Can't reverse the reversal

Wednesday 2/11/26

People almost always look like I expect them to look. When I read a post of theirs, come across a political comment, glance at an article they've written, witness them frothing off about go Trump go/Jesus/ICE, look at their short story, see that they have the name of their agent in their bio, think "Super Bowl" is one word/utilizes the term GOAT as much as humanly person/and never fails to use "we" when talking about their favorite team as if they've sweat it out alongside the boys at every practice, declare that they're a cat dad. Whatever it is. It's as though this is more scientific than science. I take my gander and inevitably I say, "Yep." I am convinced there's much behind this sociologically. For the most part, the only time I'm wrong is when they look even more like what I expected them to than they look, if that makes sense.

I have like a 1.000 batting average with this. I'll give you an example of one I just did.

A woman posts this:

United States is a literal third world country now. 

Because, you know, when you say "literal" or "literally," whatever you're saying then magically becomes extra super true, as well as factual, historically accurate, and so why not say "literal" or "literally" as often as possible because then you're just always right and the leading authority and whatever you want to be in your world of delusion and illiteracy.

She has the word "feral" as part of her social media handle. And in case you still didn't get it, she adds that she's feral in her social media bio. You know, this word she had never heard of not that long ago, and whose meaning she didn't know, and whose meaning she doesn't really know now, believing it has to do with girl power and "you go girl" and she's a hero and will tell you she fights Fascists like she's no stranger to beaches in Normandy, and I don't mean in the sitting on them and getting some sun sense.

And that bio tells you she's a cat mom, twice over, is a gamer, and deploys an "af" because of course. And she's a tattoo buff.

Yes, I knew exactly what she'd look like. It's like science. Not really expecting to see her running stairs in the Monument.

But a post like that from such a person is good for 800 likes and counting.

How can people fail to get how it works?

Publishing wants certain types and only certain types. It's an industry that expects you to look a certain way. It hates men who look athletic. Adam Kirsch has a publishing system preferred look. The frumpy, weak, awkward, milquetoast, double chin thing. We'll discuss him soon. A hypocritical profiteer who has always and automatically been given the privilege of cutting the line to suck at the plumpest teat of a classist system of incestuous evil where mediocrity and banality aren't just preferred, but insisted upon in those who are deemed deserving of perpetual handouts and hook-ups. He plays it off as something else as he cashes in, but I know the truth.

It usually doesn't take long to know everything you'll ever need to know about someone. On the whole, it takes less time now than ever before. That if things aren't hidden away. You know the people at the Virginia Quarterly Review synoptically/fundamentally/essentially after that earlier entry here, but you wouldn't have otherwise because it was hidden away. Bad people. It's not like, "Whoa, so nebulous, how complicated, could be this or could be that, could sometimes be not so hot but other times decent like when they volunteer at the soup kitchen or judge work based on its merit rather than the system standing of the person whose name is at the top." No, you know. Bad people. It's just a matter of how far that goes. Which is why we'll be talking about those people in these pages.

When I see anything by any writer in the world now--just the first few lines--I then know what everything else they've ever written or ever will write will be like. It'll just be more of what I just saw. There will be nothing different. Same deal. Takes one or two lines to know exactly what they do.

Such is the state of writing in the world right now. There won't be surprises, different modes, subject matter, techniques, voices. It'll be a carbon copy in essence--same tone, same patterns--of whatever it is I first saw from them. You know all you ever need to know about that writer and usually inside of fifteen seconds. A Tommy Orange. A Laura Van Den Berg. A self-proclaimed "romantasy" writer. The writer who says, "I write cozy mysteries." Junot Diaz. What else are they going to do? You see ten seconds' worth, you know the whole lifetime deal. It's all so predictable and disposable. There's no need for it. There should always be a need. Or else you're just fucking around on behalf of your ego and the emptiness inside and you're rightfully real imposter syndrome and hoping someone, or enough people, indulge you, lie to you, pass you along, so you can tell yourself it's for such and such reasons, which you'll never really believe no matter your lack of self-awareness.

Life for most is an ongoing sequence of what they're able to get themselves to believe.

People live to lies rather than in reaction to the truth. They treat these lies as the truths, and become sufficiently lost in this process that they believe them and can no longer tell what's true and what isn't. Often, they can only "see" what is actually false as the truth. There's no hope for them at that point. There's no coming back. You can't reverse the reversal.

There are several techniques that people favor now when they're looking to brag about themselves, which is often. They do so because they are nothing, are not legitimately good at anything, or intelligent, or interesting, and they want attention and are always trying to fill an unfillable void. This is the primary point of social media.

One of these favored techniques is beginning a sentence with the words, "I've never understood..." Then that person completes the statement by pointing out this thing about other people, which has nothing to do with what they do or don't understand. This isn't about what they comprehend. It's about finding a way to brag but so that looks like they're doing something else.

I've never understood how people don't listen to many kinds of music..."

I can help. They don't because they are morons. Simple, simple, simple morons. Just like someone who posts such a thing is. The "brag" is that this person has fantastic, exceedingly catholic taste. Right. How do you think a discussion about music would go between such a person and myself? You'd think they know a lot and could m make a pretense of keeping up for a couple minutes, or do you think this eclectic taste of theirs comes down to saying how they listen to both Beyonce and Metallica? Right.

I need to get out to City Hall and run stairs. It got above freezing yesterday for a while. I walked six miles for the third day in a row. Not much, obviously. Something. Admittedly, I've been hoping--though I know that's unwise--that the Monument will be open today and maybe I won't have to start back at zero circuits.

Last I checked we were supposed to get up to thirty-seven degrees today, and then have a bunch of days in a row where it would be above freezing. I woke up, though, to more newly fallen snow. That wasn't in any forecast I saw. And it wasn't like I was counting on the rangers to actually go into the Monument and check whether the small bit of snow that was there had melted. In other words, I need to stop prevaricating and get myself back to City Hall.

An uncle of mine who lives in Dedham went to Florida with my aunt. They go for a part of the winter. His son who works for the FBI lives in Connecticut. My aunt and uncle had been visiting my cousin and his family on their way to Florida and watched the AFC Championship game there. My aunt isn't much into football. Genealogy is her thing. I lived with them one summer in my early twenties.

Anyway, my uncle, on account that the Patriots had won while he watched them play at my cousin's, thought it'd be best not to change things up for the Super Bowl, so he flew from Florida to Connecticut and was quickly disabused of this notion. Then he flew back on Monday. My aunt remained in Florida doing her genealogy.

Heard some interesting sound from the game in which Julian Love of the Seahawks talks to a teammate about something Maye does that Stafford doesn't do: That he takes this extra second when he hits the last step of his drop to check if the receiver is open, whereas Stafford doesn't have this "hitch" and lets it fly. Love confidently says that he's going to pick off Maye, he just needs to be patient. And then he did. Games within the game. That's neat stuff.

I saw an interview with Will Campbell yesterday in which he spoke about why he didn't talk after the Super Bowl loss, saying it was because he might have said something regrettable. I was annoyed. It bothers me when people don't do their job. It's part of the job. Do the job right. And this is a job in which people are paid a fortune to play a child's game.

He strikes me as immature. He kept saying how young he was, at one time giving you his age of twenty-two. People who make a point of doing that often never grow up. And age is misleading here. A twenty-two-year-old football player is like a seventy-year-old out in the world. It's like dog years. Will Campbell's career is almost certainly going to end in his early thirties, at the latest. So what's "young"?

Men's hockey gets going today at the Olympics. I'll fall this rather closely and it'll likely be the only part of the Olympics I watch. What else interests me? Curling, actually. I find it ruminative. I don't know when it's on, I don't watch much TV, and it's not like I'm willing to have on some block of coverage and eventually encounter it.

With the Super Bowl, I didn't sit there watching. As it was on, I watched a documentary on the USA men's 1980 hockey team, went through Grateful Dead shows from 1970, looked for a Judy Garland bio, made notes, and tried to get organized some with these Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys acetates that I need for a book I'm writing. I'm not someone who can sit and stare for hours while shoveling chips into my mouth.

The US women's hockey team blanked Canada yesterday 5-0. They really seem to have separated themselves. These games were toss ups for a long time.

It makes me feel good--or better than I usually would in these matters--when I see people's reaction to having watched 1934's The Black Cat. I think every response I've encountered is along the lines of how great they thought it was, and perverse, entertaining, impressive. It's a unique viewing experience. You won't see a movie like that one. A peak in horror's mountain range.

People are always like, "You deserve this, you deserve that," and it's like, Do you really? There are many things we don't just automatically deserve. What about earning? Does no one want that to be a thing? I think very few do.

An example:

I hope whoever is seeing this, feels proud about how far they've come. It wasn't easy and it still isn't, but man does it ever take a lot of bravery to continue showing up. Give yourself that pat on the back. You deserve it! 💖

Very few people "show up." Are there for anyone. If by "show up" one means they physically walk through the door at work--okay. But that's not what's meant here, is it? Something much more significant is. People don't have friends because they are incapable of being friends. Most people are about as reliable as a net made of air. Most people do nothing but stare into their own navels and care about no one save themselves. And even when it looks to the untrained eye like they care about someone else, they usually only care insofar as doing what they're doing gets them what they want. Or allows them to call themselves what they want. Or think of themselves in a way they need to think of themselves.

First "comment" in following from the above post? A gif of Ross from Friends patting himself on the back. People love this shit, man, because they're broken and delusional, and they just want to be strung along in those delusions.

And you gotta get those internet point, right? After all, they measure a person's worth.

People also have no clue how commas work anymore. A time is coming when commas won't exist any longer at the rate we're devolving and the crumbs that remain of our literacy are vanishing.

There's a kind of person who will hurt themselves if that means hurting someone else--or trying to--and hurting themselves much worse. Or their career. They can't help it. No matter how bad it makes them look. They'll do it again. They need help but don't deserve someone's help. And the help wouldn't "take" anyway.

I need to write about Billie Holiday now.