"When I deleted my Twitter account in September last year, provoked not by Elon Musk’s imminent takeover but by the suffocating quantity of royal coverage gushing from every media source, I was left feeling bereft, as any addict is when their drug is taken away."
I like the LRB piece you linked. The author understands what any loser who uses twitter intuitively feels - it is nothing more than an empty, addictive drug.
"Twitter gives users thirty days to change their minds after deleting their accounts, to prevent impulsive exits (i.e. to re-ensnare recovering addicts). I was still inside my thirty days. Stopping myself rejoining in order to react to this exceptional political event took considerable self-restraint."
Let's just say I've leafed through it, as is my wont with books in bookstores. And I've heard a couple of Klosterman's recent interviews.
Who reviews the 1990s better? Rachel Kushner, for one. I don't share much overlap with her esthetic stance, but she makes points that land. She sounds like she actually lived through the 1990s, instead of just watching it on TV. And she can really write.
I liked your take on the 1990s, for that matter. 1998-2000 in particular was a giddily optimistic time, in some ways on par with the mid-1970s. At the level of firsthand experience, the day to day vibes were great in that era, as far as people getting along with each other. I lived in the most diverse city in the country, and it was lovely. There were a couple of years when I didn't have a single passenger run-out from my cab! Then the US invaded Iraq, and the whole country got meaner. Priorities were displaced. A book I'd rather not write. I don't even want to write the essay. It's too painful.
"When I deleted my Twitter account in September last year, provoked not by Elon Musk’s imminent takeover but by the suffocating quantity of royal coverage gushing from every media source, I was left feeling bereft, as any addict is when their drug is taken away."
I like the LRB piece you linked. The author understands what any loser who uses twitter intuitively feels - it is nothing more than an empty, addictive drug.
"Twitter gives users thirty days to change their minds after deleting their accounts, to prevent impulsive exits (i.e. to re-ensnare recovering addicts). I was still inside my thirty days. Stopping myself rejoining in order to react to this exceptional political event took considerable self-restraint."
[I've edited this. I don't like sounding that mean.]
Chuck Klosterman's takes on American culture leave me unimpressed.
Have you read the book I'm talking about?
Let's just say I've leafed through it, as is my wont with books in bookstores. And I've heard a couple of Klosterman's recent interviews.
Who reviews the 1990s better? Rachel Kushner, for one. I don't share much overlap with her esthetic stance, but she makes points that land. She sounds like she actually lived through the 1990s, instead of just watching it on TV. And she can really write.
I liked your take on the 1990s, for that matter. 1998-2000 in particular was a giddily optimistic time, in some ways on par with the mid-1970s. At the level of firsthand experience, the day to day vibes were great in that era, as far as people getting along with each other. I lived in the most diverse city in the country, and it was lovely. There were a couple of years when I didn't have a single passenger run-out from my cab! Then the US invaded Iraq, and the whole country got meaner. Priorities were displaced. A book I'd rather not write. I don't even want to write the essay. It's too painful.
I read the book, and I think it's good.