MEDIA DIET

By: Flourish Klink
June 8, 2026

A weekly series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire.

Fr. Flourish has been a valued HILOBROW contributor since 2011. Their first post was on the topic of THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PATROCLUS SON OF MENOETIUS. Their most recent contributions to this publication include: DOOMSDAY BOOK | THE APOSTLE PETER | THE TEACHES OF PEACHES.

New York City…

HILOBROW: What are your reading habits?

FLOURISH KLINK: I read constantly and in a fairly old-fashioned way. One of the delights of being a priest is that the job involves modeling a fairly old-fashioned approach to media. I read books ceremonially during the Mass (think about the heavy jeweled Gospel book); professionally as reference works in planning liturgies and so on, because most of these references are not available online; I help maintain books recording the life of my parish, baptisms and confirmations and weddings and funerals; I listen to audiobooks while I quilt or knit or (in the summer) bike, and read paper books as I ride the subway to and from work.

With literature especially I find myself rereading more and more and placing more limits on my reading. I don’t want to read things as “white noise,” just because I’m incapable of sitting with my own thoughts. I am trying to wean myself off of audiobooks or television while I do crafts and instead listen to music or NPR or work in silence. I read old favorite fanfics as a treat, and treat them the way I would treat an event, like going to the movies: I sit down to read them with seriousness, not on my phone in the interstices. I would like to become more focused on reading texts that I am affirmatively choosing, rather than falling into habit-patterns that don’t necessarily help me. I think of this type of habitual media consumption as “the scroll,” whether it is on the computer or not.

HILOBROW: How do you use social media, these days?

FLOURISH KLINK: I am in a real hate-hate relationship with social media at this point. I have come to see it as a space where people (myself included) assert themselves into what is essentially a void that they have projected their own assumptions into — the next thing over from chatting to an AI agent. Its pull, though, is very powerful. Even sites like Reddit that don’t have objectionable algorithms bring me back to “the scroll,” that deadening-numbing way of consuming media. I still enjoy some bots, like bcpminuscontext.bsky.social, which provide me with randomized propositions or provocations to spark thought, but otherwise — I wish I had the moral strength to throw it into the sea.

HILOBROW: What music — genres, particular artists and songs — do you listen to during a typical day?

FLOURISH KLINK: I recently quit Spotify and seriously curtailed my engagement with recorded music: I listen to vinyl records and CDs now. I don’t even pull out YouTube playlists or anything like that for my 20-month-old daughter. Instead I sing a lot of songs to her and to myself. We don’t use a stroller; instead I carry her on my back in a woven wrap, like the chicle-chocolate ladies on the subway, and the whole time I carry her we sing together. Right now her favorites are “The Wheels on the Bus” and “Mary Don’t You Weep,” but I also carry around a little book full of written-out lyrics to children’s songs, protest songs and hymns that we can sing if she asks for something new — lots of Pete Seeger, Woodie Guthrie. Sometimes I feel like Taylor Swift training for her tour (weighted vest, on the treadmill, singing my heart out) but mostly I just enjoy the opportunity to show my kid that music is something to be made in community, not only consumed in earbuds.

To me, that’s the important thing about media in general — media are tools to communicate person-to-person, to teach, to learn, to explore. If there is no deeper engagement with other humans sparked by using a piece of media, then I am not sure it’s worth the time.

MEDIA DIET

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