Rollins's Review, October 28
Let me get this out of the way right quick: Holy shit, River Page can write.
I’ve found gay dudes do memoir better than almost anyone. There’s an honesty to gay memoir that’s often lacking in straight memoir; gay guys tend to have lived much more fucked-up lives than the average, and gay guys who do memoir tend to be above-average in both honesty and fucked-up-ness of personal history. I can relate.
Anyway, read this piece from his archive; it’s fantastic.
A Rob Henderson column about morality dropping into my inbox as I’m writing a Friday Review is a sign from God that I’m doing something right; it’s not even Halloween and a full-size Twix and a pack of Peanut M&Ms have landed on my desk without my even having said “Trick or Treat.” Rob is, as I’ve said before, one of the smartest and most interesting writers on Substack, and you should read him.
Lots of people have takes on Elon’s Twitter purchase. I like Mike Solana’s, because his sense of humor is bent at roughly the same angle as mine. Solana is a tough, underrated intellectual whose journalism reads like literature; it’s as if his brain converts nicotine into noir.
I know, I know. Everyone reads Scott Alexander already.
I try not to plug Substack’s whales too often, because they don’t need the help, but Scott did a subversively wide-eyed review of Malleus Maleficarum, and I have no Halloween content prepared, and it’s really, really good.
Henry Ballvings is batshit insane. He’s completely out of his mind. I laughed continuously throughout his lunatic rantings at a volume that probably affected songbird migration patterns. Is it a bit? Holy shit, I hope so.
Zero HP Lovecraft is phenomenally creative on top of being a talented literary stylist, and now he’s on Substack. An update of The Lottery of Babylon by Borges? Oh my God. Yes, please.