Wednesday 11/27/19
I am putting this up as a stand-alone entry, something I normally do not do with things like links to individual radio segments. I am about to head out on my run, then return home to do another radio interview, this one with a morning program out of Chicago, on one of the recent Wall Street Journal op-eds--the humansplaining one. But this is from last night, on Downtown. I went on the air expecting to discuss Thanksgiving-related art and entertainment, which meant Laurel and Hardy's The March of the Wooden Soldiers, Garfield's Thanksgiving, the Everly Brothers' Songs Our Daddy Taught Us, John Collier's "Back for Christmas." Instead, with Rich out for the day, the fill-in host, my friend Bruce Pratt, asked me what is wrong with publishing. (Bruce, as you will hear, has privately read "Jute"; listen to his honest, unfakeable reaction to the story, a story that publishing does not want you to see.) A curve ball? Not really. I have a policy: anyone can ask me anything on the air. You need not worry if I can handle it or if I will know it. Come at me, if you want. Come at my mind. And so, I answered him, and I held nothing back. I said the unequivocal truth, without a lick of varnish. Everyone in publishing should listen to this. Everyone who has ever cared about reading for a single hour in their life should listen to this. Everyone who cares about connection, wants, it, misses it, in an age of disconnection, should listen to this. The revolution ferments. My revolution ferments. And eventually it is going to break out of its bottle, this prison bottle, where the pressure is already so great, and it is going to reach the world, because it is what the world needs. Does this sound like a leader to you? This sounds like a leader to me.
