Clive Thompson’s “I can’t even” is easily my favorite essay of the week. Clive goes back 100 years and finds an author that excelled at… well, I’ll let him tell you:

It must be said: Lovecraft is not a great literary stylist. His prose is good, but not great.

The one exception? This linguistic subgenre—the craft of finding new ways to say that he can’t say something. When Lovecraft does describe a monster straightforwardly, he often stumbles, defaulting to pretty journeyman prose. But when he describes the way a monster can’t be described? He is endlessly inventive. I read and reread my collection of Lovecraft, slapping in a Post-It Note whenever I hit upon one of these I-can’t-even moments, and soon the book was crammed with stickies. I’m starting to believe these catchphrases may be his most enduring contribution to English letters.

My favorite example?

The frantic playing had become a blind, mechanical, unrecognizable orgy that no pen could ever suggest.

Masterful. Even better than my go-to “I can’t even” gif: