Hey, There,
(I know I said a while back this this newsletter was asleep, possibly for good! I’ll go into what’s going on a little bit more below, under the main-event essay)
So, back in April, Rebecca and I got a puppy. The first few weeks of that were rough (the ongoing weeks of that continue to be rough, albeit steadily less rough), and we spent that time in a sort of shocked daze. During the brief, scattered times when the house and our limbs weren’t being destroyed by a toothy little tornado with a dog head sticking out of it, we spent some time here and there painstakingly making our way through the surreal Apple TV series Severance.
Severance is a hell of a show, if you’re into this sort of thing. The high concept is “what if you took work/life balance to its farthest possible extent and had your brain reconfigured so that when you’re at work you can’t remember life outside of work, and vice versa?” The result is a great blend of Sartre, American corporate culture satire, and effectively surreal science fiction. And the show’s anchored by as-good-as-they’ve-ever-been performances by Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, and John Turturro (MAN that guy commits to a role), as well as a bunch of other less-known people.
I don’t want to get too deep into the weeds on this particular show, though; if it sounds even vaguely interesting to you, you should go check it out… this kind of thing lives and dies on the execution, and it’s executed very well. Instead, though, I’d like to pick up one particular thread of the show and tug at it a little, maybe take a look at how it’s tied to a bigger tapestry.
Like I mentioned above, Severance operates in several modes, and one of them (probably the dominant one, certainly the funniest one) is as a satire of American corporate culture. The characters who have been “severed” have selves that exist only at work, with no memory of what it’s like not to be at work. Their lives consist of grinding a long to meet quarterly goals, hearing about how great the company’s founders were, and occasionally getting little rewards like a spread of sliced melon chunks. I invoked Sartre earlier because the vibe very strongly conveyed (to the point where one character even asks if this is the case) is that they’re in Hell.
So here’s the thing that gets to me: this is a well-regarded show that’s reasonably popular (even if it’s niche popular, it’s a niche with millions of viewers). And its whole central conceit depends on the idea that viewers will be able to look at this depiction of office culture—which again is unambiguously presented as hellish—and feel enough recognition and familiarity for the satire to work.
Let me stop and ask: is that not absolutely fucked up? Not that the show works this way, mind you; but that this seam of cultural discontent exists for them to mine! And it’s not just this show! I think you can argue that “searing satire of American work culture” is its own very robust freestanding multimedia genre… off the top of my head, I can think of The Office (both American and British*) on television; Office Space and, at least partly, Sorry to Bother You** on film; And Then We Came to the End in print; and Dilbert on the comics page.*** This is just what’s on the top of my head right now; there is absolutely not question that I’m missing dozens of other examples in each of these media.
*With The Office, I do think it’s worth noting that the British version is very straightforward in saying “this sucks!” while the American version pulls its punches significantly, offering less condemnation and more of a spirit of “well, what can you do about it?” while also making the tyrannical boss figure much more bumbling and well-meaning.
**”Partly” because there is A LOT going on in Sorry to Bother You, and the suckiness of work culture, while a concern of the movie, is a lot less central than some of the heavier things that the movie’s more concerned with.
***Dilbert is SUCH a weird thing in that Scott Adams actually seems to think he’s putting out a different message than the one that people generally take from the strip; in the end, I’ve kind of drifted into the position that the rottenness of American workplace culture is such a rich seam that even a useless asshole like Scott Adams can stumble into success by accidentally mining it.
My point here is that it blows my mind that literally millions of people find American workplace culture so stupid, oppressive, and contemptible that we can have this disdain serve as the bedrock of an entire genre, and yet nobody ever does anything about it and nothing ever fundamentally changes (except maybe to slowly get worse).I’m not sure what this means. Maybe it’s a sign of the fundamental weakness of satire to effect change; maybe it’s an example of the way that structural elements of society just persist regardless of how participants feel about them (it’s not clear to me what any individual could do about American workplace culture, outside of their own personal rebellions and withdrawals); maybe it just means that the bosses and managers who perpetuate the contemptible workplace culture just aren’t hip to this (very mainstream) genre. Although I’ve seen more than one middle manager make a Michael Scott joke, so I wouldn’t bet on that last one; maybe they’re watching/consuming the stuff, but just not thinking it through. Who knows?
Right on. Stay safe.
SO YEAH, ABOUT THE POSSIBLE RESURRECTION OF THE NEWSLETTER
A bunch of things converged for this to happen: first, like I mentioned above, we got a puppy (I’ll include some pics!) and he eats up a lot of the mental bandwidth that had been going into the music and visual art projects that had supplanted the newsletter, which winds up maybe being easier to work on in quick snatches between puppy hurricanes.
Second, for some reason Facebook resurrected the old post I made there back in early 2020 announcing the newsletter, and a bunch of new people signed up, and y’know, if people are interested, it’s hard not to respond to that.
Third, another reason for me drifting away was increasing discomfort with Substack as a company; and that hasn’t gotten any better, but the whole dimwitted-wannabe-Bond-villain-threatens/attempts-to-buy-Twitter fiasco has made me stare straight into the unpleasant fact that none of the platforms available to us right now are clean. Which: sigh.
And finally, most of all, I just found myself with the itch to write about culture and art again, at least a little. I’m not sure how often I’ll be scratching that itch, and I guess I can’t 100% promise that it’ll be ongoing, but I think it’s likely (if sporadic). There are a couple of other projects in the hopper (and in the margins of puppy-raising), so, again, timing here will be anything but regular.
So: good to see you again, and here are some puppy pics! Please say hi to Augie!
OH YEAH ONE OTHER THING: if you’re in Minneapolis, I guess I’m teaching a Community Ed class this fall on expressing yourself with do-it-yourself comics. When I know more, I’ll send out an email. But I’m pretty sure that it’s a thing that’s happening, if you happen to be interested!
CLOSING STUFF
OK, so here at the bottom, sorry for the ragged copy editing; my deal with myself was to keep this fast and loose, which is gonna mean typos. On the other hand, that also means it’ll actually come out, instead of being obsessed over.
If you have any thoughts/reactions/what have you about this, I’d love to hear about it, either by email or on Twitter. And if you know anybody who might dig this, please forward it on to them, or send ‘em the signup link! And thanks!
I think that a large reason for the lack of change in the system of office work is that the people who have the power to change the system as it currently is (the bosses) actually *like* the system as it currently is because it works for them. It's why it's pretty much only management who want everyone to come back into the office, while everyone else is screaming "No! Going into the office is hell!" Put yourself in Michael Scott's shoes for a minute: The office dynamic requires everyone else to at least listen to your jokes (and strongly encourages them to laugh at them) and forces everyone below you to automatically give your ideas far more respect than they actually deserve.
I think the situation is compounded by the fact that most managers, and almost all managers above the very bottom level of managers, are business school graduates. Business school, from what I've seen, is about indoctrination as much as its about education. Personally, I find business majors pretty much incomprehensible: I cannot imagine being so enamored with "business" as a concept that you would devote your college career and then professional career to "business," with minimal (if any) regard for exactly what sort of widgets the company you were working for was producing.
I hope you do decide to bring back the newsletter - I enjoyed having you show up in my email box- and I'll be eagerly looking forward to the information about the community ed class.