No Take Zone

In the last year I’ve grown increasingly weary/wary of writing and reading Takes on current events, large and small, agreeable or disagreeable. Certainly there’s a lot of great, essential writing of Takes that should and must continue, from lots of great writers whom I will continue to read. But what is a Take?

When I think of a Take, I’m cruelly lumping all kinds of innocent journalistic forms into the Take basket—reaction, review, commentary, opinion, analysis. Unfortunately I have yet to come up with a credibly explicit and usefully exclusionary definition of a Take that you couldn’t apply to almost any piece of writing, but I’m not here erecting a border to police. I feel like I know a Take when I read one, and I bet you do too.

I’m very much in favor of the rise of newslettering and similar platforms, plus the upswing in indie journalism and cool online writing. But sometimes it can feel like an endless gallery with ranks of writers stretched onstage to the horizon, an infinite lineup of topical standup comedians all muttering “what else, what else …” as they rummage around for the day’s subject matter to riff on. That’s a rough gig. I’ve been that guy, many many times. Lots of people thrive on it, but I think I’ve reached a personal limit of sorts.

So going forward with Strange Work, and irregularly, my general test when thinking about something to write for this newsletter will be: Is this is my Take, or is this something someone else might post their own Take about in response? I’m shooting for the latter. I’d rather be the take-ee than the take-er.

This is a ludicrous idea on its face, as everything is a Take if you step back far enough. What I write will have some grounding in stuff that happens in the world, somewhere and sometime. But I want to avoid writing things that are easy, reflexive, riffy, and newsy per se. It’s going to be tough, as that’s a good diet when it comes to engagement, which as you know digests into the best fertilizer for cultivating other people’s Takes.

Part of the test is forcing myself to work on stuff a little longer, to think more introspectively, and to write more slowly rather than pounding out posts to catch the flailing hooks of a news cycle. Which in turn forces a little rhetorical distance and elasticity of subject so whatever I post isn’t outrun and overwhelmed by rapidly subsequent events. One way to finesse this is to work on several things at once, a little bit at a time for each, so I’m not so easily sucked into the vortex of hurrying to finish the one thing I’m exclusively writing till I can smash that publish button.

I’ll still write about work and working, among other things, but I think the subjects will get both larger and smaller. The first installment of this experiment will go out soon, possibly even tomorrow, and naturally it may seem I’m already violating my intentions to avoid current events by writing about Gaza. If this idea or that subject aren’t what you came here for, you can unsubscribe and it won’t hurt my feelings, though I will be fully retaining your subscription fee of zero moneys. Otherwise, subscribe if you haven’t already, stay tuned, and thanks for listening.