Greetings from Glen Allen!
Quick writing update here: I finished a first 20,000-word draft of a novella. It took me most of the summer (2,000 words a week). Maybe the lesson is that you can write a million words over 20 years, but page 1 is page 1 again. That’s a great equalizer.
Below are links to a sequence of posts I wrote about Flannery O’Connor, some commentary about 2010s music culture, and a comment on AC/DC.
Until next month.
From the Speakeasy: Flannery O’Connor
I filed these under “craft essays” on the blog, but they’re really about reading O’Connor if you take her Catholicism seriously and her at her word about her subject:
Part 1: “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.” Introduction and a way of reading her literally.
Part 2: “Good Country People.” How she knocks prideful characters off the Throne of Me.
Part 3: “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Thinking about grace, moments of violence, and her overall worldview.
“Stomp, Clap, Hey” Music
My X feed has been full of people commenting about this short clip, a Tiny Desk Concert featuring “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. The original poster called it the “worst song ever made,” which has sparked days of rage against the early 2010s “Stomp, Clap, Hey” music.
You know the genre: Mumford and Sons, The Lumineers, the aesthetic of mason jar lightbulbs, beards and whiskey.
What startled me about the recent commentary is (1) how distinct that era turned out to be, and (2) how that era is over. Getting older means getting stuck so you don’t always realize when something new emerges. I had a professor call those your “cool years.”
My cool years were around 2005, when this “Stomp, Clap, Hey” hipster stuff was vibrating on college campuses but maybe hadn’t gone mainstream1. Think Jump Little Children meets Old Crow Medicine Show.
Here in 2025, I suppose people are tired of that aesthetic. It’s Millennial-coded in an era of Gen Z ascendancy2, much like the late ’90s vibes were out of style in 2010. However, if you’ve been paying attention, the late ’90s are back in style, just like the ’70s were in style in the late ’90s.
There’s a 25-year cycle where what was old becomes new again. By this math, we should see a resurgence of the 2010-era hipsters around 2035-2040, so hold onto your mason jars. To quote Marty McFly, “I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.”
Speaking of Music: AC/DC
AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top” also entered my news feed recently. I never think of them as a favorite band, but here I’d like to suggest they earn the award for consistency. They’re like Tom Petty: They have a bazillion hits, and while none of them is the “best rock song ever,” collectively it’s quite the achievement.
Who else is in that category?
Learn more about these exciting novels and order your signed copy here.
The essence of hipsterdom is being hipster before hipster was cool.
Yes, fellow Millennials, we’re old and out of style.