i’m sort of convinced that the absolutely best essayists produce new work only erratically.  it is very hard to do all the work of observing/engaging with stuff, then Thinking Real Hard, and then writing some actually-worth-reading piece, on anything like a weekly schedule.  sometimes a person spends years of their life thinking about something and only writes one thing about it.  but it doesn’t matter because that one thing was worth it, exactly what needed to be said

however, alas, the demands of (legacy) publishing and (newer) algorithms disproportionately favor Dudes Who Can Churn Shit Out On Schedule

which is why the most Aggressively Mid Writer of the 00′s Game Writing Scene, Ian Bogost, is writing for the fucking Atlantic nowadays, whereas all the actually interesting, provocative, strange, and generally-worth-reading writers from that era are like. their stuff’s languishing on some mothballed archive on their personal site.  or on a defunct blog.  someplace where people slowly forget about it even though their stuff was always way more daring and novel and just plain interesting than the polished bullshit that builds a career

grumble grumble