December in fiction
As I said in the November digest, I spent most of November trying to finish a story that wasn’t going to get done, and at the last minute switched to this idea. At first I thought about writing a story where Jack the Ripper is resurrected every Christmas, and goes around trying and failing to kill people, but I realized that what I was thinking of here was… the Harlan Ellison story about Jack the Ripper in Dangerous Visions. Then I remembered the story about Judas and St. Brendan, which I love.
The window displays mentioned in the piece are all real—I chose to set it at New York City’s most recent white Christmas (2009), which meant that I could find some of the window displays pretty easily on Google. The painting Judas sees at the Met is also real, though not on display. Not on display in 2009 either as far as I can tell.
December in posts
For the first time, a post about an old movie was not this Substack’s least read post. Christmas is about going through it. I outlined how I’m thinking about trying to write a work of researched non-fiction, but paywalled it because it felt a lil vulnerable.
December in reviews
The Slicks (Maggie Nelson, 2025)
December (and the rest of 2025) in writing abroad
On Substack recently, I was in Read Max with my year in novels of the year and in Email Dot Com with my image of the year. ETA: And in Fran Magazine with a 2025 top five.
One favorite thing of the year that I cannot promise it is a real thing and not a gimmick, because I lack knowledge, is the Moment II app, which lets you bypass Apple’s native image processing and either have “natural processing” or just RAW files. I have a personal beef with Apple’s image processing software,1 so I got it.
I do feel like my pictures look better.
For “writing in 2025,” I once again had my goal of placing twelve pieces… which… I once again failed to meet. I published ten:
At the Washington Post, reviews of Tove Jansson’s Sun City, Marlen Haushofer’s Killing Stella, and a collection of Carol Emshwiller stories.
At the Wall Street Journal, a review of Sayaka Murata’s Vanishing World.
At the Point, columns on C.L. Moore and Fritz Leiber.
At the Paris Review, a tribute to Northanger Abbey.
At The Lamp, a consideration of Sydney Sweeney’s creepy fans.
At Wisdom of Crowds, orange man bad.
At the Substack Post, orange album okay.
Much thanks to the editors of these pieces for their heroic labors: Julia Aizuss, Sophie Haigney, Alex Posey, Santiago Ramos, Becca Rothfeld, Bill Tipper, Matthew Walther, and John Williams.
What else… sold one book. Applied for three grants. Got denied three grants. 🫡 But we’re already getting on that 2026 grant app grind over here at BDM Industries.
December in perfume
December in Japanimation
December in research
I spent some time this month going through the letters section for Weird Tales. I always learn a lot by going through letters sections (and the ads), though it’s important not to take everything you see at face value. People lie! They’d just go into those letter sections and lie! Anyway, here’s Henry Kuttner shouting out his future wife:
![Henry Kuttner, of Hollywood, California, writes: "Here's a letter of comments and criticism, inspired chiefly by Through the Gales of the Silver Key in your July issue. I wonder if it has not occurred to you that sheer thorough exploration of the weird may rob a subject of weirdness. It seems to me that mystery is an essential of the weird, and when, in such a story as Mr. Lovecraft's, the author tries to cover Heaven and Hell, humans and non-humans, explaining every thing in one colossal sweep, the story falls flat and becomes more preachy than interesting or weird. Little need be said about the surprise ending of the yarn. Lovecraft at one time could supply a good ending, but now he is getting trite as hell. It is a bad example of a forced surprise ending that he has on that story. Lovecraft's earlier stories, The Hound, The Rats in the Walls, The Call of Chaibs, The Darwich Horror, and one of the best, The Horror at Red Hook, were far more truly weird than his later stories, which go past the weird and mysterious, and, throwing a cold light of scientific reason onto non-human affairs, result in a science-fiction story. If you will bring to your mind Lovecraft's best stories (not his most successful ones), you will find that mystery, not calculating science, provided the fillip of true weirdness. That is why C. L. Moore seems to me a better writer chan Lovecraft the present Lovecraft. I take exception to the statement regarding the high literary standard of the recent story involving I think, an invasion by rottenness. I can not remember the title, but you will recognize the story when i say that the hero attempted to burn the forest, the seat of the pestilence, and found a number of maggots very busy devouring him in the interim. The story was in poor taste. It appeared as if the author, laboring for effect, had slapped on worms, corpses, decaying flesh and putrescence with a heavy hand. The story was very well written, and good in atmosphere and weirdness. But for me the overdone decaying-corpse angle was merely unpleasant." [The story you refer to is The House of the Worm, by Mearle Proust, which appeared in Weird Tales for last October.—The Editor.]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!HYHU!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F220a6b0f-e057-4acf-8a33-82c029a16ea0_864x630.png "Henry Kuttner, of Hollywood, California, writes: \"Here's a letter of comments and criticism, inspired chiefly by Through the Gales of the Silver Key in your July issue. I wonder if it has not occurred to you that sheer thorough exploration of the weird may rob a subject of weirdness. It seems to me that mystery is an essential of the weird, and when, in such a story as Mr. Lovecraft's, the author tries to cover Heaven and Hell, humans and non-humans, explaining every thing in one colossal sweep, the story falls flat and becomes more preachy than interesting or weird. Little need be said about the surprise ending of the yarn. Lovecraft at one time could supply a good ending, but now he is getting trite as hell. It is a bad example of a forced surprise ending that he has on that story. Lovecraft's earlier stories, The Hound, The Rats in the Walls, The Call of Chaibs, The Darwich Horror, and one of the best, The Horror at Red Hook, were far more truly weird than his later stories, which go past the weird and mysterious, and, throwing a cold light of scientific reason onto non-human affairs, result in a science-fiction story. If you will bring to your mind Lovecraft's best stories (not his most successful ones), you will find that mystery, not calculating science, provided the fillip of true weirdness. That is why C. L. Moore seems to me a better writer chan Lovecraft the present Lovecraft. I take exception to the statement regarding the high literary standard of the recent story involving I think, an invasion by rottenness. I can not remember the title, but you will recognize the story when i say that the hero attempted to burn the forest, the seat of the pestilence, and found a number of maggots very busy devouring him in the interim. The story was in poor taste. It appeared as if the author, laboring for effect, had slapped on worms, corpses, decaying flesh and putrescence with a heavy hand. The story was very well written, and good in atmosphere and weirdness. But for me the overdone decaying-corpse angle was merely unpleasant.\" [The story you refer to is The House of the Worm, by Mearle Proust, which appeared in Weird Tales for last October.—The Editor.]")
Did Kuttner even know C.L. Moore was a woman at this point? He definitely knew C.L. Moore was a woman by April 1936, because Lovecraft (unwittingly?) set the two up, but this letter is from 1934. So, unclear. Doesn’t matter. He was shooting his shot.
Also, if we jump a few decades forward, we are presented with a new and interesting list of the three genders in the British zine Drilkjis:
I don’t know how to pronounce Drilkjis either.
January 2026! Wow! Feels Bad!
A reminder here that I’m planning to take February off. I did this last year and it was “good for me” so I’m going to do it again. The rewatching posts will continue and if I have any writing published other places that will be posted about here. But otherwise, no Posts. That’s the plan. I am addicted to Posts however so I might cheat.
Any 2026 resolutions?
For 2025 I felt confident enough to write down some things I wanted in the next year for real in my diary. That was a mistake. I won’t be doing that again. That is just giving the devil ideas.
Some things I have pre-ordered in January
The Last of Earth (Deepa Anappara)
This’ll Make Things a Little Easier (Attila Veres)
Bit of a thin month!
I think the Veres technically comes out in March, but I ordered it direct from Valancourt and I’m told it’s shipping soon. I’ve mentioned Veres’s story collection The Black Maybe on here before, but let me mention it again—very creepy, very good.
January in perfume
Perfume is going to be hiatused for a couple months. I want to enjoy some of the stuff I have and also I’ve had a really stuffy nose all winter such that I don’t think I would give things a fair sniff. Perfume will be back in March.
I did finally try my sample of “Philosykos” and it was really good… I’m kind of mad about it. Luckily, there’s always ScentSplit.…
January in Japanimation
January 10: Urusei Yatsura double feature of Only You and Beautiful Dreamer.
January 24: Patlabor, the OVA.
Don’t ask. Well, you can ask. But I’m not going to tell you.
“professional castrator” is a much better zine name than “drilkjis”—add another couple silent consonants in there, why don’t you. happy new year ms bdm i always enjoy these emails in my inbox!
I have a really kooky question. Were you at the Owl last week? It took me several days to figure out why this person looked familiar, but your monthly digest in my inbox cracked the case.
If not, nevermind! Happy New Year!! 2026 is going to be good. The laws of physics demand it.