The Problem(s) with this Newsletter
(Once again) explaining away a modest delay in programming
Some problems with this newsletter, in no particular order, are:
It’s not a newsletter. Maybe it’s a blog, but blog is no longer the preferred term, so I guess I’m stuck with newsletter.
It takes a lot of time, but I’m busy and have other nominally more remunerative work to do.
I’m not important, but I am busy — a personal problem.
A lot of people who subscribe to the newsletter think I’m someone else. For instance, if you’ve subscribed to the newsletter thinking I’m this Jordan Hall (see also here and here), I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake and are going to be very disappointed. If it’s any consolation, I am too. About a month ago I had a sudden surge in new subscribers and for a day-and-a-half entertained the notion that people must really like this newsletter. Well maybe some of you do. But not only do you have The Wrong Jordan Hall, I’ve looked over some of what The Right Jordan Hall is up to, and to be honest — it doesn’t seem like we have much in common. (Unless he, too, is occasionally mistaken for some kind of university campus building; I suspect he’s never mistaken for me. Bless.)
Sometimes I don’t know what to write about.
Sometimes I’m confident I have nothing write about.
Sometimes I’m not sure writing, in any form, is a good idea.
“You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.”— W. H. Auden, “In Memory of W. B. Yeats” (emphasis mine)
But some gracious souls pay for this newsletter, so I owe them something — but what?
I don’t know.
Am I being precious?
Of course.
But —
There’s a lot going on in the world, often bad. Generally speaking, newsletters are designed as a medium to respond to what’s going on in the world — to respond to news, or what qualifies as news — and some writers are good at that. I’m not and it would be disingenuous, perhaps even harmful, if I tried be.
Still obviously I care about what’s going in the world and, hopefully, am paying attention as best I can.
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was springa farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantryof the year was
awake tingling
with itselfsweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' waxunsignificantly
off the coast
there wasa splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning— William Carlos Williams, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”
Of course I also have to assume that all of you are busy, too. You have many things to care about and pay attention to, and this newsletter is pretty far down the list.
But what if, for some inexplicable reason, you did occasionally think about this newsletter of your own volition. What if you, like, looked forward to it? In the entire world there are maybe six people who fall into that category, and half of them are related to me.
Still I can’t shake the possibility that some poor, dear reader of The Happy Few woke up last night in a state of utter desperation, shivering in soiled sheets and hopelessly wondering — But what about Henry James?!? What about “The Turn of the Screw”?!? What about the post that was promised on Henry James and “The Turn of the Screw,” in the Waning Year of our Lord, 2023?!?
So I wrestle with the definite reality of my own preoccupations and the possible reality of another’s, and this is just one of the many problems of my newsletter.
All that’s to say that the next post on Henry James and “The Turn of the Screw” is drafted — practically written — and has been for a while. I just haven’t mustered the will to finish it. For anyone who cares, forgive me. For anyone who doesn’t, I’m not sure I should either.
Have a good weekend!