My Digital Haircut
by Panio Gianopoulos
Dear friends,
A few days ago, as I was toweling off after a shower, I noticed a small jar of pomade in the medicine cabinet. I unscrewed the cap and sniffed inside; it smelled good, so I rubbed a little in my hair. Then I went out to get breakfast with a friend. When I came home a couple hours later, my wife saw me and said, “Nice haircut!”
“I didn’t get a haircut,” I said.
“Are you sure?” she said.
“Yes…?” I said.
If you haven’t been married, you may not understand the hesitation in my reply. After all, either I got a haircut or I didn’t; this isn’t some reality destabilizing quantum physics-y it’s-a-particle-but-also-a-wave-depending-on-the-viewer situation.
And yet, marriage also introduces its own reality destabilizing field—not malevolently, or in a passive aggressive sad sack “take my spouse please” way—but because living with someone for years teaches you just how unreliable our memories can be. Thanks to the gentle interrogations of my fact-finding wife (hello, sweetheart), it turns out that I have misremembered lots of things, most of them trivial, but every time it’s a little unsettling, regardless of the significance. (And now that my kids are getting older, I also have them chiming in with their amendments and corrections.)
All of this is just to say that, if you’re feeling a bit confused while reading this email, fear not. You are not misremembering. My intermittent little newsletter looks very different. For a number of reasons, both logistical and aesthetic, I’ve switched things around quite a bit.
I’ve also settled on a name for my newsletter, at last. There were a couple other contenders, including one which was decidedly more literary (from a quote by Franz Kafka), but then I thought, the line between literary and precious is already paper-thin, maybe Kafka’s not your boy. And thus, The Companion was born.
The Call of the Catchprase
Last issue, I wrote about my NY-to-CA cross country drive with my daughter, Mathilda. One story I left out to keep things short (and because it’s a little embarrassing) occurred when we were traveling through Arkansas.
We’d left the hotel early in the morning, skipping breakfast, and now it was hours past noon and my stomach was roiling in protest. But unlike the previous days, there were no convenient rest stops every sixty or seventy miles along the way. Somehow the GPS had led us onto a quiet one-lane road that wound up and down bare yellow hills, with almost no signs of human existence in sight.
And then, after turning yet another corner, the road suddenly straightened out, and up ahead, shimmering into view, was a Subway. Now, ordinarily, this vision wouldn't excite me. Subway is low on my hierarchy of fast food restaurants—above desperate plays like Jack in the Box, KFC, and, the-dumpster-known-as-Arby’s, but way below In-N-Out or Five Guys or even McDonalds (which I know isn’t even really food, just colorized, salted, industrial putty and reconstructed pesticides, but, mmm, those fries).
After hours of a stomach-gurgling drive, however, I was delighted to see that loopy, 90s-era desktop publishing quality yellow and green Subway logo, and I pulled into the lot, almost flinging myself out of the car. I asked Mathilda what she wanted (she opted to stay behind, supposedly because she couldn't find her shoes but really, I think, because it was her first opportunity of the day to be away from me), and hurried inside, my arrival announced by the jingle of a bell, perched mistletoe-like above the door.
The woman behind the counter was in her early twenties, wearing a college sweatshirt, and I replied to her friendly greeting with a slightly too loud “Hello!” It’s my eager, quasi-ecstatic follow-up, however, that even now, perplexes me.
“It’s fixin’ to storm!” I cried.
I had never before, in my life, said the words, “It’s fixin’ to storm”—nor had I ever spoken to a stranger with a fake, would-be Southern accent. Furthermore, I’m not not even sure that “it’s fixin’ to storm” is something anyone says anywhere.
Mercifully, the woman behind the counter just went with it, and started talking about tornadoes. (Fun fact: Arkansas gets hit by 39 tornados a year on average, with the height of storm season in springtime, when we were traveling). Then we switched to the topic of quartz (Fun fact 2: Mount Ida, Arkansas is the quartz capital of the world) and soon enough I was back on my way.
Despite my flirtation with public humiliation in Arkansas, months later it still takes all my restraint not to cry out, “It’s fixin’ to storm!” whenever I enter an establishment. It just feels good...
In Memory of Bob Ringwald
I’m very sad to report that my father-in-law, Bob Ringwald, passed away last week. He was a wonderful man, a loving father, and a tremendous musician (piano, banjo, guitar—he could play just about anything). I'll miss his booming voice and bawdy sense of humor. My wife wrote a heartfelt obituary about him for The Sacramento Bee if you'd like to know more about his remarkable life.
Reading List
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain by Annie Murphy Paul
As the editorial director of The Next Big Idea Club, I have to familiarize myself with a lot of nonfiction books: over 300 books a year. Naturally, I end up skimming many of these. The Extended Mind is the rare book where I didn’t skim even a single sentence. In fact, I read the book a second time, pen in hand, underlining the many amazing insights about how our bodies, as well as the things ands spaces around us, have a profound effect on how we think and feel.
Pity the Reader: On Writing With Style by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. & Suzanne McConnell
Written by a former student of Vonnegut’s, this is a small, smart, and entertaining book of wisdom. A few of my favorite lines:
“Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.”
“Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.”
“Literature should not disappear up its own asshole.”
Euphoria: A Novel by Lily King
This was both a national best-seller and an award winner so maybe you’ve already read it—somehow, I’d never heard of it until a friend recommended it to me. Set between the two World Wars and inspired by the life of anthropologist Margaret Mead, Euphoria is the story of three young anthropologists caught in a passionate love triangle. It’s intelligent but not boring, atmospheric but not florid, and full of piercing, eternal insights about human nature.
Goodbye!
My daughter, Mathilda, took this during our trip, despite my insistence that the angle was weird.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the latest (first?) issue of The Companion. It took me a surprisingly long time to put together, so the next one probably won’t be for a few months…
Until then, I’ll sign off with some more advice from Kurt Vonnegut, pulled from his novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
“There’s only one rule that I know of, babies – God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
California Dreaming
Dear friends,
You know when someone sends you an email, and you intend to reply but get distracted by other things, and then a week goes by and you start to feel more anxious about it, but you reassure yourself that you'll just write them an EXTRA long and super interesting email and it'll balance out... but then another week passes, then another, then a month, then two months, then three months, then six months, and now you're just too embarrassed, it's gotten to the point where you have to either write your friend a personalized novel or just never talk to them again? That's pretty similar to my relationship with my newsletter. All of this lengthy preamble is to explain why it's been over a year since I've sent one of these along.
I'll catch you up on the good stuff quickly. In May 2021, I headed out on a cross country drive with my daughter, Mathilda. (The rest of the family, including our three dogs, had already flown to LA, where we'd be living until August.)
On the first day of the trip, Mathilda and I zipped down to Virginia in my cherry red Prius—a vehicle that announces to state troopers, "I'm a liberal, please give me a speeding ticket." We stayed overnight in Richmond with my friends Joseph and JS; I got to sleep in their pony-themed guest room which was as adorable as it sounds, though I secretly hope that one day they redecorate it as a Panio-themed guest room.
We set out the next morning with the goal of reaching Nashville by nightfall, a 615 mile drive. As any parent of teenagers knows, they're not a chatty bunch, so I'd prepared some podcasts and audiobooks to listen to. However I kept spacing out, especially with the audiobooks. Finally I put on Raymond Chandler’s The High Window and that one held my interest, although I did giggle whenever the narrator said “the man with the pork pie hat.”
We made it to Nashville, checked into the hotel, and then went downtown to sightsee. Broadway and "the gulch” were packed with people, which was a little disorienting as we'd just come from a still pretty locked-down New York. There were party buses and party vans everywhere, karaoke parlors blasting Bon Jovi next to pizza by the slice windows. Mathilda and I rented bird scooters and zipped around the city. We went into an empty parking lot and rode around in circles like the speedy little introverts that we are, then ditched the birds for burritos.
A lot of funny stuff happened on the trip but this is already getting pretty long so I'll save some anecdotes for another time (there's a great one about Little Rock). I'll end the travelogue with a picture of us while hiking in the Grand Canyon — a bee had just landed on me, thus the alarmed expression on M's face.
Reading List
Since I'm in LA, I thought I'd feature a couple great new books by California-based writers...
1. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell
A fascinating and wildly perceptive look at how cultish groups—from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus—use language as the ultimate form of persuasion and power. Once you read this, you'll start asking yourself, "Wait, was THAT a cult? Was I IN A CULT?" Yep, you probably were.
2. Always Crashing in the Same Car: On Art, Crisis, and Los Angeles, California by Matthew Specktor
Brokenness, failure, collapse... these are tough subjects to make enticing, especially these days when, post-pandemic(ish) we all just want to run around outside and forget about anything distressing. But Specktor's memoir/cultural history/wolf howl of a book about struggling in LA is so deeply personal, honest, and articulate, that I kept getting drawn back into it. And in the end, there's a persistent thread of optimism running through it that's well-earned and more reassuring for it.
Thanks for reading! See you next time…
-Panio
Four Years Later
Four years ago—on March 13, 2016, to be exact—I started working on a new novel. Here are a few of the things I expected to happen:
a) The narrative would borrow heavily from events in my life, including the story of my parents, who came to America from Greece in the 1960s.
b) The book would include tragic events, like brain trauma and suicide, and yet not be overwhelmingly grim or depressing, with humor and joy to balance things out.
c) I wouldn't talk about the book publicly until I'd finished a shareable draft, which would probably take me about three years.
As of today, only the first prediction turned out to be true; the second one is up for debate; and the third one is being violated by this very newsletter! While I did finish a 500-page first draft last July, just a few months beyond the three-year mark, it was far from shareable. I'd always shrugged off Anne Lamott's advice to write a quick shitty first draft as undesirable, but it turns out that the alternative—a slow, shitty first draft—is even less desirable.
And so I've spent the past seven months rewriting the novel whenever possible (my morning train commute to work, late at night, on weekends), only to discover that second drafts also take a long time. I'm still not done!
Why am I talking about it when the book is still a work-in-progress? Mostly because a lot of you are writers, too, and writing can be a slow, discouraging pursuit. Just as it's comforting to me when other parents tell me stories about their children acting badly, it reassures me to hear that other writers struggle, and I imagine you're no different.
Margaret Mitchell famously took 10 years to write Gone With the Wind, and Alistair MacLeod spent 13 years on his first (and only) novel, No Great Mischief. So for all of you who break out in hives every time you see the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) hashtag, rest assured, you are not alone.
What's New?
Every now and then I take a break from my big fat Greek novel to write something shorter: an essay, poem, story... whatever format inspires me. It feels good to start something different, to switch tone of voice, play with new characters or themes, not to mention the pleasure of completing something new, and the excitement of sharing it with readers.
In this vein, a couple weeks ago, I wrote a super short comedy piece for The Weekly Humorist. If you haven't seen it yet and would like to check it out, click below:
We’re Updating Our Privacy Policy to Allow Us to Watch You in the Shower
Reading List
1. You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy
One of our official selections for the winter season of the Next Big Idea Club, this book is really well done. The problem may seem familiar—everyone is talking, no one is listening—but Murphy's examination of the dismal phenomenon, and what to do about it, is nuanced and hopeful.
2. "Bunches of a Nest" by Diane Mehta
My friend Diane Mehta just had her poem published in The New Yorker, and it is stunning. From the first line—"What I started opposes what I shattered."—you know you're not getting away easy.
3. Poetry Unbound (Podcast)
If you prefer your poetry read aloud, then this podcast is for you. Hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama, whose mellifluous Irish accent makes my wife fan herself, each ten-minute episode is a thoughtful, immersive exploration of a single poem. It's like giving your soul a bath.
4. How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz
A tiny book with lots of insights, and loaded with creative prompts. Much of it is more applicable for visual artists than writers, but the essential message of find joying in your work applies to everyone.
Thanks for joining me. Have a great spring!
See you next time,
Panio
P.S. If you would like to receive my newsletter via email, it’s easy, just sign up here.