What can I say, should I pretend a diary entry is immune to critique simply because it’s a diary? In the genre of Samuel pepys and Basho (in Haibun) there can be found no immunity to criticism.
>for hosting the party and because I forgot to drink any water at all and because we were out till 3:45am, and that's what happens after 6 or 7 Fernets
The triple explanation is valley-girlesque, it is so because it is a type of ranting over-sharing which is not aesthetically minded, not narrative minded, not rhetorically pathos based, but based on trying to explain your feelings in a scatter-brained method. It’s never very pleasing especially when the voice doesn’t match the speaker.
>If you spend too much time selling1 your book on the internet, like I've had to do the past week—or really more than a week—you start to feel like you have no friends, only memetic rivals and weird antagonistic parasocial lurkers.
Why are you attempting to couch your personal feelings as if they were some universal proverbs and advice, this has no side scale applicability and you give us no wisdom other than following it with a further bath of emotion, why do you use the conceit of any universalization.
>There's one thing that makes you never want to write a book again: it's book promotion. Necessary but draining... task. Which entails trying to whip the algorithm... that governs... your book's fate. It's putting you in front of more eyeballs... across platforms. In addition to traditional tasks like... conducting interviews... appearing at readings, etc. This in addition to... round-the-clock, 365... promotion... and marketing for BCTR and iPlays. Maybe I'll stop teaching fiction and playwriting... and start teaching digital marketing. “
This doesn’t sound “””draining””” (could you use a more modern, limp-twisted, womanish expression? ) it reeks of IRC channels, fanfiction and so forth, I understand the desire is lethargy but… talking like this… trailing the every sentence… for what I don’t, I can’t… it’s just annoying it’s not skilled.
>The Sleepers isn't worth reading because of where it's set—New York—and because of the time period—2015—and because of the milieu—economically descendant Millennials.
I won’t comment on the novel becuase I’ve not read the novel nor will I comment upon their dismissal, what I will say though, is that leading with plot, locations, narrative, cultural milieu and so forth (as, let’s be honest, this diary entry is just as much advertisement as it is anything else you intended) is a terrible sign for the book. A book can be set anywhere in anytime and be about anything, the determining factors are quality of the writing, ideals behind the style of writing and style itself. When the author ignores these questions and makes the question of artistry in writing itself utilitarian to some ideal of pseudo philosophy (of which I do mean pseudo, while it may not apply to you, the generic writer of these is never capable of dealing with or explaining a systematic philosophy, they haven’t studied and thus find their rhetorically shaped feelings ought be reckoned the equal of the systematics and dedicated thinkers.) such an author admits he has nothing to offer but subpar writing full of topics ideas they do not grasp very well. Regardless I won’t lob these complaints at you directly, this is simply the genus it seems the work belongs.
“For the past four or five years, I've been online. I've been in the scene. I've been in the liminal, the media world and in Dime Square and the tech world and the crypto world and the literary world and the indie theater world and the Substack world. Sometimes I forget that I'm just in my world. A caring, decent, three-dimensional world amongst caring, decent, three-dimensional people. “
You’re so windswept! All of these layers and worlds! And the contrast of these harsh cold (highly regulated) internet spaces against the warm flesh and blood world! It’s just very bathetic, how can I not feel exaggerated bathos when the parallel is the “caring three dimensional world” with the implied cold, sterile, iron world. You’re not a martyr because you use websites. Hahaha.
“I'm finally getting my appetite back, so I take out some sourdough crispbread, some low-end liver pâté that I bought at Merton Williams, some farmer's market cheese.3 Make a little plate.”
I often don’t like to bring up questions of necessity and economy in writing, but I’m required to here. When you write you do a couple of things. You project a mannerism, you structure a voice, you cast images and produce hypnotic sound patterns that ideally harmonize with the labyrinth of conceptual and images selected. What am I supposed to get from this paragraph? That you shop at merton’s? That you’re caught up in the current TikTok trends popularizing sourdough? That you’re a fancy man who eats pâté? That you’re a hipster who loves the cheese at the farmers market? That you’re a journalist recording every inessential moment? That you contemplated your eating hung over? That you’re a son of pound and Williams that believes the particular profane holds the secret to the universal profound? Or, that you just had to do the writing equivalent of posting on instagram your plate of food to pad out the attention you can extract from people? Is that your earnest desire?
“That's the beauty of a book party After a while bookish people can stop worrying about sounding smart because they’re drunk enough to stop caring.”
Drop the Brett easton Ellis act, the contemporary scene in New York is full to the brim with a new culture of anti-intellectualism, grind-culture, fitness culture, adoration of physical fitness and the rugged in general has been in vogue since at least the 90s. The image of the turtle neck or v neck large brim black glasses wearing Frazier caricature is perhaps accessible if you lived in Seattle, but you’re a New Yorker, slurs and the low are all about you. When you pass the bodegas or enter the bodegas surely you don’t feel a drop of pressure to act as an intellectual, if you genuinely interact with any of your book party friends at any length in any sort of social setting, then the drinking and party culture of New York would have already dissolved these mental pressures you pretend to suffer from.
Trying to cash in on the midwit’s imposter syndrome is an ugly thing, sir.
“What books rarely seem to do—as they used to be able to do—is start arguments. Prove debatable, hard to judge accurately. “
No what books used to be able to do what they hardly are able to do when they are believed to be literary, is entertain and capture attention compared to other pastimes. No one was reading Hypnerotomachia Poliphili seeking arguments, they sought pleasures, no one was reading the golden ass for arguments, no one was reading love’s martyrs (written by Shakespeare and friends ) and expecting access into any arguments, no one was reading the works of Thomas Browne and expecting entrance to arguments. No, people read these works because it entertained them, if your work cannot entertain and cannot stand on the merit of entertainment, then you shouldn’t put the effort to widely spread it as a public entertainment.
“The Philistine is the person who could never, at any time, no matter the circumstance, recognize something that will last beyond a year—the person who has no real rubric for what is lasting and what is future pulp for the paper mill (other than what makes them feel good and self-assured and validates their smugness and their smallness). “
Yes yes because the philistine is the enemy of the public common taste to you, right?, the public opinion over the years is the sole judge of quality, right? the likes of starbuck Mayo amount to nothing before moby dick, and all of Herman Melville’s other works amount to nothing. Baudelaire’s favorites like aloysius Bertrand mean nothing because you never seen them on a 100 best books list compiled by popular vote. Absolutely ridiculous. Do you really think nothing has been lost to time or public opinion?
What can I say, should I pretend a diary entry is immune to critique simply because it’s a diary? In the genre of Samuel pepys and Basho (in Haibun) there can be found no immunity to criticism.
>for hosting the party and because I forgot to drink any water at all and because we were out till 3:45am, and that's what happens after 6 or 7 Fernets
The triple explanation is valley-girlesque, it is so because it is a type of ranting over-sharing which is not aesthetically minded, not narrative minded, not rhetorically pathos based, but based on trying to explain your feelings in a scatter-brained method. It’s never very pleasing especially when the voice doesn’t match the speaker.
>If you spend too much time selling1 your book on the internet, like I've had to do the past week—or really more than a week—you start to feel like you have no friends, only memetic rivals and weird antagonistic parasocial lurkers.
Why are you attempting to couch your personal feelings as if they were some universal proverbs and advice, this has no side scale applicability and you give us no wisdom other than following it with a further bath of emotion, why do you use the conceit of any universalization.
>There's one thing that makes you never want to write a book again: it's book promotion. Necessary but draining... task. Which entails trying to whip the algorithm... that governs... your book's fate. It's putting you in front of more eyeballs... across platforms. In addition to traditional tasks like... conducting interviews... appearing at readings, etc. This in addition to... round-the-clock, 365... promotion... and marketing for BCTR and iPlays. Maybe I'll stop teaching fiction and playwriting... and start teaching digital marketing. “
This doesn’t sound “””draining””” (could you use a more modern, limp-twisted, womanish expression? ) it reeks of IRC channels, fanfiction and so forth, I understand the desire is lethargy but… talking like this… trailing the every sentence… for what I don’t, I can’t… it’s just annoying it’s not skilled.
>The Sleepers isn't worth reading because of where it's set—New York—and because of the time period—2015—and because of the milieu—economically descendant Millennials.
I won’t comment on the novel becuase I’ve not read the novel nor will I comment upon their dismissal, what I will say though, is that leading with plot, locations, narrative, cultural milieu and so forth (as, let’s be honest, this diary entry is just as much advertisement as it is anything else you intended) is a terrible sign for the book. A book can be set anywhere in anytime and be about anything, the determining factors are quality of the writing, ideals behind the style of writing and style itself. When the author ignores these questions and makes the question of artistry in writing itself utilitarian to some ideal of pseudo philosophy (of which I do mean pseudo, while it may not apply to you, the generic writer of these is never capable of dealing with or explaining a systematic philosophy, they haven’t studied and thus find their rhetorically shaped feelings ought be reckoned the equal of the systematics and dedicated thinkers.) such an author admits he has nothing to offer but subpar writing full of topics ideas they do not grasp very well. Regardless I won’t lob these complaints at you directly, this is simply the genus it seems the work belongs.
“For the past four or five years, I've been online. I've been in the scene. I've been in the liminal, the media world and in Dime Square and the tech world and the crypto world and the literary world and the indie theater world and the Substack world. Sometimes I forget that I'm just in my world. A caring, decent, three-dimensional world amongst caring, decent, three-dimensional people. “
You’re so windswept! All of these layers and worlds! And the contrast of these harsh cold (highly regulated) internet spaces against the warm flesh and blood world! It’s just very bathetic, how can I not feel exaggerated bathos when the parallel is the “caring three dimensional world” with the implied cold, sterile, iron world. You’re not a martyr because you use websites. Hahaha.
“I'm finally getting my appetite back, so I take out some sourdough crispbread, some low-end liver pâté that I bought at Merton Williams, some farmer's market cheese.3 Make a little plate.”
I often don’t like to bring up questions of necessity and economy in writing, but I’m required to here. When you write you do a couple of things. You project a mannerism, you structure a voice, you cast images and produce hypnotic sound patterns that ideally harmonize with the labyrinth of conceptual and images selected. What am I supposed to get from this paragraph? That you shop at merton’s? That you’re caught up in the current TikTok trends popularizing sourdough? That you’re a fancy man who eats pâté? That you’re a hipster who loves the cheese at the farmers market? That you’re a journalist recording every inessential moment? That you contemplated your eating hung over? That you’re a son of pound and Williams that believes the particular profane holds the secret to the universal profound? Or, that you just had to do the writing equivalent of posting on instagram your plate of food to pad out the attention you can extract from people? Is that your earnest desire?
“That's the beauty of a book party After a while bookish people can stop worrying about sounding smart because they’re drunk enough to stop caring.”
Drop the Brett easton Ellis act, the contemporary scene in New York is full to the brim with a new culture of anti-intellectualism, grind-culture, fitness culture, adoration of physical fitness and the rugged in general has been in vogue since at least the 90s. The image of the turtle neck or v neck large brim black glasses wearing Frazier caricature is perhaps accessible if you lived in Seattle, but you’re a New Yorker, slurs and the low are all about you. When you pass the bodegas or enter the bodegas surely you don’t feel a drop of pressure to act as an intellectual, if you genuinely interact with any of your book party friends at any length in any sort of social setting, then the drinking and party culture of New York would have already dissolved these mental pressures you pretend to suffer from.
Trying to cash in on the midwit’s imposter syndrome is an ugly thing, sir.
“What books rarely seem to do—as they used to be able to do—is start arguments. Prove debatable, hard to judge accurately. “
No what books used to be able to do what they hardly are able to do when they are believed to be literary, is entertain and capture attention compared to other pastimes. No one was reading Hypnerotomachia Poliphili seeking arguments, they sought pleasures, no one was reading the golden ass for arguments, no one was reading love’s martyrs (written by Shakespeare and friends ) and expecting access into any arguments, no one was reading the works of Thomas Browne and expecting entrance to arguments. No, people read these works because it entertained them, if your work cannot entertain and cannot stand on the merit of entertainment, then you shouldn’t put the effort to widely spread it as a public entertainment.
“The Philistine is the person who could never, at any time, no matter the circumstance, recognize something that will last beyond a year—the person who has no real rubric for what is lasting and what is future pulp for the paper mill (other than what makes them feel good and self-assured and validates their smugness and their smallness). “
Yes yes because the philistine is the enemy of the public common taste to you, right?, the public opinion over the years is the sole judge of quality, right? the likes of starbuck Mayo amount to nothing before moby dick, and all of Herman Melville’s other works amount to nothing. Baudelaire’s favorites like aloysius Bertrand mean nothing because you never seen them on a 100 best books list compiled by popular vote. Absolutely ridiculous. Do you really think nothing has been lost to time or public opinion?
I’ve said my peace, do not take it personally.
Congrats. It is always great to get drunk heavily in those situations ("milestone drinking" I suppose).
First I've heard of Fernet.
I must investigate ...