If You Want to Write, Learn to Walk
"Now I’ve got you, you nihilist! Sitting on your arse is precisely the sin against the Holy Ghost. Only those thoughts that come in walking have any value." Nietzsche
Writing
Substack Frustrates Me
Substack frustrates me like only a lover can get frustrated with his beloved.
It Suffocates. I get frustrated when I can't breathe. Substack frustrates me. It buries me with unknown authors who I want to read, but I can't possibly get to all of them.
Access
Sam Kriss: Drug Aficionado and Master Essayist
I don't know whether I'm impressed or appalled, and I can't tell if the writer is confessing or bragging.
But boy, Sam Kriss, a "British writer and dilettante," has written the most enjoyable essay of the year. The agnostic Kriss ("[m]
Small Talk: How to Cultivate the True Disposition of the Artist
Practice being an artist by being a good conversationalist
Bend It Like Orwell
Essay Rules from the Master
Introducing the Non-Story
I've been noticing a new type of Internet article: Sites making podcast episodes into news stories.
The gimmick's approach: A flashy "news-like" headline, followed by a story about the podcast's content, sprinkled with quotes, which give it the feel of a journalist
Pixel v. Print and Five Hard Novels
I ran across perhaps the most-enjoyable Medium.com pieces of the past few months: Five Insanely Difficult Novels (and Why They're Worth the Effort).
It, for me, is perhaps the quintessential online essay.
I agree with Joseph Epstein that there is something fundamentally different between reading print and
Has the Rabble Breached Another Wall in the Castle of High Culture?
The New Criterion properly considers itself an urbane journal of the arts. With this, comes a commitment to first-rate style, without regard to the Idiocracy that is overwhelming our culture.
But I saw something interesting (or disturbing, depending on whether one cheers this cultural secular bear market or condemns it)
Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase, by Arthur Quinn
How You Attend to the World Changes What You Find There
And if you attend sloppily, what you'll find is slop
Do you want to understand what you're thinking about? Then think as clearly about it as possible. Do you want to think clearly about something? Then think in clear terms.
On the flip side, if you