A new Substack talk show.
Plus a review of Ben Lerner's Transcription.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Last night, I got dinner at Dean’s, the new British pub from the same team behind King. Their Guinness tap was staying busy all night behind the gorgeous wood bar, but I went for a carrot margarita. It was a long day. The fish and chips were hot and crispy, and the April sun stayed out until the early evening, which made the whole room feel lively and cozy. For dessert, the team sent me and my friend Gabrielle Scelzo these chocolate and vanilla cream-filled brandy snaps that were really spectacular. Like biting into a lacy butterscotch cigar.
Today’s newsletter includes: Shakeups at Interview Magazine, Ridgewood’s favorite nightclub is reopening this weekend, you don’t need an investor to start a Substack talk show, and a review of Ben Lerner’s Transcription.
Feed Me’s next West Coast edition 🌴☀️🎥 🌁 is coming out soon. Have a story you’d like to include? Reply to this email or text the Feed Me Tip Line: (646) 494-3916
I Want To Tell You About: Transcription
I don’t remember how I first learned about Ben Lerner’s new novel, Transcription, which is out this week. But I remember that when someone told me the premise, I got tiny goosebumps on my arms. One of my readers was able to get a copy sent to me early (thank you), and a few weeks ago I slipped it in my bag on the way out the door to the airport. In the opening pages, an unnamed narrator drops his phone in a hotel bathroom sink minutes before he’s supposed to record an interview for a profile of his 90-year-old mentor for an unnamed magazine.
I got my first iPhone in 2008 after making a bet with my dad involving a perfect score on my algebra Regents exam. I won, and he ended up giving me his iPhone. I performed phone surgery and moved my AT&T chip from my Motorola Razr into my new Apple prize. My phone immediately connected me to the universe outside of my Long Island bedroom. But it also became this thing, a rectangular appendage that dictated how every one of my days would go. I remember closing the door of someone’s parents’ basement and interrogating three of my 14-year-old friends once when I couldn’t find my phone. They still act out the scene today, I was scared and scary, lining them up and accusing them of hiding it. My iPhone ended up being safe inside of my soft Ugg boot by the couch. I think back to that moment whenever I catch this thing making me act in ways I otherwise wouldn’t.
Our narrator never tells his interview subject, an intellectual named Thomas, that the phone (which is also his recorder in this situation) doesn’t work, which leaves the reader and narrator knowing something is off. What will he do? Will he carry on this performance or come clean? What exactly will he publish if it’s not a transcription of the actual interview? Is everything made up?
In the second third of the book, we’re in Madrid. The interview was published (after Thomas passed away), and our narrator discloses in the published interview that his phone broke during the interview, and therefore parts of the conversation were “reconstructed.” At Thomas’s memorial in Spain, a woman named Rosa, who is another of Thomas’s protégés, calls our narrator “the worst journalist.” He argues that editors “move stuff around” and “make composites” all the time. The anxiety in the story becomes less about the role an iPhone played in the accuracy, or lack of accuracy, in reporting, and more about the omissions and additions that go into storytelling of all kinds in our everyday lives.