I clicked your links this time and man, I loved that idea of college's point being to rearrange your molecules.
And-- I think my eyes rolled out of my head on that Belle Burden piece in the New Yorker. I'm so exhausted by the performed victimhood of the ultra-wealthy. Can't we collectively find something better to read?!
Terrific piece, John. Every week, you give us a glimpse of your unique human intelligence. Thank you for that and for your clarity and for your taste.
I was reminded of a passage in Jeanette Winterson's extraordinary essay, "Art Objects":
“Years ago, when I was living very briefly with a stockbroker who had a good cellar, I asked him how I could learn about wine.
‘Drink it’ he said.
It is true. The only way to develop a palate is to develop a palate.”
It takes time and patience and trust and a refusal to believe in the algorithm.
I was truly grateful for this sentence: "It’s similar to what happens when students write to a rubric and create a kind of simulation of a school essay." As a writing teacher, I have never given students a rubric. I have railed against rubrics as something designed to homogenize writing, something made to make grading faster and easier and less human to human.
One of Winterson’s finest books. For years I assigned many of its essays as artist-voice counterparts to various theories in a Philosophy of Art course. Students loved more than her writing; they came to love her, given the singular mind bubbling up to meet them.
Talk about taste may currently be co-opted by rudderless plutocrats. But an equally demoralizing alignment found “ taste” reduced to the perpetuation of social class markers, shibboleths for who belongs.
Kant thought taste operated as a function of the perceptual mind rather than an indicator of social class or power- instead, taste indicates a capacity for responsive discernment hovering between thought and feeling.
He’d appreciate your essay’s emphasis on the individuated roots of the phenomenon.
In 1982, wen I was 11, my 6th grade best friend and I discovered a book called _How to Be Funny: An Extremely Silly Guidebook_, by Jovial Bob Stine (R.L. Stine). It was a spoof on self-help books, but marketed to kids. As budding humor writers ourselves, we found it hilarious.
In response, we co-wrote a play, spoofing the book, and somehow convinced our sixth grade teacher to allow us to turn it into the Great 6th Grade School Play, with the two of us as directors, of course.
We assigned roles, scheduled rehearsals, ran run-throughs, and eventually cancelled the entire thing before the first performance. Our classmates simply did not know how to be funny. They couldn't deliver the lines to our satisfaction. We had taste.
The two of us are still friends today, both of us still writing. We credit our experience as failed 6th grade playwrights as formative in our careers--and our friendship.
But seriously, it’s a consequence of the circumstances under which this week’s newsletter was written - a snatch of time while out of town to celebrate a nephew’s graduation - which left me without another window to give it even a cursory read-over. I probably should’ve just taken the week off, but past experience says that at least someone (or someone’s) will drop their subscription.
I could also feed everything into an LLM and have it proof for me, but I don’t do that.
It genuinely pains me when I find these things later or they impinge on a reader’s engagement, but I don’t know what to say other than I’m human.
I have struggled with this concept because I simply don’t like a lot of the most “critically acclaimed” art out there. That’s usually because it’s really depressing and ambiguous which critics deem as the best. So I came up with the idea of quality vs taste. Something might be really high quality but it’s simply not in my taste. “Not for me”, if you will. For example, I am never watching the TV shows “Adolescence” or “Baby Reindeer”. Both shows ended up on top ten lists but I read the synopsis and thought hell no! I prefer lighter fare. I freely admit a lot of my kind of art out there is quite mid. Some even quite bad. It’s easier to make great gritty art. (Or have it green lit anyway). Quite difficult to make joyful art. But I keep searching.
But you have convinced me to be more confident in my taste. That within the purview of what I enjoy I actually can discern what is actually good.
I know very well what Naomi Kanakia says about the SF writers who really break the rules not getting any recognition but my spit take about the 6 Hugo nominees for this year was that the nominators wanted to go down fighting for stories that only humans could tell and there are subtle comments about the 2026 version of AI in at least half of them.
The one story that features something named as an AI is Nnedi Okorafor's "Death of The Author" which is meta-SF but as I said to spouse being essentially meta did not stop "Among Others" from winning by acclamation
(Could Tracy Deonn actually beat Suzanne Collins for the Lodestar since this may be the first legit adult epic fantasy in the history of that whole series)
I am not sure I have any more than ordinary taste or am ever likely to develop any but if I had to make a decision for a prize I would automatically fall back on "What is that story all about? Have we seen the thing it is about 100 times?" This criterion is good enough to accept that some deliberately absurd postmodern stories will be excluded
John, I am sorry to hijack your comments section, but I need to inform you that I just read The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (my favorite living fiction writer) and also read your review of same. The book is fantastic; classic Strout, and she may have even outdone herself. And your review is 💯. Just saying. Back to the regularly scheduled column. 💖📚 Also loved the small but meaningful swipe she takes at AI.
My wife just read it also and she loved it too and she hasn’t read any ES since Olive Kitteridge. I think this one is resonating with both Strout’s regular readers and others. It feels fit for the time.
About a year ago I went back and read those old Brain Exploders, and they really were a lot of fun. And it was terrific engagement with McSweeney's readers who provided incredibly creative answers each week, which was really the point of the exercise. John, you might be heartened to know that years later I was doing an interview with a magazine writer and he was asking me about McSweeney's and I mentioned that I had written dozens of pieces for the website, including many under a pseudonym, and he paused for a long moment, and then his eyes got really wide and he said, "Wait...Are you Carlton Doby?" One of the most satisfying moments in my career as a writer.
Oh, John…the number of times I was rejected by McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Sigh.
But yes on this post. Yes, yes. Whether taste is “good” or “bad” is beside the point. I may be the only person who rates the Australian comedy Love Serenade as the best movie ever made, but no one can deny that my taste in movies is mine and thereby wholly human.
I clicked your links this time and man, I loved that idea of college's point being to rearrange your molecules.
And-- I think my eyes rolled out of my head on that Belle Burden piece in the New Yorker. I'm so exhausted by the performed victimhood of the ultra-wealthy. Can't we collectively find something better to read?!
Terrific piece, John. Every week, you give us a glimpse of your unique human intelligence. Thank you for that and for your clarity and for your taste.
I was reminded of a passage in Jeanette Winterson's extraordinary essay, "Art Objects":
“Years ago, when I was living very briefly with a stockbroker who had a good cellar, I asked him how I could learn about wine.
‘Drink it’ he said.
It is true. The only way to develop a palate is to develop a palate.”
It takes time and patience and trust and a refusal to believe in the algorithm.
I was truly grateful for this sentence: "It’s similar to what happens when students write to a rubric and create a kind of simulation of a school essay." As a writing teacher, I have never given students a rubric. I have railed against rubrics as something designed to homogenize writing, something made to make grading faster and easier and less human to human.
One of Winterson’s finest books. For years I assigned many of its essays as artist-voice counterparts to various theories in a Philosophy of Art course. Students loved more than her writing; they came to love her, given the singular mind bubbling up to meet them.
Talk about taste may currently be co-opted by rudderless plutocrats. But an equally demoralizing alignment found “ taste” reduced to the perpetuation of social class markers, shibboleths for who belongs.
Kant thought taste operated as a function of the perceptual mind rather than an indicator of social class or power- instead, taste indicates a capacity for responsive discernment hovering between thought and feeling.
He’d appreciate your essay’s emphasis on the individuated roots of the phenomenon.
In 1982, wen I was 11, my 6th grade best friend and I discovered a book called _How to Be Funny: An Extremely Silly Guidebook_, by Jovial Bob Stine (R.L. Stine). It was a spoof on self-help books, but marketed to kids. As budding humor writers ourselves, we found it hilarious.
In response, we co-wrote a play, spoofing the book, and somehow convinced our sixth grade teacher to allow us to turn it into the Great 6th Grade School Play, with the two of us as directors, of course.
We assigned roles, scheduled rehearsals, ran run-throughs, and eventually cancelled the entire thing before the first performance. Our classmates simply did not know how to be funny. They couldn't deliver the lines to our satisfaction. We had taste.
The two of us are still friends today, both of us still writing. We credit our experience as failed 6th grade playwrights as formative in our careers--and our friendship.
I always enjoy the Biblioracle. But a good article deserves good proofreading:
...categoerries from pre-existing material
...didn’t think the site was any funny
(Does this need a 'the'?) ...but that selecting and sorting Chris Monks is doing is a real expertise.
Maybe it's just my computer version though. Carry on.
and in just the second sentence "I have no with to litigate the story’s provenance.."
what's happening here?
This is how you know it was human-authored!
But seriously, it’s a consequence of the circumstances under which this week’s newsletter was written - a snatch of time while out of town to celebrate a nephew’s graduation - which left me without another window to give it even a cursory read-over. I probably should’ve just taken the week off, but past experience says that at least someone (or someone’s) will drop their subscription.
I could also feed everything into an LLM and have it proof for me, but I don’t do that.
It genuinely pains me when I find these things later or they impinge on a reader’s engagement, but I don’t know what to say other than I’m human.
I have struggled with this concept because I simply don’t like a lot of the most “critically acclaimed” art out there. That’s usually because it’s really depressing and ambiguous which critics deem as the best. So I came up with the idea of quality vs taste. Something might be really high quality but it’s simply not in my taste. “Not for me”, if you will. For example, I am never watching the TV shows “Adolescence” or “Baby Reindeer”. Both shows ended up on top ten lists but I read the synopsis and thought hell no! I prefer lighter fare. I freely admit a lot of my kind of art out there is quite mid. Some even quite bad. It’s easier to make great gritty art. (Or have it green lit anyway). Quite difficult to make joyful art. But I keep searching.
But you have convinced me to be more confident in my taste. That within the purview of what I enjoy I actually can discern what is actually good.
I know very well what Naomi Kanakia says about the SF writers who really break the rules not getting any recognition but my spit take about the 6 Hugo nominees for this year was that the nominators wanted to go down fighting for stories that only humans could tell and there are subtle comments about the 2026 version of AI in at least half of them.
The one story that features something named as an AI is Nnedi Okorafor's "Death of The Author" which is meta-SF but as I said to spouse being essentially meta did not stop "Among Others" from winning by acclamation
(Could Tracy Deonn actually beat Suzanne Collins for the Lodestar since this may be the first legit adult epic fantasy in the history of that whole series)
I am not sure I have any more than ordinary taste or am ever likely to develop any but if I had to make a decision for a prize I would automatically fall back on "What is that story all about? Have we seen the thing it is about 100 times?" This criterion is good enough to accept that some deliberately absurd postmodern stories will be excluded
John, I am sorry to hijack your comments section, but I need to inform you that I just read The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (my favorite living fiction writer) and also read your review of same. The book is fantastic; classic Strout, and she may have even outdone herself. And your review is 💯. Just saying. Back to the regularly scheduled column. 💖📚 Also loved the small but meaningful swipe she takes at AI.
My wife just read it also and she loved it too and she hasn’t read any ES since Olive Kitteridge. I think this one is resonating with both Strout’s regular readers and others. It feels fit for the time.
It is indeed fit for the time. Glad Mrs. B loved it as well.
About a year ago I went back and read those old Brain Exploders, and they really were a lot of fun. And it was terrific engagement with McSweeney's readers who provided incredibly creative answers each week, which was really the point of the exercise. John, you might be heartened to know that years later I was doing an interview with a magazine writer and he was asking me about McSweeney's and I mentioned that I had written dozens of pieces for the website, including many under a pseudonym, and he paused for a long moment, and then his eyes got really wide and he said, "Wait...Are you Carlton Doby?" One of the most satisfying moments in my career as a writer.
Oh, John…the number of times I was rejected by McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Sigh.
But yes on this post. Yes, yes. Whether taste is “good” or “bad” is beside the point. I may be the only person who rates the Australian comedy Love Serenade as the best movie ever made, but no one can deny that my taste in movies is mine and thereby wholly human.
Have you written about Phish anywhere? I listen to them in small bursts full of appreciation (but mostly listen to jazz an The Grateful Dead).