📣 📣 📣 PEOPLE OF NOTEBOOK 🚨 🚨 🚨 HERE IS A REMINDER 💃 💃 💃 I AM TAKING FEBRUARY OFF 🗓️ 🗓️ 🗓️ AS I DID LAST YEAR 🙅♀️ 🙅♀️ 🙅♀️ THERE WILL BE NO POSTS 🕺 🕺 🕺 EXCEPT FOR JAPANIMATION 🪩 🪩 🪩 AND ANY NOTICES OF WRITING ELSEWHERE 💁♀️ 💁♀️ 💁♀️ UNLESS I FORGET 🤡 🤡 🤡 THAT I AM TAKING THE MONTH OFF 🕵️♀️ 🕵️♀️ 🕵️♀️ WHY AM I DOING THIS? 🪥 🪥 🪥 BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE THE END OF A TOOTHPASTE TUBE 🙏 🙏 🙏 THANK YOU FROM BDM INDUSTRIES ⚙️ ⚙️ ⚙️
What should you read instead of my wonderful and irreplaceable posts? I don’t know. Kristin Lavransdatter? That’s like forty two pages a day. You could totally do it.
I guess if I go to see Wuthering Heights in the theater I will post about it. But… I am not going to do that. That is not happening. No.1
January in pictures of me wearing my grandfather’s bowling shirt
January in posts
It was a bad month politically. It was a bad month personally. And politically. And personally. And financially (because I kept buying records).
January in reviews
January in writing abroad
This made Arts & Letters Daily and I spent some time—OK, not very much time—trying to write a version of “Annus Mirabilis” about this screenshot but only got as far as “between the end of the Raritan mag / and a TikTok MVP.”
January in Japanimation
January in research radio
No fun archive pulls this month. Instead, I offer this moment from the Canadian radio show Vanishing Point. This is from an episode called “The Last 30 Days of Charles Danforth.” It is about a guy whose doctor diagnoses him as turning into a fish. However, the clip is not about that. It is about him falling in love with somebody as they bond over how stupid conversation has become. If you wanna know where the fish part of the story goes you’ll have to listen.
Yes, it was 4:32 in the morning.… I am bad at sleep.
Vanishing Point has a six part adaptation of The Dispossessed, which I haven’t listened to, but judging from the quality of their other adaptations I would guess it’s pretty solid. It looks like you can find that separated out from the rest of the show here. There are also some J.G. Ballard adaptations in the mix I found very creepy. Also, there’s a satire of American and Canadian relations that is… if not quite prescient, a little uncomfortable.
Incidentally, Joanna Russ adapted Nightmare Abbey into a radio play (not for Vanishing Point) that did actually air—but it doesn’t seem like any copies have survived.
Happy Valentine’s Day Month to all who eat chocolate, like flowers, look good in the color red, that sort of thing.…
Some things I have pre-ordered in February
The Universe Box (Michael Swanwick)
Frog: And Other Essays (Anne Fadiman)
On Morrison (Namwali Serpell)
The Cellar Below the Cellar (Ivy Grimes)
Queen (Birgitta Trotzig)
I wanted to pre-order—but just could not justify doing so—the reprint of Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent.2 Q1 2026… big time for nuns who were cool as heck I guess.
Also: in May, a big edition of Sylvia Plath’s poems is on the way.…
February in Japanimation
Patlabor: The OVA
Patlabor: The Movie and Patlabor 2
Sorry for moving the OVA back so far. Will it happen again? Not with the same thing but I mean… yes at some point it will happen again.
There is always a “Taylor does something crazy” exception in these breaks but I don’t think she’s going to do anything crazy. I think there will be an “Opalite” music video soon, but that is my only Taylor prediction for February and does not fall under “something crazy” on its own. I’m not even expecting to see her at the Grammys. I think we’re gonna get the re-recorded version of Taylor Swift this October, and maybe some performances then, but otherwise I do not expect much from her this year.
Also, this shirt (which I think is sold out in my size anyway) and of course a ten rules poster. For some reason spending $45 on a shirt feels more frivolous than just donating $45, even though presumably the shirt is priced that way because it’s a way the museum makes money.