Column Chronicles: The new popularity of Messy Essays

The new popularity of Messy Essays

Frank Cotolo
August 27, 2026

The art of the Messy Essay is expanding. A group of renegade writers are presenting a new platform for the platform. Here are extracts from some recent pieces:

Luke Smack -- ON TIME -- What time is it? How do we know? Where do we find out? Especially if we know nothing of the methods used to measure time. Methods like assigning numbers to hours...

Wilma Rebound -- ON ALL -- All in all, what is all? And how much is all? We like lots of all in our lives. All of this and all of that. But our counting is not subjective and being subjective is not objective. It is not at all...

Yolanda Wenz -- ON FAULTY LOVE -- Do we blame our faults on love? Are each of us bent on making our feelings do what only apples do when ripe? We are not perfect. Or are we? Can we make emotional mistakes? Or are they merely tears that won't form? Huh?...

Zandorf Plumm -- ON THE UTTER REDUNDANCE OF THE SELF AND OTHER PARTICULARS -- Again and again and again and again we revisit the originals. The feelings and the sickness of our personal being. It is a bore and all the details are little and meaningless even if they result in regurgitation. Why don't we do instead of don't do? Or laugh at the term do-do?

Tess Downhared -- ON MILKING THE EGO -- You are nothing, really, actually, and neither am I (though I have a inflated opinion of myself) yet you and I evaluate ourselves through character and performance. Also by fashion and passion. Why do we squeeze and twist and force realism upon ourselves? Because we are less than the more we show with ego.

Stig Mugford -- ON NOTHING MORE -- That is it. Over. Done. No evidence of anything anywhere. A void. An anti-black hole. Blind to objects and anything someone blind cannot see; which is everything. Get down tonight. Sing. Boogie.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.