I have spent most of April deep in the feeling that I’m somehow just two weeks behind the world in general, everything’s clogged up, I’m unbelievably stupid, and so on and so on. Grouchy, easily annoyed, whatever. Missed my Proust and Powell installments. Hunkering down and focusing on one thing is all well and good, but when you take a break you feel a little like the guy in the Twilight Zone episode who emerges to discover everybody else has died. Well, at least my glasses aren’t broken. At this time, anyway.

This month I have felt like my brain is made of cheese—a structurally unsound cheese—maybe that cheese that has the live maggots in it that you have to buy on the cheese black market. My memory feels like the one thing that has not recovered from the great 2022 unpleasantness; I was talking Ben Lerner and how I didn’t love 10:04 and thought I wouldn’t really like his other books and my interlocutor was like it’s funny and I said I don’t remember it being funny but if I read more Lerner I’ll approach it with that idea. Then I thought to check what I had actually written down about 10:04 two years ago. Do you know what I said? Do you know what the hell I said? I said:

What I had not been told about 10:04, however, is that it’s often very funny.

Oh? Oh?

Anyway, here’s what happened this month, while I can still remember it.

April in posts

I wrote about Ursula K. Le Guin and then I did it again. I complained about my health insurance. I complained about people online being annoying about other people online. Unfortunately at this point I ran out of time to keep complaining.

April in reviews

• The Passenger Seat (Vijay Khurana, 2025)

April in Japanimation

April in perfume

April in archival footage of Taylor Swift playing “Shake It Off” to Franciscan nuns

April in research

I read a lot of very interesting stuff, none of which I can quote. However, one thing that did tickle me was that one writer, who had lots of problems with her feet and her back, mentions at one point getting Famolare shoes. These are shoes with special wavy soles. I have wanted a pair of Famolares for maybe four years.

I don’t think the Famolares made much of a difference for her, but this does not reduce my desire to own a pair, because my interest has never been orthopedic. I just think they look groovy.

Next month: May, the month I was born, aka the only important thing that’s ever happened in May or ever will except for the appearance of Our Lady of Fatima who scares me a little personally.

Some May preorders.…

• The Last Straight Woman (Phoebe Bovy)

• The Fifth Year (Marlen Haushofer, trans. Shaun Whiteside)

• The Field Guide to Nepo Babies (Fran Hoepfner)

• What’s So Great About The Great Books (Naomi Kanakia)

• Hollow Inside (Asako Otani, trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori)

• Entangled States (Karmela Padavic-Callaghan)

• The Poems of Sylvia Plath (Sylvia Plath, ed. Amanda Golden and Karen V. Kukil)

In summary: everybody is releasing books next month.

May in Japanimation

• Ocean Waves (Tomomi Mochizuki), May 9

• Pom Poko (Isao Takahata), May 23

May in perfume

I am doing a milk themed post next month. I did not plan that to coincide with “Taurus season” but I guess it’s appropriate.

May in Taylor Swift Studies

I’m probably gonna write about the New York Times interview, which was loads of fun. I especially liked the part where she stared at the camera and said “evermore, as my worst-selling album since my debut, doesn’t deserve any rights. I’m going to talk about cathartic ranting bridges and not even mention ‘champagne problems.’ Any daughter of mine has to work for her keep. Pick up the pace, flannel coat.”

Anyway, I think the faithful TSS readers will not mind if the post is not an immediate reaction and percolates a little. Also… I do think we’re still going to get Taylor Swift (Taylor’s Version) this year, since she said that was finished. (Of course she’s getting married but unless she ties that to an album release somehow that’s not really my beat.) All to say… summer is a season of high Swiftian alert.…

I said in the post announcing that I’m working on a book (dunno if you heard but: I’m working on a book…) (a book? I’m working on one?) that one possible future change was doing a monthly digest post. So I’m going to experiment with that idea. Here’s Experiment No. 1.

The monthly digests are partly an attempt to think in a slightly longer time frame. Up until now, the way I’ve done things is that I just send newsletters out whenever I feel they’re done. But now, ideally, I’d like to have some things ready in advance if they are already-recurring features—like the capsule reviews—because I want the newsletter to stay “general interest” and active even if I’m busy (while incorporating Weird Sisters stuff too).

I have made these digests their own “section” so that you can opt out of receiving them. We love an opt out at BDM Industries.… You can see how to navigate sections here.

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