Everyone Hates Everyone.

Add up all the rage people hang their hats and lives on, and in my case, personally, I learned a long time ago, you gotta ignore the bullshit. The only thing that surprised me was the extent to which most of these individuals are writers. The idea of what territory a single writer might own — is not ownership — it’s a secret buried in a graveyard. Publishing is overwhelmingly pop culture which is not a culture, that would be an amorphous animal, but this animal is filled with the kind of secret rage that says playing by the rules will get you what you want, be careful what you wish for. You own less than nothing. It’s easy to pop the pop. They suffer from the Higgs Field that pushes and prods, but is not the thing that pushes and prods, the universe is not composed of electrons, we are that electron. It’s a thing that disappears in less than the blink of an eye. Sounds like a few books I’ve read this past summer. The space between the electron and the proton is the same distance Earth is from Jupiter. A neutrino has no mass. Trillions of them pass through you every second, they make no noise as they do not interact with other particles.

Fusion becomes the thing. Especially with hydrogen that at the quantum level is not unlike being put into the controversy box that publicists need to make their explosive pitch to a population in a culture that does not read. Let’s get real. When was the last time you read a piece of fiction grounded in nonfiction and is drowning in obfuscation. That is what publishing does well. It clings to the ephemeral. The gravitas is class and caste. Social inventions. We don’t need a black hole. We already have one. Publishing is playing to the choir, not playing with the choir, but with the royal attitude of The Palace of Versailles. Most of these people do not read anything published by someone else. You are all the Palace. Can you hear the writers scratching at the door.

This is the door you have to pass through to get thrown out again if your first book did not perform the way they wanted it to perform. Publishing is Vegas. No one gets out alive. Place your bets. You will not walk away with the casino’s money which isn’t money. It’s about what you are allowed to get away with. Now, that is the kind of a transparency of voices we can ill afford to listen to. It is a forced marriage that now wants out of reality. Walking trails through the woods — village to village — we want Thoroughbreds, we want Thoroughbreds. It comes with a prenup. No one is going anywhere. One shot is all you are — the data says — allowed. They want a Thoroughbred.  Give them what they want, Mr. Potter. And take your broom with you. Publishing is about who you know. Editors read contracts. This is a political act. They need the money, too. If anyone even whispers the word capitalism — you will be marched to the stockades where you will remain until no one knows who you are which will arrive by breakfast.