The post of his quoted earlier, about maintaining fidelity to the post-punk event, illustrates why you have to have some patience with Fisher, and also why you’ll be glad you did. First, there’s the lucid analysis: “Punk and post-punk, however, were profoundly suspicious of the Dionysian triumvirate of leisure, pleasure and intoxication, so that the required attitude was one of vigilant hyperrationalism.” (Where hippies smoked weed and related, punks took speed and argued.) Then there’s the surprising but suggestive connection: “The stance such a perception demanded—and this was a culture that was deliberately and unashamedly demanding—was one of ‘proletarian discipline’ rather than slack indulgence, its Puritanism recalling the egalitarian social ambitions of the original Puritans.” Then there’s the understated compassion, the trait that most clearly distinguishes him from Land and yet can’t be neatly separated from Fisher’s silly hobbyhorses: “Go into a roomful of teenagers and look at their self-scarred arms, the antidepressants that sedate them, the quiet desperation in their eyes. They literally do not know what it is they are missing. What they don’t have is what post-punk provided . . . A way out . . . and a reason to get out. . .”