Ok, I’ve gotta write something, and fast. First, I have a meeting to go to in less than an hour; second, it’s already Wednesday; third, it’s the day before the Thanksgiving holiday, so I don’t plan on staying here for longer than necessary.
Sorry, on the phone with my wife for a few minutes.
Right, and then I had to deal with some actual work. But, honestly, I’m here now. It’s just you and me, dear reader.
Which is why it pains me to be the one to point out the hard, uncompromising truth: Cant is falling apart.
Yes, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Intermittent postings, authors dropping off entirely…sure, we’ve survived that before, but it’s coming up on two months since the last Jasona column, and Lictor used to do better than once a month. Even Sun Ra is posting late in the day on Mondays, and, hell, look at me. Wanton Hussy just cleared the once-a-month posting with her latest column, but even her output is down. Pakeha is the only person holding up his end of the deal, here.
For my part, I’m in a bit of a slow period. I’ve done ranting, both political and otherwise, and I went through a period of story writing. Now I’m in a sort of creative limbo. But, of course, I’m going to blame everyone else. If only Jasona and/or Lictor would post more, then I’d have more incentive to write my columns early, and at least be somewhat interesting.
So, what does Cant need? Well, what it’s always needed: New writers. But what are the chances, eh? I can’t think of anyone else to bring in, and I don’t think that the other writers haven’t thought of the same thing. So let’s assume that we don’t have a stable of potential writers available.
How about a hiatus? The problem with hiatuses (hiati?) is that they become permanent more often than not.
I like the idea of another theme week, or weeks, but how long can we continue that? And will it generate new ideas afterwards? Or at least a sense of freshness?
By my count, this is my 147th column (although I can’t remember if I counted the four columns I missed a while back in the number, so it might be 142). Not a bad number, but there are people making livings writing columns who have written far more than that. Wait a second: How the hell does someone make a living writing a column, maybe a few times a week? That’s nuts. You’d think that Dave Barry, at least until the book deals started coming in, would’ve had to have been flipping burgers somewhere to make ends meet. Or the countless other writers doing that sort of work. Really, I just can’t imagine that a column-writer would make all that much money.
I’ll leave the research of the topic to the reader. Because I’m lazy.
So, is this the end of Cant? I don’t know, and that’s not for me to say. But can the four of us keep pushing it along?
Well, yes, I suppose. I mean, four days out of seven isn’t too bad; not optimal, certainly, but not terrible. I do think we need some sort of change in order to keep Cant going, but I can’t say that I have anything terribly interesting in mind at the moment. I’ll think about it, though. Oh, and you think about it too. Lazy bastards.