I know I'm supposed to share writing I like, but in this case I'm hesitant to share it because I want this paw print and would like you not to bid on it.

Prayer failed; God is dead.

"Because craving connection with others, chasing it, is how we find communion; it’s how we survive our sadness." March Xness as a form of communion. This tournament's got me thinking a lot about belief. I'll pray (and vote) for "Glycerine" tonight, just to see how it goes.

I love the March Sadness essays that help me really appreciate a song either for the first time, or in entirely new ways. James Charlesworth’s piece on “The World I Know” is one of those, and its dual narratives are perfectly in sync. Recommended reading if you like hope and pigeons.

You all dream up the best projects. I'm looking forward to all these Significant Objects.

Here we go, Team Crows! We’re up today in the @marchxness.bsky.social Elite 8 and need your help against a high priestess of sad! (Though I maintain Round Here is sadder.) Read the essays and vote! 🐦‍⬛🖤

"Let Her Cry" on the other hand—& as @kjmoulton.bsky.social's @marchxness.bsky.social essay mentions—started small-scale & personal & became something you hear all the time at CVS. It clearly has pop ambitions, so it gets its damn message across. Bush's erwachsenetotenlied is great! But Hootie wins.

If you measure Emma's essay with this handy wheel of emotions (www.mylocum.com/the-emotiona...), it's got all the sadness packed in the very first paragraph: vulnerability and depression and loneliness and guilt and despair. BUT. Blink-182? :[

I'm pretty convinced by (and in love with) @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social's argument: "And that’s what makes this the ne plus ultra of break-up songs, sadder than all the rest: it dares to distribute the blame equally." marchxness.com#/1stround-so...

💔 @silashansen.bsky.social gets my vote for invoking a very specific kind of @marchxness.bsky.social sadness, "not the loss of something I’d experienced, but the realization that I will likely never feel that, that it’s a feeling entirely out of my reach."

Couldn't sleep, read @cbiondolillo.bsky.social's essay, and now certain I'm destined for some very sad dreams.

"There’s something to that, something about the ways our lives primes us for the music we fall in love with, and how we find it." The amount of ground Jamison Crabtree's essay on "Between the Bars" covers is impressive. marchxness.com

Dang. "I suppose it’s a gift, that I don’t feel sadness like I used to.... I know some people who still do, who white-knuckle it through life and eventually let go—their leaving itself a kind of sadness that threatens to pull me under." @mlfaliveno.bsky.social marchxness.com#/1stround-co...

In the spirit of the season, I've been listening to some of my other favorites. This morning before work, when my husband wandered out of his office and found me crying, he just shook his head and laughed, "I don't understand your relationship with sadness." www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuhB...

Well @jamcharlesworth.bsky.social's @marchxness.bsky.social essay has persuaded me into not only tolerance but grudging affection for this damn Collective Soul song, which I had not thought possible. And that's not even among the top ten things this essay accomplishes. Do not miss it.

Ashley Naftule on "100,000 Fireflies:" "I have precious few words of wisdom to impart to anyone, let alone my younger self, but one thing I know is this: you should not place the burden of your own happiness on someone else. After all, you won’t be happy anyway." marchxness.com#/1stround-co...

I'm also convinced by Keegan's argument that "Everlong" “somehow managed to avoid the almost inevitable decline from uber-catchy earworm to corny corn fest like so many other popular songs from the 90s that tackle love...”

My vote for Chris Daley and Liz Phair:" "And if there’s one thing I’ve always tried to do is learn from mistakes, even other people’s, so here we are." marchxness.com#/1stround-re...

"Roads" in the wild. Just a little too late for March Sadness! 🪦

Congratulations to the victors, and well-played all around! Excited to see Myers moving forward but disbelievingly disappointed that BSB is out the first round. GG @doritoshangover.bsky.social!

March Sadness Round 2 has been full of personal surprises and hard decisions, and I still don't know what to do about the Sade vs. Third Eye Blind match. 😭

"What is religious belief, if not a response to negative space?" This essay is going to be a hard one to beat. (Song too.)

First round 1 vote cast! "It’s too dark to make out such detail, so I nod when reminded that every leaf in a compact mirror hits a target that we can’t see—at least on those occasions, as the song loops over and over again..." Sorry, Celine.

This is one of the most beautiful videos I've ever seen: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/s...

The Malahat Review is accepting submissions for the Contemporary Indigenous Storytelling issue: malahatreview.ca/issues/233-i...

My next NEA project proposal:

This might be my new favorite hermit crab: "Let There Be More Spices," Carrie Gaffney: brevitymag.com/current-issu...

I have incomplete thoughts but am a fan of this essay in hngrmtn.org/issues/hunge...

I usually find deadlines helpful/motivational, but what stops me from writing sometimes is that I'm not working on what I 'should' or 'need' to be doing. I'm trying to set aside a time in my day I can pursue whatever tangent—I guess I'll see how it goes!

"Maybe the melancholic's problem is desire to / remember everything. When everything has / already been decided, the pictures already taken." Victoria Chang (BRICK no.114)