It’s a hard one – trying to explain what it is I’m doing here. It’s particularly hard when I’m trying to write here, not sell. But I don’t want this to come off as a journal entry on which I’ve accidentally clicked ‘Send’ either. It’s a hard note to strike.
All I want to do is write about the things I’m working on building so I can have interested (and interesting) people reach out, start a conversation, and – to use a tired corporatism – ‘co-build’.
The Medium is the Message
I’m currently in the process of reading (or more honestly, trying to read) Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media. Marshall McLuhan is the guy who introduced the idea of the medium being the message into popular consciousness. That the message contained within a piece of art is (maybe) indistinguishable from the message contained in the medium itself. The message of film (as a medium) is the non-linearity and interconfigurability of time; therefore so is the central message of a film.
In that spirit, it’s particularly important (for someone like me) to ask: where do I write about these ‘things I’m working on building’?
Step 1, out of compassion for the now surely confused reader – what are these ‘things’?
Milk Toast: a company I’ve founded that’s delivering growth for early to mid-stage tech companies both through services and a product.
Stranger Fiction: the old music and culture magazine I used to run, which was once quite popular in a slice of the underground before Thai t-shirt salesmen hacked into my Instagram account.
Ravens: the nostalgialternative dad rock band in which I play bass and sing secondary vocals.
A hyphenate, as nineties-born millennials like myself might self identify (yech).
So here are my publishing options. It’s clear that the option I’ve chosen is Substack, given you’re reading this on Substack, but humour me.
LinkedIn. That’s the logical place to post writing about Milk Toast. But (at risk of alienating a whole lot of the interested – and interesting – people about whom I spoke earlier), the idea of adding my writing to the “look ma no hands”-style faux-vulnerable slop that floods my LinkedIn feed was nauseating. More importantly, and less controversially, it would make little sense for me to post my very positive feelings about rediscovering the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill on LinkedIn. That sort of content is best housed in –
Stranger Fiction. And there’s a thousand-odd people that still subscribe to a newsletter that hasn’t gone out in years. Growth hat on, I say, no CAC. But real growth hat on, I also say the following things – “These people were promised a newsletter on music, literature, and culture. Why should they care about the growth product you plan to build for small and medium businesses?”, “A thousand-odd email subscribers? Who haven’t received a newsletter on any sort of schedule in years? Really? That’s a deal-breaker?”, “Why do you want to mix that up with Milk Toast anyway?”
Linktree. “Well, if you’re going to write a bunch of Milk Toast stuff on LinkedIn (lord have mercy) and a bunch of creative artsy essay-type stuff on Stranger Fiction, wouldn’t Linktree be the logical place to do this? Like a ‘content creator’? Well, first things first, no writing. I like writing. LinkTree would take away the opportunity to write; seems counterintuitive to decide to set up businesses and then stop doing things you want to do.” So –
Substack. For now, the logical choice. A (hopefully weekly) roundup of the stuff I’m listening to, reading, working on, etc. that links out to essays on Stranger Fiction (that are also written hopefully weekly).
Reading
Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
In an unstructured way, books, interviews, and podcasts about liberalism. Here’s an unstructured list. (GOOD RECOMMENDATIONS ON THE SUBJECT SOLICITED)
Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist by Alexander Zevin.
Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism by Quinn Slobodian
Music
Talk Talk: The Colour of Spring, Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock (post-rock, eighties music)
Bon Iver: SABLE, fABLE (electro-folk)
Fugazi: 13 Songs (post-hardcore)
Minutemen: Double Nickels on the Dime (post-hardcore?) – I really want to write about this record.
Lauryn Hill: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (R&B, soul)
Welcome, man! "Understanding media" is one of my fav books on the topic ;-)