Ross, I admire your candor about your ambitions! I am eons older than you, and remember what it was like to be looking forward, as you do. Admittedly, there were many more opportunities in the 70's and 80's than today. I was able to rise quickly in a number of fields, none of which I had received training for, or about which I had been educated. That's where studying philosophy in university will get you.
Your reference to Gore Vidal captured my attention. He came to lecture when I was in first year of university. He had run for congress (and lost) recently, and was yet to become the renegade historian and political critic into which he evolved. I'm not sure if he's read widely anymore, but he made a great impression on me, and I read his novels and essays avidly.
Ambition is a tricky thing. When you are feeling it, it can be all-consuming. As you age, you gain perspective, and one day - poof - it seems to vanish as a guiding force. But it seems to be replaced by other feelings (at least that's been my experience), and those provide their own rewards. I think it's called wisdom. At least I hope so.
I began as a writer, segued into being a radio journalist, then, producer, then video documentarian, college writing teacher and finally, semi-pro jazz guitar player. And here I am at 76, an untrained, uncertified, unregistered music therapist, playing music for kids and adults with every kind of disability you can name - from autism to cerebral palsy to mentally handicapped. And you know what? After decades of absorbing, challenging, creative work, I feel as rewarded as I ever have.
Good luck with your new literary adventure, and your novel's publication. I look forward to both!
Thank you for sharing your story, and the kind words! That's amazing you got to see Vidal in person. He's not as widely read as he once was but I think he's going to make something of a comeback.
Congrats on the new novel, just put in a pre-order.
Curious if you think there's any appetite for a Goodreads 2.0 — something that feels like it's actually been updated in the past 10 years. Letterboxd, clearly taking inspiration from it, has become pretty popular over the past few years and has given a space for film-lovers to build networks of like-minded people and engage in discussion of what they're watching. While film culture will never be what it was in the mainstream 20 or 30 years ago, there's a pretty healthy ecosystem of dedicated fans, and I think it's helped smaller films gain an audience.
I think any real anointment going forward in the arts will be via network effect but I wonder whether there's a space for generating enthusiasm for literature beyond BookTok.
Thank you for the pre-order! My hope is there is something post-Goodreads. Goodreads isn't very good. I barely use it and it's become such a dumping ground. Readers do need something like Letterboxd.
As a recent devoted Substacker -- having ended all other social media attention after reading Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism back in the before times of the pandemic -- I'm enjoying your voice wherever I find it. Looks like you'll keep going hard at it and I'm glad. You are really good. And assuring yourself of being prolific. You are dead right that "success" means never stopping and being happy where you're at and all that -- not the least of which is being healthy -- and living in the real world with every fiber of your being.
The one thing I would throw into the answer box for your implied Big Question of "What is it all about?" or "What am I doing?" is something under-appreciated: audience. A lot of your career status check here is about the workings of the business. The supply side of your world. Getting anointed and gatekeepers and all that.
The real -- and in my mind only -- question is "Who?" Who cares? I don't mean rhetorically. I think you'll get something of an answer by customers for the new journal you're doing. I will certainly be one. But who are they? How do you find them even as you chase everyone? Entropy is at work and pieces of the society are flying off. Maybe that's part of the reason for MAGA. Trying to recapture what is being lost. An existential panic.
There are really smart young blue collar folks who work their minds through the podcasts -- they can listen while at work -- and aren't answering the leftist plaintive call anymore. I keep imagining a book sticking out of back pockets with grease stains on the pages. Write that one or find someone who can. Something human, with dirt under the fingernails. Check out Aaron Lake Smith. He's a young writer on here.
The difference between Then and Now is the diffusion of attention. The atomization of whatever it is we want to get when we open our minds and light up the little screens. All the self-examination and industry nostalgia is about a time long gone. Imagine the urbanity, literacy and appreciation of wit -- the whole Dick Cavett-ness of it all -- and just basic internal silence, needed to appreciate, much less read, a Gore Vidal. Nowadays we have to be satisfied with Timothée Chalamet AS Bob Dylan. Our cultural history now in reruns. Give it to the MAGA, they are at least trying to conquer new territory. The frontier impulse is not dead, just aimless. Lost, confused, angry. Easily led.
Wanting to be a writer, I did stand up in the Glory Days of comedy in San Francisco. We drank whiskey, danced to the blues bands and rolled on stages in front of hundreds of laugh-hungry comedy fans, not a fucking phone in the world. Youth was not wasted, even if it ended badly. The absolute ecstatic joy of the IRL world gone by. But it was all possible because people wanted it. The people. Not the 'users' they are now.
We were the night creatures of the Reagan 80's, which are back with a vengeance, only this time with 24/7 control. San Francisco is a dystopian version of itself. Trump is a frustrated scream. And that whole Christo-nationalist thing. New York, it seems, ever beats. I ended up in St Louis, land of lost mojo, waiting for...something.
Ross, I admire your candor about your ambitions! I am eons older than you, and remember what it was like to be looking forward, as you do. Admittedly, there were many more opportunities in the 70's and 80's than today. I was able to rise quickly in a number of fields, none of which I had received training for, or about which I had been educated. That's where studying philosophy in university will get you.
Your reference to Gore Vidal captured my attention. He came to lecture when I was in first year of university. He had run for congress (and lost) recently, and was yet to become the renegade historian and political critic into which he evolved. I'm not sure if he's read widely anymore, but he made a great impression on me, and I read his novels and essays avidly.
Ambition is a tricky thing. When you are feeling it, it can be all-consuming. As you age, you gain perspective, and one day - poof - it seems to vanish as a guiding force. But it seems to be replaced by other feelings (at least that's been my experience), and those provide their own rewards. I think it's called wisdom. At least I hope so.
I began as a writer, segued into being a radio journalist, then, producer, then video documentarian, college writing teacher and finally, semi-pro jazz guitar player. And here I am at 76, an untrained, uncertified, unregistered music therapist, playing music for kids and adults with every kind of disability you can name - from autism to cerebral palsy to mentally handicapped. And you know what? After decades of absorbing, challenging, creative work, I feel as rewarded as I ever have.
Good luck with your new literary adventure, and your novel's publication. I look forward to both!
Thank you for sharing your story, and the kind words! That's amazing you got to see Vidal in person. He's not as widely read as he once was but I think he's going to make something of a comeback.
I sure enjoy your writing, keep fighting!
I thoroughly enjoyed this post. It's as if you put on your 24 year old voice. :)
A manifesto that makes a lot more sense than K. Marx's. Plus very fun to read.
I love your shit, Ross. (Forgive the exceedingly pedestrian comment to your superb essay).
Congrats on the new novel!
Thanks for working to revive book reviews. Happy to write for your new outfit. Starting your upcoming novel soon.
And thank you for reading and reviewing! I really appreciate it
Good on ya Ross. Persistence and a bit of self-delusion never hurt anyone ☺️
Congrats on the new novel, just put in a pre-order.
Curious if you think there's any appetite for a Goodreads 2.0 — something that feels like it's actually been updated in the past 10 years. Letterboxd, clearly taking inspiration from it, has become pretty popular over the past few years and has given a space for film-lovers to build networks of like-minded people and engage in discussion of what they're watching. While film culture will never be what it was in the mainstream 20 or 30 years ago, there's a pretty healthy ecosystem of dedicated fans, and I think it's helped smaller films gain an audience.
I think any real anointment going forward in the arts will be via network effect but I wonder whether there's a space for generating enthusiasm for literature beyond BookTok.
Thank you for the pre-order! My hope is there is something post-Goodreads. Goodreads isn't very good. I barely use it and it's become such a dumping ground. Readers do need something like Letterboxd.
As a recent devoted Substacker -- having ended all other social media attention after reading Zuboff's Surveillance Capitalism back in the before times of the pandemic -- I'm enjoying your voice wherever I find it. Looks like you'll keep going hard at it and I'm glad. You are really good. And assuring yourself of being prolific. You are dead right that "success" means never stopping and being happy where you're at and all that -- not the least of which is being healthy -- and living in the real world with every fiber of your being.
The one thing I would throw into the answer box for your implied Big Question of "What is it all about?" or "What am I doing?" is something under-appreciated: audience. A lot of your career status check here is about the workings of the business. The supply side of your world. Getting anointed and gatekeepers and all that.
The real -- and in my mind only -- question is "Who?" Who cares? I don't mean rhetorically. I think you'll get something of an answer by customers for the new journal you're doing. I will certainly be one. But who are they? How do you find them even as you chase everyone? Entropy is at work and pieces of the society are flying off. Maybe that's part of the reason for MAGA. Trying to recapture what is being lost. An existential panic.
There are really smart young blue collar folks who work their minds through the podcasts -- they can listen while at work -- and aren't answering the leftist plaintive call anymore. I keep imagining a book sticking out of back pockets with grease stains on the pages. Write that one or find someone who can. Something human, with dirt under the fingernails. Check out Aaron Lake Smith. He's a young writer on here.
The difference between Then and Now is the diffusion of attention. The atomization of whatever it is we want to get when we open our minds and light up the little screens. All the self-examination and industry nostalgia is about a time long gone. Imagine the urbanity, literacy and appreciation of wit -- the whole Dick Cavett-ness of it all -- and just basic internal silence, needed to appreciate, much less read, a Gore Vidal. Nowadays we have to be satisfied with Timothée Chalamet AS Bob Dylan. Our cultural history now in reruns. Give it to the MAGA, they are at least trying to conquer new territory. The frontier impulse is not dead, just aimless. Lost, confused, angry. Easily led.
Wanting to be a writer, I did stand up in the Glory Days of comedy in San Francisco. We drank whiskey, danced to the blues bands and rolled on stages in front of hundreds of laugh-hungry comedy fans, not a fucking phone in the world. Youth was not wasted, even if it ended badly. The absolute ecstatic joy of the IRL world gone by. But it was all possible because people wanted it. The people. Not the 'users' they are now.
We were the night creatures of the Reagan 80's, which are back with a vengeance, only this time with 24/7 control. San Francisco is a dystopian version of itself. Trump is a frustrated scream. And that whole Christo-nationalist thing. New York, it seems, ever beats. I ended up in St Louis, land of lost mojo, waiting for...something.
Looking to you Ross Barkan. Light it up.
News Nation has the Hill. The first network to take the online format to TV might survive.