This is an awesome piece, and summarizes some things that peeve me about Freya’s position.
To the excellent section on a McLuhan shaped argument, I might add that I found his tetrad (what does a medium enhance, obsolesce, retrieve, retreat into) from “Laws of Media” to be really helpful. There’s quite a lot of talk about the retrieval of oral culture at the moment… I’ve been reading Ong and can’t help but see his “secondary orality “ everywhere
Get it simpler: words and narratives no longer function as extensions of our bodies. They're nothing except noise in the binary speed. That's what McLuhan would be waxing about if he was alive. Cause and effect was just a folk science. In disembodied words as symbols it's disinformation. We're living this dystopian endstate to binary, it's apparent.
Hi Katherine! I'm new to, but intrigued by, McLuhan and the medium/message distinction. Not sure how closely it maps onto the form/content distinction, which is the language I'm familiar with among more psychoanalytic types. But anyway, I've long been curious about the structural differences between various social media platforms, and how we behave differently on, say, Facebook versus Instagram as a result. Specifically, it seems as though TikTok encourages a forensic relationship to video, where users analyze gestures and facial expressions to a degree I don't recall seeing on other platforms. Any thoughts on whether there's a structural nudge encouraging this particular style of engagement?
definitely -- we often end up watching videos over and over and over again, decontextualized from a profile but not from a pattern of videos. a lot of downstream effects of this, but a "forensic relationship" is one.
also! by no means an expert in media theory -- but a few people i publish are. clinton ignatov & andrey mir are great, contemporary reads on these topics.
I believe it! Content is so loud that it can be difficult to —and stick to evaluating—form. But doing so produces a much more valuable analysis that outlasts and contextualizes the content churn.
There's some kind of psychology expert pipeline that prioritizes popularity over research, except with the scholars at the top. We need psychologists and scientists who are cool and internet savvy to write more on the subject of internet influence.
The question at the end of the day is "who gets to publish a book, in today's world? whose opinions/observations/research are most in line with reality?"
Conveniently stumbling into the last comment on this thread, but I think it segues into my thought pretty well. I read Freya’s piece before* I read the bulk of your critique, and it really irked me how much her thesis is steeped in misogyny. Like wtf is wrong with acting like teenage girls?! The poor galz are one of the most despised species. (I say this after my 16yo half sis came to visit last week, and I was pretty bummed by her lack of personality :( and screen habits.) Anyhow, your work is always so thought-provoking, this piece especially, and I’m still very much scraping the surface. Do you have any thoughts or writing on any anti-woman rhetoric that comes up with these tech-skepticism debates? or am I just obsessing over misogyny lately, and finding places to point it out when I can? lol.
*I emphasized before, because I read your Lindy West discourse as my entrance into the controversy, and it sent me into a multi-day tailspin. :P (I live in Seattle, get around to enough performance events and Aham has always irked me.) And now I’m desperately trying to drag myself through The Memoir, so I can form my own opinion on it, and I. just. cannot. >_<
" Like wtf is wrong with acting like teenage girls?! "
Because acting like a teenager either girl or boy past the age of 22 is no longer cute, instead it becomes an active detriment to not only one's own life but the lives of those around them.
My theory is she’s not writing for her generation. There are certainly RW commentators for Gen Z and younger, but she isn’t the Rayne Fisher Quann for young republicans or anything. Again just spitballing but she launders “kids these days” through a younger avatar.
There are a lot of thoughtful anti or simply tech skeptical writers on the left and right. There are some with religious or trad inflections, others who are more concerned with immediate material reality. Some still more in the media theory space. I read and enjoy many of them even though the older I get the more I feel drawn to using technology to transcend ourselves. I think the right is having a teehee women shouldn’t work moment (this comes and goes) after the vitality of Helen Andrews’s piece. It’s “repeal the 19th” for intellectuals.
Funny, the title of Freya’s piece reminded me of something Rayne Fisher Quann wrote a few weeks ago, though I looked back on it and RFQ did explicitly state capitalism vs. internet/tech is doing the feminization. That said, I don’t want to moralize my left-leaning personal politic as less misogynistic than someone thoughtful on the right, but I have yet to find any compelling argument on their end that isn’t the “teehee” argument or “women must conform to masculine ideals to succeed” e.g. enrichment via exploitation (which feels like what is happening to the current internet by the big tech overlords, and it majorly sucksss, am I off-base with that??)
Do you have any specific writers or pieces in mind (right- and left-leaning) that you would recommend? This discussion has me interested in how dude-driven the internet is, and if that is the problem we need to overcome to find a more utopian digital experience. Or if it’s just the real world forces of power spilling into the virtual? Like would a theoretical matriarchal society have evolved enough technologically to have invented the internet?
Also, very intrigued with this transcendence concept. Looking forward to reading more of your work!
This is such a great essay, Katherine. I'm totally cheering at how you're straightening everyone out on misinterpreting McLuhan and Ellul. Prayers (or good energy, or whatever you do) for the remainder of your pregnancy.
I read her essay and I agree with you. Are viral videos of men (and women too) woodworking, renovating, painting, drawing, etc etc - I.e. doing things instead of looking inward - feminine just because they're content?
Were philosophical and political dialogues throughout the ages feminine just because they were often inward-focused and bratty?
What's masculine and feminine anyway? I've never liked the dichotomy when applied to personality traits. Confidence, neuroticism, capacity, determination, pride, vanity - they're all human qualities and belong to neither sex. Social media may make men more image conscious, looks-wise, but since it's done the same to women I think it's safe to say it's a human reaction, not a feminine one. We're not being more feminine, we're all just reacting to swimming in a new current.
Also thank you, this is the first time I have been able to understand McLuhan properly!
in Freya's defence, for many of us - all of this IS new! I went down the rabbit hole with Pandora's Vox and the Nymwars (and still have half of the Jacques Ellul interview to go) and have a newfound appreciation for all the content you already have in your head. I mean, I knew you were a self-taught internet historian but the *stuff* that is just your background noise is a cacophony to me.
I loved Freya's We Are the Slop and I've ordered her book. I'm not looking to solve the world, just understand what happened to my 25yo daughter and maybe get her to stop equating her value to her youth, looks, and ability to gain followers.
I don't agree with her takes on social media harms at all but Christine Rosen at AEI is proof that writing for an overtly pro-market organisation doesn't mean SM critique can't highlight contradictions of corporate incentives https://www.aei.org/profile/christine-rosen/
This was a good read and I think some of the most illuminating parts of the whole tiff, if you want to call it that, is that Freya India feels like she was more jettisoned into this position than she might be warranted. As you say, she's not really saying anything new, and even what she's saying is kind of suspect. Personally, I think the need for likes and engagement is starting to fade because people ranging from Gen Z to Gen X are realizing just how much all of this is bad marketing on an ad-site. While for Boomers and older Gen Xers are starting to see just how terrible it feels to be engaged in discourse that doesn't concern you much in any way.
That said, the really interesting part for me was the kind of podcast-conference circuit that I always kind of knew existed, but never really thought about it too much. I imagine Freya was in this circle already while working with Haidt, saw him going on Triggernometry, Modern Wisdom, Heretics, or what have you (I think we have too many podcasts at this point) and said, I need to do the same to move up in this world. Write the book, do the podcasts, get the speaking engagements, and voila, you've made it. It just has always felt like salon culture on steroids with various people playing the roles of D'Alembert, Emilie du Chatelet, or Julie de Lespinasse.
The question I have in regards to that is how many of these ideas are being disseminated from the salons into general culture or are they just kind of being ping-ponged by our new salonnières and everyone in the provinces just kind of says "oh, neat." and then moves on.
some ideas really take root and I think it's worth seeing what sells. i do think a lot of tech (social media) criticism is for gen x + older and by millennials + younger. millennials/zoomers/gen A-to-millennials/zoomers/gen A have their own ecosystem. not all of it is groundbreaking and original (though some of it is quite good - immediately thinking of aidan walker here, who i believe is on my recommendations bar), but it's definitely in a different circuit and register. i agree with you that people seem to be logging off though. a lot of the hyper-onlineness, also, was a product of covid. i was a covid skeptic towards the end but in the beginning, my roommate and i moved out to the desert, avoided everyone, and split our time between hikes and racking up 20 hours a day of screentime. it was a great time to build a media career, too. now the sun is shining and despite other types of doom, people want to hang out in the physical. it's times like these i deeply wish i was back in SF, or NYC, or even DC!
underrated still the extent to which the sudden-onset "wokeness" wave was facilitated as a mass phenomenon among corporations etc because in May-July 2020 corporate workplaces/offices etc had to reconstitute internal social norms and institutional norms/projects on a Zoom context, and the Floyd grand narrative a readymade answer to "what do we do," and even more underestimated that the decline of it/vibe shift just a function of corporations meeting IRL again
I agree wholeheartedly, so much of the gloom and doom talk never really came to fruition, but that's definitely what sells and gets an audience. I never thought about the tech-criticism lens that it's mainly for older people written by younger people. I nearly fell off my chair once when my dad asked me who Nick Fuentes was and it's like, "You don't need to know any of that you sweet summer child."
With COVID, yeah, I'm out in Pittsburgh, and we were only locked down for three months so it felt like we were back to normal by June. I think it crushed a lot of high schoolers at the time, but the rest of society seemed to move on relatively fast. It wasn't the Black Death. And even still Europe moved on from that.
It's the beginning of spring now and it always feels like the world is doing so well when the first blooms start appearing.
I think the thing that alarmed many people needlessly and extended the fear and even conspiracy stuff was things like Fauci forecasting people will never shake hands again/will go out of fashion. Real long tail of people who spent all day reading online takes assimilating hopes and fears of a New Normal. Utterly baffling I'm sure to those who logged back off in the summer.
Phew. At first I thought you were going to roast me! Wait... maybe you did, at least my ilk. Techno-skeptics, suffering from Postmania. I certainly don't think tech has "feminized" anyone LOL. Dimly aware of Freya.
Not a media maven. But reading more Lippmann, etc. What Adorno do you find sufferable? I like his ideas about (musical) performer being a sacrificial figure, but can't stand when he negs on jazz and anything outside "classical" music.
I realize the latter has nothing to do with your beat. Nice article though. You know your stuff.
I too think Against the Machine is quite good and I don't plan on reading Freya's book because I've heard all the arguments about the failings of feminism and while I agree with many, it's not feminism that changed us. Besides, the Coddling of the American mind is the better thesis about what's going on. I'm back in Santa Cruz for a bit, in the land of the Peter Pan Man, where social credibility is the only currency and the lines between adult and child have long been blurred. My Midwestern mind has always felt a bit on the outside here. I'm more comfortable over the hill where the machine was born, so to speak. In the end, I think the great change came with the lightbulb and we're still reorganizing and adapting to that. It was nice to start my day with an essay of yours!
You are missed! I haven't been leaving the house as often as I like because the babies have become so big that my hips can't carry my legs. It's such a shitshow lol. Almost out of the woods. Excited to get back to eurythmy once I can move!
California really is a strange place. Dating-for-marriage there was an unusual experience though I did find a good hack (math departments).
And I'm sorry to hear about the bed rest. I had early contractions with both my pregnancies and spent weeks 23-37 on the couch. I listened to Mozart's piano for four hands (it was the age of the Mozart effect) and the Grateful Dead and read the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy to my oversized belly. With the second, I had a toddler as well so I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia, LOTR, the little Prince and many other books to him as he sat on the couch with me. It was the worst of times and the best of times and yes, I always worried I wasn't productive enough. Alas, being human is tricky.
Thanks for this essay. I liked this line from MM: "Elsewhere, McLuhan calls content the juicy piece of meat the burglar throws to the watchdog of the mind to keep you looking the wrong way."
And the Annie Hall clip is a favorite.
I really disliked Transcription. I thought it was intellectually posing and dull.
My "review below," which I posted on Notes:
Review of Ben Lerner’s new book Transcription
I disliked it enough not to finish the last 20% having been convinced that the Max character would never shut up.
The author is an intellectual and is blatantly eager for the reader to know it. It would have been far more efficient to provide his verbal SAT and GRE scores plus a list of books he’s read.
At times the writing in the first section is fine but a 140 page novella should not feel interminable.
Lerner breaks the fourth wall very early on in a clumsy way. I almost stopped there and then.
His attempt to meld sensations comes off as word salad.
If you like good metafiction, I suggest David Foster Wallace’s “Good Old Neon.”
The characters are annoying but I feel like by the end it’s earned! I didn’t like the first third though TBF, so I’m sympathetic. The reality of it— how I felt like I was there in a very visceral way— endeared me to it
This is an awesome piece, and summarizes some things that peeve me about Freya’s position.
To the excellent section on a McLuhan shaped argument, I might add that I found his tetrad (what does a medium enhance, obsolesce, retrieve, retreat into) from “Laws of Media” to be really helpful. There’s quite a lot of talk about the retrieval of oral culture at the moment… I’ve been reading Ong and can’t help but see his “secondary orality “ everywhere
Oh I’ll have to have a look at that, thanks for the rec!
np! he recently contributed here, but he also is an author of many books.
Andrey Mir is a great read too.
Get it simpler: words and narratives no longer function as extensions of our bodies. They're nothing except noise in the binary speed. That's what McLuhan would be waxing about if he was alive. Cause and effect was just a folk science. In disembodied words as symbols it's disinformation. We're living this dystopian endstate to binary, it's apparent.
Hi Katherine! I'm new to, but intrigued by, McLuhan and the medium/message distinction. Not sure how closely it maps onto the form/content distinction, which is the language I'm familiar with among more psychoanalytic types. But anyway, I've long been curious about the structural differences between various social media platforms, and how we behave differently on, say, Facebook versus Instagram as a result. Specifically, it seems as though TikTok encourages a forensic relationship to video, where users analyze gestures and facial expressions to a degree I don't recall seeing on other platforms. Any thoughts on whether there's a structural nudge encouraging this particular style of engagement?
definitely -- we often end up watching videos over and over and over again, decontextualized from a profile but not from a pattern of videos. a lot of downstream effects of this, but a "forensic relationship" is one.
also! by no means an expert in media theory -- but a few people i publish are. clinton ignatov & andrey mir are great, contemporary reads on these topics.
Thanks for your recs and thoughts! Much to chew on.
No problem! It's one of these fields where everyone has the "Oh, my 5 year old could paint that" mindset but it takes years and years to really master
I believe it! Content is so loud that it can be difficult to —and stick to evaluating—form. But doing so produces a much more valuable analysis that outlasts and contextualizes the content churn.
There's some kind of psychology expert pipeline that prioritizes popularity over research, except with the scholars at the top. We need psychologists and scientists who are cool and internet savvy to write more on the subject of internet influence.
The question at the end of the day is "who gets to publish a book, in today's world? whose opinions/observations/research are most in line with reality?"
it's a market decision, ultimately! it's easier to treat this stuff as entertainment than as guidance
Yes, we need a greater number of actually entertaining therapists, and it would help if they knew more about online culture.
sounds like you need a post arguing that the internet has made teenagers girls of us all AND that’s good, actually
I’m pathologically contrarian so I do
My second biggest byline, too
Conveniently stumbling into the last comment on this thread, but I think it segues into my thought pretty well. I read Freya’s piece before* I read the bulk of your critique, and it really irked me how much her thesis is steeped in misogyny. Like wtf is wrong with acting like teenage girls?! The poor galz are one of the most despised species. (I say this after my 16yo half sis came to visit last week, and I was pretty bummed by her lack of personality :( and screen habits.) Anyhow, your work is always so thought-provoking, this piece especially, and I’m still very much scraping the surface. Do you have any thoughts or writing on any anti-woman rhetoric that comes up with these tech-skepticism debates? or am I just obsessing over misogyny lately, and finding places to point it out when I can? lol.
*I emphasized before, because I read your Lindy West discourse as my entrance into the controversy, and it sent me into a multi-day tailspin. :P (I live in Seattle, get around to enough performance events and Aham has always irked me.) And now I’m desperately trying to drag myself through The Memoir, so I can form my own opinion on it, and I. just. cannot. >_<
" Like wtf is wrong with acting like teenage girls?! "
Because acting like a teenager either girl or boy past the age of 22 is no longer cute, instead it becomes an active detriment to not only one's own life but the lives of those around them.
In her defense, I think it was also a branding choice to add to the litany of feminization pieces
My theory is she’s not writing for her generation. There are certainly RW commentators for Gen Z and younger, but she isn’t the Rayne Fisher Quann for young republicans or anything. Again just spitballing but she launders “kids these days” through a younger avatar.
There are a lot of thoughtful anti or simply tech skeptical writers on the left and right. There are some with religious or trad inflections, others who are more concerned with immediate material reality. Some still more in the media theory space. I read and enjoy many of them even though the older I get the more I feel drawn to using technology to transcend ourselves. I think the right is having a teehee women shouldn’t work moment (this comes and goes) after the vitality of Helen Andrews’s piece. It’s “repeal the 19th” for intellectuals.
Funny, the title of Freya’s piece reminded me of something Rayne Fisher Quann wrote a few weeks ago, though I looked back on it and RFQ did explicitly state capitalism vs. internet/tech is doing the feminization. That said, I don’t want to moralize my left-leaning personal politic as less misogynistic than someone thoughtful on the right, but I have yet to find any compelling argument on their end that isn’t the “teehee” argument or “women must conform to masculine ideals to succeed” e.g. enrichment via exploitation (which feels like what is happening to the current internet by the big tech overlords, and it majorly sucksss, am I off-base with that??)
Do you have any specific writers or pieces in mind (right- and left-leaning) that you would recommend? This discussion has me interested in how dude-driven the internet is, and if that is the problem we need to overcome to find a more utopian digital experience. Or if it’s just the real world forces of power spilling into the virtual? Like would a theoretical matriarchal society have evolved enough technologically to have invented the internet?
Also, very intrigued with this transcendence concept. Looking forward to reading more of your work!
You might enjoy Sandy Stone as well as this book: https://www.amazon.com/Wired-Women-Gender-Realities-Cyberspace/dp/1878067737
It's quite old but I find that almost all of it still holds up
This is such a great essay, Katherine. I'm totally cheering at how you're straightening everyone out on misinterpreting McLuhan and Ellul. Prayers (or good energy, or whatever you do) for the remainder of your pregnancy.
thank you! Prayers appreciated.
I read her essay and I agree with you. Are viral videos of men (and women too) woodworking, renovating, painting, drawing, etc etc - I.e. doing things instead of looking inward - feminine just because they're content?
Were philosophical and political dialogues throughout the ages feminine just because they were often inward-focused and bratty?
What's masculine and feminine anyway? I've never liked the dichotomy when applied to personality traits. Confidence, neuroticism, capacity, determination, pride, vanity - they're all human qualities and belong to neither sex. Social media may make men more image conscious, looks-wise, but since it's done the same to women I think it's safe to say it's a human reaction, not a feminine one. We're not being more feminine, we're all just reacting to swimming in a new current.
Also thank you, this is the first time I have been able to understand McLuhan properly!
in Freya's defence, for many of us - all of this IS new! I went down the rabbit hole with Pandora's Vox and the Nymwars (and still have half of the Jacques Ellul interview to go) and have a newfound appreciation for all the content you already have in your head. I mean, I knew you were a self-taught internet historian but the *stuff* that is just your background noise is a cacophony to me.
I loved Freya's We Are the Slop and I've ordered her book. I'm not looking to solve the world, just understand what happened to my 25yo daughter and maybe get her to stop equating her value to her youth, looks, and ability to gain followers.
I don't agree with her takes on social media harms at all but Christine Rosen at AEI is proof that writing for an overtly pro-market organisation doesn't mean SM critique can't highlight contradictions of corporate incentives https://www.aei.org/profile/christine-rosen/
Final paragraph is an incredible thesis. Looking forward to seeing where you take it
learned new things from this. thank you and good to hear from you 🩵
i learned so much, and went off in so many tangents while reading it, it's now 4 hours later!
This was a good read and I think some of the most illuminating parts of the whole tiff, if you want to call it that, is that Freya India feels like she was more jettisoned into this position than she might be warranted. As you say, she's not really saying anything new, and even what she's saying is kind of suspect. Personally, I think the need for likes and engagement is starting to fade because people ranging from Gen Z to Gen X are realizing just how much all of this is bad marketing on an ad-site. While for Boomers and older Gen Xers are starting to see just how terrible it feels to be engaged in discourse that doesn't concern you much in any way.
That said, the really interesting part for me was the kind of podcast-conference circuit that I always kind of knew existed, but never really thought about it too much. I imagine Freya was in this circle already while working with Haidt, saw him going on Triggernometry, Modern Wisdom, Heretics, or what have you (I think we have too many podcasts at this point) and said, I need to do the same to move up in this world. Write the book, do the podcasts, get the speaking engagements, and voila, you've made it. It just has always felt like salon culture on steroids with various people playing the roles of D'Alembert, Emilie du Chatelet, or Julie de Lespinasse.
The question I have in regards to that is how many of these ideas are being disseminated from the salons into general culture or are they just kind of being ping-ponged by our new salonnières and everyone in the provinces just kind of says "oh, neat." and then moves on.
some ideas really take root and I think it's worth seeing what sells. i do think a lot of tech (social media) criticism is for gen x + older and by millennials + younger. millennials/zoomers/gen A-to-millennials/zoomers/gen A have their own ecosystem. not all of it is groundbreaking and original (though some of it is quite good - immediately thinking of aidan walker here, who i believe is on my recommendations bar), but it's definitely in a different circuit and register. i agree with you that people seem to be logging off though. a lot of the hyper-onlineness, also, was a product of covid. i was a covid skeptic towards the end but in the beginning, my roommate and i moved out to the desert, avoided everyone, and split our time between hikes and racking up 20 hours a day of screentime. it was a great time to build a media career, too. now the sun is shining and despite other types of doom, people want to hang out in the physical. it's times like these i deeply wish i was back in SF, or NYC, or even DC!
underrated still the extent to which the sudden-onset "wokeness" wave was facilitated as a mass phenomenon among corporations etc because in May-July 2020 corporate workplaces/offices etc had to reconstitute internal social norms and institutional norms/projects on a Zoom context, and the Floyd grand narrative a readymade answer to "what do we do," and even more underestimated that the decline of it/vibe shift just a function of corporations meeting IRL again
I agree wholeheartedly, so much of the gloom and doom talk never really came to fruition, but that's definitely what sells and gets an audience. I never thought about the tech-criticism lens that it's mainly for older people written by younger people. I nearly fell off my chair once when my dad asked me who Nick Fuentes was and it's like, "You don't need to know any of that you sweet summer child."
With COVID, yeah, I'm out in Pittsburgh, and we were only locked down for three months so it felt like we were back to normal by June. I think it crushed a lot of high schoolers at the time, but the rest of society seemed to move on relatively fast. It wasn't the Black Death. And even still Europe moved on from that.
It's the beginning of spring now and it always feels like the world is doing so well when the first blooms start appearing.
I think the thing that alarmed many people needlessly and extended the fear and even conspiracy stuff was things like Fauci forecasting people will never shake hands again/will go out of fashion. Real long tail of people who spent all day reading online takes assimilating hopes and fears of a New Normal. Utterly baffling I'm sure to those who logged back off in the summer.
Phew. At first I thought you were going to roast me! Wait... maybe you did, at least my ilk. Techno-skeptics, suffering from Postmania. I certainly don't think tech has "feminized" anyone LOL. Dimly aware of Freya.
Not a media maven. But reading more Lippmann, etc. What Adorno do you find sufferable? I like his ideas about (musical) performer being a sacrificial figure, but can't stand when he negs on jazz and anything outside "classical" music.
I realize the latter has nothing to do with your beat. Nice article though. You know your stuff.
I like Adorno, I don't like how I wrote about him 6, 7 years ago. I won't even pull receipts, it's embarrassing. 🤣🤣🤣
I appreciate a lot of tech-skepticism, tbh. I find it seductive. But ultimately, my love affair with The Computer is lifelong.
And I appreciate techno-optimism of the non-Sam Altman variety! Keep up the humble aggression!
I too think Against the Machine is quite good and I don't plan on reading Freya's book because I've heard all the arguments about the failings of feminism and while I agree with many, it's not feminism that changed us. Besides, the Coddling of the American mind is the better thesis about what's going on. I'm back in Santa Cruz for a bit, in the land of the Peter Pan Man, where social credibility is the only currency and the lines between adult and child have long been blurred. My Midwestern mind has always felt a bit on the outside here. I'm more comfortable over the hill where the machine was born, so to speak. In the end, I think the great change came with the lightbulb and we're still reorganizing and adapting to that. It was nice to start my day with an essay of yours!
You are missed! I haven't been leaving the house as often as I like because the babies have become so big that my hips can't carry my legs. It's such a shitshow lol. Almost out of the woods. Excited to get back to eurythmy once I can move!
California really is a strange place. Dating-for-marriage there was an unusual experience though I did find a good hack (math departments).
And I'm sorry to hear about the bed rest. I had early contractions with both my pregnancies and spent weeks 23-37 on the couch. I listened to Mozart's piano for four hands (it was the age of the Mozart effect) and the Grateful Dead and read the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy to my oversized belly. With the second, I had a toddler as well so I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia, LOTR, the little Prince and many other books to him as he sat on the couch with me. It was the worst of times and the best of times and yes, I always worried I wasn't productive enough. Alas, being human is tricky.
Ah, the math lab, where the men are 😉 as a wife of an electrical engineer, I agree.
Katherine,
Thanks for this essay. I liked this line from MM: "Elsewhere, McLuhan calls content the juicy piece of meat the burglar throws to the watchdog of the mind to keep you looking the wrong way."
And the Annie Hall clip is a favorite.
I really disliked Transcription. I thought it was intellectually posing and dull.
My "review below," which I posted on Notes:
Review of Ben Lerner’s new book Transcription
I disliked it enough not to finish the last 20% having been convinced that the Max character would never shut up.
The author is an intellectual and is blatantly eager for the reader to know it. It would have been far more efficient to provide his verbal SAT and GRE scores plus a list of books he’s read.
At times the writing in the first section is fine but a 140 page novella should not feel interminable.
Lerner breaks the fourth wall very early on in a clumsy way. I almost stopped there and then.
His attempt to meld sensations comes off as word salad.
If you like good metafiction, I suggest David Foster Wallace’s “Good Old Neon.”
The characters are annoying but I feel like by the end it’s earned! I didn’t like the first third though TBF, so I’m sympathetic. The reality of it— how I felt like I was there in a very visceral way— endeared me to it