π€£ There's definitely an audience that would be flattered by this appeal to elitism, but I just burst into laughter at this notification. (And no, I'm not humouring it. Notifications are now turned off.)
We are all smart *and* S-M-R-T in our own ways - but anyone who thinks that someone is "smarter" for reading stuff on Substack is the S-M-R-T-est of them all.
(That said, I'll have a free-to-read Substack up tonight. No pressure, smarty-pantses!)
π What are *you* reading, friends?
@MLClark I wonder what marketing person came up with that.
@MLClark I have a friend who makes a living free-lance copywriting, as I once did for Trek and B5 licensees. She gets incredible money thrown at her for projects without much thought behind them. It's a living.
I've seen the Peter Principle validated many times during my professional career. π
And somehow retained your sparkling wit, good cheer, & rich library of anecdotes through it all! π Not easy!
Also, I don't think I mentioned, but the older piece of political writing you shared a couple of weeks ago was a real treat; it's not that you haven't *grown* as a writer in all that time, but there's a definite stylistic consistency that carries through to your latest project. What a gift. Many spend a whole lifetime chasing their "voice". You most certainly found yours.
@MLClark Was that the presidential campaign article? Thank you for reading it.
I will admit to snark as a constant. π
I drove 100 km each way today to interview business managers for a union local at the Cape. I wrote about it upstream. You would have been fascinated.
The conversation drifted into the latent racism here, particularly towards Obama. I wasn't really surprised, especially since I'd intervened a couple times at my job to stop white bullies harassing black colleagues.
@MLClark Here's another political article from the Golden Age, a guest opinion column I wrote for the L.A. Times. My now-ex-mentor's name was listed first for the star power, but I wrote most of it, including the Yogi Berra homage.
P.S. In case you're wondering ... we won. π
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-07-28-me-29074-story.html
@MLClark Re the "fourth wall," I found out years ago that my last employer used outside contract support to respond to social media reviews. It was never admitted, but I kinda suspect they might have been writing fake positive reviews to boost our scores.
It was certainly clear that management didn't care about legitimate criticism, just juicing the score.