With my first trade press book I assumed the Great Critical Merit Pumpkin would help the book find its place in the world, or something. But successful (or enduring) books have always had advocates! And you’re promoting the work, not yourself. Totally different (I tell myself).

“Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi.... But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.”

The active massaging ones are the best kind.

“In ways large and small, we live in a world shaped by telemarketing. When’s the last time you answered a call from an unknown number? How many tweets do you encounter without bots in the replies?… Even your sleep app is hawking your data to companies trying to sell you melatonin gummies.“

Kind of amazing to me (but also very gratifying) that anyone still reads the book!

For the record, this is not my cat