Escape

Time among the trees.

I have been on a trip this week, hiking in the Northern California mountains with my family, disengaged almost entirely from the world during the day, 10 miles of hiking, then some stretching because I am old, dinner, and then bed, rinse and repeat.

Here is a picture of a grove of redwoods.

I’m always stunned by how quickly and thoroughly I’m able to empty my mind on these kinds of trips. The nature of my work, producing multiple original pieces of writing each week for immediate publishing combined with some longer-gestating projects means I almost always have something else I’m rolling over in my head, much to the chagrin of those around me since I often appear to not be present, probably because I am not present.

When we left home, my plan was to write a newsletter now that the hiking portion of the trip is over, and there’s a number of things that are burbling in my mind - the passing of Alice Munro, or the mistaken notion that an “infinitely patient” digital tutor would be a boon to students - but to shape these notions into ideas worth sharing is simply beyond my capacity at the moment, and at least for a couple of more days, I have no desire to do the necessary reading and thinking it would take to produce anything interesting or even coherent on these subjects at this time.

I have managed to “escape” for a week, and I’m going to prolong that sensation just a bit longer.

When one escapes, it is tempting to wonder what it would be like to live in a perpetual state of disengagement. I’m on this trip with my older brother who is a lawyer and who has to occasionally dip back into his work day-to-day. In the moments on the hikes where we have glimpses of cell service I can hear his notifications bonging. His work responsibilities mean that he cannot fully escape.

In the end, as enjoyable as this state is, I don’t want to fully escape either. The breathless (and to my mind misguided) hype around multi-model ChatGPT demands some commentary. I’m aware that expressing this thought may demonstrate an unflattering level of self-regard and ego, but it’s how I feel.

Which is good, since I can’t afford (in every sense of the word) to escape forever.

For my money, reading remains the best, most efficient, and most economic means of escape. I’ve been too exhausted at the end of the day to manage even a couple of pages before falling asleep, but I’ve got some good stuff waiting for me on the plane ride home. I’m looking forward to that journey too.

Do you all ever get to escape? Is escaping even a worthy goal?

Links

At the Chicago Tribune this week I weigh the relative merits of the Reese Witherspoon and Jenna Bush book clubs.

Alice Munro passed away at the age of 92 this week. We will not see her kind again.

At his newsletter,

Lincoln Michel

shares some publishing facts people don’t know and which reveal what it means to put a book into the world.

This is pretty cool, the 74th issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly will come inside of a child’s lunchbox designed by Art Spiegelman. You can pre-order it now.

From McSweeney’s this week, “I’m the Word ‘Utilize’ and I’m Loving Every Moment of Your Overblown Rhetoric” by Christina Wang.

Recommendations

Working ahead on my Tribune column so I could enjoy my trip seems to have emptied the inbox, so wait times will be minimal once I’m back among those engaged with the world next week.

Many thanks for indulging my (partial) absence this week. If there’s anything on your mind that you’d like to share, I’d be interested in hearing it.

Take care,

John
The Biblioracle