March (and February) in posts
As far as posts go, this was a low-key month, mostly because I keep noodling on the same couple drafts whenever I log on. One of them is very stupid.1 In February I wrote something about self-beautification. This month, I had something about fandom and something about the New York Times and AI.
March in reviews
Sinners (Ryan Coogler, 2025)
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (Samuel Delany, 1984)
Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025)
Earth Abides (George Stewart, 1949)
The Ax (Donald Westlake, 1997)
March (and February) (actually, only February) in writing abroad
March in perfume
March (and February) in Japanimation
March in an album I liked
I don’t remember why I added this album, Favorite Bell by Davia, to my “albums to-listen” playlist, but I really liked it. I’m not sure what genre I’d call it… I would say folk, but there is electric guitar.
Anyway, the non-zero possibility one of you recommended this album to me, plus the fact that as of this writing the artist is pretty small on Spotify, makes me want to mention it on here. So I have. The link above is Spotify. but if you don’t use Spotify, there’s always Bandcamp. (Is there a JustWatch equivalent for music streaming?) Davia does not seem to have an artist website beyond her Bandcamp profile but she does have an Instagram.
March in research
A funny thing about a lot of the writers whose papers I’m reading: being science fiction writers, they were all early to the potential of the internet. But since they were also print media people, they printed everything out. And so this means that at a certain point you open up a box and it’s hundreds of pages of listserv arguments. It feels bizarre, because nobody prints out all their emails or forum posts now. On the other hand, in fact, if they hadn’t printed it out, all this stuff would be gone—so the instinct was basically right, it just feels very strange.
Anyway, I think the only interesting thing I actually read in these listserv arguments was the argument that led to the in-joke “secret feminist cabal,” the context of which was (as you can surmise through the “see also”-s on that page), David Brin feeling he was shut out from getting a Tiptree award for Glory Season (have not read).2
April preview!
Some things I have pre-ordered in April:
American Spirits (Anna Dorn)
On Eating (Alicia Kennedy)
Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction (Laura McGrath)
The Witch (Marie NDiaye)
Superstars (Ann Scott, trans. Jonathan Woollen)
Ultranatural (Candice Wuehle)
The books pre-ordered for March I guess are doomed to be uncommemorated, but one that I quite like so far is Aisla Ross’s Hovel. However, I only got about a quarter into it before deciding I really needed to read it as a print book—Ross incorporates photographs in ways that wreck the formatting on my ereader. Still, wanted to make a note of it here, since I don’t know when I’ll get around to picking up a physical copy and writing about it. The part I read reminded me both of Pond and of Mild Vertigo.
April in perfume:
I’m not actually sure what the perfume will be for next month! I have Fumerie’s Spring 2026 sampler waiting for me at home, along with a sample of the new Eris perfume, but I don’t have anything usable drafted so… we’ll see.3
April in Japanimation:
Porco Rosso (April 11)
Angel’s Egg (April 25)
It felt like the alternative was sending out a newsletter was that like I THINK THE “CHAPPELL ROAN HATES KIDS” THING IS LOWKEY ASTROTURFED and then a subsequent email that says WELL WELL WELL.
The Tiptree award is now called the Otherwise award, which I personally think is a shame, but it’s not my circus.
There’s a level of stupidity about ordering things from Fumerie, which is in Portland, to go to Michigan, when I am in Eugene and could just go to Portland… but I didn’t go to Portland… and they were selling samples of the new Eris perfume… and so.…
Sometime in 2001 or 2002, I printed out almost all of my existing emails with my college best friend plus a smattering of other beloved correspondence. A while later, I saved them all to a floppy disk and got rid of the printouts, since a floppy disc was obviously forever. “Lol”
Listening to this Davia record: if you dig this, you might also enjoy the album "The Slow Bang", by Madeline.