Writing at the edge of the abyss

A rant, some new writing, and a couple of updates.

The more I learn about Project 2025, the right-wing Heritage Foundation’s plan to effectively erase democracy and government as we know it, the angrier I become. Further restricting access to abortion. Privatizing the National Weather Service.“Christian nationalism.” It’s all laid out in an 887-page document.

Image via The People’s Guide to Project 2025 from Democracy Forward.

I’m grateful to Teen Vogue (!), which has been amplifying the research and reporting of The 19th on Project 2025. I’m also grateful to historian

Heather Cox Richardson

for sounding the alarm about Project 2025 back in March. The tl;dr: “Project 2025 presents an apocalyptic vision of a United States whose dark problems can be fixed only by a minority assuming power under a strongman and imposing their values on the rest of the country.”

For my part, I’ve been writing postcards for democracy and postcards to swing states almost every weekend, whether I feel like it or not. (Thanks for organizing the gatherings and for feeding us, Lauren!) We’re told this strategy works, so I keep at it despite hand cramps and despair.

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And speaking of correspondence, aching fingers, and antidotes to despair, here’s a quick pivot: I’m in my fifth year of corresponding by mail with a longtime friend who lives far away. Envelopes, stamps, the whole bit. That correspondence, and letter-writing in general, is the subject of my latest story for Medium, “Does Anyone Still Write Letters?” (Gift link bypasses the paywall. I appreciate my handful of paid subscribers!)

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Here are a couple of follow-ups to previous newsletters:

Remember Zynternet and splinternet from last week? This week I learned about Printernet, a customized printed version of your online reading. For $20 per issue, you get five reading “slots”; each can be filled with “an article, essay, interview, recipe, blog post, or almost any text-based content . . . Or you can connect your Twitter + Newsletter subscriptions and let us pick for you.” If you’re envisioning a modern-day Gutenberg laboring over a printing press, think again: founder Jake Weber uses an AI called Replit to build each issue. Read Replit’s interview with Jake. (Hat tip: Kottke)

After I published Naming Briefs #8 about numeric brand names I discovered another one: 222, a “social-experience” startup (don’t call it a dating app!) that aims to “facilitate meaningful and authentic connections,” according to a November 2022 TechCrunch story. The company was founded in late 2021 by three young men — the oldest was 23 — who moved it from Los Angeles to New York in February 2024. The URL is 222.place, as in “This must be the place,” but the website sheds no light on the 222 part of the name. So here’s a theory: According to the “science” of numerology, 222 is a “repeating angel number” in which each 2 represents “partnership, love, and relationships. . . . It’s the number of patience, peace-keeping, and sensitivity.”

222 survey via TechCrunch

Too woo-woo? OK, then allow me the fantasy of thinking 222.place pays homage to the ABC-TV series “Room 222” (1969—1974), set at the fictional Walt Whitman High School in Los Angeles. The exteriors were filmed at my real-life alma mater, Los Angeles High School, the oldest public high school in Southern California (est. 1873), which is just about the only thing I remember about the show. I have no idea why “222” was chosen for the show’s title; maybe one of the writers was hooked on numerology.

“THIS could be YOUR school!”

Do you have a lucky number? Some lucky words? Some justification for hope?