The Cheese Stands Alone...
A Facebook friend posted a short essay by someone (Philip R. Hall) whose work was unfamiliar, but I started reading anyway—it’s a curse; I have never been able to resist a readable text (any readable text: ingredient lists, legal boilerplate, directions to places I have no intention of visiting, really anything in print—or pixels). The opening had me hooked:
“When Teresa said I suffered from ADHD, she insisted I go to Kingston Hospital to see a specialist.”
I live in Kingston, and I wondered who this neighbor might be. Reading further, it was clear that he wasn’t writing from the same Kingston. It turns out he lives in Kingston-on-Thames, while my Kingston sits on the banks of the Hudson. We live an ocean apart. He continued, saying the specialist said, “most wives think their spouses—if their spouses are men—have ADHD.” I just thought wives thought their husbands were just stupid, insensitive brutes, who were afflicted both by deafness and refrigerator blindness.
(Aside: I suppose it’s possible that both I and that specialist are correct—and it’s even possible that the wives are correct on all counts—but don’t expect me to admit it to them.)
He used this little story in order to launch a discussion of obsessive learning—and a history of how to navigate the hierarchy of the world’s information. These are subjects that are near and dear to my heart. I often describe myself as a dilettante, subspecies “serial monomaniac.” I become temporarily addicted to learning everything I can find about one arcane subject before abandoning it in pursuit of another. In the course of a lifetime, this has led to the accumulation of a lot of obscure facts.
(Aside: “knowing things” is not the same as “wisdom;” it’s very easy to become “stupid with knowledge.” I am living proof.)
Mr. Hall then described the process (of obsessive data collection) with an example: trying to get information about Pont-l'Évêque cheese. Not only does Hall’s article focus on two of my obsessions (monomaniacal reading and how all knowledge is interconnected) but does so by means of another (my all-time favorite cheese).
Who was this Philip R. Hall who had so effectively tapped into all that is me?
It turns out he is the editor of an online magazine, AN Editions, in England. Since, as has already been demonstrated, I am unable to resist the siren call of the printed word, you already know that I had to read a stack of articles on his site. I highly recommend that you do as well.
What I find so fascinating about this experience is the strangeness of encountering another mind that is so similar, yet distant (with backgrounds that are completely different), yet seems so familiar. In the past, one made friends mostly by proximity (neighbors, friends of friends, workplace companions); today we can make “friends” with people we have never met, probably will never meet, and very likely know nothing of their lives. We truly live in the kind of media “village” that Marshall McLuhan envisioned sixty years ago.
I like to think that Mr. Hall and I are neighbors in that village.
Paid subscribers to these substack pages get access to complete editions of two of my novellas. Noirvella is a modern story of revenge, told in the style of film noir. Unbelievable is a kind of rom-com that forms around a pompous guy who is conceited, misinformed, and undeservedly successful. Both books are sold by Amazon, but paid subscribers get to read them for free. Also, substack pages (older than eight months) automatically slip behind a paywall—where only paid subscribers can read them. If you’re interested in reading any of them, you can subscribe (giving you free access to them), or buy them in book form should you prefer the feel of a physical book. Meanwhile, it is easy to become a paying subscriber (just like supporting your favorite NPR station). It’s entirely optional, and—even if you choose not to do so—you’ll still get my regular substack posts—and I’ll still be happy to have you as a reader.