Isaac and Rebecca Spied Upon by Abimelech, 1518-1519, Raphael
In case you haven’t heard, Annie Dillard died. She was a sort of writer’s writer–your favorite writer’s favorite writer.
I haven’t read much Dillon, but I did have cause to read “Total Eclipse,” an essay published in The Atlantic in 1982. It always makes the rounds every time the US experiences a partial or full eclipse. The last eclipse in April 2024 was the first time I read it.
It is not hard to see why it gets sent around when the occasion arises. What this essay does with time is worth studying. Each minute of the full eclipse is accounted for as is her experience. There’s a pace to the essay. She keeps the reader close at hand, wrapping us in her marvel at the marvel before us all:
I turned back to the sun. It was going. The sun was going, and the world was wrong. The grasses were wrong; they were platinum. Their every detail of stem, head, and blade shone lightless and artificially distinct as an art photographer’s platinum print. This color has never been seen on Earth. The hues were metallic; their finish was matte. The hillside was a 19th-century tinted photograph from which the tints had faded. All the people you see in the photograph, distinct and detailed as their faces look, are now dead. The sky was navy blue. My hands were silver. All the distant hills’ grasses were finespun metal that the wind laid down. I was watching a faded color print of a movie filmed in the Middle Ages; I was standing in it, by some mistake. I was standing in a movie of hillside grasses filmed in the Middle Ages. I missed my own century, the people I knew, and the real light of day.
I’m sure I’ll get to her book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek at some point. Not anytime soon, but it’s on the longlist. I enjoyed this essay by Craig Mod on his platform, Ridgeline, about Dillard. The remembrances will continue.
Deaths like Dillard’s always bring a fresh deluge into my inbox from the Substack class. (I’m one of them, obviously.) But, it does highlight a few reasons why it’s hard for me to settle into a rhythm and why the “creating content” ethos is one of the more rotted mindsets our society has fostered. Posting and posting until you take off (hopefully) even if you have nothing worthwhile to contribute seems enervating.
I hate having the clattering of other voices in my head; I hate having to read the wisdom of others all the time; I hate there’s no distance between reader and writer. I find that I am less courageous or less willing to say the thing that I really want to say if I know the audience too well. Or, if they know me. It’s paralyzing.
It’s why I left Substack. Their insistence to use the app, to force me to interact with other Substacks who were “recommended” or substacks that were pushed onto this new “feed.” I’ll be happy if I never have to look at a new feed or consume another dashboard again in my life. It’s difficult to think through something if you have so many other perspectives competing within your own mind. Is this my idea? Is this actually what I feel?
But, more to the point: Substack got annoying. Have you ever tried to unsubscribe from a Substack? It’s maddening. Log into your account, hunt for the ‘stacks you follow, find the email lists the author has placed you on. Uncheck the boxes. It’s especially worse if the Substack writer is publishing a book. I’m now on at least 3 different email lists they’ve created to promo their book and their events–separate lists, of course. (I’m looking at you, Anand Giridharas.) Ick.
This is obviously an ongoing struggle and one I’ll have to really reckon with in the coming years as I make my little writerly way. But I enjoy Beehiiv’s complexity because I can hide behind it: “I have no idea what that button does, I don’t know what that means, and I won’t be finding out because I just want to write some things and send them out and maybe get some new followers.” Apparently this is a Thoreauvian mindset to have–wanting simple listserv functions.
I also enjoy that (for now) I am not auto-enrolled, suggested, or fed someone else’s page. We’ll see how long that lasts.
I obviously try to continue reading and sifting through the noise. It is still important to me to find new writing, new and interesting stories, and keep up with the world. To that end, here are some of my favorite pieces from the last couple of weeks:
The Nikole Hannah-Jones piece everyone is talking about.
There are many things to say and write about once you’ve read this essay. Most of them have been or will be said. Some smart, some in incredibly bad faith. I’ll land in the positive in that it is a measured reconsideration of what it means to live your values and how, sometimes, it is simply impossible absent whole-cloth systemic change.
What strikes me most about the piece is that we get a personal reflection, but not a career one. How did her personal reality catch her so off guard after reporting on education for so long? She channels this through her relationship with her daughter but not through her own work. Perhaps a bigger, longer story, but I sat mostly there.
I’m also curious about the backlash towards her because there are many parents who sacrifice their children’s education in service of their own political convictions. Homeschoolers, for example. They, of course, are not in the NYT like this, but it is interesting to see how the discussion changes around different types of people who make similar choices, etc.
The policy person in me is endlessly fascinated here by the role teacher unions play in this; that in urban districts like NYC and DC, educational success is not a funding issue; relaxing standards and claiming that tests are racist does not answer the essential issue that there are swaths of kids who can’t do math or read; parental involvement seems more of an indicator of a school’s wealth and resources (vibrancy) than it is determinative in a child’s education–even the highly educated and successful NHJ was not minutely tracking her child’s educational progress but was at PTA meetings, communicating with the teacher, principal. Is parental involvement that paramount, actually?
This piece on the importance of the group chat.
Billionaire escape hatches are real and they’re making dangerous choices for us all because they don’t intend to live with the consequences.
Daniel Kolitz is one of our great working prose stylists. (Seriously, I get writer’s envy.) Turns out, he cut his teeth in the content mines before the bottom fell out, and this essay on lending apps is eye-opening and chill-inspiring for any would-be freelancer. gulp
If you didn’t read his award winning piece last year on gooning, please do yourself a favor. I think about this piece regularly, so trenchant are its observations.
This essay on attention and Simone Weil and Schopenhauer.
I’ve been waiting for a version of this piece: sorority girls and their moms on GLP-1s. Body image is not always but can often be inherited.
A concert review in the London Review of Books on…Rosalia.
Dwight Garner is the leading hype man for Marlon James’ “The Disappearers.” I’ll be getting to this by the end of the year.
I’m finally getting around to Franzen’s The Corrections, and it really is stunning. Turns out I was right on time for its 25th anniversary. AO Scott wants to be me so bad!
Sorry, but Tom Cruise is interesting. IDK what to tell you.
Thanks for reading,
Aaron
