Hello again! Bet you didn't expect to hear from me so soon. As a friend recently noted, the only thing predictable about me is my unpredictability, and I have chosen to take that as a compliment. Similarly, the only thing consistent about this letter has been how much browbeating it contains about my lack of consistency. Boring, boring, boring.
It's not for a lack of things to say or bits of cultural ephemera to share on a weekly basis. The relative privileges of childlessness and unemployment afford me a dearth of time to dedicate exclusively to a wholesale immersion in content. What I do lack, however, is a workflow. And mayyyyyyybe a little self-discipline at times. Maybe. A big part of the writing fellowship program is to help me put the structures and practices in place to support creative productivity, but also productive creativity. There's a difference there that I've been thinking about lately, but I'll put a pin in that for another day.
As I've hoped the name implies, Robust is meant to capture the capaciousness of my interests and curiosities. However, this sometimes puts me in a sort of bizarro-Seinfeldian position of writing a newsletter about everything. That can be a tough sales pitch when you're trying to take this platform seriously and grow an audience of readers beyond your (very generous and supportive) extended social circle. But how to create a space that can hold in balance an eagerness to share a boundless consumption of culture with a desire to process and reflect and find some meaning in all of it?
The answer, of course, is to steal an idea from the icon of rock-n-roll cultural criticism, Greil Marcus. For over thirty years, Marcus has been writing "Real Life Rock Top Ten," a monthly round-up of bits of culture stitched together in a patchwork of commentary. The column has bounced around over time and is currently hosted at the Los Angeles Review of Books. Marcus gathers materials like a magpie with an architect's mastery of working within constraints, crossing media and moments, time and space, high and low culture. He's found a way to write about everything that makes sense.
So it is without further adieu that I re-introduce this newsletter as Appetites: What I've been consuming and what's been consuming me.
This week–and if I'm honest, really the past three weeks and probably many, many more in the future–it's been "singer and essential fashion man," Harry Styles.
Maybe We Can Find a Place to Feel Good: What Harry Styles Taught Me About Empathy, Ethics, and How to be a Good Person (Medium)
Understanding that a) you might not know who Harry Styles is, or that b) you do, and are already making your excuses and putting on your coat, I thought I'd at least try to explain myself before you ran for the exits.
I have that line from Leonard Cohen's “Anthem” top of mind, having seen it just the other day, painted on the broken window of a café: "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." To how I'd been feeling a few weeks ago, with those shiftless-stuck-inside-of-winter-with-the-midlife-blues again, Harry Styles was an ultralight beam searing through the cracks, jolting me out of emotional hibernation.If this sounds a bit like a moony teenage crush, I suppose it sort of is, but only in part. And that's what I wrote about, or have just started to write about, because, as it turns out, Harry Styles (and you'll see in the essay, but also Fleabag's Phoebe Waller-Bridge) have opened a vast portal into an ongoing exploration of selfhood, identity, and ethics. Which is to say, this is most certainly not the last Harry Styles-related content you will encounter in this newsletter. (Exit, pursued by a popstar.)
2. How embarrassing.
As a newsletter writer, it only makes sense that I support others trying to make it with this hustle, and as such, a substantial portion of my weekly reading happens in my inbox. Griefbacon, described by its author Helena Fitzgerald as "conversations you have when you’re the last people at a party" is one of the best reads, one where every week I'm given pause to reflect on big questions. Recently, she prompted a discussion of embarrassment:The things that embarrass us tend to be the things that mean the most to us, that live closest to our skin and bone. They are the things that we refuse to give up even when we know they don’t necessarily reflect well on us, even when they are ungainly or inelegant, childish or uncool or out of fashion, saying too much, telling on ourselves. Love is an uncomfortably precise mirror, a way of being perceived, and therefore it is very often embarrassing. The things we are embarrassed by are what we love in spite of ourselves, what we love at the end of the day, when we think no one is looking.
It was the resulting conversation thread that got me thinking about Harry Styles as a sociological subject; specifically, the naked, unironic love of his fans, and the way he defends and destigmatizes it. Such open-hearted fandom (especially that of young females) has always tended to be treated dismissively by critics and 'grown-ups', and it occurs to me how damaging this is to our emotional development. It puts a filter on which feelings deserve to be taken seriously, categorizes earnestness as weakness, and trains us to believe that the safest stance to deal with our vulnerabilities is at an ironic remove. We would rather, as Fitzgerald writes, "...be embarrassed and apologetic than take an undiluted stand about something [we] love, and risk being made fun of by others."
The conventional wisdom of coolness tells me I should be embarrassed by my open adoration of Harry Styles: he was groomed in a boy band; he's too young; I'm too old, etc, etc. But I'm not embarrassed. There is zero guilt underpinning the pure, unadulterated pleasure of loving Harry Styles. And as a so-called grown-up, I'm ready to call bullshit on this needless shame-baggage once and for all. You're welcome to join me and Harry in the resistance.
3. In matters of taste, whose taste matters?
Meanwhile, gushing over Harry Styles is absolutely legitimate if you are a thirty-something male hosting a musicology podcast. Ok, I don't really want to harsh on the Switched On Pop guys, because their show is positively delightful and total catnip for a wannabe music critic like me. But...you do see my point, right? Anyway, Nate and Charlie get into some hardcore geekery breaking down the construction and references of Styles' epic piano ballad 'Sign of the Times' from his 2017 solo debut record. I already loved the song, but their analysis took my appreciation to another level. The follow-up episode reviewing the solo efforts from all five the former 1D'ers is comedy gold thanks to their special guest, Vox writer Alexa Lee.
Spoiler alert: Everyone knows Harry’s the best one.4. How about a breather?
We've got Harry covering Lizzo, Lizzo covering Harry, and now we're all feeling good as hell. Onward!5. Intimacy at a Distance
To study Harry Styles is essentially to take a deep dive into the nature of parasocial relationships, a concept introduced in the fifties, at the dawn of the television era to analyze the phenomenon of the one-sided, ongoing relationships we nurture with media figures.Donald Horton and Richard Wohl perhaps could not have anticipated that their ideas about 'intimacy at a distance' would evolve into the defining interaction paradigm it's become through social media, and the ways by which it's transformed the impressions we have of both the proximity and reciprocity of our 'mediated relationships' with celebrities. Insert requisite Keeping Up With the Kardashians reference here. Anyway, this is a massive whitespace to explore, and I'm working on it, but for now, a case in point:
I came across Jack Edwards' Youtube channel last spring when I was deeply immersed in the world of Normal People (I may have some parasocial shit of my own to work out, non?) Edwards is a literature grad in the UK whose enthusiasm is infectious and reading habits envious. And he is a one-stop shop for fellow obsessives who need to know all the books Normal People's Connell and Marianne reference throughout the novel. Or, for example, all of the books Harry Styles has ever recommended, and all of the poetry that has influenced him. (And by the way, Edwards isn't the only one in the Harry Styles bookclub; apparently it's a thing. Wow, internet, you’re amazing.)
One might be inclined to regard this kind of behavior as slightly unhinged, but in fact the research points to the fact that parasocial relationships are normal and healthy, and can offer useful psychological benefits such as consolation and comfort, helping us feel less isolated and increasing our empathy. What I've been looking into specifically is how the objects of our parasocial relationships might stand in as a representation of our aspirations, and the ways that can help us live up to our ideals. My essay starts to hint at this, but I've only just scratched the surface.
Meanwhile, Harry and I both wholeheartedly endorse Rolling Stone writer (and Styles interviewer) Rob Sheffield's beautiful tribute to his wife and to the soundtracks of our love stories, Love Is a Mixtape.
6. Show me ‘round your fruitcakes.
Let's pause again to watch Harry crushing one of the greatest songs of all time, Peter Gabriel's “Sledgehammer.” If you don't think that opening synth slaps, I just don't know why you're even here. Also, his band deserves all the money.7. Fashion: Man
Much ink has been spilled about Harry Styles, gender-fluid fashion icon, from his sheer chiffon blouse at the 2019 Notes on Camp-themed Met Gala to his cover shoot for Vogue, in which he wears the hell out of a frilly-ass gown. To which I say, marvelous, darling! You do you. As a devout worshipper of all the glam gods who've gone before–Rod Stewart, Marc Bolan, Bowie obviously–I can attest that handsome rockstars in flamboyant clothes have hardly suffered a lack of sex appeal: "...there’s always a frisson of eroticism around transgressing boundaries."I don't want to diminish how important it is for someone of Harry's reach as a role model to positively influence the conversation around shifting gender norms, or his leading by example the rejection of heterosexist concepts of masculinity. At the same time, it's equally as important to question, as Daniel Rodgers suggests in his article for Dazed, "who gets to have these transgressive moments:"
Despite ... a craving to see a dismantling of gender reflected within the mainstream...we read these aesthetics differently on POC or queer bodies than on publicly straight white men.
Styles is simply playing into a long-standing tradition of privileged artists exercising their freedom from gender constraints, and while it can be fun to watch, there’s not much revolutionary about it.
8. Who What Wear
For more about "the clothes we wear and the stories they tell," I recommend Worn Stories, currently on Netflix. The limited series is an adaptation of author and artist Emily Spivack's two collections of 'sartorial memoirs,' Worn Stories, and its follow-up, Worn in New York. Hilarious, inspiring, heart-breaking, and beautifully human.
9. How Culture Can Change Your Life
Before I let you go, here's a little peek into what I'm getting up to with all this Harry Styles business. It's not all just bopping around the internet and consuming unspeakable amounts of Harry-centric content. I mean, it's PLENTY of that, yes, but I have higher-order motives. As I develop this newsletter and my writing in general, I'm interested in making more insightful connections between culture and, as the name of this The School of Life course I’m taking this evening suggests, "our own dilemmas and pains around love, work and society." It only took about twenty-five years and many, many thousands of dollars in student loans, but I've finally come full circle with my writing ambitions.10. Until we meet again
Here is a whole twenty-five minute concert at London's O2 arena from December 2019. Look at everyone enjoying this exuberant performance from an unbelievably charismatic man doing adorably awkward Jaggeresque dance moves in a smashing glittery stretch-denim jumpsuit, backed by a brilliant lady-powered band, with everyone celebrating being home for the holidays. Just take a minute to revel in the innocence of this moment.It’s not a Harry Styles playlist, but it’s also not not a Harry Styles playlist.