Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

Seven Rooms

Ron writes about the "seven rooms" of power, juxtaposing the Graydon Carter speech from Toby Young's How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (which always reminded me of Alec Baldwin's "closers" speech from Glengarry Glen Ross) with a possible Gawker/TMFTML cabal.

Some blogs have never linked me and probably never will. Others, which I won't name, only mention me through oblique reference. That's fine. It's their choice and I respect it. And I'll keep mentioning and praising their efforts, irrespective of reciprocation, when I'm not mocking everyone.

But just as there are seven purported rooms visible to an elite, there is also an underground elite composed of unexpected and often barely perceptible connections that shuttle one person across the topography through the seediest and quirkiest conduits. Six degrees of separation can overshadow seven rooms any day of the week, particularly when they are bound with sturdier hemp than the transparent connections which form the current power base. Anyone's head could fly off at any moment and the spiral downward is harder and quicker than the slow climb to the top. What matters, as far as I'm concerned, is one's actions and the efforts to do something one enjoys, regardless of seven rooms or six degress, and to try and be the best person possible under the circumstances.

I suppose I've become introspective on matters like this because I'm turning thirty in less than a month and I find myself