The raspberries of christmas. You’re welcome.
Let’s get a few things straight before we begin. I’m not angry. I’m not even pissed off, which is a fairly typical state for a New Yorker, ex- or not. I’m just curious.
I’m one of the new guys around here and I’m attempting to engage directly. Whether that is for or against the rules is beside the point. I’m supposed to pander for a few contributions from strangers but I don’t feel like doing that right now. I figure the readers will come if I can string a few interesting images together in a row. Maybe si, maybe non.
Nice out there where you are ? Nice over here. Penniless and alive, which I believe leads to the famous line that appears on every internet quote page, for those too lazy or brain-addled to read the book. “I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive.” Henry Miller, of course. Writers, you know, sometimes cranks, extremists, difficult people, sometimes heartbreaking witnesses to what’s happening right in front of our noses. Breslin or Miller or John Fante, to mention a few whose names come to mind, the latter having written The First Time I Saw Paris which may not be the the last word on the city but is good enough to lay most writers, this one included, out in the long grass. Refuse to blow your brains out on the news today ; instead, why don’t you see if you can find Fante’s seven-page masterpiece out there on the world wide webster. Good luck…
Let’s get down to business, shall we? I came on this site because of a writer I admire and because it seemed to be keen to have other writers, not just opinators, bloviators and help gurus of various orthodoxies. I’m not trying to sell to Mr. And Mrs. America – who barely know what Europe is – but to few dozen humanoids out there who’d like to hear about France and European life on a regular basis. Readers who might have questions that bother them – those are the best kind.
I’m taking the big risk that English-language readers might be interested. Not a sure sell.
Substack is not a glitzy site with the begging bowl out, or the other one that serves mashed potatoes and calls it brainfood. It may provoke a few operative brain waves from time to time.
So just two little questions that, like the dentist says, won’t hurt. Too much. Let’s just do them quickly and then everyone can run to the festivities. We’ll skip the one about why there isn’t anyone who can answer questions, why there are only Helpful Articles. So standard at websites I guess it’s not worth asking. Nobody home. Too busy.
But what about keywords. We get three keywords for our entire substack opus. Not by individual articles, no way. How long have you been around ? Have you checked other sites ? It’s not so very hard to facilitate or set up or optionalize, or whatever the going expression is. Give us keywords for each article. Not hard. We aren’t all Taibbi and we don’t all have ready-made audiences. I wrote to you on the 9th of December about this and never received a response. Très interactif !
Keywords. Small thing. Can be done.
Two. Why is there is no real front page ? Yes, yes, I know you’re not a newspaper, I’m not an idiot. A front page assembled not by algorithm but by living hands that tries to move the focus around to different writers or artists on the site. That looks appealing, that grabs people’s attention. The last I looked, after I (and one assumes others) huffed and puffed, was a list of blogs you could scroll down. Wow! Never saw one of those before. So attractive. So imaginative.
You have new people, lots of new people you say, and so you provide several kinds of lists. The eye rolls.
Take a look at the competition. See what they do, come up with your own ideas. Resist conformity. Rather than another list, chose a little bit. 365 days in the year. You could search out provocative writers or artists here, give them a little play. It might even attract a few new people outside the Zone to Substack. You never really say why you can’t do that, your Helpful Email. It just says, lots of new people. Do you not have a reader ?
Because right now, if I have little way of knowing who’s on substack, neither does the public. Because searches are not exactly thrilling and this is what I got :
(I accept that I am not nearly interactive enough and by not having a bigger presence on other venues, diminish my chances here. A given, conceded. To be rectified in the short term. Do I need to shout that I am not complaining about a lack of readers ? )
That’s it. I’m aware how many people live in a critique-free zone these days, where everything is on about their me-ness (see Medium) so I hope you can take it. Have a grand Saturnalia, an old tradition that could due with revival and a wicked New Years along with.
From love and exile
jg
p.s. On finishing A Novel After Five Years, Going To England To Hunt Up A Publisher And Immediately Being Mistaken For Another James Graham will be up later this week. It’s a jumping little record you’ll want your jockey to play. It skewers (very out of style) and it will maybe provoke a few suppressed titters in the dark. After that, we retool and return mid-January with a new line-up. All best my little beasties
This is cute. Thanks. G.
In your fourth paragraph, you write,
"I came on this site because of a writer I admire and because it seemed to be keen to have other writers, not just opinators, bloviators and help gurus of various orthodoxies."
If possible, please identity the writer you are referring to.
I think your suggestions re substack are well-taken
I think I have angered the folks that run this site. My questions are generally not answered.
A writer on substack once answered some of my questions, but I met him on a thread that has been retired by substack. I don't recall his screen name and I don't know how to get in touch with him.
And this brings me to another point, which, unfortunately, is not what your thread is about. And that point is the tenuousness and frailty of human connectedness on the internet. For example, I noted that because of one arguably minor, ministerial act by someone who works at substack, namely the retiring of an old thread, I can no longer contact someone with whom I had once corresponded.
And that prompts this realization: Given the frailty of all human connectedness on the internet, the talk of community, as in a substack community or a facebook community etc., is just pure and unadulterated malarky.
We live in a sick and lonely world.