By Alyssa Rosenberg I've always thought that advice columns are a somewhat odd feature of American publications: for the most part, the authors have no discernable expertise, they only have time and space to answer a few representative questions, they barely know their readers, and there's no follow-up and no accountability. In a culture where everything can be diagnosed, where there is an expert for every situation, where people sue at the drop of a hat, advice columns are one of the last areas in American life where we place an extremely high value on common sense. Most advice columnists have projected a kind of Agony Aunt practicality. Which is probably why I like Salon's (correction credit to RR; it's been a long day, thanks) Cary Tennis so much. Tennis is an unabashedly weird recovering addict who seems to have fully embraced the strangeness of his position: there's no particular reason he should be considered a font of good advice, and yet he is. He answers a lot of letters from artists in various fields who are struggling with how to progress. And, as I found out by accident when I wrote him an email critiquing the advice he gave one reader, he's not at all invested in himself as a final authority: he passed my letter along to the original writer. Tennis isn't always spot-on; Gawker's made something of a sport of highlighting his stranger advice. But I thought his column today, responding to a depressed woman looking to make friends in a struggling economic area, was particularly good. He told the writer to put up flyers telling people to meet at a local diner or restaurant that was having trouble staying afloat, creating both the impression of activity that might lure more people in the door, and new possibilities for friendship. Nice combination of the personal and economic revitalization without telling folks to go out and be happy by buying themselves things.
