10 things worth reading.
I usually do these recommendation posts at the weekend and with a paid subscriber section but this is a free-for-all...
Previously: Tom Newton Done.
One of Murdoch's most reliable puppets finally gets his strings cut after 19 years and countless chances to mend his ways...
Here are some classic articles I’ve re-read recently that I think you’ll enjoy + some pieces from the last month that you might have missed. There’ll be a new, original edition of the newsletter over the weekend.
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1. James Baldwin, The Art of Fiction No. 78
The Paris Review, interviewed by Jordan Elgrably (1984)
INTERVIEWER
When you were much younger, what distinctions did you make between art and protest?
BALDWIN
I thought of them both as literature and still do. I don’t see the contradiction which some people point out as inherent, though I can sense what Ralph, among others, means by that. The only way I could play it, once indeed I found myself on that road, was to assume that if I had the talent, and my talent was important, it would simply have to survive whatever life brought. I couldn’t sit somewhere honing my talent to a fine edge after I had been to all those places in the South and seen those boys and girls, men and women, black and white, longing for change. It was impossible for me to drop them a visit and then leave.2. Why They Aren’t Writing the Great American Novel Anymore
Esquire, Tom Wolfe (1975)
… the all-time free-lance writer’s Brass Stud Award went that year to an obscure California journalist named Hunter Thompson who “ran” with the Hell’s Angels for eighteen months—as a reporter and not a member, which might have been safer—in order to write Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. The Angels wrote his last chapter for him by stomping him half to death in a roadhouse fifty miles from Santa Rosa. All through the book Thompson had been searching for the single psychological or sociological insight that would sum up all he had seen, the single golden aperçu; and as he lay sprawled there on the floor coughing up blood and teeth, the line he had been looking for came to him in a brilliant flash from out of the heart of darkness: “Exterminate all the brutes!”3. Flirt School
The Cut, Bindu Bansinath (2023)
I realized I’d probably never been a good flirt; rather, a two-bit sexter incapable of striking up meaningful conversation. I had to get better at flirting, or at the very least, better at talking, and I’m not the only one who’s desperate for a hack. On TikTok, relationship experts peddling their “juiciest flirting tips” recommend buying perfume that makes you smell “as close as humanly possible to a doughnut,” citing a study suggesting that the scent increases blood flow to the penis. (Or, if that’s too tame, wearing your own vaginal fluids as perfume, known as vabbing, which supposedly attracts partners by broadcasting your pheromones out to the greater public.)
People are reaching for more old-fashioned methods too. Earlier this summer, Miriam Makalia Vance, a 28-year-old who works at an indie press, designed and printed her own cards to hand out to potential suitors: Hi, I think you’re cute, they read, with her Twitter handle and phone number at the bottom. If you think I’m cute too, get in touch. Vance doesn’t consider herself a bad flirt — she just wanted to do something different from the apps, avoid missed connections with cute subway strangers, and sidestep the general creepiness of approaching them. When we spoke, she hadn’t yet handed out any of her cards. She was thoroughly roasted after tweeting about them and worried that recipients would post screenshots online: “Oh my God,” Vance imagines her prospects saying, “This uggo gave me her card.”4. Ted Chiang on Writing
Boing Boing, Avi Solomon (2010)
You have very specific views on the difference between magic andscience. Can you talk about that?
Sure. Science fiction and fantasy are very closely related genres,and a lot of people say that the genres are so close that there'sactually no meaningful distinction to be made between the two. But Ithink that there does exist a useful distinction to be made betweenmagic and science. One way to look at it is in terms of whether a givenphenomenon can be mass-produced. If you posit some impossibility in astory, like turning lead into gold, I think it makes sense to ask howmany people in the world of the story are able to do this. Is it just afew people or is it something available to everybody? If it's just ahandful of special people who can turn lead into gold, that impliesdifferent things than a story in which there are giant factorieschurning out gold from lead, in which gold is so cheap it can be usedfor fishing weights or radiation shielding.
In either case, there's the same basic phenomenon, but these two depictions point to different views of the universe. In a story where only a handful of characters are able to turn lead into gold, there'sthe implication that there's something special about those individuals.The laws of the universe take into account some special property thatonly certain individuals have. By contrast, if you have a story in which turning lead into gold is an industrial process, something that can bedone on a mass scale and can be done cheaply, then you're implying that the laws of the universe apply equally to everybody; they work the same even for machines in unmanned factories. In one case I'd say the phenomenon is magic, while in the other I'd say it's science.
Another way to think about these two depictions is to ask whether the universe of the story recognizes the existence of persons. I think magic is an indication that the universe recognizes certain people as individuals, as having special properties as an individual, whereas a story in which turning lead into gold is an industrial process is describing a completely impersonal universe. That type of impersonal universe is how science views the universe; it's how we currently understand our universe to work. The difference between magic andscience is at some level a difference between the universe responding toyou in a personal way, and the universe being entirely impersonal.5. Ursula K Le Guin: 'I wish we could all live in a big house with unlocked doors'
The Guardian, interviewed by Bryan Hood (2016)
“Realism is a genre – a very rich one, that gave us and continues to give us lots of great fiction,” the 86-year-old writer told the Guardian. “But by making that one genre the standard of quality, by limiting literature to it, we were leaving too much serious writing out of serious consideration. Too many imaginative babies were going out with the bathwater. Too many critics and teachers ignored – were ignorant of – any kind of fiction but realism.”6. A love letter to those grieving: You are not alone.
The Daily Tar Heel, Georgia Roda-Moorhead (August 2023)
My mom told me that when she picked up my little sisters from school, she asked if they were OK. Apparently, her visible distress confused them.
"Why wouldn’t we be? Mom, it happens all the time."
We are the Sandy Hook generation. We grew up crouching behind desks in pitch-black darkness, as our teachers barred the doors shut in case a "scary person" stepped on campus.
This epidemic has only worsened over time: The Gun Violence Archive counted 645 mass shootings in 2022 alone. It is truly no wonder that my generation has become so desensitized to gun violence we make jokes about it. While I am a proponent of using humor to cope with trauma, some events simply are so devastating that they cannot and should not be funny.
The people who say this is just another day in America are right. But does this have to be just another day?7. Paxman answers the questions
The Guardian, interviewed by Matt Wells (2005)
Cynicism is a topical subject. For, although this rare interview was arranged earlier, it occurred a couple of days after the BBC chairman Michael Grade gave a speech that was reported in the Times as having called time on the Paxman school of interviewing. The story irked Paxman. In fact, Grade did not mention him by name. Instead, there was one paragraph, in a lengthy speech outlining the values to be ascribed to BBC News, in which Grade said the BBC should avoid "slipping into the knee-jerk cynicism that dismisses every statement from every politician as, by definition, a lie. Scepticism is a necessary and vital part of the journalist's toolkit. But when scepticism becomes cynicism it can close off thought and block the search for truth."
Paxman says he agrees completely. "There isn't a word there that I dissent from. I wrote to the Times pointing out the idiocy of their reporting on it. I very much doubt they'll print the letter, but there we are." Yet it is clear why the story appeared - the line, sometimes wrongly attributed to Paxman, that he approaches every interview by asking of himself the question: "Why is this lying bastard lying to me?"
In fact, the statement was made by Louis Heren, a former deputy editor of the Times, in his memoirs. Paxman once quoted it but says now that he does not hold to it as a watchword for broadcast interviews. "Do I think that everybody you talk to is lying? No, I do not. Only a moron would think that. But do I think you should approach any spokesman for a vested interest with a degree of scepticism, asking 'why are they saying this' and 'is it likely to be true'? Yes of course I do."8. Luton’s Kenilworth Road… A Premier League stadium like no other
The Athletic, Omar Garrick (August 2023)
“A lot has changed since then but I’m worried about the London teams causing damage,” John added.
“No one will like coming to our ground though. I remember seeing Stanley Matthews (one of England’s greatest-ever footballers) here and he hated it.”
Going back down Oak Road will take you to Faisal Mohammed’s house, to the right of gate six-seven and near the matchday store. The 20-year-old has lived here for seven years. “I don’t follow it often (football),” he says. “There are a lot of police, especially on a matchday. That can sometimes be a bit intrusive." 9. Forever Hardcore: The Story of Terry Funk
Post Wrestling, John Pollock (August 2023)
Funk sacrificed his physical well-being for the paying customer, treating the exchange as the way the business moves forward and keeps the audience coming back. Whether he gutted his way through a 1989 program with Ric Flair nursing a broken sacrum, entering the decade of the ‘90s with deteriorating knees, and a bad back, or making a booking immediately after hernia surgery, Funk gave life to the pro wrestling industry while mortgaging his own.10. Assignment: Sinatra
Airmail, Gay Talese (August 2023)
Sinatra stood silently sipping bourbon, and except for occasionally flicking his gold lighter under the extended cigarette of one of his female companions, he otherwise ignored them. He also said nothing to Durocher or Dexter standing nearby. I was reminded of how the TWA attendant, Betty Guy, had described Sinatra to me earlier: a lonely-looking individual sitting at the window seat sipping bourbon, avoiding everybody around him—so different from the friendly and vivacious figure that she had seen on other TWA flights. “Jekyll and Hyde.”
But to me on this occasion, he seemed for the most part to be anxious and impetuous. I say this because when the phone rang at the bar and the bartender was slow in answering it, being several steps away putting drinks on a waiter’s tray, Sinatra suddenly rose on tiptoes and reached out to grab hold of the white, Bakelite, push-button landline resting on a towel on the far side of the bar. Holding the mouthpiece to his lips, Sinatra then curtly said, “Hello.” Without identifying himself, he listened for a second to the person on the other end, and then, after laying the phone down heavily on the bar, yelled in the direction of the bartender: “George, it’s for you.”Thanks for reading. X/Twitter is one of the main ways people find this newsletter so please consider sharing it there…
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