Now’s the Time
Inspired by 2026 and Jack the Modernist by Robert Glück
“Envoi,” pg. 95, from Robert Glück’s Jack the Modernist
LADIES AND Gentleman of the Future,
Greetings from late capitalism where meaning and image have come apart. I raise my hand in salutation or warning or good-bye——or muscle spasm? Is there going to be a future? Tell me . . . If there is no history, fine, if there is history, fine, if that’s a mixed message, well, it fits the times . . . That’s why I’m writing to you——would you prefer silences to a morbid love story held together by a long freight train of equal signs and propelled by a modern emotion? I don’t think there’s a name for it yet; call it excited neutrality. You feel it in the space between image and meaning: an invented place but isn’t heaven?——the future? . . . I prod them onward hoping we all don’t collapse into parts. What is self or narration without a future? My palms open with helplessness . . .
We have so many tokens of peace and comfort yet each life is marred by violence. Violence is the rule. Do you get many letters like this, Dear Abbey of Things to Come? Believing in the future would mean so much . . . you have no idea . . .
Love, Bob
ACT I
Robert Glück’s Jack the Modernist came to me just before the year ended. In fact, while reading it at the gym, its saucy cover encouraged a “fucking faggot” from a crazed no-neck-having gym goer. Perfect response. (Shoutout to cover artist Louis Frantino: His paintings spring from his sultriest memories. You and Your Thighs above is but one example. Now back to the plot!) “Envoi,” a rather surreal chapter, caught my attention because of the timeless epistolary form it took. Addressed to people who aren’t even here yet, the letter, bleak yet intimate, busies itself with making sense of meaninglessness images. Thank you, capitalism.
Through theft, degradation, and exploitation, capitalism devalues the hallmarks of human achievement (i.e. discernment, perseverance, creativity, adaptability, collaboration, and judgement——just to name a few) ultimately calling human achievement itself into question. Sound familiar? While I doubt Glück was referring to ChatGPT, I must acknowledge “Envoi” and its timeless gleam. (Even in 1985, back when the novel was first published, capitalism was, well, capitalisming.) Don’t worry. This isn’t about to pivot into a think piece about artificial intelligence. But, while we are here, we must tip our hats to its ambitious pillaging of the human spirit. From love notes to novels, nudes to sonatas, generative AI strengthens the divide between meaning, the image, meaning-making, and the imagination. Are we fucked? Probably.
Such a fucking warrants a response. “Hello! If you’re my invitation to Mass Market Helplessness, welcome. We have been waiting for you.” Or, “You weren’t with us long and yet you touched us so deeply. Thank you. We will miss you dearly, Critical Thinking.” And then, there’s this very essay if you can call it that. I haven’t decided whether or not I’m trying to warn you or achieve 100 posts. I promised I’d show pole and hole if we do. Glück, or should I say his character Bob, responds with a muscle spasm. Ironically, after experiencing the aforementioned hate crime, I went on the stair master, kept reading, and got a cramp. Bibliomancy’s a bitch. So’s capitalism.
Verily I say unto you, futurity ain’t worth a damn if the imagination futurity requires lacks meaning which is to say purpose. Or, posed as a question, since capitalism has robbed us of the ability to imagine a meaningful future, what the fuck are we supposed to do? (Say look to history and I’ll swing on you. I mean it. Half you swayback bitches can’t read unless it’s a caption on TikTok. Stop playing with me.) Everything’s so nuanced now (derogatory.) We’ve reframed, reclaimed, repackaged, and reimagined reality so much that reality’s hiding from us. And I don’t blame her. Erasure is scary. Or, put differently, wondering whether or not there’s going to be a future should terrify everyone. Aren’t you terrified? I am.
Grapefruit Breakfast (2017), Louis Frantino, Oil and Wax Crayon on Canvas
INTERMISSION
On New Year’s Eve, I closed How The Grinch Stole Christmas at the Old Globe. My time there was nuanced and now the nuance has ended. Remember the Player from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead? I barely do. “We’re actors,” he proclaims, “we are the opposite of people.” He’s right. An actor isn’t an actor without a contract and I feel myself turning back into an expensive WholeFoods pumpkin. Truth is personhood resists becoming art. And yet, art is the sole reason I get out of bed in the morning. So now that there’s no art, what do I do? [Please insert saccharine response here or you’ll lose more subscribers.] Plot twist: I am going to go to the gym, suck no-neck off in the shower, and keep it pushing. Hi, ho, the glamorous life! When I get home, I will regret not brushing my teeth and sit in front of a blank TV. (While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about Heated Rivalry. No, I haven’t seen it. No, I don’t plan on seeing it. There, we talked.) Honestly, I’d rather savor the silence and, gods be good, avoid mass psychosis only commodified representation can provide. Let’s change the subject. I see torches and pitch forks in my future.
“Now’s the Time,” a quartet sung by Whoville’s Mama-Papa-Grandma-and-Grandpa-Who, blooms out of a questioning silence. “Can you hear it,” Grandma asks earnestly, “the silence all over the town?” Warm, high, and arpeggiated, a G major 7th chord rings from a celesta like clock chimes. A few vamps go by before Papa Who starts the tune. And Grandpa? Well, he tacets for thirty-two bars. (In music, tacet means shut the fuck up; other people are playing. And there’s no shame in a tacet. Some silences are necessary.) They serve as spaces too, make room for something. When Glück refers to the space between meaning and image, he describes it in terms of imaginative potential. Like heaven because it’s ambitious, like the future because it’s imaginative. Here, the feeling of excited neutrality invites the reader and writer to swap places. You are responsible for making sense of it all. Good luck and Godspeed. Without the future which may be another way of saying without the answer, what is the self or its stories? (I have sex with men. I shouldn’t care about the future.)
An Argument (2021), Louis Frantino, Oil on Canvas
ACT II
Right before stepping onstage to sing the aforementioned tune, I, a superstitious actor, made the tiniest of supplications: Thank you for blessing right now. Some days were more blessed than others. Hell, some days were downright cursed. And yet, I too had to open my hands and pray before silence. In short, I had to stop believing in the future (at least momentarily) and start believing in right-the-fuck-now. Annoying, I know. How I managed to do so without swan diving into hopelessness is anybody’s guess. Happy New Year.