We’re in the death throes, now. Beasts like Inkhaven don’t go down easy. There’s a madness in the air. Ancient cultures commemorated the cold months with sacred rites, merry festivities, and human sacrifice … so too for this last week, the winter of April — with the Inkhaven Fair!

​For the month of April, 55 writers have been trapped in a walled, surveilled compound. Their food and sleep have been made conditional on one thing: blogging. They’ve produced more than 800 blog posts and 800,000 words, and it will not stop. It cannot stop. They will not be released.

But at the Inkhaven Fair, you can come and meet them. There will be experiments, contests, readings, food, ceremonies, and acts of public judgment. Glory will be bestowed upon those who wrote works of genuine insight or excellence. Those who produced slop will be shamed accordingly.

I performed as part of the Shakespearian Comment Section Reënactment Society, tried my hand at Speedhaven (where four people compete to write the same prompt in five minutes, with live commentary / heckling from the audience¹), and jeered at the trial and execution of a resident who failed to publish before the midnight deadline.

The semifortnight held other seductions, of course … namely, a screening of Kurosawa’s Ikiru, karaoke, and authentic relating games. Apparently those are “structured, playful social exercises designed to foster deep connection, empathy, and presence by bypassing small talk”. This sounded to me horribly cringe and corporate and an example of forcing something ineffable and interpersonal into an optimizing frame, but I came round after trying it with a small group of friends; it really did bring us closer. I’m a true Authentic Relater now, y’all better watch out…

Also I headed an event named DRINKHAVEN which I think is pretty clear from just the title. Getting everyone drunk was great fun, but I think I accrued bad karma from the whole affair (and let’s leave it at that).

The final weekly roundup:

1. contra Hank Green on the theology of Warrior Cats: I haven’t written as much argumentative stuff as I expected, probably because it’s not as fun as I expected, but every once in a while something nags at you … thanks to the friend that sent me this video.
2. Psychoanalyzing Asian Webnovels: I’ve ranted about this before but Alec encouraged me to write it up in one place. The Discourse has been contributed to.
3. contra “Satire requires clarity of purpose”: There exists a version of this post which calmly considers the meme and dissects its place in cultural dialogue. This is not that post. One of my late-night sprints.
4. Cannibal Media: in praise of Instagram Reels: My most ambitious piece of the month, and the most time-consuming. Some people will ask if this is sincere or a joke; I will answer that they should watch short-form video content on a mountaintop for fifty years. Only then will they know the right question to ask.

Next up will be a retrospective of Inkhaven as a whole. Retrospective … is there any sadder word in existence?

1. I didn’t plan, program, or run this event, but I was the one to come up with the idea at the brainstorming session, so I’m registering that here to claim all credit. Tough luck, suckers. ↩︎