Drew Austin: A Rainbow in Curved Air. “At the height of their prowess, pre-internet cultural elitists tapped into veins of esoteric knowledge via subcultural infrastructure that the mainstream could not or would not access, and then imprinted that knowledge upon themselves thoroughly enough that they could reliably transmit it to others. In this milieu, where good taste itself was always being formalized and even centralized (and thus not always open to interpretation), you distinguished yourself from the masses not by deciding what was good, but by having better access to the sources of taste and then merging them into your own identity, thereby becoming a beacon for others to follow.”
Michael Lopp has been blogging for 20 years. “I don’t expect to stop publishing here because I never stop writing.”
Alison Willmore: Is Jane Austen Just a Vibe Now? “Austen isn’t sacred. There’s no inherent virtue in being as faithful to her books as possible, and trying to do that still requires a degree of guesswork about artistic intent as well as leaving things out for the sake of running time. But Persuasion so lacks interest in the spirit of its source material that you’re left wondering why it bothers with it at all. Austen is reduced to just a vibe — to bonnets, walks in the countryside, sessions of piano playing in the parlor, a vague sense of a stuffy British accent.”