Hey, whatever happened to Claire?
Don't worry. All is well. And you'll want to stay tuned.
A few of you have kindly written to me to ask if I’m okay. “Why haven’t I received a newsletter since the election?” you’ve wondered. “Are you dead?”
I write to reassure you that not only am I well, but that I have good news coming your way, soon, and it’s not just about the messenger RNA you’ll have in your arms, God willing, before the spring—although that’s about as good as news gets. (When this is all over, shall we have a massive ticker-tape parade in New York City in honor of Big Pharma and Global Capitalism? One we all attend in person, not on Zoom, to lavish love, joy, and confetti on Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca? They saved the 21st century and let us never forget it.)
I’ve been away because I’m scheming to fix the rest of the 21st centuries’ problems. I’m busy building the most interesting newsletter anyone’s ever received.
Yes, really. I’ve rassled myself up a team of 61 (yes!) of the most interesting people I know, the world around, and we’re building a newsletter that will be even better than this one because:
1) It will arrive regularly in your Inbox, and
2) It will examine the world’s most interesting problems from a global perspective.
We’ve been working on this around the clock, literally, because we live in all the world’s major time zones. (A challenge we’ve had so far is that we can’t seem to schedule a Zoom meeting at a time of day when no one is deep asleep and in a manner such that no one misses it because we’ve got ourselves all bollixed up trying to schedule things and we keep changing the time of the call.) But we’re solving this problem—along with a few more logistical challenges—and soon, I will send you a newsletter explaining exactly what we’re doing and introducing you to everyone else. For now, in short: We aim to solve the problems about which I always complain. The ones Moderna and Pfizer can’t solve.
So thank you for asking, and please be patient, because we’re almost ready to unroll this thing. It will be invariably interesting. Only more so.
—Claire
From a truly global perspective, “current events” should be viewed in close proximity to culture and the arts.
Many/most of the people who would be interested in your newsletter are probably either bilingual or multilingual. Why not present the culture and arts articles written in various languages?
For example, If I were putting together a global newsletter, I might be inclined to have ALL poetry reviews written in French. I would post regular commentary on poetry by some brilliant French-speaker who is eminently qualified to comment on poetry. It seems to me that formal French academic style— enhanced by the vocabulary and phraseology of the language— is a suitable tongue to discuss the subtle and complex ideas associated with poetry.
That’s the general idea, at least. Consider including commentary on contemporary dance written in Russian. Or, German to comment on architecture. Italian can be used to discuss film... and the list goes on.
If you want to (primarily) offer the English-speaking world a global perspective, doing so using an array of important contemporary languages would seem to make sense.
It would have snob appeal. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But, most importantly, you could have a lot of fun doing this! You could keep the whole thing lighthearted, but insightful.
Set your sights high. And don’t patronize your readers by talking down to them. Those of us who have always respected/loved your writing and your opinions are representative of your “target market,” as it were.
The folks who are going to really like your newsletter are not poorly-educated bourgeois simpletons. Instead, your readers are probably people who are unusually bright, lively, very intelligent, and very well-educated.
I’m sure some of your devotees are duller than this ideal/idealized picture of your target market. And some of your readers are probably just stray or random people with modest minds. But, for the most part, I am sure that your most eager readers are a rare and nicely refined group of people.
I often find myself wondering what various dead literary figures might think about current events in certain parts of the world that they are familiar with. For instance, what would Arthur Rimbaud make of recent news out of Ethiopia? Imagine writing such a piece in Rimbaud’s tone of voice and emphasizing his unique perspective on life. One could have a LOT OF FUN writing such an article— and actually offer serious insights that one wouldn’t be able to offer otherwise.
What would Samuel Johnson have to say about Brexit? I wonder what Edmund Spencer might have to say about, say, a gay prime minister in Ireland? I would imagine that the long-deceased author of the Fairy Queen, writing in extravagant Elizabethan English, might be able to say things about contemporary Ireland that are both funny and surprisingly meaningful. It would be interesting to hear from Allen Ginsberg on the subject of Donald Trump!
You should include in your new newsletter a regular feature: Dead Perspectives!