monthly digest: july 2025
being a bear, packing lists, vexatious things, and more…
“bjkhstuhjgfseriukhgk”—that’s what I wrote as placeholder text here.
And you know what? I stand by it. Anyway, this one got long.
July in fiction
a july ghost story
When the train went off the tracks, nobody really thought about the bear. They were busy thinking about other things, like dying.
A terrible fact about me is that in order to get to sleep I usually need audio with a particular sort of droning cadence to distract me from the fact that I’m falling asleep, and while I’ve tried lectures and various other things, I keep on ending up back at true crime podcasts. So one night, while I was (not) falling asleep, I heard this episode of Southern Mysteries: “Circus Tragedies and Mysteries.” The train derailment story is real and the part about shooting all the monkeys out of the trees is real, but the bear is, as far as I know, only local mythology:
Word that an angry circus bear was on the loose lured young hunters from town, but the fate of the animal was never reported. Colorful parrots flew away, but a gaggle of monkeys did not escape. Frightened and frantic, they jumped into trees next to the rail bed. Circus people, knowing they would hamper rescue efforts shot the monkeys out of the trees.
Anyway, I am currently trying to satisfying this need with podcasts that reproduce old radio dramas, like “Stars on Suspense,” because true crime is making me twitchy and irritable. Jury’s out on whether these work to help me fall asleep, or to inspire ghost stories, but at least sometimes there’s a Vincent Price appearance.
July in posts
Did Joan Didion create the only iconic packing list?1 Maybe we’d know the answer to that question if we’d read the first book. You never want an airport with lore. What happens when you take your artisanal gruel to the slop market, and people actually buy it? That’s a vexatious thing.…
July in capsule reviews
Unlike last month, which was all reviews but no thoughts, this time around we had all thoughts, no reviews.
July in Evangelion
July in perfume
July in research I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you.…
Truthfully, I have read a lot of interesting things in the archives in Oregon this month which I also cannot reproduce here without (I think) getting in trouble. Making filling in this section a bit of a pickle. Let’s see.…
First of all, I’ve learned two new words: “rook” for settled abode, “anent” for “about.”
One interesting thing about working in archives (if you have not ever done this) is that you’re generally reading incoming missives… but not outgoing ones unless the person in question scrupulously kept carbon copies. Even then, the outgoing stuff may be filed separately, and you are going through this stuff one box at a time, one folder at a time. I make a lot of notes that are basically along the lines of “remember to figure out what this is about.” So here’s a paraphrased version of one such event I’m collecting all sorts of responses to without ever quite knowing (yet) what it itself is…. I think this stuff is all fair game because it’s not directly quoting anything or really naming any names. Tra la—
I have read many letters attesting to a series of events going down in the Science Fiction Writer’s Association’s internal magazine, Forum, and also, simultaneously some zines (including a zine that changed its name every issue, which means nobody ever names it in the letters). I know that some of this drama involves one, maybe two, prominent (male) writers publishing some of Joanna Russ’s private letters to them,2 but those publications may have nothing to do with the SFWA contretemps or even each other—they just happened around the same time. I have letters to and from Russ and SFWA leadership. I have letters of commiseration and friendly outrage to Russ from others (including some surprising others, like people who had been publicly hostile toward her).
In short, I see what the upset is about, which is that somebody wrote a nasty piece about women in science fiction, which does not seem to have been focused on Russ herself (but did include her), for Forum, and that simultaneously this stuff of publishing Russ’s letters was going on. What I do not see are the actual details of any of it, such as what this article actually said. Because what nobody does—because nobody needs to do this—is write a letter saying “wow, I saw the thing in this specific issue of Forum by this person making these statements which I will outline for you even though you also saw it and are aware of the contents because we both receive this publication.” For that—unless somebody includes a photocopy of the article in some future missive—I have to find Forum. And… where is Forum? It’s in Bowling Green.3 (So is the zine that changes its name every issue, thankfully.)
As somebody is no doubt thinking, this process is just what it means to “do research,” but it’s mostly fun, you know? It’s like being the detective in Daughter of Time but without any dead children. (So far.) Anyway. I’ve been very happy about the book the last few days because I started writing its first section proper after about a week here, because I felt like I saw the shape of it (meaning, this particular section) finally. Not a lot, and for all I know it’s a false start, but it’s nice to have down.
Also, look at my cool bookstore finds:
July in failure
As far as that packing list went, I packed too many clothes. I haven’t needed to use a sweater even once. The experiment of bar shampoo and conditioner was a definite failure; my hair looked terrrrrrrible and I had to get travel sizes of some other stuff in the hopes of fixing the situation. Devotees of products like bar shampoo will say that there’s a “transition period” but I do not believe in “transition periods” the same way I don’t believe in “breaking in shoes.” You’ll never catch me doing these things.
Also, now that my hair is wavy and not curly, trying to get by without a proper hairbrush is not in the cards anymore. Well, it was nice while it lasted.…
I bought some cookbooks for tiny kitchen cooking since my place here has an induction hot plate, toaster oven, and microwave. I bookmarked recipes for cooking in a toaster oven, and so on. However, actually, I have just been eating lazy person meals that require little to no cooking. The mere thought of “chopping a vegetable” fills me with dread at this time. More on this as it develops. I love my friend the House Foods tofu cutlet and feel sure it will never betray me.
Finally, I bought one of these at the University of Oregon bookstore. What can I say… I miss Boswell.
July in success
July in music videos I appreciated for existing
As the music video has declined as a promotional tool, the only people who are really putting effort into it are those who will never give up a chance to live a Theater Kid Dream. For instance:
Music videos will not be a recurring slot… I just felt this one deserved a clap for doing a lot with a budget of like $20. Clap.
July in other people’s posts
I’m averse to doing “great things I read on Substack” type things because they fill me with agitation, but… I truly loved this one-two of
and on Ernest Dowson. Here they are:
The heat of July gives way to the posts of August:
An August ghost story.
This one is based on a dream I had. Consider yourself… warned?
Some books I’ve got pre-ordered:4
Moderation (Elaine Castillo)
Moon Songs: The Selected Stories of Carol Emshwiller (Carol Emshwiller)
The Right of the People (Osita Nwanevu)
A New New Me (Helen Oyeyemi)
If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You (Leigh Stein)
The Dilemmas of Working Women: Stories (Fumio Yamamoto)
August in Evangelion:
I’m pretty sure we will finish Rebuild next month, barring accidents.
And then… that’s it! No more Eva.
Which means sometime in September (probably) we will start the next Rewatch series… which doesn’t have a name… but which will feature Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Mamoru Oshii, Satoshi Kon, and a couple Studio Ghibli one-offs. Some of the movies on my rough list will be a pain to find so I’m not one hundred percent certain of the list yet or even the order (it should be chronological, but if something is only on disc then it may get moved out of chronological order to accommodate travel). But whatever happens, the first one will be The Castle of Cagliostro (1979).5
Perfumes I have queued up:
I’m trying to put a moratorium on buying perfume samples for the rest of year so that any income earned through freelancing or through the newsletter goes to either paying for or paying off book research. (The key word here is “trying.”)
While this is tragic news for the part of me that needs at least one package to be coming in the mail at all times, there is a lot of perfume to write about between now and the end of the year. August will be Providence Perfume Co.
By the way, on the packing list, I think I definitely packed too many clothes. I haven’t needed to use a sweater even once! On the other hand, the experiment of bar shampoo and conditioner was a definite failure; my hair looked terrrrrrrible and I had to get travel sizes of some other stuff in the hopes of fixing the situation.… I do not believe in “transition periods” for products the same way I don’t believe in “breaking in shoes.” You’ll never catch me doing these things. Never.… why did I write this twice?
I know what one of these was about, but don’t want to get into it here. Uhh buy the book I guess. You know, once it exists.
Well, it’s in a couple places, but that’s the most convenient.
You know the drill about Bookshop links but the government tells me to tell you that they’re affiliate links…
relate so hard to needing to have at least one package in the mail at all times
Did you post a list somewhere of all the movies you’re doing? I’m hoping to follow along, especially since I’ve seen almost no Satoshi Kon.