Totei and the Art of Single-Sentence Stories

I typically don't enjoy non-fiction books.  For whatever reason, I can't focus on one real thing for that long.  But I do enjoy non-fiction magazine articles.  You're in, you're enlightened, you're out.  All in six to nine pages.

To that end, you should check out Totei, "a magazine about the art of making."  They cover art, film, food, music, design.  And writing.  One particular article about writing hooked me.

"The Strange Allure of the Single-Sentence Novel" is a must-read.  Not because the author's name is Naomi Xu Elegant (and for the record she is not related to FsOG:TB Danny and Jenny Elegance).  But because of the way she writes about people who publish entire works as a single sentence.

Of the Hungarian Nobel laureate László Krasznahorkai who wrote Herscht 07769, a frattily titled 400 page book containing one sentence, she asks:

Why does he do it?  Is it because, simply, he’s a weird man who just wants to write terribly long sentences, and he doesn’t want you to get a word in edgeways?

That's not an unreasonable way to think of authors who write lengthy stories in one sentence.

Of Ducks, Newburyport, a thousand-page sentence by Lucy Ellman, Elegant quotes a review stating "It feels dense at first, a bit like drowning, without a period or paragraph break in sight."  And when she interviewed Ellman she got this quote about long sentences: "It’s the literary equivalent of menopause." Again, all very on the nose.

In her interview with Daniel Krautz, the author of the 2026 Pulitzer Prize-winning 304 page sentence Angel Down, Elegant pulled this insight: "I didn’t know if people would take one look at it and just be like, 'I don’t want to deal with this.' I really didn’t know if I’d just ruined the book. All I knew is that I really liked it—it was really exciting for me to write.” I can see both sides of this based on my own experience reading long stories told in one sentence—not everyone wants to deal with it, but it's an exciting exercise in self-indulgence for the author.

Mike McCormack, author of the exceedingly long sentence Solar Bones, told Elegant that he "is wary of the long sentence. 'John Banville says the sentence is what sets us above and apart from the animals,' he said. 'I would share that esteem. You want to have some seriously good reasons for renouncing the sentence and for writing long outpours.'"

Go read Elegant's article and maybe some others in Totei like this one about a guy who makes guitars using antique wood salvaged from lower Manhattan, or this one about a living sculpture (which is a bit of a knock-off of my man Ben Behin), or this one about Tape Op, or this one about La Marzocco espresso machines.

And when you're done with that, go read Sentence of Dave, pound-for-pound the best single sentences you can get online.

How Fucking Dare They

First, they came with their pedophilia nonsense, and we said nothing, because we don't play much ping pong. Then they said we were Satanic, and we said nothing, because they were fucking morons led by morons like Mike Flynn. Then they went after the Jews and the LBGTQ community, and we said nothing, because, again, morons.

But now the con has come into our neighborhood, and we will not stand for it.

I am, of course, referring to the batshit cabal of easily-conned conspiracy sheep being guided by shameless grifters and faux-Christian true "believers" known as QAnon. For a long time, I've mostly pitied them, though I do save a special disdain for prominent people like Flynn, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lara Logan and That Fucking Guy who absolutely know better but fan the flames out of self-interest in political and personal gain.

Pity has turned to rage. These motherfuckers ruin everything.

A little backstory is in order. Back when G:TB was but a glimmer in my eye, several of us published a few issues of Gheorghe: The Magazine on the nascent interwebs. The content itself is lost to time, though I recall an article about my cat, and maybe a short story, in addition to some sports stuff. Dipshittery, in other words.

G:TM was inspired, at least in name, by the short-lived but influential George, published by the late John F. Kennedy, Jr. in the mid-90s. And now the QAnon freaks have come for its nhamesake.

Recall, if you will, that of the manifold tenets held to be true by the Qfolk is that John F. Kennedy Jr. faked his own death in 1999 and is waiting patiently to return to team up with Donald Trump to smite the liberal pedophile cabal. It stands to follow, then, that he'll bring with him his late, lamented magazine as the tribune of the people.

Gene Ho is a former professional photographer, failed candidate for mayor of Myrtle Beach, and Trump acolyte (and by association and fact, a grifter). He's also the "editor in chief" of a revived George. Setting aside the fact that it's not clear whether he owns the intellectual property associated with the brand, and setting even further to the back the ocean-sized gap between George 1.0's blend of liberally whimsical, societally elite political bent and the new version's mix of conspiracy theories and whackadoodle logic, [I have no idea where I was going with this sentence, but I'm reading Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children so I'm borrowing from the author's use of interregnum to talk to the reader while I find my way back to the point...] it's just pathetic from a purely aesthetic perspective.

I mean, look at this dreck:

As compared to the original:

Ho kept the font, replaced real writers and topics with QAnonsense, and hit the circuit. Late last month, he hawked his shit (for real - there's merch) at disgraced former general Flynn's ReAwaken America tour stops. Mother Jones was all over it.

I've instructed our crack in-house counsel team to draft a sternly-worded letter to Mr. Ho insisting that he cease and desist using the idea of a person's name as the title of an internet magazine/blog. I've also told our lawyers to make sure they insert certain code words designed to inflame the passions of the QAdorks, so that we can send them down another rabbit warren. I'm expecting a draft by the close of business, and I'll share it upon receipt.

Until then, stay vigilant, assembled Gheorghies. We must fight grifting loons with all the dipshittery at our disposal.