Hello, hypothetical everyone
Who I am and how I came to be
My name is Cris. For the majority of my life I’ve been a beleaguered writer, an itinerant performer, and man about town. Nobody granted me those titles, of course. I gave them to myself sometime in 2010 when I was looking for something pithy to put in my social media bios. But I’d say at the very least these titles are aspirational statements of purpose for who I’ve always wanted to be and who, at least some of the time, I’ve been.
Song of the Day:
Remember blogs?
Some of us have been on the internet long enough to recall a time when we got all our cultural commentary from independent pseudo-journalists dumping a thousand words on the latest and greatest from a range of topics. Depending on your fancy, you could follow Perez Hilton for celebrity commentary, slide over to a financial column by James Altucher, then check out some poor kid in Brooklyn working their way through the craft cocktail scene on the cheap.
I myself ran a blog called The Variant Cover, where I reviewed comic books and spoke about the state of the comics industry from my perspective as assistant manager at a comic shop. I didn’t have the biggest following in the universe, but it was enough for me to wonder where I’d be today if I hadn’t given it up.
Eventually, the main event on the internet morphed from the blogosphere to specialty news and pop culture sites, then morphed further into podcasts and social media feeds. Some folks held onto their long-form personal writing spaces, but the primacy of the essay was replaced with TL;DR listicles and influencer culture that was easier to digest in short bursts, so you could quickly move to the next thing in the never-ending cycle of content creation.
In case you think this is about to be some “old man yells at cloud” screed about the good ol’ days where we drank from the hose and smoked cigarettes on airplanes or whatever, I promise you I am not that guy. To be totally honest, I probably had a lot of time for blogs ‘cause I was a 20-something with minimal responsibility looking for cheap ways to fill the day.
But it seems like there’s a section of the internet that’s coming back around to longer-form content. TikTok influencers who once did 15-second bits now do 10-minute long explainers on everything from fascism in architecture to true crime psychology. Whatever cycle of algorithms and entertainments that runs our lives has once again begun to favor engaging deeply with a topic, helping to enrich our days and making it hospitable for wordy assholes like me to punch keyboards once again.
Or, at least, I hope so.
My highly subjective journey through life and culture
Man About Town is intended to be a pseudo-travelogue through the things that make life worth living— for me, anyway. I’m a little indecisive about the way I want to go about exploring this theme, so we’re going to make it up as we go along, somewhat.
Once a week I’ll send you excerpts from my life. Sometimes it’ll be about some media I’ve watched or things I’ve attended. Sometimes it may be sketches of creative writing. Oftentimes it’ll just be me, trying desperately to capture the feelings I have about being in the world.
Our culture has a tendency to focus on coming of age stories, because it’s exciting to watch a character become themselves. But the problem with an overreliance on coming of age tales is that we often have woefully inadequate instructions for being of age. And I get it— being of age is decidedly unsexy. You mean I’m just supposed to be this person, orienting myself in the world this way, going about my days in this manner… until I die?
Self-discovery is an ongoing project
In short, no. Not really. Being of age doesn’t mean self-discovery is done. There’s always room to grow. Zen mind, beginner’s mind, and all that. Just because you know who you are doesn’t mean you know how you handle today. That’s the grand joy of living life— we wake up, are surprised, and figure it out accordingly.
Maybe you’ll find the way that I figure it out useful. Or maybe you’ll think that everything I say is so blindingly obvious to the average non-Martian that you’ll make yourself mad that this is the content you’re being asked to engage with. Either way, I hope you’ll come along as I try my best to rediscover the kind of life I always dreamed of living. And if you like the things I do, please be sure to tell your friends.
Maybe it’ll be great.
Here’s a poem for you:
Doomscroll
Staring at a screen in a negative feeback loop
Rotating through apps, games, social platforms
Until one of them gives me something
None of them can give me.