"Aww, here it goes!"
In which I try to justify starting a Substack
Originally I was going to publish this letter Friday morning (what I imagine will be Lifting Fog’s regular schedj) but then I remembered that ‘WandaVision’ airs its season (series?) finale tomorrow, and talking about it *next* week might as well be asking if you remember who Balloon Boy is, so…
You know what? This week you’re all getting TWO scoops of ice cream, cruelty-free. I hope they don’t taste terrible!
Allow me to reintroduce myself
A big bio here in what’s essentially a tester email feels unnecessary, right? If you’re reading this, you know me1: My name’s Henning, I’m a writer in my mid-30’s, and I’m almost genetically predisposed to self-examination. Why I don’t already have a Substack is shocking to me, too!
Recently, ‘American Housewife’, the TV show I’ve spent the past five years assisting, then writing on, came to what feels like the end of its run. Now, I don’t know this for sure — we’ll find out if we get a sixth season in May — but rather than just sit here in limbo,
“waiting for the tide to flow”/network pickups, it seems healthier, weirdly, to just…decide that it’s dead? Listen, should the show come back, I’ll happily eat my words the same I way I did with “Aaron Sorkin is making a Facebook movie? Kill me” in 2010. But for now, for me…
(Please bear with as I learn the stylistic rhythms of Substack! I am an Old Millennial, and will soon be dead.)
Which brings us back to what I’m even doing writing you in the first place! In another life (Editor’s note: as recently as this past November) I would have channeled all this ennui into a post on the identically named Lifting Fog, a blog I started with my buddy Steve in 2008 that in 2021 feels at best retrograde, at worst casually problematic. That’s the aughts for ya! Lifting Fog, like ‘Seinfeld’, was about everything and nothing all at once: movies, growing up, Ski-Wee instruction, Vampire Weekend, and Zack Snyder’s 2009 adaptation of ‘Watchmen’.
It has little to no guiding principle outside of “nobody stopped me from writing this”; perhaps not coincidentally, it is probably also the clearest distillation of my brain, and the creative project I’m most proud of.
So as I sit here at (again, what feels like) the end of one half-decade-long writing journey, I find myself asking a lot of questions. Questions like:
Who am I?
What’s important to me?
Will I ever see ‘The French Dispatch’ in theaters?
One of the main benefits of regular employment is not having to think too hard about any of these, especially that last one, but once you’re untethered from your (standing) desk and set loose in the sea of your own melodramatic thoughts? HOO BOY.
Accio Harry Potter reference2
Now, we ALL know what a Horcrux is: a magical vessel imbued with a witch or wizard’s soul, the enchantment of which renders its creator immortal. Sounds like a sweet deal, for sure, but you have to ask: is immortality worth it when your soul has literally been cleaved in two?
“What does this have to do with anything?” Olivia P. asks from the back row of Accelerated English 10. “We’re not even reading Harry Potter, Mr. F. — that’s a book for children, and adults who have trouble living in reality.”
There’s a twinkle in Substitute Teacher Henning’s eye as he gets off the desk he’s been sitting cross-legged on for the past thirty-nine minutes. “Nothing gets past you, Olivia. But what if I told you… Horcruxes were real?” Huh. Now Olivia’s paying attention. Now the whole CLASS is paying attention.
“You’re doing us dirty, Mr. F.,” says Sawyer L. “That shit’s just pretend.” Henning laughs. “Come on, Sawyer, doing people dirty ain’t my steez. Bet.” The class has to admit, it’s not Substitute Teacher Henning’s steez. Cassie W. raises her hand. “How can you prove Horcruxes are real?” “Easy,” says Henning, “just pull out your phones. The class looks nervously around at each other. “It’s okay, I know you’re all packing. I won’t narc.” Everyone slowly pulls out their phones.
“Now,” says Henning, “I want you to load up Instagram, I want you to load up Twitter, I want you to load up Facebook.” Olivia P. raises her hand again. “I don’t get it. It’s just social media, so what?”
That twinkle is back in Substitute Teacher Henning’s eye. “Nah, homeys. Those apps? Those are Horcruxes.” The bell rings. No one gets up, because their asses are completely glued to their chairs.
Every day, 42% of Old Millennials debate whether to delete their various accounts, or if that would be deliberately contrarian, or if maybe they can just lurk without engaging, as a compromise. Like a Horcrux, social media has the whiff of real life, it’s at least a little like you… but then you catch yourself trying too hard to be funny…
or too performatively earnest…
and you truly do wonder damn, who am I? Is any of this me? Or am I about to descend on a remote wizarding academy with my fascist, steam-punk-fashioned militia, all in a misguided bid to kill the Boy Who Lived? Makes you think.
Why I’m Starting This Substack
To win a Stacky™️, obviously. But also in an effort to de-Horcrux myself (I promise this will be the last time I use the word “Horcrux,” in any medium) and find some central creative node for what, to this point, has been a lot of disparate effort. Do you guys know how long I spend on movie reviews I submit to Letterboxd, which is basically a Pokemon game for cinephiles? Or the effort that goes into my Instagram Stories snack review soap opera, “Henning’s Snack Attack,” which disappears 24 hours later? It’s possible there’s some Buddhist lesson in here about impermanence or something, but I was raised Episcopalian and those roots are simply too strong.
Listen: there’s no getting around the ego, or frankly unnecessity3 of an email newsletter, especially one with no focus (right now) besides “so here’s some stuff.” This isn’t a cooking diary, or career column, or even Safdie Brothers fan ‘zine. I don’t know what it is! Yet! But taking all the energy I would have applied to so many sandcastles in the sand and instead writing directly to people I’m already semi-confident enjoy my writing — and maybe some n00bs, too, that would be chill — doesn’t seem like the most solipsistic idea in the world. (I mean, maybe it is. But either way, we’ll find out together.)
(It’s free, by the way, this newsletter! Maybe I’ll offer a paid subscription at some point if I start writing more than once a week, or feel like I’ve written something worthy of a monthly five-spot? But payment feels tacky at this juncture, and anyway beside the point. All I want right now — and I’ll say it with as much 🧀 as possible — is to CONNECT.)
Be on the lookout for new stuff every Friday morning. What kind of stuff?
essays
artwork
movie reviews
short stories
updates on the screenplay I’m writing, ‘Sleigh Queen’, where a drag queen and Santa switch jobs
Ira Glass impressions, idk
To me, the whole point of social media — the whole point of creative endeavor — is some attempt at telling the truth: about the world, about yourself. And that’s what I plan to do here with these weekly 1500 word Yelp reviews which, I should reiterate, you are free to unsubscribe from at any time. Kel, take us away!
And I, you know, have your email address
Millennials only understand their life experiences through things like ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Game of Thrones’, and ‘The West Wing’; I am not here to disabuse you of this fact
not a word