THE GOBLIN NEWSLETTER 41

Katie grabs the local free papers for me from the areas she takes her hike at. I’m always interested in how these small papers carry themselves, who advertises, what kind of articles are written, etc. These papers are just as boring as the Free Weeklies of the city, but more of a surprise to me. Probably because of having read thousands of free city weeklies for four decades, I’ve read dozens of small-town weeklies for a few years. Still, there is the opportunity to surprise & find something genuine in any publishing venture, even if you are copying a tried & true structure. So few people realize that it is part of their duty as humans to find what is true to them & express it. It is our duty as the audience to give them that room. Whether that is a successful vehicle is another question. These papers need to be useful to the public, when they cease to be useful they die. However, in that usefulness there needs to be that added something, that glimmer, that charm. Historically, the weekly papers were the alternative to the dailies. Now, the dailies have largely ceased publication or have moved online, the weeklies, if they survived, have moved to monthlies. What alternative or mainstream means at this point is questionable, has been for a while.  Ultimately I think that’s a good thing, it just requires a new understanding, a new agreement. I said it already but i’ll repeat myself, “part of our duty as humans is to find what is true & express it. It is our duty as the audience to give them that room.” It’s pretty simple, but hard to implement, but here we are. You must push against the new conformity & dwell in a more real place. It’s wild to see the new conformity sweep the land, complete with a new reaction. The new conformity (90s style Target liberalism) is based so strongly as a reaction to the old conformity (50s style boomer suburbia), adherents have a hard time seeing what it is. Personally, I’m used to it at this point. I don’t think these things are the way, & basing your life off of this conformity or a reaction to it & non-genuine thought is not an advancement, but most people seem to need to do this. It is the duty of publishers to produce a way out of this endless cycle of reaction.