'Ask the Editor': Enough About Me. Send Me Your Thoughts and Questions
It's been six months since this dirigible was launched. Let's talk.
Allow me to stir things up a bit. If you don’t have a lot of time right now you can skim this post: I have a few requests for you near the end, and a bonus archival music track on which I play drums, which, I must say, seriously rocks.
I discovered relatively late in life that I enjoyed public speaking. When I am invited to talk about writing or editing or publishing or art and creativity in general, whether in a classroom setting or a public event, I tend to become a better version of myself. I grow pleasantly animated, call thoughtfully on my past experience, offer perspectives that are useful to others and by doing all this generally quiet the storm of unreasonable impulses and emotions that tend govern my existence when I am alone. While I am sure that I like having an audience at least in part because it fulfills my need for attention (the positive, affirmative kind; I detest the other kind), I also like it because it stops me from overthinking and allows me to slide into a zone of immediate action and participation.
By doing this dozens of times over the past several years I’ve learned something else: I don’t like lecturing. Standing up in front of a group of people and speaking to them or at them or in their general vicinity is a particular challenge and certainly not profitless but being in conversation with those same people — people with whom I’d never get to meet or speak with otherwise — and mixing it up with them is where the real joy is at. It is that living exchange, that communion with others that is so beautifully and profoundly described by the Jewish mystic and philosopher Martin Buber, that I find most meaningful and fun.
So I always make sure to tell the audience or class I’m with that I want them to ask questions, to interrupt me, that I hope no one will leave any question they have unasked. If I haven’t made some kind of honest attempt to answer those questions or engage in those conversations I haven’t done my job.
I bring this all up because I’ve noticed that writing on Substack shares a lot of qualities with public speaking. It is public speech, after all. And so far, I’ve pretty much been lecturing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed the introspective solo work, the spontaneously made up shit, the pointless investigations. But I do tire of myself. Who doesn’t?
So I’d like to turn at least part of this endeavor into a conversation. To make it more interactive, organic, wider and deeper, maybe more entertaining. I’d also like to gain a better understanding of how you, dear reader, engage with my output here — what you expect, hope for, get or don’t get, what you’d like to see or read or hear and what aspect of Question Everything so far has delivered meaning or value for you. I know it’s free but I don’t think that means I get to abdicate my responsibility to make this experience worthwhile. You do spend something exquisitely valuable here: Your Time, of which, on this realm on Earth at least, is finite. I don’t take that for granted and I don’t want to squander it, even if it’s only a few minutes a week. There is a limit to what I can do here, which must take place outside my regular working hours, but I want to try.
With that in mind, please consider doing the following:
[NB: If you are already a subscriber, you can respond to these requests or write me with any comments by replying to any QE email, and if you are not you can write to me at petercatapano@icloud.com]
1. Ask me questions: I understand that my experience as an editor has been unique and some of you might want to hear about it in some context. I’ve worked with all sorts of writers — poets, photographers, novelists, scientists (including the last four NYT essays of Oliver Sacks), military veterans, pilots, filmmakers, philosophers and inexperienced writers just starting out. If there is anything you’d like to ask me about editing or writing or creativity or music or art or food in NYC or elsewhere (not kidding) or anything really, please do. Just go for it. I will try to answer and/or engage what seems most interesting and make this thing more collaborative, less a lecture and more a conversation.
2. Take a gander at this archive and tell me what you like or don’t like about Question Everything so far — the longer ruminations, the music audio, the poems or short fiction experiments. Let me know if there is anything else you’d like to see or read or hear here.
3. If you’d like to suggest books, articles, poems, music, art or other things you’d like me to consider engaging with, let me know.
4. Suggest other Substacks you think I might like. If you have any whose formats and layouts you find particularly useful or appealing let me know. I’ll be doing some sort of redesign soon.
That’s all for now. I appreciate ya. Onward.
Bonus music track. Shelf of Woe by Fuller, from the EP Tiers Suite, circa 2000. Mac Randall (guitar), Michael Gelfand (bass), Peter Catapano (drums and samples). Cover art by David Kramer.