• An article by George Saunders about the repetition of the writing process.
“How, then, to proceed? My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, with ‘P’ on this side (‘Positive’) and ‘N’ on this side (‘Negative’). I try to read what I’ve written uninflectedly, the way a first-time reader might (‘without hope and without despair’). Where’s the needle? Accept the result without whining. Then edit, so as to move the needle into the ‘P’ zone. Enact a repetitive, obsessive, iterative application of preference: watch the needle, adjust the prose, watch the needle, adjust the prose (rinse, lather, repeat), through (sometimes) hundreds of drafts. Like a cruiseship slowly turning, the story will start to alter course via those thousands of incremental adjustments.”
• An interview with Brian Eno.
“As a maker, you tend to do too much, because you’re there with all the tools and you keep putting things in. As a listener, you’re happy with quite a lot less.”
• An article about rock music and white nostalgia.
“But appealing to white (specifically white male) nostalgia is nothing new. It was a consistent strain within pop rock of a generation ago (now, the Classic Rock popular with older, white men).”
