Tell me a bit about yourself

Some questions for Precipice readers / subscribers

Mid-December will mark four years of Precipice’s existence. I feel like I’ve stayed pretty true to the mission laid out on the About page, which I’ve occasionally reprinted. I’ll do so here again in case some haven’t been there.

The name

Precipice indicates that America, Western civilization and the world generally are close enough to a yawning abyss to see its terrifying vastness. It’s an abyss with cultural, political, economic and spiritual dimensions.

I so named it knowing the risk that it would come across like yet another Debbie Downer outlet in a world in which happiness is at a premium. But pointing out evidence of my premise is not the aim. The question before us is, on what grounds might we hope?

You won’t find pat answers. I consider myself a Christian - albeit a rather crummy one - but I don’t serve up platitudes, cliches about how since all is well in the eternal realm we needn’t fret about our current juncture, or attempts to recruit the uncommitted.

Rather, I invite you to join me on a journey, a search for genuinely solid ground, on which we can plant our feet and not feel perilously close to free fall.

If our toes are truly gripping the edge of the precipice, is there time for such a search?

I’d argue that there is no other sensible use of our time.

Me

I’m a journalist. I mostly write magazine features. Profiles of interesting people are my favorite. I love the arc of an interview conversation and the art of picking up on clues from interview subjects.

I’m also a musician, a jazz guitarist. I can find lucrative gigs, but I’m well aware I’ve chosen a musical life that isn’t going to pay a lot of bills.

I’m an adjunct lecturer in jazz history and rock and roll history at my local community college.

I realize blogs are not as fashionable as they were at the outset of this century, but I maintain mine, Late in the Day, which I started in 2012. It’s where I write posts that tend to be shorter and more link-rich, and where the focus is more on sorting out the ideological fault lines of our time as they manifest themselves in particular developments.

In a post from launching day, 12/18/19, entitled “Allow Me to Introduce Myself,” I flesh this out a little further. Some things have changed a little in the interim. Clyde and I are no longer doing our podcast. I also would probably frame my personal-definition-of-conservatism-in-250-words-or-less a little differently than the three-pillar construct I offered at the time. And, alas, the roots band I allude to has run its course. (I still have a jazz ensemble.)

But how about you? Might I inquire about what brings you here?

I hope you’ll respond in the comments. Having some information about my readership would be immensely useful.

Herewith some questions that I hope trigger more than checked-box responses. I know I personally dislike surveys, and never take them. Give me some feedback in a way that provides a handle on the way your mind works and the way you see the world. I’m looking more for a conversation than a data-collection exercise.

May I ask a little about who you are demographically? You know, male or female? What age range, or, if you’re willing, what specific age? What area of the country do you live in? Is that where you’re originally from? How have the places where you’ve resided shaped you? What’s your ethnicity / race / nationality?

What brought you here? Did you feel a kinship with my characterization of inhabiting an ever-narrower sliver of ideological terrain? Or do you have an entirely different way of seeing that, and are just curious about how I could come up with a formulation that you don’t resonate with?

What kind of content attracts you the most? Do you mainly like my historical tracings of how we got to our present sociocultural juncture? Or maybe my ruminations on various traits of the human being and aspects of the human condition that are philosophical fundamentals (character, virtue, faith, despair, doubt, art, rights)? Are you perhaps mainly interested in the posts that most specifically deal with Christian faith? Do you like the posts on music (the Bruce Springsteen Super Bowl Jeep commercial, the look at how the Laurel Canyon scene of the late 1960s and 1970s was a cesspool of hedonism and self-absorption, my reflections on Phil Spector’s death, my examination of the layers of significance of the album One Night Stand! Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club )? Are you more or less drawn to such subjects the closer or further you are from the Boomer demographic?

What other kinds of presentation formats (and perhaps opportunities for community-wide exchange) would interest you? A while back, when Precipice got its first taste of paid subscriptions, I launched a weekly series of short podcasts called “Exemplars of the Faith.” Each installment was a profile of a cool figure from the history of Christianity. It spanned the centuries, from Augustine to Julian of Norwich to Kierkegaard to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It was, as they say, premium content. But it didn’t generate new paid subscriptions, and so I tapered off. I have a few other ideas for podcasts, but would like to have a modicum of confidence that you’d find them interesting. How about Chat? Would specific types of that be useful? Given what you know about Precipice, what other ideas might you suggest?

Do you know anybody who might find Precipice an interesting read? I’d be immeasurably appreciative if you’d pass it along to such folks.

Would you be willing to upgrade to a paid subscription? I write for various magazines, and that provides some income, but I’m by no means well-heeled. Precipice is the writing activity dearest to my heart, and it would do my sense that I’m contributing something of value to the world a lot of good to have my calling be the major component of my income. There is no shortage of websites clamoring for your cheddar, and I would not expect you to part with anything that caused you to feel a pinch. But expressing your interest in what happens here monetarily would go a long way to ensuring this site’s viability.

Again, I hope you’ll respond in the comments. Every one of you is important to me.