Not a Gratitude Journal

Thanks to my notebook obsession and this newsletter habit, I’m always looking for new ways to use a notebook. I’ve got a Cheever journal for thoughts on his stories. And an old Band-Aid log in the hallway closet that tracks years of family scrapes.

I picked up this suggestion from Mike Birbiglia on WTF last week. He shared advice from Arthur Brooks (presumably this one): When something bad happens, write down what happened, how it made you feel, and what you learned. Revisit it in six months. Usually, the only thing that matters is what you learned.

It’s almost the opposite of a gratitude journal: a way to put your anger somewhere and move on. It reminds me of how I’ll jot down books or movies that sound interesting, not because I’ll get to them all, but so I can note the desire and let it go.

On the Limits of Enthusiasm

Just when I think I can toss an old issue of NYRB without finishing it, I come across an opening sentence that makes it impossible: The term “dehorsification” (obyezloshadenie) was coined by Isaac Babel to describe the replacement of horses by machines during industrialization, after Babel had witnessed and chronicled the parallel sufferings of horses and humans in the antisemitic pogroms and Bolshevik battles of 1920.

Amazed, I read the sentence aloud to my family and discovered that my fascination was not widely shared.

Sontag Keeps Showing Up

Susan Sontag turns up in the last two books I’ve read: Any Person is the Only Self by Elisa Gabbert (previously mentioned and again below) and Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert. I think both are excellent. Dayna Tortorici is less impressed with Girl on Girl, which also makes for an interesting read.

I’d made a mental note to figure out what Sontag to read, maybe her journals. Today, a related recommendation came through Whitney Matheson’s newsletter:

"Sempre Susan, the 2011 memoir of [Sigrid Nunez's] friendship with Susan Sontag, first working for her and then dating Sontag’s son/living in their apartment. At 140 pages, it’s a salty whisper of a book and speaks lovingly/honestly of the writer/thinker, who no doubt would’ve terrified me if I’d encountered her face-to-face. I love the idea of a friendship memoir — poet Ron Padgett has written books about several of his friends, including Joe Brainard and Dick Gallup."

Pod 229

We talk about the Middle School Name that Book contests, essays on books and journals, and whether diaries are burdened with the negative. Ted makes a brilliant offhand point about Kafka.

Thanks for reading and listening. -Adam