Today there are many young and youngish people who write a certain kind of fiction, unhelpfully classified as literary by major chain bookstores presumably in order to distinguish it from the genre novels which have been sectioned into ghettos and refused admittance into the hallowed ground of more respected fare. Many of these authors are adept at making themselves ubiquitous across media outlets. They appear on Late Night TV and on NPR, brandish bedhead-topped mugs and five o’clock shadows on the covers of magazines that appeal to an upwardly mobile, vaguely liberal demographic composed of people who are young or perhaps just desire to be clued into the rapidly shifting trends of a highbrow echelon of youth culture.

At the college I went to, in the campus library, there were a few aisles furnished exclusively with nonacademic journals. The racks were close to the first-floor men’s rooms. En route to the w.c. I would grope blindly toward them with my left hand and almost always ended up grabbing hold of one of many available copies of the Believer, material to peruse in the huge stall I often used as a spot to do some light reading.

You shouldn’t be surprised if the ALL CAPS screed you typed up against “that dick” your boss got you cut from the Geek Squad. You knew he spent his idle hours trawling through hypertext so how could you fail to consider that he’d track down your insufficiently pseudonymous blog and gut you in the real world?

Be prudent, but don’t be a wuss. If you think you’re fighting the good fight full disclosure might actually make you look better; maybe you ought to be candid if you think your superior’s jokes about pogroms (“In Tsarist Russia, Mob Chase YOU!”) are inappropriate in the workplace. I’ll go as far as encouraging blogging about a misdeed which was done to you or somebody you know. Hop to it if you feel that publicizing this is not only legitimate, but could work in your favor, granted you’re not twisting the truth – that’s libel and will significantly sink your cred.

The danger element might deter some, but it could also attract others. Folks who seek to make themselves the focal points of controversy need only clear out some time from their schedules (“Daydream about growing a beard like Lev Trotsky’s” I’ll leave it till tomorrow) to tweet 140 glyphs of vitriol succinctly explaining why premature infants are sucking our crippled economy bone dry. Has it ever been any easier to arouse a knee-jerk response from total strangers?

True, most people who take the time to comment on your (read: my) hastily cobbled-together opinions will be friends, family and the occasional deadbeat whose judgment has been fried by too much free porno, but you never know if the person reading pointless rant about the hurdles of modern life (“What’s up with eggshells!? They’re so thin!”) is Larry David or Noah Baumbach.

So, with that bit of rambling I would like to introduce this: the latest avatar (the Hindu variety) of my boundless energy and creativity.

Next post: I risk life, limb, and reputation by relating the current power struggle between me and my landlady (we’ll call her old Alyona, but we won’t call me Raskolnikov).