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Steve Martin's avatar

Hey Dean.

First off, a thousand apologies.

Just getting back to you after an unexpected hiatus that kept me from tackling my promise to you. In my defense, I had to upgrade a failing laptop with a new one (and all the shopping and reconfiguring that comes with it), and accommodate a buddy from about 35 years ago visiting Japan. But even more salient ... you are simply above my paygrade as a writer.

First off, there are an increasing number of us in full agreement with the content of what you've said with this post (though still not enough).

But your style is a beast of another nature. Reminds me of the sword of substack favorite, Margaret Anna Alice — but hammered with testosterone, forged in acid.

Hell, you could bring a blush to Ambrose Bierce.

Reminds me of something Nietzsche once said ...

'I don't write to be understood. I write to be memorized. I write with a hammer.'

Now I finally have some time to go back and start reading a few of your posts that have popped up since posting your novel's chapter. When I first read that, I didn't have enough of a context to leverage into any meaningful analysis. But in retrospect, the style reminded me a bit of Ayn Rand ... neither fish nor fowl, neither purely fiction nor purely philosophy. Something ... different. I guess I still won't be able to give much feedback until I read the whole novel.

But it is posts like this that really humble me. Your creative drawing-and-quartering, gutting, and burning evil at the stake is poetry of the highest order. But in this era of Tweet-length attention spans, poetry is a hard sell.

I understand the dilemma of preaching to the choir at the expense of excluding those who hunger for only the bread and circuses of Hollywood. The closest thing that comes to mind in bringing your writing to the larger public is something similar to those Milla Jovovich movies 'Biohazard' or 'Resident Evil' ... but as documentaries rather than Sci-Fi.

Like listening to a solo by the likes of Bill Evans, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, or Pat Metheny ... I look at your writing in this post, and there is not a thing I can suggest to raise the bar. You are on fire. And I love it.

Maybe one direction is to start looking for collaborators ... particularly in the visual arts, and then in music (maybe an audio voice narration), as those seem to penetrate the subconscious of the average consumer more easily.

But then again, there's that dilemma of pointing to the truth, but with an audience like an obedient dog gazing at your finger. I haven't figured out my way out of that hole, but am inspired by you to buckle down and get serious.

You have the talent, the motivation, and the insight to make a difference. The best I can do now is to introduce you to a few I chat with who are also consistent in engaging their readers with rigor and authenticity.

Margaret Anna Alice I've already mentioned. Oh ... damn! I just took a look at the list of those you follow and see that you subscribe to her, as well as another I was going to mention ... Toby Rogers! Margaret was one of only three or four I had subscribed to, but on a fixed income of declining value, I've let even those subscriptions slip out of my fingers.

In thinking of that wide range of earth, wind, and fire ... two others along a similar wave length include poet/essayists Mary Poindexter McLaughlin and Kathleen Devanney.

And one that I haven't personally chatted with but enjoy reading when I get the time is 'John Carter from Postcards from Barsoom' ... this post with advice to writers being a good example ... https://barsoom.substack.com/p/roughly-translated-from-the-original/comments

It's going to take me a couple of days to go back and read your most recent posts. I suspect, and hope, they are similar to this one ... hard cutting music to my ear.

Go Dean! I'll be spreading your name to the few I chat with.

Cheers buddy, and again ... apologies for being a day late and a dollar short.

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Clyde's avatar

"So what separates us from the smooth-brained loyalists still mainlining state-sanctioned narrative?

Pattern recognition.

Cognitive stamina.

A memory longer than a news cycle.

The ability to connect dots without asking permission.

And the willingness to speak without apology, even when the mob demands silence and alleged friends whisper compliance.

We weren’t early. We were just unsponsored.

They told us we were wrong.

We weren’t.

We were just ahead."

I don't think I could have said it better myself, those who know the real meaning of words and convention, and those who subvert those meanings for their own agenda's are far more prevalent than we've ever witnessed before. Your gift for sometimes stating the obvious to the choir or the obscurity of the willfully ignorant is a balancing act that few can follow. Language that is sufficiently strong enough to shake and bake the intellectually morbid into awakening is not an art enjoyed by all, but those who appreciate the finer points of a sharpened sarcasm (like C.J. Hopkins) and others to the institutionalization of industrial strength hypocrisy to the pinnacle of pride pricking I rarely seen. Thank you for your continued observations that are so easily overlooked by those who cannot see past the superficial. Have a nice day Dean!

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