This newsletter is an experiment in close attention to cultural objects I care about. The primary focus will be on video games, music, and books, although I reserve the right to do whatever. Basically, I am going to write about the things I am thinking about, hopefully at least once a week. Some of these posts will be shorter and more general; some will be longer deep-dives into particular works or features of works. Subjects I am kicking around include Final Fantasy VI, Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," Trails in the Sky, the poetry of Emily Dickinson -- stuff which, if you know me, you know I like. (I think of this as an exercise in criticism, but I'm not planning, at this juncture, to write about anything I don't like.)
If you are curious about how I conceive of my approach: I am interested in combining fidelity to subjective experience with close attention to form. What does this mean? Well, we always come to art at a particular time and place, from a particular position and bearing a particular set of experiences; but we can also speak meaningfully of the work's objective features. I have seen this regarded as a contradiction, but I don't think it is; experience itself is always formal, eventually. I am interested in the interplay between these perspectives, because I think it's where perception really takes place.
But that's abstract. The first letter, about FFVI, will be coming soon; it should illustrate what I mean. It's a little more formal and didactic than the rest of the letters will probably be, although who knows. Life is full of surprises.
Thanks for reading!
<3