43 Comments
Oct 22Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

I loved it very, very much (and I’ve never read Joan Didion!)

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author

u should she's the best

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Well frankly Didion never did it for me. She’s sort of a Lou Reed of the literary world: very good, but by no means great, as in “not great enuf to buy tickets to see.”

After early retirement from my own 23-year-long writing career ( print reportage, magazines, online reviews) I am still childish enuf to see green at any other scribbler who does something I can’t do with words, so to you I say “Damn your eyes!” Which you should take as a compliment, my dear. Is your Substack work, or play for you?

I worked in bookstores. The experience was never cool or interesting, though. Minimum fukkin wage. Management mind-games at every turn. Thirty minute mall lunches. Pity your local bookstore schleps, they got no lives.

I WILL select to pay-subscribe to your column IF HARRIS WINS. You have no idea how nervous a flailing, struggling American makes us Canadians feel. We feel very wary, as if hunting wabbits out of season! IF Trump wins, that’s IT! My total boycott of America begins. ( Truth be told that’s been my policy since Bush Jr’s daddy really did rig the 2000 presidential election for his idiot son. )

I was at the zenith of my productive years when George W. moved into the mini-palace in DC. alongside my paying work In those years I ran a very busy blog about “My American Neighbours. I closed that blog down around 2012-13, but you can easily call up a near-complete copy of it if you’re curious from the Internet Archives, link found at bottom of this comment. Be prepared, archived content loads a bit slowly, and certain embedded content like ads, external links and large HD graphics don’t work.

SO… the lady wins, your cash register rings. IF THE orange fascist wins, I’m outta everything American, including Substack! And Levi’s. And Fords. And Microsoft. And AXE. & etc you get my point.

WT

https://web.archive.org/web/20110707132939/http://americanotstandingstill.com/

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i pray for kamala

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Oct 22Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Sooner or later we all Didion.

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author

the heck

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Love Didion too although I've only read one of her books. Here on Substack and in real life, people keep referring to her books so am planning to read more of them. My local library had most of her books out and the one copy I found was of a book I was not planning on reading. But as nothing else was there, I took it home and read it and then I read a whole post about it here on my stack. Didion's book was about travelling to the southern states of the US and taking notes. I found her work so relevant to what's going on now and the election. Spot on, decades later. The tile was South and West btw.

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author

oooh i gotta check that one out. tomorrow i'm gonna publish a lil guide to my fav essays of hers!! You are right tho so so much of her stuff feels like it was written yesterday

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Yes, the one I read felt like that. It's very political though it isn't. Maybe it's the journalist in her that grabbed you and the story at the same time. I don't know. I'll look forward to your guide! Very cheeky title, but seeing her name, I knew I had to read your piece. Glad I did!

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Oct 24Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

Love the part revealing what you decided to edit of the original piece- apropros for a story about looking for Didion, renowned for her meticulous editing process..

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This was delightful. Your writing is also sharp, incisive, unflinching - and quite funny.

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author

brother ur too kind

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4. love this one

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I like your style. Too bad I’m not in Asheville. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing since I’ve heard about the terrible Helene hurricane. Are you alright?

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author

yes doing ok! i wrote a lil about it in case u wanna read more about it : https://botharetrue.substack.com/p/were-okay-a-quick-asheville-update

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Oct 22Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

‘“And neither will you, dipshit” so funny!

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Oct 22Liked by Alex Dobrenko`

“”Do you want a bag" she says twisting the knife.”” You are the best!!!

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“You have to pick the places you don’t walk away from.” seems a very interesting thing to say. I admit I have never read Didion but I think I should start. Any recommendation?

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oh man yes. i'm compiling a list gonna share it TO PAID SUBSCRIBERS on Fri

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founding

Good to see that for some, Asheville is returning to some semblance of normal, and that you are back setting down roots. I suspect that even being a newcomer to the town, surviving the hurricane and rebuilding is going to create all sorts of connections, including a bond with a JD loving bookstore clerk.

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Wonderful. Thank you for taking us into this microcosm of life. Elif Batuman just wrote about Joan Didion too! (Yesterday) :)

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This was a fun read....I actually quite loved it.

I have a feeling that you guys should become friends.

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but she dead

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Joan Didion *is* so fucking good. So are you. I wonder if you're crying in the bathroom yet. I've been crying since you didn't respond to my Yama/Mama comment the other day. You are my aloof bookstore clerk. Life's funny that way ❤️‍🔥

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FUCK i will reply

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Oh my God, sorry Alex... my comment is very dramatic! It's okay. You're a busy man. I won't lie---I did wait for a long time for a reply to my comment, LOL. But that's life. I WILL SURVIVE!

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This comment is so meta and I love it!! It put me in a rabbit hole of curiosity about the attention we crave from others and who’s worth more than who? When are we the aloof bookstore clerk to some in our own lives? And why?

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Haha, I think we're different things to different people at different times... it's all relative. The aloof bookstore clerk likely has her own aloof bookstore clerk.

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I feel like there’s a really good graphic Tee idea in here!

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Loved this! Thanks for sharing so vulnerably. It's amazing how we create narratives in our mind of what we imagine other people are thinking and believe it's true. I bet that women had NO IDEA the stream of thoughts running through your mind. It reminds me of Byron Katie's 4 questions to challenge narratives. The last question is "who would I be without this thought?" You're a guy in a bookstore who digs Joan Didion. That's pretty fuckin cool. But alas, it's true -- where ever you go, there you are. We are a habitual response of repeated behaviours. :)

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Tell me, Alex: why in God's name would you care what some 20-nothing who makes minimum wage and probably lives with 5 roommates thinks of you?

(Also, this might be introverted of me, but if I'm looking for Joan Didion I go to the Fiction stacks and look under "D")

You are cool. No matter what she thinks.

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Albert there's nothing wrong with making minimum wage and living with 5 roommates. and JD writes non-fiction.

I appreciate you wanting to make sure I'm okay but not at the expense of others. Respectfully, that's a yuck.

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Play It As It Lays: A Novel. That IS fiction, isn’t it?

Respectfully, you’re now Unsubscribed.

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author

ur right that is a novel!! my bad, and also bye lol

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Also Run, River & The Last Thing He Wanted, off the top of my head.

Some, like me, are just

bigger fans of Didion essays & nonfiction.

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