"I said, 'Your daddy loves you.' I said, 'Your daddy loves you very much. He just doesn't want to live with us anymore.'"
One of the reasons I started this curious and enthralling experiment with the newsletter format was to teach myself how to write again. And by "teach myself how to write again" I don't mean reacquainting myself with the dynamics of pacing and structure (although anyone who has subscribed since the beginning is no doubt herniating a disc in their neck right now through vociferous nodding at the idea that I could use a refresher course on those skills) so much as I am talking about getting over what kept me silent for so long, i.e. the fact that everything is written for clicks now and is so offensive and cynical and why would you ever bother to add to that putrid pile of poison? I am happy to say (although not super happy, because, frankly, what am I ever super happy about, everything is terrible right now and it's amazing that we not only accept that it's going to keep getting worse, we've lost our capacity for surprise at the accelerating pace of how horrible it's all become) that I have if not exactly conquered the gag reflex that keeps me from typing out my idiot thoughts and offering them up to whoever was dumb enough to subscribe (this would be the natural place to offer a reminder about how easy the people at Substack make it for readers to stop receiving these things) I have at the very least forced myself to choke down any number of those remonstrances that would have caused me to abandon a collection of my half-formed rants halfway through (which would make them, I guess, quarter-formed, although I was never that good at math so I could be wrong here). In any event, things were going along pretty well at the old writing-stuff-down-and-sending-it-out factory until "Game of Thrones" ended this week and the incessant, cataclysmic torrent of content reminded me of just how horrible the entire word-producing industry is right now. I used to think the worst thing about "Game of Thrones" was the way it made people jerk off about rape, but now I've realized the worst thing is the way it makes people jerk off about "Game of Thrones." It's disgusting on every single level, and even though it brings up so many subjects about which I'd love to talk with you, I cannot in good conscience do that today, when there are still so many nauseating exegeses out there, cascading gallons of vomit atop the unscalable mountains of shit in whose valleys we currently toil. (I have never watched an episode of "Game of Thrones" so if mountains of shit are an actual thing in the show I assure you my use of the term is purely coincidental.) In any event, I could not maintain even the minimal level of respect I have for myself (which mostly centers around the fact that I am not someone you see carrying around a battered copy of Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson and muttering to himself through the window of a Starbucks. Yet.) if I were to contribute even an ounce of puke to the deluge. So I will stay silent for a few more days in the hopes that even the late-take people will have said their final words about the subject by the time I’m ready to talk again. I thank you for your understanding, and I accept your thanks in return for my principled quiescence. I’m glad you know I’m doing it for you.
That’s all I’ve got, but until we speak again, when I start up the real newsletter, may I suggest that you spend some time with Paddy McAloon’s remarkable 2003 mini-symphony “I Trawl the Megahertz”? I can almost predict your immediate reaction to it, but let me just assure you that even though it seems like something which should not work, it will, and by the second or third time you listen to it—and you will listen two or three times, because you will want to go back and figure out how it’s happening—some of it will have you in tears but mostly your jaw will be slack in admiration. And if there’s anything I think we can all agree on, it’s that more jaws should be slack these days. Thank you for your attention.