond to it. I also know that I’m capable of some B- parenting at times, because I have played them a Viagra Boys record multiple times. Oh well.

🧟 SKULL EYES (New Short Story)

Read it here.

They waited for her all day and night, out in the street. All of them infected, itching to get inside and kill us. But not to Anna. She coped by keeping it light. ‘My fans,’ is how she described them. ‘I do what I can for them.’

— IAIN

THE END IS HERE 👇