Surface of Glass

a publication name change announcement

I’ve been meaning to come up with a proper name for this Substack for a while. I hope y’all didn’t think “Kenneth’s Newsletter” was my attempt at a catchy title (it was of course just the default name given to the publication when I first created it). That said, I recently co-released a song called Surface of Glass with my friend Michael Sanders (on his wonderful album Fuzzer), and it dawned on me today that this is perhaps also a fitting title for my Substack. The song speaks (with a degree of sarcasm and irony that sometimes comes out in my lyrics) to the paradoxical nature of our digital, hypermodern era — the ultra-isolation of ultra-connectivity, the bondage that lurks behind unlimited choice, etc. These are things that I’ve come to write about increasingly, both lyrically and in prose. I suspect that the new name will have a reasonable amount of staying power.

The name “Surface of Glass” refers most immediately to the screens behind which we conduct the majority of our activities these days, but the reader might pick up on other spiritual-symbolic connections as well from the topics I cover here.

Okay, that’s it — just a simple announcement. I’ll leave you with a couple of shameless links to check out the song if you feel so inclined. Thank you as always for your interest and attention.