American - Journalist | 1983 -
Even the best novelists are rarely congratulated on the quality of their observations about contemporary life.
Michelle Dean
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There is something a little vulgar about writing a novel that is too close to the present, too concerned with current events, too eager to critique technological advancements.
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Research can be a boon to a novelist - there are more things in heaven and Earth than can be dreamt of in a single writer's philosophy - or it can become a hindrance, a thick layer of algae that weighs down the storytelling.
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Prestige podcasts, like prestige television shows, tend to have an audience that believes itself literate, well-informed, and reasonable. Listening to podcasts, in this model, is a form of virtue.
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Podcast listening carries with it a faint aura of cultural snobbery, a notion that to cue up an episode is to do something highbrow and personally enriching, whether it's a history lecture broadcast from a university or an amateur talk show recorded in someone's garage.
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A lot of people produce podcasts in which they simply ramble on for hours about themselves and their lives. There is something very poignant about the volume of human desire to be heard out there in the Wild West of podcasts.
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I have deliberately arranged my life so that I see pictures of cute animals on the Internet every day.
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The desire to abdicate, to give up - for me, that's primal.
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A good novelist pays attention to his characters. A good biographer pays attention to the documents before her. A good critic pays close attention to the thing she's brought to evaluate.
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In an age where television is viewed as the best medium to 'tell stories,' narrative often stands in for substance on would-be prestige shows.
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Peak TV has resulted in beautiful shows that have nothing in particular to tell us about humanity.
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People spend their entire lives trying to construct something to grab onto: a family, a home, a business. Rarely does anyone seem to manage to get much ground under their feet.
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