press clips vol. 2. no. 1
press clips vol. 2. no. 1
your favorite media column is back. windows down, scream along...
This is, truly, for nobody.
Except maybe you.
- - -
Spare a thought for The New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins. One of the most accomplished combat journalists, or just journalists, full stop. Even at the present moment, when journalists are under assault from autocrats, warlords, and snake-oil merchants moonlighting as a pundit class, to say nothing of America’s finest illiterate hayseed goobers convinced that if we’re not with them we’re out to flambé their babies, or the leftist urbanite anarcho-marxist fratboys podcasters and their thirst-trap better halves who mistakenly conflate nihilism with coolness and coolness with perspective — even at this moment, somehow, despite all that may necessitate its defense, there remains still a cringe-worthy surplus of sanctimony about journalism.
That’s fine. There’s far worse to be sanctimonious about.
But as far as I’m concerned, when considering the most fearless, risk-taking, endangered journalism worth being sanctimonious about, I think of the few journalists who demonstrated life-and-limb commitments to the trade like Dexter Filkins has. This guy was the LA Times bureau chief in Delhi, then he got a real job working out of the NYT’s Baghdad bureau in (what timing!) 2003. This was before a Neiman fellowship, before becoming a Carr Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, before he won two Polk awards, or a National Book Critics Circle Award for The Forever War, among tons of other deserved superlatives (including, naturally, a Pulitzer) for work chronicling America’s incursions into Iraq and Afghanistan, on the ground, right there, pretty much from the jump. Over the years, more than a few marines he’s been embedded with have been killed in action. He’s seen public executions by the Taliban; he’s almost been shot by the Taliban, more than a few times. In his incredibly distinguished career, he’s regularly come into contact with death, decrepitude, injury, tragedy, and broadly, the horrors of war, again, and again, and again.
And of all the horrors the 59 year-old Filkins has experienced, I can’t help but wonder:
Where, exactly, does seeing Jeffrey Toobin’s dick on a Zoom call rank?
Dexter Filkins saw Jeff Toobin’s dick. Of all the shit to be said about the Toobin thing, this is by far the funniest, the thing I can’t stop thinking about. Just, like: Guy gets decades of combat reporting under his belt, you’d think he’d think he’s seen the far reaches of human darkness one can encounter on the job, only to be subjected to, uh, that. *makes Brando voice* The. Horror.
On today’s edition of Press Clips, that Toobin thing ain’t limp yet, the Vogue scandal you haven’t caught wind of, Lady Chattterton’s Emrata, Ben Smith’s Substack scooplet, and then some. And oh, yeah — our big story: Some washed up media hack too often misremembered as a more skilled writer, more agile blogger, more well-sourced reporter, and more fundamentally moral human than he ever actually was decided to take up his mantle (such as it is) again, on Substack, in a transparently desperate ploy to slow his backslide into edgeless irrelevance and complete and utter mania. Gotta give him credit: At least Glenn Greenwald’s trying.
Also, I’m doing this again. Since this is apparently now something which needs to be said, truly, everyone, please: Keep it in your pants. These are your Press Clips for Monday, November 2nd, 2020. It’s nice to be back. If you have no idea what any of this is about, well, hi, right there with you. I used to be a media reporter a long time ago, then I got some other jobs, but never really hung up my spurs from chasing this particular dragon in full, and never quite put them back on either. Who knows what this is! I know this: There’s more to be said on writing, and a lot of complicated weird feelings about doing this, some of which you’ll find at the end. In the mean time: Thanks for letting me in your phone.
Deep breath.
Here we go:
Did Boffo Ben’s Sources Makes Schmuck Out of Smith by Seeding Smacked Down Substack Scosorry, sorry, you get it. This was oddly enjoyable:
It was pleasant, much the same way watching a mischievous bird gank someone’s food while they’re turned around is pleasant. Reminder, this isn’t the first time Ben Smith has had a supposed “scoop” smacked down. That said, I reluctantly give Smith the benefit of the doubt here, as this is a classic (and for those who know how to read it, totally transparent) denial:
Just because Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie said it’s not going to happen doesn’t mean the conversations at Twitter haven’t happened, nor does it mean someone else at Substack who isn’t Hamish hasn’t entertained that conversation, or thought about Twitter’s involvement in some other form.
McKenzie wisely understands that Twitter, ever under the interrogation lamp, and the medium of choice of Donald Trump, would likely read as a partner for Substack anathema to the ostensibly progressive culture that sits under his operation (and let’s be real: Substack in 2020 is Tumblr in 2010, and we all know how that one went). This kind of maneuvering is canny, but to be sure, it doesn’t entirely invalidate the premise of what Ben wrote.
Power Media Babies, Halloween Edition: On the west coast, Refinery 29’s Connie Wang and T Brand Studio’s Nathan Reese had a cranky avocado on their hands! Back here, Vanity Fair’s Claire Howorth and Bloomberg Opinion’s Mike Nizza found themselves hosting a famed literary bear! I know, this is exactly the kind of hard-nosed fire-anarchy-antifa-elmo.gif unhinged media goss I made you click over for. You like it and you’re welcome.
Something Rotting In Lisbon: Anna Wintour, and by extension, the entire Vogue brand is under the heat lamp, more than ever, maybe — the NYT’s Edmund Lee’s recent Wintour in Winter: Vogue Lioness Licks Wounds of Woke Summer rundown of Anna’s current state, for example. What a read. Get to that kicker at some point, my god.
Anyway: Anna’s invincible, we all know that, but you’d think Conde (or Anna) would be keeping a short leash on the brand, this last year having, uh, been what it’s been. Now’s not the time for the Vogue mast to be fucking up! Shouldn’t be hard? And yet: There remains evidence of a lesser-known 2020 Vogue fumble that persists as a PR problem — at the hands of one of their alum, no less, albeit, an alum on a righteous crusade. And this one can only get worse. Not because it’s metastasizing as a problem, per se, but because a lot of people are starting to learn about this one for the first time, just now.
Former Vogue staffer Gillian Sagansky — these days, a contributing editor for W and a DJ (this mix of hers, from the VF Best Dressed party of two years ago: highly enjoyable!) — posted about it on her Instagram.
I’ll let Gillian take it from here, excellent use of scare-quote fingers and all:
Sagansky has spoken eloquently (and hilariously) on mental health-related issues, specifically, on her own experiences with OCD. Of course, it should come as a shock to literally nobody that I’ve experienced my own run-ins with a touch of the moon over the last ten years, but it should come as a shock to literally no one that anybody has experienced their own run of depression or anxiety, anymore, especially after this year.
[Also if after this year, you haven’t, truly: You’re like one of those vampires who yawned at the end of Uncut Gems. You’re too well-adjusted to be right. Stay off my block, pandemic thrivers.]
Anyway, as someone with a reflexive aversion to pearl-clutching at art and as someone who literally once had a seizure in an installation at Frieze (true story!), I feel like I am uh uniquely qualified to speak with some degree of right-headedness when I get a read on what could be a fair-minded, reasonably sensitive reaction to media and art — which, if that’s not already clear, is what we have here. Sagansky’s rage feels righteous and true, and I mean, like, go take a look at Vogue Portugal’s spread, which makes getting help for mental illness look like the last 20 minutes of Requiem for a Dream, if you take away the artfulness, ideas, and honestly, style.
At first, Vogue attempted to double down on the supposed “importance” (LOL) for the covers to “shine a light” on the issue, then back-pedaled, saying that they pulled one of the covers, which (as Sagansky notes) remains live on official channels (like, uh, their Instagram account). And that, somehow, isn’t the only dish involving a foreign rag this week.
Ladies Chatterton Loves: Harper’s Letter Writer Thomas Chatterton Williams pens a profile of Emily Ratajkowski for Marie Claire (do not call it the “French edition”), in which he marvels at her intelligence (which has been, uh, pretty widely known by most people not writing a profile of her, most recently demonstrated to fantastic effect on The Cut in September). This is astounding to him because, as he tells it, she’s so hot, his wife would smash, or something? That seemed to be everyone else’s read off of Google Translate. Honestly, can’t believe they even got that fair. Je suis desole, je ne parle pas fuckhead.
EmRata, naturally, does not like, calls it gross and embarrassing, especially TCW’s attempt at feminist theory in the kicker. TCW’s response to the multitude of critiques, charging, among other things, objectification? “I got paid. To go to the Cap d’Antibes and talk to Emily Ratajkowski, in a hotel overlooking the Mediterranean.” Gross! And yeah, that about covers the tenor of that entire exchange. Anyway: Celebrity mad at writer for profile, straight man fucks up assignment objectifying female celebrity, we’ve heard all this before. The new twist and where it gets weird here is that according to TCW, his wife French journalist Valentine Faure initially got the EmRata assignment, and figured he’d enjoy it more, so she….handed it off to him. This is made all the more weird by the fact that this made it into the copy of the actual story.
Uh, so, Marie Claire is just letting writers hand off their cover story assignments to their spouses? That’s….not at all suspect! (It’s suspect.) If you know more, hi. Meantime, you will not find a better rundown of TCW here than the one that recently ran in Bookforum (h/t Maura), in which you will not be surprised to learn that a guy who thinks it’s a-mazing that a model can read the sentence words in a big Bolano book has also previously portrayed his awakening regarding race as moving from hip-hop to jazz, from embracing rap’s ethos to reading existentialists. Real galaxy brain shit. Speaking of neurology: Did you know someone’s mind can grow ass-backwards? As is too often the case, I’m reminded of the Sarah Manguso line: Inner-beauty can fade, too.
Prodigal Rapo Return: I just saw this, and like, I actually kinda feel bad for the guy. Not sympathy, in the sense of: I feel pity with what you’re about to go through. More, just, like: HOW?! Who is not there to tell you? The timing, the graphic, the hashtag, the messaging, it’s all so much. I’d think it a parody if it weren’t so perfectly of his particular gestalt. How do you not know this is a BAD IDEA?!?! My brain actually can’t handle the Rapo thing right now, taking a pass on this along with the Ruth Shalit thing (fabricators are the absolute worst and break my brain), discuss amongst yourselves, NEXT.
Obligatory Monday Night Nate Silver Commentary:
Open Calls: If you’ve got sources, or anyone who wants to talk, my inbox is open, specifically happy to talk more on two things these days:
A Creativity Crisis: Yeah yeah yeah, we all know, everyone is burning the fuck out. But I’m hearing editors, and especially feature editors, are having a harder time assigning stories, getting them pitched, and getting legible copy turned in — let alone, getting them turned it at all — from otherwise seemingly dependable writers who you might reasonably expect otherwise from. One features editor at a major news site told me they’re just thankful to have anything turned in these days. Are you an editor who’s had writers flake on you in droves, or a writer who just couldn’t pull it together in a way you normally could? I wanna know.
The Power Secret Slacks List: Exactly what sounds like. Who’s on them, what they’re gabbing about, and then, where they rank. Yes: Power rankings! Of Slacks! We’ll see how this one goes. Poachables? The Power Singles and Couples, redux? Those, potentially, too.
And finally, the reason you’re here.
Release the Toobin:
Jeff Poetry Jam: In the immortal words of another legend of Accidental Dick: It ain’t over til it’s over. And the Toobin thing? Not over. I know of at least two reporters at a major (read: national) daily working together hot on the Toobin beat, they are digging, and I’d be shocked if they were the only ones.
And what more is there? You know what they say: Where there’s dick, there’s…fire? There’s dickfire? There’s….uh….
Look, I’ve been out of the charge-it-to-the-Centurian-card-dick-joke game for a while, be kind, it takes a minute get it back up at my vintage. Meanwhile, people, people, people! I’ve been trying to tell you for fucking years to look out for Toobin! Last year, I tried seeding a tip to A MEDIA REPORTER WHO WILL GO UNNAMED BECAUSE I LIKE HIM to, at the very least, read up on Toobin (we were at Basik, the Official Bar of East Williamsburg, a real neighborhood). AMRWWGUBILH didn’t bite on what I handed him of Toobin….’s dick (sorry).
To be fair, “look at the shit Toobin did back when” is, I guess, a bit of cold case — at least in the sense that he didn’t get raked for it when he should’ve. Or at least in the sense that it was until this summer, when Tammie Teclemariam took a flamethrower to Conde Nast, kicking off what might’ve been the worst summer Conde’s had since McKinsey redlined the Orangina budget. And yet: ‘Was a little surprised (but not at all shocked) when Toobin’s sordid past never came up for review.
All that said: The media reporter I met at Basik, like most people, had no idea that Toobin was a Grade-A scumlord, nor that it was so patently public that this was the case.
For example:
In 2010, following a Rush & Molloy item, I learned (uh, reportedly, sure, whatever) Toobin chased a woman back to her hotel room, asking if he can fist her asshole, and refused (repeatedly!) to take no for an answer.
Maureen O’Connor followed up, and found out the object of his advances was none other than, dear god, Judith Regan. If you’re familiar with Regan’s ouvre, then you’ve already spared a thought for anyone who had to report that one out.
This was after we’d learned the guy fathered a lovechild with Casey Greenfield, daughter of then-CBS veep Jeff Greenfield, who he met in the Conde cafeteria (where she was working at the time as a rank-and-file fact-checker in her mid-20s, some 14 years his junior). We also know (allegedly…) hetried to categorically coerce Greenfield into getting an abortion. And (allegedly!) when she wouldn’t, hetold her she’d ‘regret it,’ and to expect no help from from him.
And he tried! Toobin didn’t pay child support until a paternity test and a lawsuit. Maury Povich, eat your heart out.
Oh, and there’s a whole thing where Toobin, reporting out a profile of Roger Stone — yes, that Roger Stone — at (yes) a swingers club which he, according to eyewitnesses, lingered for quite a minute at after Stone had bounced.
And now, in addition to the above, we know Toobin felt slick enough to engage in some midday auto-smang during an election wargame (?!?) that starred almost entirely first-string New Yorker staff writers of his stature and a couple people from WNYC, too.
Filkins withstanding, I really do feel terrible for everyone else, but especially the people who work in public radio. Nobody is paid enough to look at Toobin’s dick during the workday, but only some people have salaries supported by Sustaining Members and Listeners Like You, and I assure you, whatever those salaries are, they are not paid enough for anything, let alone paid enough to watch some wayward peen getting worked by its owner before lunch. Or, even worse: After. In 2020, a Brooklyn-bound J-Train’s somehow a safer space than a Zoom with Eustace Tilly’s finest. De Blasio’s New York(er)!
[Also, does anyone know what’ll be made of this election wargame? If the intention of all that was to make some good radio, well, I have yet to hear anything produced of it, the election’s already here, and it’d appear RadioLab already bested them for both timing and topicality and probably, honestly, quality, too. Also, do you know how many times I avoided the word “come” in that graf? Twice. Also, “beat them to it.” Editing is the soul of ‘Stacking.]
Now, we’ll take a pass on most of the shit that ended up in my DMs on the day the Toobin story broke, though for the record, most of it has already gone to other reporters, and out of respect for them (and their legal teams! and my lack of one!) I’m gonna hold off on running most of it here. But, spoiler alert: While what I’ve heard is of substance, none of it, so far, is the kind of egregious smoking gun (i.e. workplace-related badness) that would immediately disqualify Toobin from ever having a line back from pasture any more than it’s been cut now. Or, rather, wasn’t cut for prior to this (see the above).
But it all reminds me of that line from Reservoir Dogs, when Harvey Keitel tells the breakfast table, You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.
Like, come on: Would anyone other than an institution of a straight white guy, such as Toobin is — the kind who, let’s be real, could reasonably assume some kind of career recovery from something like this in the long run, even after getting caught with his dick out, literally — would anyone other than that kind of person even dream of doing what he did?
Of course not. Never. Dear god: Never. Women? Black staffers? Anyone who, quite simply, does not resemble Toobin? Can you see it?
Christ, at the very least, they’d take precautions, like, I don’t know, doing it in the other room? Or anywhere other than in front of the computer? The laziness, the complacency, the absolutely gobstopping lack of risk assessment, it’s just such a testament to the power of Toobin’s position, his own sense of infallibility, or just an unconscious desire to demonstrate power in one way or another.
And also, maybe, something else. Here’s something I got on the backline I can’t go any further without telling you: The rumor was that he’s into being humiliated. As a kink.
Let’s assume, for a second, this is true. No kinkshame in the game! Plenty of powerful people are into being humiliated as a kink, but it doesn’t usually come at the expense of searing peoples’ eyeballs. It certainly does nothing to budge the needle on a simple fact: He felt powerful enough to do this. To explore his kink (or even just, simply, himself) in a professional setting more elite than entrance to Ivy League schools, and top-level jobs in presidential administrations — the kind of professional setting people dream their entire lives of finding themselves in without ever coming even remotely close to nudging their smallest toe in the door — is nothing if not a fantastic demonstration of power, given, assumed, exploited. Most of us, at work, have fucked off. But fucked ourselves in so public and multitudinous a fashion? No.
And if you think that (A) this doesn’t make him a Shitty Man, working in Media, or (B) that there isn’t more there, there, you either don’t belong in this business, or dear god, need to get out of it, post-haste. All of this goes without saying: If the supposed story of Judith Regan’s Toobin encounter is true, Toobin should’ve been rooted out, or on probation in perpetuity, from long ago. The fact that he wasn’t should only reinforce a lack of shock at the idea of Toobin servicing himself an afternoon delight without even getting up from his chair as the only truly appropriate reaction, here.
Oh, and on Toobin’s defenders in media? Well, for one thing, now we know who’s jackin’ it, like, several times a day, as opposed to the fortnightly matinee everyone’s had during work hours in this pandemic at least once (yeah, even you, definitely you). Anyway, about them: They’ve been covered quite well by Jack Crosbie at Discourse. None of the Toobin defenders are particularly shocking. What more can you say about them than they’ve already said about themselves? They’re the kinds of people who defend other people jacking off, at work, on Zoom calls. Pretty open-and-shut case, y’know?
Finally David Remnick’s been friends with Toobin for since he was anointed the editor of The New Yorker (if not longer!) whenhe was 39. Yeah: 39. You’d have to be an idiot to believe Remnick’s been totally blind to Toobin’s transgressions and his previous tabloid appearances since then. I doubt Remnick himself would deny that. It’d be almost an insult to think otherwise.
So what I’m wondering, then, isn’t how much Remnick’s known, and not whether or not they ever discussed any of this (if they didn’t discuss it, then christ, Remnick’s really got a problem on his hands, because punching at his weight, “plausible deniability” just won’t cut it, and there’s no doubt some kind of paper trail that could fuck him over if push came to shove/investigation by external council).
The question here, then, is what context these discussions were in—their tones, their tenor, their nuances, and whether the hypocrisy of a man paid to moralize, who’s pretty clear and well-documented pattern of plainly reckless (if not, on occasion, pretty fucking toxic) behavior where sex, relationships, and professional contacts were concerned occurred to either of these guys.
And once you get past that one, the question becomes so small, you gotta squint to see it, but if you can, you’ll see the tiny, prismic core of this entire thing: Just how unsurprised was David Remnick at any of this? And what responsibility does he bear for a lack thereof?
Odds and Ends:
Defector is just fantastic, isn’t it? Not sure how they’re doing by the numbers, but where the writing’s concerned, they haven’t lost a touch; if nothing, they’re better, and working for themselves gives the impression (at least from here) of more discipline, and a tighter editorial vision. I’m reading it daily. And go figure: The one that’s stuck with me the most so far is Kelsey McKinney’s piece on learning how to drive stick in a pandemic, a simple, totally joyful pleasure of a read. There is no reason to root against them and every reason to root for them.
At one point this summer the entire first edition of this was just going to be a white paper for my new Substack model, the thesis of which is: Instead of paying writers to publish, let’s pay writers not to publish, because their writing is bad, their takes are disingenuous, but (like Trump!) they have the energy and narcissism to keep making bad things. Pleasing the masses is not hard! Anyway, you may pay me to shut the fuck up, also, I will happily undercut my competitors. I still think this is a good idea.
Speaking of which: Glenn Greenwald really doesn’t deserve shit for real estate here except to say that if he did, in fact, focus his sights on Study Hall co-founder “authoritarian cretin” Kyle Chayka, he’ll have stumbled upon possibly the only thing that could get me to pay for his Substack, because I love nothing more than the idea of Kyle — KYLE! lmao— as some kind of Maoist internet narco kingpin of Slacks about, like, how to pitch stories to Popular Mechanics. When reached by bat-line for comment on Greenwald’s charge, Chayka responded:
I am crying-laughing at Glenn Greenwald (and now, Jesse Singal, of course, OF COURSE) calling Kyle Chayka, bad for journalism. That is a first. As is the assessment of Kyle, who writes about chairs and housepaint, as an autocrat wielding unchecked power over anything other than, like, his nonstick wok. Glenn Greenwald, meanwhile, is a guy who has spent much of his once-meaningful career dealing in state secrets, and is now somehow regularly suspected of being a Russian asset, who does a really good job at dissuading those who suspect it, lemme tell you, by spending his frothy-mouthed days conflating Robert Mueller with the New York Times with Joe Biden with, I don’t know, like, Bullwinkle, for his muus-und-squorrl handlers.
Study Hall is a freelancers’ board. Look, guys, Study Hall isn’t really for me, the same way it’s definitely not for Greenwald or Singal. But I’m a member in support of Kyle’s and moreso the Study Hall community’s mission — their aims are individually, like most of us, self-serving, but as a whole, more noble than certainly anything that’d stand in opposition to it. I can’t think of people who have worked to build something more earnestly dedicated in support of writers looking to break in, or find help dealing with *gestures widely* all this, or find other writers to talk to about all this bullshit somewhere that isn’t, like, Twitter.
For the olds in the room: It’s the updated version of Laurel Toubey’s MediaBistro, but is frankly, for the price, a better bargain, especially because it aims to accomplish (and is accomplishing) something so many have set out to do and failed: Democratize our industry further, especially for those for whom it’s traditionally been closed off to because people like Greenwald and Singal, who, I mean, jesus, just look at them. The fact that they see a series of Slack rooms and spreadsheets of editors’ emails as an existential threat is maybe giving Study Hall a liiiiiittle more credit than it’s due. Or maybe it’s giving Study Hall exactly as much credit as it’s due, as it throws into harsh relief just how lousy the express lane to irrelevance is with guys like that, and just how well-paved the future of this business will be with that which comes from the likes of Study Hall and its wonderful, neophyte ilk, who I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to any day over anyone who’s been in this business as long as its naysayers have. We probably need to hear from them more.
We’re almost through, here.
Look: If you can’t tell, I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m out here publishing what amounts to a first draft. There’s a lot more to be said here, about writing, about why I haven’t properly done a Substack yet, about why I’m still not fully committed to doing it now. As for this? Press Clips is a pop-up shop inside of a pop-up shop. I’m obviously not doing this for any kind of mass audience (see: any of the above), or for anything but fun. I’m in a pandemic, I’ve thought about returning to media writing forever, I’ve laughed it off each time, and because I still haven’t quite figured out the logistics of my initial idea (which I still might eventually do, which isn’t about media, and which entails abandoning Substack entirely and using Gmail and doing a 50 count release for each issue, a real Joe Pesci-in-JFK-type-beat email newsletter), I’ll just do this for now instead.
Anyway, buckle in for some writing about self-doubt, and, like, what I found after staring into Gerhard Richter’s Gray Mirrors for hours on end (fine: twenty minutes; hint: you). It won’t all be media noise; dear god, I hope it’s not. Spoiler alert, and here’s a sample of that self-doubt: Take those aforementioned, outmoded media men angry and fearful of the youngs, right? Fucking a, do I fear, with all of my life, becoming one of these out-of-touch idiots who does the same schtick for so long that they can’t tell the joke from the joke-teller. God help me if I’m beating the same drum, to the same effect, for the same audience. It’s (part of) why I stopped doing daily media reporting, and (part of) why I’ve tried to take as different and strange a job as possible one to the next. I get suspicious if not downright contemptuous of gratuitous praise, and need to move on from it quickly. Related: I could probably use far more common and routine expressions of gratitude for having *again, gestures widely* all this even tolerated, and related to that, less BIG VIRGO ENERGY in my life. So, then, what was the final push to get me to do, this?
A new Stevie Nicks live album. Really! Fuckin’ thing just showed up on Spotify the other night, it’s from a recent tour, I guess. (I know, wow, how novel: A Gawker alum having something to say about Stevie Nicks and writing, what creative, much joy, flat timecircle, etc.) And I know: Why listen to a new Stevie Nicks live album when you can listen to literally, like, anything from the past? She’s mostly singing the same songs, a few new stylings here and there, but older, with a voice less clear, with more fry, not quite what we all know it once was. And yet: It’s not what it once was. “Wild Heart” hits different. Swear to god, she sings it like she’s singing to a world she knows has seen this, and has new life in her, has something to say specifically to you, having seen that, somewhere along the lines of “still got it.” (Related: Never heard “New Orleans” before, great song.)
One more thing, and then we’re done. I cut the following noise from the tone poem I did for Vox a few weeks ago about home redecorating. It had no business being in the original draft, which was possibly more unhinged, in some ways, than anything you read here already. It’s how we’ll finish:
If not the best, than the most fitting song to come out this year might be the final track of the new Phoebe Bridgers album, Punisher. It’s called “I Know The End,” and it may or may not be about the end of a phase of a life you’ve lived in a place, or just about the end of making an album, or just the end of the world, or/also, all of those things and none of them, all at once.
The song starts in a dreamy haze of depression over touring an album in Europe, and then, at exactly 2:22, starts to spin up into a rolling beat, the tempo rising, the chords lifting, the track clicking, as Bridgers maps out a cross-country road trip, an aural yellow line blinking over rolling black pavement under a car locked 14 over on cruise control, ripping through a wide, panoramic expanse: “windows down/scream along/to some America First rap-country song.” Bars.
The song ends with a roaring cacophony of guttural screams on the line “the End is here.” Not even singing — really, just screaming. It’s a shitshow of beautiful sound; it’s terrifying, sad, hilarious, cathartic, and it closes the album with a final note of a hoarse Phoebe Bridgers and laughing, or crying, or both, depending on who’s listening. All of it, the sound of movement, of catharsis, of giving something up, of some shared acknowledgement of apocalypse, screaming with your friends, and the need for home, god, it’s the ultimate fantasy right now: A feeling of uninterrupted release.
And oh, yeah: About that need for home.
In the first verse, as she’s suffering from depression, from being on tour too long:
Close my eyes, fantasize,
Three clicks and I'm home.
When I get back, I'll lay around,
And I'll get up and lay back down.
Romanticize the quiet life,
there's no place like my room.
But: By the end of the song, Bridgers has told us that she’s not sticking around to watch her current home go down in a tornado, and that — the spaceships and government drones she may or may not see along the way be damned — she’ll find a new place to put down roots, and call home.
And *then* there’s all that screaming about The End being here.
This all feels immensely relatable right now.
Thank you for your continued support of Press Clips. It will only run on Mondays. The rest of this will just be, I don’t know, fortnightly miscellany and blogging. Please hit me with your tips, comments, complaints, profound concerns, hit me with the things you think I should be reading, with writers worth shouting out, with your terrible, petty dramas and your confessions and your questions? I guess? I could do an advice column? I could…sell you my collection of pandemic hats? Give you my egg sandwich recipe? I don’t know. Hit me here. Corrections will go in the next edition—that’ll fill space, I’m sure. Just, like: Thanks for reading. I do not deserve the dignity of your attention, and I’m humbled by and grateful for any of it. Be kind, wear a mask, and keep your dicks off Zoom. As ever,
-f.