Friday, August 28. 6:30 PM – 7:30 p.m. Senate House State Historic Site. Keynote, Voices of Revolution 250th series.
Tue, Sep 15. 6:30–8:00 p.m. Center for Brooklyn History. I’ll be in conversation with Jesse Wegman to celebrate his new book, The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People’s Constitution.
Published prose thankfully arrives with the scaffolding removed—and with it goes the freedom to alter a line because I believe it could be better. After publication, only a dreaded correction can reopen the piece, so I keep my foot in the door as long as possible. My latest column for The New York Times Book Review—online last Sunday, in print this weekend—was no exception.
The screenshot above is from what was supposed to be the final pass. The column had already been edited, the facts checked, the copy made clean, the bosses signed off. At that stage, I’m not supposed to redecorate the foyer, but that’s exactly what I tried to do. There were two tk queries on the document when I got it; the track changes you see are all of my own (un)doing.
I couldn’t help myself. The branding metaphor suddenly seemed woefully incomplete. Lazarus’s tired, poor and huddled masses needed a shout-out. Then I realized Trump’s premium tier had supplied the perfect analogy: flying private versus flying public! in line, paying surcharges and facing possible refusal at the gate. The rich skipped security and drove to the plane.
And surely I needed a melting pot on the stove! The founding documents became a recipe the framers had declined to commit to parchment, leaving Americans with no choice but to “season to taste”: work hard, speak English, serve, behave, be Christian.
Alas, my Times editor shut it down. “I liked what you had before,” he said, and he’s the best I’ve ever had, so I didn’t push back without taking a walk…with the document open on my phone. The new version was funnier line by line, but I immediately understood why that was also the problem: It was bloated. I expected the introduction to support a branding campaign, an airport and a kitchen, but its an entryway, not a load-bearing wall.
His preference was a reminder: abundance is not the same as improvement. The version that ran extends the branding campaign exactly one step. After Trump’s $1 million premium tier turns citizenship into a luxury product, I drop the conceit and state the dispute plainly.
Some might say I laundered the exact impulse into a format where noone can stop me—but I disagree! The column has to argue one thing efficiently to hundreds of thousands of readers who didn’t sign up for my voice. Here, I assume the opposite: seeing how I think is part of the appeal. And I thank you for it!
See you soonish! In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram and, on occasion, Bluesky and Twitter. My books are at Bookshop, Amazon, and your local bookstore or library. If you’d like me to sign or personalize my books, purchase copies from Oblong Books.
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