How Do You Write Like AA Gill?

He might be one of the best writers I’ve ever read. Pyrotechnics? Nah. Fuck that. It’s complete control. He’s composing symphonies tracing thoughts so delicately then dropping scorn like timpanis. I don’t know if it’s classical or if it’s punk rock, cause it’s so intelligent, so free-ranging; then so bitingly fierce, so jack-knife savage. Wit! Wildean wit! Armed like a sniper to pick off his subjects, illuminating the familiar making them new and strange; delineating the weird so you’ll never see it short of his way again. Is it simply the exaggeration that makes his criticism so scouring? And if so, why do all his observations sound like their right on the money? Gill’s giant brain’s brings a storm of knowledge to his subjects, and this depth of analysis and allusion makes you as a reader feel worldly, and complicit in his conspiracy. So funny, so poignant, so mean, did I mention he’s Scottish? A.A. Gill might be my new hero.