I had this amazingly detailed dream about my book recently when I’d given it this crazy conceit of setting it in a boarding house or hotel or something where the various authors lived, and Tiptree could see the ghosts of people before they died, but could not prevent their deaths, so she killed herself. I was like I don’t really understand why I wrote this book in this strange and highly allegorical way but wow it works.
Then I woke up and thought, that really would not work. That would not work at all.
June in posts
I knew it, I knew that the Taylor Swift Toy Story song would not fix my malaise. Maybe I need a hunk to shoot some aliens for me, but I’d probably still find a way to whine about it.
June in writing abroad
June in Japanimation
June in perfume
June in random YouTube videos I was really into
June in other newsletters
I imagine some of you will want to follow along with this series on Samuel Delany from Katherine Packert Burke:
N.B. for the Russeans,1 Burke’s new novel, All Us Ghosts, has a minor character who plays in a punk band called “Whileaway.” Cute!
June in “buckwheat pillow”
I bought a buckwheat pillow (as mentioned here). Specifically, I bought this buckwheat pillow. Roxy Coryell wanted to know if I liked it, and I promised I’d mention the results of using it for a couple weeks in the monthly digest.
I really do! I did have to empty more buckwheat hulls than I expected to make it the right height for me. In fact I bought another pound of buckwheat hulls and a zip-up pillow shell and just made my own “travel pillow” with the amount I took out. My neck has been great. No pain. I’m a convert to buckwheat pillow life.
There’s nothin’ shakin’ come this here July.… Except.…
Some July preorders.
We Were Forbidden (Jacqueline Harpman)
Twenty Minutes of Silence (Hélène Bessette)
Pretty light month.
July in Japanimation
Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon), July 11
Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondō), July 25
This month’s theme is “girls in the arts.” These are out of chronological order but I got a nice physical edition of Perfect Blue and I’m going to be archive diving and restricted to streaming in the second half of the month, so I would like the option of watching the special features, even if I will in fact forget to watch the special features.
July in perfume
I got the Pineward summer protoype set to write about, and now the prototype set is retired. But I’m still writing about it, so.…
We’re just going with this one for now.
Last year I dreamed that I was trying to write a review of the Denzel Washington picture "Man on Fire," and decided I was going to explicitly try to write that review the way Shea Serrano writes about movies. The dream was a very realistic few minutes of me trying to write this piece as a Serrano pastiche, though I recall struggling to land the voice. When I awoke, I wondered about this, given that I had not and have not seen the Denzel Washington picture "Man on Fire."
Some months later Shea Serrano wrote a movie review about the Denzel Washington picture "Man on Fire." His version was undoubtedly better than the one I was trying to write.
OMG, off to buy the buckwheat pillow NOW!!! Thank you so, so much for the review and the link! I just bought a Nuzzle pillow last week, tried it with both layers first (nope), then took the small layer out (nope), then just tried the small layer (I pretty much knew it wouldn't work, and only made it 15 minutes before digging my old pillow back out). Why did I believe the hype? :(