Studio Update
Hello, friend. Curious about what I’ve been up to? This update is for you.
I have to admit, however, that the title is a bit misleading, as I don’t have a studio as such, though I love the thought of it and have always wanted one. When I think of a studio space, I envision a gigantic, sun-filled room with crumbling, exposed brick in a converted factory, and an old, beat-up desk where I sit with monk-like focus 12 hours a day banging away at a typewriter.
Sounds nice, eh?
Well, I don’t have that, but my setup isn’t half bad or anything. I have a desk, which is a good start, though it often does double duty as my work desk, so there’s two laptops and an assortment of notecards and notebooks scattered around it. If I turn my head to the left, there’s my bed, to the right is my closet.
It’s a room with a door where I have the space to write stuff, which is really all I need. The only thing I really struggle with these days is getting (and then staying) focused.
Focus is increasingly hard to come by. You may have noticed.
There’s a kind of sickness in our culture that insists we must be reading, digesting, and responding to a relentless barrage of news, newsletters, substack posts, NYT Op-eds, Discord chatter, Facebook and Twitter posts, Twitter posts turned into Instagram posts, whatever’s happening on Tik-Tok, along with personal and professional messages via text, Gchat, Slack, Teams, LinkedIn and so on.
At a certain point, more inputs make the world far less coherent, not more. And yet I find myself subscribing to more things, even as they pile up unread in my inbox, to the point that my inbox has begun to feel like its own social channel and quite often just the subject line of an incoming message is enough to stoke a nice little spell of anxiety.
It can be a bit overwhelming, is what I’m saying. And if I had to guess, you’re in the same boat. That’s because it is overwhelming, especially right now.
This is all just to say that I am still writing, though it’s been touch-and-go as of late. And that I’ll continue to write and publish pieces in this space, I’m just not sure what they’ll be or how often they’ll happen.
I enjoy writing non-fiction articles and plan to write more, but frankly they take an enormous amount of time and energy and often require me to engage with the news in a way that is not totally healthy.
I’ve also realized that I’m never going to be a guy who’s churning out the substack-recommended two (2) articles per week, pushing those articles on twitter, getting in twitter spats about said articles, and basically spending my days online cajoling people to read what I’ve written.
I enjoy working slowly and taking my time to think through ideas, with the hopes that when I do finish a bit of writing, it has half a chance of turning out to be something I’ll look back on years or even decades from now and feel good about—and not just be a bit of spittle that adds to the rapidly evaporating pool of frenzied responses to some ephemeral hullabaloo.
I also really enjoy writing fiction and “associative essays” (I’m calling them), which I expect to publish more of soon, and am considering creating a sub-list for those who want to read a serialized fantasy novella I wrote a decade ago (The Giant), and another sub-list for those who’d like to hear me read other people’s books out loud a few pages at a time. More on that soon (maybe).
But let me just say that I am incredibly thankful for you. Thank you for reading what I write. It’s meant a lot to me.
What I’m reading:
Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, a book that uses statistics and behavioral studies involving decision making to show how we’re constantly fooled by anecdotes, random events, and compelling but wrong narratives. Fascinating stuff.
The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation, by Chogyam Trungpa, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher who founded Naropa University in Boulder. His most famous student is Pema Chodron. The book is really great, and I have no idea what it’s about.
Leaves of Grass (First Edition), by Walt Whitman. We all know what this is, but it’s much stranger and better than I’d imagined it.
What I’m watching:
John Oliver on Tech Monopolies. Funny and well put together segment on why Big Tech companies are monopolies, how they abuse their monopoly power, and why antitrust action is long overdue.
Severance. Classic sci-fi meets corporate dystopia. This show creeped me out in a way I don’t typically get creeped out.
Seinfeld, a show about nothing less than the last age of American innocence, centered on the daily hijinks of four close friends living in pre-9/11 New York City.
The Richard Linklater collection, on the Criterion Channel, which is extremely good and features movies like Tape, Bernie, A Scanner Darkly, and Boyhood. You should really subscribe immediately.
Better Call Saul, a prequel to Breaking Bad starring Bob Odenkirk, former Saturday Night Live writer and star of a hilarious, low-budget comedy show on HBO in the 90’s called Mr. Show. Having followed Odenkirk’s career for about twenty years now, it’s hard to describe how wonderfully strange it is to see Bob Odenkirk become a revered, serious actor.
Ted Lasso, which is pretty funny and light, providing a needed palate cleanse from, well, just about everything these days.
That’s all for now.
How’s your summer going?