The story goes that Hunter S Thompson typed out the Great Gatsby to get the flow of the writing. Quite a different approach to his infamous daily routine.
Brilliant story. This reminds me so much of David Foster Wallace's 'Little Expressionless Animals,' I wonder if DFW was aware of the broadcast and took it as inspiration
Really interesting. The whole article feels like an argument against his point; pointing out the varied meanings, implications and stigmas of 'mere' or 'able' just reminds me how great that ambiguity is for literature.
The line from Yeats' 'Second Coming' works with both meanings, mere meaning pure anarchy reflecting the nightmarish time and being a great oxymoron, and mere meaning small, less noticeable anarchy fitting the subtle terror of 'the falcon cannot hear the falconer.' Even without that as an initial intention, it shows how language and great writing both evolve together over time.
James Bloodworth's book Hired is a good companion piece. It covers what it's like to work in an Amazon warehouse in the UK, among other low paid jobs. I'm not sure if it was the tagline, but I think 'the last thing you'll buy on Amazon' would be a decent slogan for the book.
He has a tendency to get a little purple with his prose, but if you can get past that it's a good precis of low pay jobs.
"Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, 'Right, lads! Another twenty like that...and then we can party!'"
Kojima's a good example of how limitless creative freedom doesn't produce the best work. Tarantino is another. Even the best creative minds need a voice questioning whether a vampire licking a knife over and over again is a good addition to a spy thriller.
If you're interested in Assange, check out Andrew O'Hagan's piece 'Ghosting' about being hired to ghost write Assange's autobiography. It's in his collection 'The Secret Life.'