If there is one thing I’m really happy about, it’s my writing. I’m exploring new topics and even genres and very happy stretching my muscles with all the new work I’ve got planned.
It’s October 1, and the weather is menopausal—hot flashes one second, cold winds the next. I’m looking forward to things, including the weather, settling down after a tumultuous year.
Lots of things have happened (you can read all about it in this previous post, “Death Is Your Gift,”), and lots of things will happen before the end of the year, and hopefully the latter will be all the things I want to make happen, including finally ending The Direness. So I’ll be busy,
But first, a few announcements:
MY WRITING
I wrote “On Caroline Calloway and Whole Foods,” with the self-explanatory title. In future months, look for more from me on writing and the publishing word, extending my previous work on scabs and academics. Excerpt:
“…you don’t become a writer by going viral. You become a writer by writing a lot of really good and bad work that often isn’t read by even hundreds at first or even ever…”
I also wrote a short piece, “On Philz Coffee in Hyde Park.” Excerpt:
“I shouldn’t have to endure quite that degree of preciousness over a morning cup, but this is coffee country: my thoughts are heresy, and they flay people for less.”
I will not be taking any outside assignments that are due before January 31, 2020. I have a couple of pieces that have to be finished (with the world’s most patient editors!), and once those are turned in, I’m focusing on work for my website. This is because I’ve realised I need to focus on a number of things, including the aftermath of my father’s death. It’s not so much that I need to mourn but that I need to sort through a lifetime of unsorted tangles, and that will take some time. I’m also keen on finishing up a number of independent projects, including the one on Jusse Smollett and another on R. Kelly. For a brief moment, I thought the two needed to be written about in one piece, especially given the Chicago connection, but I’m back to thinking and writing about them separately.
I’m really excited about these two works because they are about Chicago, a city I love and hate and whose beauty is both coldly elegant and devastatingly broken. I’m never giving up outside assignments: my work benefits immeasurably from being edited, and I like the challenge of writing for someone beside myself. So, yes, I’m still open to assignments, due after January 31, 2020. I’m also still doing podcasts and television appearances as well as presentations in Chicago or by skyping in elsewhere (my crap knee and other problems preclude travel for a bit). Do get in touch if any of that interests you (I’m very good on the radio and tv, or any version thereof—funny as fuck and irrerevent, without a touch of false modesty—and I really like meeting students in particular to talk about their and my work).
On a not-unrelated topic: I’m growing weary of what I call the “soft plagiarism” engaged in by academics and activists, many of whom are actually people of colour and even self-described radicals and leftists. As academia shrinks along with the non-profit industrial complex, more and more writers with institutional clout are scouring the feeds and public writings of people like me to see what they might be able to pass off as their own. In the next few months, expect some fierce writing from me on this matter, along with a taking of names.
MY LIFE
In terms of health: the cane is actually helping, a lot, with mobility and more. I’ve lost my ability to have the same kind of day every day, in terms of my waking and sleeping routines because pain and discomfort and stress come a-calling unbidden. But I’ve now learnt to deal with these. Where, before, I would mourn and fret over having “lost a day” if I couldn’t wake up at 6 or 7, I now just decide to figure out what I need to get done in a day and the week, and work later if I’m up at, say, 8 (unthinkably late for me). For instance, I’m writing this at 11 p.m at night, unthinkable some months ago, but I’ve had a spotty day with a nap or two, so this works out fine. Mind you, I’m still grumpy as hell about not being, at least for now, the classic early bird. I’ll get back to it eventually, once I iron out the most toxic parts of this stress. I really do love the early morning and I miss my old routine, which closely resembled that of an 80-year-old retired banker, minus his fat pension. But all in good time.
MY WRITING, AGAIN
If there is one thing I’m really happy about, it’s my writing. I’m exploring new topics and even genres and very happy stretching my muscles with all the new work I’ve got planned. I plan on turning out a piece for this website about every fortnight or so (my deadlines sometimes get extended if I realise something could really do with feedback from one or more of my trusted readers). In the next few months, expect work on Jusse Smollett, R. Kelly, Greta Thunberg, Carceral Feminism, Plagiarism by Activists and Academics, Avital Ronell and the European Graduate School, and more. Some, like the Smollett piece, will be long-form while others, like the one on Carceral Feminism, will be shorter, about 1500 words (listen: that’s short for me!).
Please note that pieces like the one on Calloway ordinarily take more time to produce, when written for regular publications where the turnaround is usually about a fortnight to a month. The Calloway story broke on September 10 and I had the piece up by September 20. Subscriptions or donations really help keep my work going!
And, meanwhile, here are some other pieces not by me that I thought you might enjoy.
This incredible, fantastic, much-needed interview with Jacques Lacan, from 1974, just republished on the Verso blog, “There Can Be No Crisis of Psychoanalysis.”
This amazing resource, “The 2019 Dis-Orientation Book,” produced by UCUnited, an undergraduate organisation at the University of Chicago, about the history of the university to its neighbourhood (spoiler: it fucks it up).
The Chicago Public Library is embarking on its own debt cancellation program, and removing fines altogether (except for a few unavoidable items).
Some people did research to conclude that cats are in fact sociable animals. To be clear: cats are social in different ways than humans or dogs, but, pfffft, this is news?
Image: Autumn Landscape with Four Trees, Vincent Van Gogh, 1885
Don’t plagiarise any of this, in any way. I have used legal resources to punish and prevent plagiarism, and I am ruthless and persistent. I make a point of citing people and publications all the time: it’s not that hard to mention me in your work, and to refuse to do so and simply assimilate my work is plagiarism. You don’t have to agree with me to cite me properly; be an ethical grownup, and don’t make excuses for your plagiarism. Read and memorise “On Plagiarism.” There’s more forthcoming, as I point out in “The Plagiarism Papers.” If you’d like to support me, please donate and/or subscribe, or get me something from my wish list. Thank you.
