McAllister's Mates Thirty Three

Hi all

Two wonderful pieces celebrating (though in very different ways) the beauty of self-expression and the importance of forging deep bonds with each other through our writing. Philipp and Ricardo Guzman Jr .

These reviews are part of Reviewstack run by the great writer and pillar of the Substack Community : Thaddeus Thomas

McAllister’s Mates - An ongoing series of reviews of some of the wonderful articles, poems, and stories I’ve discovered on Substack (and other places) and more importantly the beautiful souls behind the works.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here!

Please take a few moments to read the works of these authors, artists, and creators and if you find their work as life-affirming and life changing as I do, then please let them know. We need to support and cherish these voices.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.

Philipp
A few weeks ago I posted an article ridiculing the Substack gurus and algorithm whispers and their restlessly shameless grift of original (digital) “sin” and “redemption”. ‘Your writing's dead bro, only I can save you for $599….’.

Thankfully I have come across the opposite - a Yoda to Emperor Palpatine. Where other writers “rage against the machine” and offer a villain who rigged the system against you, Phillipp simply reveals the machine to be a myth. The writing takes a somewhat Zen approach by methodically, yet gently dismantling our most beloved and hated visions (both toxic to our writing by the way) of the cold-hearted publishing industry and maybe, just maybe we will be the next Substack Millionaire.

So once Phillipp has helped us push aside all that drama - what remains? Well, to paraphrase Friedrich Nietzsche: beyond “good” and “evil”, there is love. Now we're getting somewhere - we step away from the video game and take up the true adventure, to find or perhaps return to our true voices.

While I strongly dislike gurus and their pushing of “the proper way”, I do believe we all need guidance. After all, the world has certainly worked hard to pull us from our individual paths, so it stands to reason that we may need some help to get back there. There is a calming joy, and a comforting determination in Phillipp's writing - this is the voice of a writer following their path, a path that involves guiding us to ours. In a brilliant turn of phrase, he calls on us to become “Sovereign Writers”, not bestsellers not award winners (but these possibilities are by no means rejected). This is a state of mind (or being) where we answer to no-one but ourselves, or aspects of self if you prefer. Conversely it is when we align with ourselves that we become most useful to the world. That is when our readers receive the infectious joy of seeing another soul being true to their own vision. I also believe this is when we uncover secrets that no-one else can, and those secrets can clear the weeds on others’ neglected roads - not to map their way for them, but to help them unveil it for themselves.

This summary of mine carries very little of the depth of the original article, I very much encourage you to read the original. The map is not the territory and this post is not the process. Phillipp is one of those leading lights of what Substack, perhaps the literary world can be, if only the founders of this site realised what they've built! “Why you secretly want to delete your Substack” may just help you fall back in love with it.

Why You Secretly Want to Delete Your Substack

Ricardo Guzman Jr
This is a beautiful piece celebrating those quiet moments where we actually hear the world, not the noise. Ironically it's those quiet moments of meditation that ask us to take real, committed action in the world rather than wading through the waters of our era's collective trance.

As Shakespeare once said - all the world's a stage, Ricardo however, vividly paints that idea in a beautiful scene of a mundane street becoming an ethereal theatre. A forceful act of imaginative will or an unveiling of an underlying astral reality? Perhaps a little of both.

“I stand in darkness that dresses me like a stagehand while my toes flirt with the faint gleam on the floor toward eminence.”

The prose is vivid and alive, weaving together the everyday physicality of the physical street, the imagined (or perhaps unveiled) theatre, and the alluded to mystical audience in a scene of joyful transcendence.

The seemingly simple choice of the theatre as a metaphor for this “mystical experience” (that's the term that I might use) is for me a masterstroke. The theatre combines both the carefree joy of childlike imagination with the solemn contemplation of the temple - it is both of these experiences, and something more. Ricardo invokes the words and spirits of great writers (no spoilers - read the words for yourself) as both angelic spirits and playmates. To approach our heroes with fun and a light heart does not diminish our respect for those powerful, life changing words. I believe it brings us a greater understanding of, and a more powerful connection with those great works. Reciting poems to an imaginary (or otherwise) audience of spirits connects our minds to those works in a way that “intellectual appreciation” cannot, there are numerous psychological studies that prove this to be true.

We live in the imagination, indeed we see the negatives of this on a daily basis as we allow worries and anxieties to create hours of awful experiences in a moment’s thought. Media pressures can create powerful spectres with malevolent agendas. Perhaps our greatest defence against such entities (or psychological disturbances if you prefer) is to allow Ricardo's astral audience in. The sun has set, the house lights - lowered, an audience of a thousand stars waits with baited breath, and our gracious host Ricardo has called you to the stage. Perform!

Showtime

I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading and writing about it.

You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.

P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here! You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.

If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.