Introducing Fox Laughter (originally posted July 1st, 2020 on Substack)

The laughter we hear from domesticated foxes is our own. Svetlana Gogoleva, a vocal researcher in the decades-long Russian study on breeding and taming foxes into pets, theorizes that the foxes learned to mimic our expression of happiness in order to keep our attention. They have become “adept at pleasing us by the sound of our own laughter.” They don’t know what’s funny, or what isn’t, and they aren’t even necessarily having fun; all they know is that something is happening, and if they react to it in this way, we will be there for them.

It doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s a sound they make because otherwise they’d cry, and quite frankly, I’m right there with the foxes at this point in time. We’re in a pandemic, we’re in the middle of an uprising against a racist police state, and the people in charge of this country are doing almost nothing that matters to address either of these. We’re on our own here, on the ground, in the snow (for as long as there even still is snow, anyway, considering the Arctic reached a horrifying 100 degrees this past weekend). I’m here making fox laughter, because if it wasn’t laughter it’d be something else, and I’m just hoping it might make someone care.

I don’t have a plan for this newsletter. I think I’d just like a void to scream into. It’s too late for me to have a blog, and my journal isn’t cutting it anymore, so here we are. I can’t promise consistency, themes, boundaries, or sense. I can, however, promise quality. And I can promise a good time.

Here are some other newsletters I follow that I recommend in general, which will also give you some idea of my interests and therefore some idea of what I might discuss here, though again, there are no guarantees:

• Internal exile by Rob Horning (musings on social media, consumerism, and identity)
  • 2024 note - Rob Horning is now on Substack instead.
• Dearest by Monica McLaughlin (spotlights on fascinating historical jewelry)
• Pome by Matthew Ogle (a poem a day to your inbox, often topical)
  • 2024 note - now that Tinyletter is being discontinued, so is Pome for the foreseeable future.
• The Shatner Chatner by Daniel M. Lavery (cofounder of The Toast, satire on anything)
• Nicole Knows by Nicole Cliffe (cofounder of The Toast, link roundups, but on hiatus atm)
• Hola Papi! By John Paul Brammer (advice and personal essays)
• Probottom Book Club by Ty Mitchell (beautifully written and thoughtful sex column)
  • 2024 edit - his writing can also be found here.
• Wolf Tree by Zoe Selengut (feverish musings on anything, sometimes cats, sometimes Narnia, always good)
• Gem of Amara by Grace Robertson (movie and TV commentary)
  • 2024 edit - writes primarily about football/soccer here.

If you’re reading this because you’ve already subscribed, know that I love you. If you’re reading this and you haven’t subscribed yet, subscribe only if you’d like to. If you would not like to, totally fine. I’m reminded right now of the disclaimer’s disclaimer in my alma mater’s humor newspaper, and I will share that with you: “God is God, the river is swift, and we don’t fucking care.” I think of this often.

For now, I’ll leave you with a song I’ve been listening to on loop lately:

Til next time.

EDIT: Thank you to my mom for catching my typos.