The Holiday Middlebrow Roundup

I know, it's like a clip show. I won't make it a clip show, though. Promise.

Happy holidays, from the middle of my brow to the middle of yours. I am proud to say that since the launch of Middlebrow Musings as a Substack newsletter, we have gathered a few hundred smart and engaged readers. As they said in I Heart Huckabee’s, “it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality.” No, wait, they said it different in that fondly remembered romp about existential detectives, environmentalism and big box retail.

The Big Story Since Middlebrow Launch

For me, the most important long-tail story to emerge since the launch of this newsletter is the infiltration of artificial intelligence into the creative realm. I’ve gone back to this topic a lot and how it is changing the visual arts, writing and music. I don’t believe that standing athwart this technology and yelling “stop!” will be effective and am persuaded by Karl Wenches, the founder and editor of New Pop Lit that the onus to compete is on the artists and the creative community. We have to prove the superiority of our humanity. Unfortunately, we will not be saved by the original Star Trek promise that Captain Kirk will use his guile to convince hyper intelligent machines to do themselves in.

What’s the Point of Education?

Another big topic has been higher education, what’s happened to it and why a lot of people have little use for it in the 2020s outside of getting good jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Heck, the STEM kids are the idealists these days. The real cynics are the geniuses who spend their time learning how to safely decarbonize the atmosphere and then take those skills to Deutsche Bank to make millions engineering carbon trading markets or something.

The debate between learning for its own sake and to make a living goes back to at least the caves of Lascaux, when anxious parents worried that their children wanted to learn to draw antelope on the walls rather than learn how to trap and butcher them. The issue takes on new urgency when education expenses have risen sharply enough that students have to take on lifelong debt just to learn that Foucault is not a French obscenity.

The Middlebrow tries hard not to stray into politics, though this is sometimes impossible. One issue I haven’t written about, but may next year, is what happens to academic concepts as they emerge into popular culture, and are generally warped by people in the wild. This happened very prominently with intersectionality and is now happening with anti-colonialism. Without straying too far, I will just say this to some of the many pro-Palestinian protesters who have emerged in New York — what do you think would happen if you told an actual member of Hamas in Gaza to respect your pronouns?

But, Back to Careers

My friend and former colleague Zack O’Malley Greenburg’s father Dan died at 87 years old a few days ago and The New York Times published what Zack called a “lovely” obituary that I recommend you all read. It details the remarkable career of a man who became a writer in the 1960s, publishing a small book of humor that took off and created the foundations for a career as a novelist, screenwriter, humorist and children’s book author. The Times compares Dan to Philip Roth and his story gives a glimpse into the very creative and rebellious spirit of post World War II America. Zack is also a talented writer who has published many books, has a Substack about music and money, and knows how to spin a great Salinger joke. Sorry for your loss, Zack. I know your Dad died proud.

The Creative Life

I won’t dwell on this, or name anybody, but two friends from different creative worlds (retail fashion and literature) took their lives this year. I had been out of touch with both and know little about the details, but I think I’d always considered suicide an affliction of young people. It’s just a reminder that middle life can be hard on people, with some doors closing or the realization of which had never been open in the first place. Again, not to dwell, this is just here to acknowledge.

M is for… MUUUUURDER! (Or not)

The Scholar Wife and I watched The Staircase on Max (nee HBOMax), which is about a murder in South Carolina in 2001 and, when we started up, something seemed familiar but I couldn’t place it. All that I could remember was that an owl might have factored into the victim’s fate. Turns out, I’d seen it before as it had been a Netflix documentary in the aughts. The newer telling is far more compelling, but it has Colin Firth, Juliet Binoche, and Parker Posey telling the story, so it’s better.

Holiday Gifts and Parties

New York City retains its holiday charm and the Middlebrow has followed the Scholar Wife to many festive gatherings, full of old and new friends and a lot of great art. At one party, I met Maureen Nevin, a financial journalist and author of the novella Make My Christmas. It’s both charming and acidic, as if P.G. Wodehouse and Martin Amis had a literary baby. Also, I since learned that the novella is part of a larger work, a novel called Expat, to be published next year. Thank you for the glimpse of your arch prose, Maureen.

And to all a good night (unless you read this in the morning)…

Unless an AI wins the National Book Award or something, this will be the last Middlebrow of 2023. It’s always weird giving publishing updates like that, as if it matters. But if I’m going to play personal newspaper, I might as well play it all the way.

Ho! Ho! Ho!