What I Found Out About You this Afternoon
I’m in the Blankie Fort with ALL THE DATA
Hello there! — I’m sitting here, agog over the reader replies to my August Reader Survey.1
I’ve never asked, “Who the heck are you?”
I should do this more often.
I heard from a couple hundred of you. You’ve come to life in my eyes; I feel like I finally met the people at my own party.
I was surprised at the survey data. Then I pinched myself: “Why should I be shocked? They’re fellow travelers.”
The reason I was unprepared is embarrassing. Revelatory, actually.
You see, for decades I worked for mainstream periodical and book publishers, where editors are asked to focus on certain “hot” temporal audiences.
“Give me youth!” they cried. “Canine ASMR is the new Black. Find an income bracket who lives, loves, and laughs.”
One is always chasing an ineffable other.
I mislaid my mojo, my ability to relax and talk about what is close to me.
You know the Hospice Nurse story I ran yesterday? I only decided to publish it, because of your survey replies.
In the past, I would’ve thought, “Oh, I don’t want to bum out my poor readers, talking about death, it will seem macabre.”
But my survey told me, fuck that.
Practically everyone reading this newsletter either faces their parents’ end of life, or their own. Maybe both. They also remember AIDS, all too well. We talk about death and dying as a matter of fact.
You’re mostly GenX and Boomers. I’m on the cusp.
Armed with this confidence, I ran the hospice story, and you responded with emphatic recognition.
I’m never going to be reticent again. (She vowed).
Take a look at my survey results — I’ve stripped the names, it’s only the interesting descriptions. You gave me so many great story ideas and books I need to read; it will take me a year to catch up.
The Hot Tub Time Machine Book Rack
I have wondered in the past, if my readers might be annoyed by my Janey-Come-Lately critic’s column.
I often review titles that are “dated,” or out of print, in addition to the new releases.
Again, my doubts sprang from the lit-crit industry where I once toiled. There, the emphasis is on the NEW. A writer cannot go to her editor and say, “I just read a book that came out 5 years ago, and I want to write about it.”
No way. Not unless it’s a classic and the title’s been repackaged as a Monopoly set. (Hmm, Moby Dick Monopoly Edition. Look into that).
My survey shows that you and I share the broader view.
You all are insanely well-read. Reading pigs. High and low culture, you love it all. —Classics, new bestsellers, esoteric stuff you just found.
My favorite reply to what you’re reading? Someone suggested, “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.” I’ve ordered it.
We are similarly voracious with music, movies/TV, listening of all kinds. Ears and eyes=very busy. It’s a big part of our day, the life of the mind. Crucial to how we keep going, eh?
Many of you are artists yourselves. And when we witness the deaths of others we respect, we like to re-read everything about them. The generation of artists we’re losing, matters to us. We’re not turning the lights out.
News Bitches
Onto the “news”— we have an ambivalent and hostile relationship with modern media, to say the least. It’s not sentimentality about Walter Cronkite— we’re waaaaay beyond that. We know the end of a free press, and local press, is the end of something far bigger.
I’m someone who spent decades making column inches of the old media sausage, and many of you are veterans, too. We are blown away by what happened to that world, however flawed, that we once took for granted.
This urgency— which I saw in your replies— is why we are consumed with history, ancient and recent. We are determined to seek, to eschew the fake, and respect credible sources. Thank you for sharing what you find. It’s a nightmare out there.
The Underwear Drawer Question
Survey-wise, you’re about half women, half men, half-butch, half-femme.
This too is a welcome reprieve from my old media life, where writers are steered toward the PINK box, or the BLUE. No mixing.
You would not believe the crap I’ve heard from editors on this unyielding line of demarcation.
Well, okay, you would.
My first media story that got killed2 was at Rolling Stone. They wanted a titillating feature on the meme of “lesbian until graduation.”
It was intended for men. Young horny men. Which, in itself, no biggie. Every dog has its day.
RS thought they would cover their PC ass by having a woman like me write the story.
Well, “a woman like me” is going to do things a little different. I told them, “Okay, I have the fresh data for you, and it’s this: It’s not just LUG, it’s also FUG. I have the interviews to back it up.”
Young men were experimenting and losing their various virginities in college in the same numbers as women, perhaps more so. Young people, the moment they don’t have parents breathing down their neck and are surrounded by other horny young people, are going to TRY THINGS.
Sometimes it sticks. Sometimes it will be a fleeting period, a cherished “one-time,” or a closeted memory, forever. It changes. It’s not a prank.
In other words, it’s humanity, and the variety of what it signifies to come into your own erotic life. I thought it rocked.
My editors at RS just about died. No way were they going to run a “fag until graduation” story, although wouldn’t it have been fun? Whatever happened to being the voice of a generation?
Location, Location
My survey shows you’re all over the map. I wondered it it would be California-heavy, but that was not the case. Hello, Canadian comrades; Hello, international ex-pats.
I’ve lived all over the world, and so have you.
When I’ve written stories about life in Hollywood, or Detroit, or Louisville, Edmonton, Ithaca, Mexico City or Montpelier — I’ve found readers, who can relate. I love our highway.
I think most of my readers live in urban centers, or university towns (like Santa Cruz, my home) where we get the whiff of big city culture. The few of you who are more isolated, I’m honored to be in your digital realm.
My survey garnered a couple hundred replies.You take one reply, one dot on the map, and imagine it multiplied. It proves to be true. I learned that, too, in my trad publishing life. My sample probably speaks quite accurately about my audience.
Without Fear, My Exploding To-DO List
I have a list of things I haven’t dared write about, because I thought it would be unwelcome.
No more. You are about to get served:
More Food, More Leisure Hours. You guys have great taste buds. Why am I holding back?
S/F/F, horror, noir, and other genre-defying reads. My life in publishing S/F authors, especially the dead ones, is frankly WILDER than my reading of it.
The hacks and whacks of Old Folks. The elder view of our last half. We know everything, and we hurt everywhere. I have insights . . . I have hopes in jars.
Sex. I’m still getting used to the fact I can write and illustrate sex on the Stack, without getting sent off to the pokey, or to shadow-ban hell. I shall do more of that.3
MORE History— first as tragedy, then as farce.4 We live in Era of the Farcical Anthropocene.
Classical music, lost Lomax tapes, punk rock and funk review— as much music as I like. Your taste is eclectic, so is mine. More to come.
I gotta read that satirical Ukrainian Tractor novel. Will report back soon. . .
In Case You Missed It
American Radical Inheritances: From Kenneth Rexroth to Coretta Scott King
Kenneth Rexroth Saw The High Water Mark Where the Wave Finally Broke
I sent out my first “reader survey” to my Stack subscribers a couple weeks ago, asking who everyone was, where they lived, etc. It’s over now, but I’ll do another one soon; it was fun.
Having a story “killed” in journalism lingo, means the client/magazine refuses the final copy, they don’t want to work on it any longer— But they then pay you a kill fee, per your contract, which can be quite large. This was an innovation of union contracts, OF COURSE. I think I was offered 5k for the RS story, and the kill fee was half. It is fair to compensate the writer even if it’s disappointing you don’t get your story out.
This one will be the hardest. Substack is not immune to cracking down on speech, in fact, they behave more like other Internet publishers than they are different. If they feel squeezed, they will suppress sexual speech, it’s always the first to go. So I am cautious and I will probably have to put up article paywalls to keep the puritanical looky-loo’s out.
Marx's two most recognizable quotes appear in one rather unknown essay. The first is on history repeating itself: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.”
The second quote: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living."
I can see that RS editor freakout like it's in the room with me. I caused one of those, back in the day. Luckily, my piece ran.
I didn’t even answer the survey and this is all spot on!😂