Every weekday, I post–on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn–an essay (sometimes more than one) from my archive, along with new work published that week. I realised it might make sense to compile these links at the end of every week, so that readers who missed them at the time can catch up. Here’s an archive of these posts. I haven’t kept up with the updates since December of last year, mostly for health and other stress-related reasons, but I’ll post them more regularly from here on.
You’re welcome to follow me on any of these social media platforms, but please note that I’m no longer accepting new friend requests on FB unless I’ve met you and know you personally. You can, however, still follow me there without us directly “friending” each other.
Here are links to what I posted April 22-26.
I wrote a BRAND NEW essay: “On Palestine and Liberalism.”
April 26 is World Alien Day. I thought my 2017 “Killing You Softly with Her Dreams,” about Arianna Huffington’s sleep scam, was especially apt because I used the Alien as an organising principle. You’ll have to read through to the very last sentence.
“Exalted Slogans: The Curse of Radical Academic Discourse,” in Baffler, 2018, seemed especially relevant given the many current conversations about academic campuses and what counts as radical speech, or not.
My 2019 “Polyamory Is Gay Marriage for Straight People” remains the OG on the subject, thank you.
I wrote this, On Israel Killing Children, in 2021, and it remains sadly relevant. It doesn’t take a position you might expect me to take.
The 19th of April was the 200th anniversary of George Gordon Byron’s birth. I love “So We’ll Go No More a Roving,” especially after it appeared in a particularly poignant episode of Midsomer Murders. And many thanks to A.B for telling me about this Leonard Cohen rendition of the poem.
My next couple of months are tightly scheduled, nearly down to the hour. I aim to have a new essay out once a week, on average (sometimes, if I miss one, I’ll post two or more the following week). I haven’t sent my subscribers and supporters an update for a few years now but I plan on a very, very, big one in the coming fortnight. If you’d like that in your inbox, email me here or directly and I’ll add you to the list. I keep meaning to move over to Mailchimp and I have an account all ready to go but, sigh, life. It will happen.
I’m now off to continue listening to Taylor Swift’s newest (or, newests, it’s all very unclear). Bloomberg‘s Jessica Karl is right to point out that anyone who listens to these massive works overnight in order to write a review in a few hours can’t possibly have done the best job of listening. I’m sympathetic to writers who have to bang out such reviews at the speed of light, in the hope of adding to a resumé, in the hope of the next gig or a spot somewhere and so on and, yes, to be fair: what is a critic’s job but to review quickly and well? That’s done all the time with music concerts, movies, and television shows, but it does seem like the pace has accelerated a great deal at a time when readers expect reviews to drop almost simultaneously with an album.
Or do they?
More thoughts on the publishing world and its excesses and pressures, in the weeks to come.
And, as always: if you like and appreciate my writing and would like to see more of my unsponsored, ad-free, and extremely independent and radical work, please consider supporting me in some way. Money’s rather tight right now, so a financial donation and/or a subscription is especially welcome.
Image: Leon Spilliaert, Young Woman on a Stool, 1909.
