I wonder what the opposite of a rant is? Stream of consciousness? This book is Lance Morrow’s stream of consciousness reflections on 40 years as a journalist. A lot of it is about Harry Luce, the founder of Time Magazine; who set the stage and presided upon an era in US life (maybe from the post-war till the early 80s). The age of empire; our Pax Americana. When through Bretton Woods and the Washington Consensus US policymakers controlled the world.

That is, until our enemies found the ghosts in our machine: when the Soviets destroyed human rights; the populists destroyed democracy; and the Chinese Communist Party destroyed capitalism. But that is now. Morrow’s book was about days deep back into the 20th century, when we were more confident.

Luce presided over the golden age of the magazine, when the battle of ideas was fought on the pages of Time and Fortune and Life and National Review — whereas these days it’s fought in 140 characters on Twitter. When great names meant as much as great essays; and people were careful even where they allowed their names to appear — whereas these are the days anonymous barbs or ‘influencers’ who appear only to flash and fizzle for want of any substance that can hold a flame.

Days when the writers were liberal but the editors conservative, achieving a sort of balance that led to thoughtfulness due to that symbiosis (back when we knew we needed each other as the ‘ying and yang’ of American — and frankly global — political thought). Before the liberals captured the editorial boards, and Time Magazine went down to about a page and a half, mostly advertisements, as they keep trying to throw their “person of the year” into the void in a nostalgic memory of the days when people cared.

“The Noise of Typewriters” is Lance Morrow’s thoughts of his time at Time. This is how I imagine my own story will be written, when I write it, so I took a lot of mental notes. With some humility and a sense of wonder you can avoid the rigid chronological or thematic orders that the organized mind wants to impose on our writing. Morrow made it work — I’m hoping I can too. When I get around to it.

Final thought, I miss the days (not that I ever knew them) when people whose personalities still resonate were to be found at this or that haunt discussing issues of meaning. Like Tolkien’s Inklings; or Burnham‘s dinner parties; or George Whitman’s Shakespeare and Company. I wonder if those people knew they were special and what they were doing would shape the world. Or if they too looked into the past for their sense of meaning and nostalgia. All I know is our belle epoque blows.

Maybe I’ll tweet that.