Have you ever bought a shirt, only to realize that you don’t love it as much as you thought? The fit is off. The style isn’t quite right either.
You wear it for a while anyway, because you aren’t ready to admit that buying it may have been a mistake. Plus, who wants to have to find another shirt? Shirts are a ton of work.
That metaphor clearly doesn’t fit anymore either. Moving on.
This Substack used to be called Just About Glad. I named it after an Elvis Costello song. I had my reasons for doing so; the problem was, the name was just about useless in terms of helping readers. Together with the accompanying graphic, It didn’t tell you what you were getting yourself into here. It was like buying a shirt without—nope, not doing that.
I don’t write about a single topic like music or the economy or family dynamics (or even shirts). My through line is “funny.” As I say here, “You’ll see a fair amount of pop-culture-related nonsense. You’ll see personal, life-related nonsense. What you won’t see is political nonsense—I apologize in advance, as I know there is a dearth of that content available online.”
Despite having broad subject matter, I wanted branding that’s instantly gettable. Maybe it inspires someone to check it out, maybe it doesn’t, but at least they’d be making an informed decision. Then they can’t sue me.
I love old-timey things, and the spectacle of the circus of days gone by has always appealed to me. First, they were fun, interesting, and weird. And second, the language: you could find all kinds of incongruous forms of entertainment presented with intriguing words like “oddities,” “rarities,” “marvels,” and “a colossal combination of all that is great!”
I hope you find Stantonland to be similarly fun, interesting, and weird, with tremendous tales of wit and wonder!
Think of this as my mind circus.
You know, Mind Circus actually would have been a cool name. Shit.
Stanton land...shirt-worthy!!
I love the rebranding! Congrats!