Sybarite Newsletter: Issue Three
Apologies for the delay, I was lying down
Greetings, Sybarites! I apologize for the delay in getting the newsletter out. Sadly, life often gets in the way of writing.
I also owe you an apology, and crafting a good one is difficult, so I didn’t really feel like it. Then there was the ever-present weight of the world and the endless film I play in my head about all my mistakes. So instead of writing the apology, I got in bed.
But I’m upright today, and here it is: I have sent very confusing messages about the type of writing that is right for Sybarite (say that fast with a mouthful of marshmallows). And for this I am sorry.
I’ve been rejecting outright a lot of submissions that on their face look and seem exactly right for Sybarite but then again somehow — at least in their current iteration — just aren’t. When I write back to explain, these writers correctly say “look, you said you wanted stories about pleasure and luxury, and this story is.”
And they are right. All I can say is that I kept beating the “luxury/pleasure” drum because I thought it was the best way to fight against the ever rising tide of of self-help dreck and content for content’s sake, because I consider myself a tiny soldier in the mission to save on-line writing from itself. All y’all know exactly what I’m talking about: the listicles, the listicles masquerading as essays, the advice from people who are wrecks themselves, the book reports from people who just spent a lot of time googling, the policy-wonky stuff written by people from their sofa.
Anyway, it was a mistake to continually pop off with terms like “pleasure” and “luxury.” Some people thought I meant that all the writing had to be about rich people stuff, which was definitely not my intention. What I should have said — I realize this now — is that Sybarite is about experiences. If these experiences are painful or unpleasant, they could still be right for Sybarite. After all, there can be no pleasure without pain, and no luxury without deprivation. If you have a story about being stuck in a motel during a snowstorm, eating hot pockets to survive, I’d love to read that.
I’ve been stuck in my own writing lately, because I feel like I’ve been using the same patterns and tropes over and over, making my the work increasingly superficial. I sent a recent draft essay to a friend of mine, who thankfully told me in no uncertain but still very nice terms that it just isn’t good enough, and that I could do better. And he’s right.
He reminded me of a few things: 1) an essay should always answer a question, and 2) all good essays are about two things. Then he encouraged me to listen to this podcast about that very idea, and I definitely will do that as soon I have the energy to figure out my little bluetoothy thingamig speaker.
But even before listening to the podcast, I’ve started to look at essays through the “two-things” lens, and it’s a revelation. Perhaps I’ve always intuitively known this, I’m not sure. I think this recent essay by Kai Larsen about her mother’s death in slow motion is beautifully crafted, and definitely about two things. (I’m curious if you all see the two things that I see). I’ve also always loved this essay by Nicole C. Kear, it’s long been my favorite on Medium and now that I read it again, it is also definitely about two things. This is why I love stories by The Velocipede so much, who has this new story in Sybarite, which is also about two things. This is the only new story in Sybarite since the last newsletter, because again, I struggle with how to explain what’s right for the publication.
These three essays have something else in common, other than the two-things trick, in that all of them are anchored in a material, physical experience. They are therefore perfect antidotes to the navel-gazing, meditative writing that is sucking us all into a vortex of rants about nothing and promises of a happier life. Do you miss your ex-girlfriend and want to write about it? That’s only interesting if we also know what she smelled like. I think we all want to be anchored to some sort of physical reality, to be voyeurs in how you decorated your apartment after your divorce. If you’re a guy, did you buy that same black leather sofa that all divorced men seem to have? Why do you all have this? Is it the law?
The idea that elemental pleasure, or elemental experiences can be anchors brings me the featured photo for this issue of the newsletter. The painting is by Eugène Delacroix, who retreated to the French countryside in September 1848 to get away from the political unrest in post-revolutionary Paris. Retreating to the country to paint flowers while the world burns is exactly what a Sybarite would do: return to the elemental, to the real, to things that can be touched, smelled, seen. In that sense, even though it’s invisible to the naked eye, this painting also also about two things.
There’s no elegant way to pivot from a long rant about good writing to housekeeping stuff. I’ve been trying for the last fifteen minutes to figure out how, and it can’t be done. So below is some housekeeping stuff.
When I first started this newsletter, I wrote it as a regular story, and promised it would also include a “round up” of small pleasures (which I now can’t stop thinking about as anchors to reality, but that’s my own damage, don’t mind me). Then I used the newsletter function for the second issue, and also included a round-up of small pleasures/anchors.
For reasons that are very boring and likely uninteresting to 99.9% of you, I’m now splitting the function of the newsletter and the round-ups. From this point forward, the newsletter will be exclusively about Sybarite news (new stories, new writers, new insane ways to explain what I’m looking for) and the round up of small pleasures/anchors will be actual stories. (This means the round-ups, unlike the newsletter, will be behind the paywall, which is not something I’m not going to discuss further because the first the first rule of Fight Club is that we don’t discuss Fight Club. Some of you long-timers will understand this).
As the only editor (so far, hit me up if you want to help) of Sybarite, I’ll be writing the newsletters. But anyone can write a round up of pleasures/anchors, and these — confusingly, I know — don’t necessarily have to be about “two things.” A round up of small pleasures can be about anything that you happen to know that others wouldn’t. I recently asked a friend from the Midwest about cheese curds, and he said that he eats them as a side dish. I didn’t get a chance to interrogate him further, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it and now I think we all need a round up essay of various ways to eat cheese curds.
Therefore, there won’t be a round up of small pleasures/anchors in this newsletter. Instead, I’ll share something surprising I learned this week about auto design: it is absolutely impossible to make out in a Camaro.
On Friday night I went on on a date (those of you who have been following my writing for awhile should be passing out with shock right about now), drank three whiskeys and somehow found myself in the front seat of a Camaro, making out until my Alto arrived. (Alto is like Uber, but so much better).
This proved almost impossible. It was a stick shift, so the parking brake had to remain on. The brake is huge and practically meets the dashboard. Every time I tried to get close to my date it stabbed me in the chest. Every time he tried to get close to me, it was like one of those turnstiles that locks right at the moment you’re running to catch the subway.
I am also short, so I found myself scrambling/scooting my way up in the seat, but this meant that the parking brake/large metal pole kept stabbing me in different areas: chin, neck, stomach, thigh. Noticing this, my date decided to release the brake, which meant that he had to “put the car in gear” (what does this mean?) while keeping his foot on the regular brake.
Making out with one foot on the brake so you don’t roll into traffic and die is also difficult, so then he decided to come over to the passenger seat. He explained that he would sit down and then I would get in the car and sit on top of him. But by this point I had already figured out a few things.
First, I surprisingly had never actually been in a Camaro, which is weird for a gal who grew up in Los Angeles in the 1970s and 1980s and still remembers that Whitesnake video. Second, the Camaro is teeny tiny on the inside, and super huge on the outside, and…why? I’m sure it has something to do with torque or power or vroom-vroom-vroom but if the Camaro’s designers created a big powerful car so that guys could get girls, they have played one very cruel joke.
I did, however, end up sitting on top of him. Me, a 52 year-old bed creature. Thank you, hot yoga. But because the inside of a Camaro is the size of an Amazon box, I perched more than sat, and this too does not make for a great kissing experience. I also spent a lot of time thinking that we were going to get arrested, and apparently I said this out loud, which is extremely hot of me. He had to gently remind me that we were just making out, and I thought about reminding him that life is weird and unfair and of course I would get arrested for something like this, but thought better of it.
Anyway, the good news is that he was a great kisser. The bad news is that I think I might be getting ghosted, maybe because I said the arrested thing out loud. If I am, perhaps I’ll write about the experience, but anchor it in all the ways I’ll cope: Fried chicken? Mineral hot springs? Sleeping with my gardener, something I’ve been thinking about ever since he brought me a nice bottle of tequila from Mexico?
Stay tuned, Sybarites.
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