E is Writing a Newsletter · Issue 01
E. is writing a newsletter because he just can't help it. For every bit of public writing you see, an armada's worth of more exists in private.
E. is writing a newsletter because he just can't help it. For every bit of public writing you see, an armada's worth of more exists in private. And writing a newsletter isn't a question of 'only the best things being made public' — if only E. could enjoy/appreciate that luxury. No. E. has to deal with the world as-is, not as it ought to be.
This is not the sole reason E. is writing a newsletter. He has given different people different reasons on different days. On some days, he would approvingly cite A Writer's Diary by Dostoyevsky, noting how wide its circulation had been in Russia. On other days, he would talk about the need to bring literature closer to the present tense, as it was a space — he argued — where the artform had sacrificed too much territory to movies, music, stand-up, and countless others — to say nothing of social media in and of itself. On yet other days, E. would mutter that he was just doing this to please The Algorithm Father. His husband and two children always looked at him with worry and concern whenever he said that, the former politely excusing himself into another room to call up E's friend Georgi Gospodinov and say — whenever this happened — "He's doing it again."
E. is writing a newsletter because he finds all the writing about how to read tiresome. He finds Milan Kundera's The Art of the Novel tiresome. He finds Not To Read by Alejandro Zambra tiresome. He is exhausted by Dostoyevsky Reads Hegel in Siberia and Bursts into Tears by Laslo F. Foldenyi. He already knows how to Meander, Spiral, and Explode. He dreads the prospect of going birdwatching with Anne Lamott. He hears the slyly smirking, David Sedaris-like cynicism of the previous thought and finds himself wanting to drive language itself into oncoming traffic. Why let things be smooth?
He is annoyed by the attention someone like Peter Coviello got for writing about Zohran Mamdani in LitHub. He is surprised that Jess Row's White Flights didn't get the attention Elaine Costello got for How To Read Now, as the former struck him as being the better book. He is aware of how little of this matters and imagines his graying beard bursting into further flower-like blossoms of even deeper gray.
E. is starting a newsletter because he understands that to exist in the mainstream in this moment is to be a brand. Given that, he is planning to design a custom suit in which the words of Naomi Klein's No Logo cover the jacket, the pants, the socks, and even the shoes.
E. is writing a newsletter because he wants to share with you the books he's been reading, the shows he's been watching, the films he's been consuming, the podcasts he's been listening to, the spiritual chicken feed that rushes over him — and, by extension, us — in a constant deluge, the slop that was slop before folks online began using the phrase 'AI slop,' but slop in the name of what? E. turns to The Algorithm Father for guidance once again — sends up memes as prayers — but is only met by The Algorithm Father's silence. The Algorithm Father is not yet pleased. Has The Algorithm Father ever been pleased?