Writing is crafted thought. Craft requires understandable form like punctuation and paragraphs and complete sentences. Other than what can be found on Substack these days, it's a fast disappearing craft from previous venues for public discourse resulting in a mad dash to join the 'informed' mob and celebrate the lowest common byte size denominator of shallow, undisciplined, self absorbed thinking/feeling. Thank you, Tara, for pushing against this rising tide of base mediocrity and reality-denying mob-approved narrative and bringing us some exposure to much needed and thoughtful views.
"...poets who still think they are challenging the power elite by writing in free verse. For shock value today, declare you’ll only create sestinas and villanelles on rolling hills and love affairs."
This is a hilarious and true—painfully true statement. "Hey, Buddy, you're not writing Howl." Thanks for linking to the Balkan Substack.
Writing for others (diaries excluded) is communication wherein the reader has to clearly understand the writers work or communication has not been done. Therefore the writer has to know their audience's abilities to comprehend.
I took 4 years of high school in 3 years and had a math summer school teacher who went through each section three times with each being taught with a different approach. His hope was that he would be successful in communicating the concept to 1/3 of the class with each passage so by the end of the lesson everyone understood.
Is anyone else getting a malicious website notification when you click on the Ross Barkan link? Does anyone with online security expertise know whether this is real?
“Writing like speech, or the idea of speech, is the default, as if the discourse must resemble a college graduate’s conception of shit-talking.”
Other than this degradation in what I would label as a loss of journalistic integrity quality, there is also a more insidious and quite unprofessional trend toward blatant divisive intellectual dishonesty to pimp a reader pool. The practitioners know they are doing it, yet have formed a cult system of protection from accountability by complying with their owning corporate overlords. You can purchase political hit pieces from Politico. It is all a manifestation in unchecked human greed.
Writing is crafted thought. Craft requires understandable form like punctuation and paragraphs and complete sentences. Other than what can be found on Substack these days, it's a fast disappearing craft from previous venues for public discourse resulting in a mad dash to join the 'informed' mob and celebrate the lowest common byte size denominator of shallow, undisciplined, self absorbed thinking/feeling. Thank you, Tara, for pushing against this rising tide of base mediocrity and reality-denying mob-approved narrative and bringing us some exposure to much needed and thoughtful views.
rite dere wicha bro
Tara Henely - a hiphop music critic - sure never saw coming 😝
A friend shared a phrase the other day: jargon monoxide.
As always, thank you for this, another Sunday morning.
Just wait til it's all replaced by ChatGPT journalism!
Chat GPT already regurgitates the same.
"...poets who still think they are challenging the power elite by writing in free verse. For shock value today, declare you’ll only create sestinas and villanelles on rolling hills and love affairs."
This is a hilarious and true—painfully true statement. "Hey, Buddy, you're not writing Howl." Thanks for linking to the Balkan Substack.
Writing for others (diaries excluded) is communication wherein the reader has to clearly understand the writers work or communication has not been done. Therefore the writer has to know their audience's abilities to comprehend.
I took 4 years of high school in 3 years and had a math summer school teacher who went through each section three times with each being taught with a different approach. His hope was that he would be successful in communicating the concept to 1/3 of the class with each passage so by the end of the lesson everyone understood.
Well said! The more accessible your writing the more readers you access.
Well written, XXL Staff.
Totally refreshing. Perhaps there is hope yet that mindlessness will not prevail.
Is anyone else getting a malicious website notification when you click on the Ross Barkan link? Does anyone with online security expertise know whether this is real?
Great article! The less jargon the better!
“Writing like speech, or the idea of speech, is the default, as if the discourse must resemble a college graduate’s conception of shit-talking.”
Other than this degradation in what I would label as a loss of journalistic integrity quality, there is also a more insidious and quite unprofessional trend toward blatant divisive intellectual dishonesty to pimp a reader pool. The practitioners know they are doing it, yet have formed a cult system of protection from accountability by complying with their owning corporate overlords. You can purchase political hit pieces from Politico. It is all a manifestation in unchecked human greed.