"When Facebook came along, offering Gen X a 24-hour class reunion, we intersected again; by then, he had styled himself with a Buddhist title, looking for meaning there. It still seemed ill defined, uncertain, like he continued to be searching for words and just not being able to find them."

Beachwood Sparks - Gentle Samurai 2024 USA Holy Byrds fans with hints of their zombies namesake—it feels like they made this for me! Thank you @countryuniverse.net for the custom recommendation. #TheTwen2ie5 day 34 NK&IS ✅

oh yeahhhhh kool aid man break into itttt

"The crush on that person who sucks, the breakup that came out of nowhere, the feeling that love will never find you, no matter how hard you try—we've all had those feelings that would never hold up in a court of law." Hell yes to this essay; also love the "yelling is how you release sadness"

"...we've all had those feelings that would never hold up in a court of law. But they keep our nights sleepless anyway, because at the root of those feelings, there is a sadness so intense that it defies reason..." Beautiful phrasing of the axiom that emotions don't have to make sense to be valid.

"when I, with my supposed iron stomach for sadness, try to think of the saddest song I've ever heard, my mind goes to that CD that Sam gave Jennifer, and the one song I couldn’t believe was on it." Chris Ritter on Journey's "Separate Ways": marchxness.com/the-essays#/...

"Death may be the only true certain thing in life, but for most people even death reserves a surprise in its time and place of arrival. Not for Wendy." Joshua Turner On the Important of Not Knowing (and Concrete Blonde's "Tomorrow Wendy": marchxness.com/the-essays#/...

"Then suddenly you sit up straight in the middle of a random mid-August Wednesday night."

Hey @marchxness.bsky.social fans! It's cover reveal + preorders day for HIT REPEAT UNTIL I HATE MUSIC: THE MARCH XNESS ANTHOLOGY, edited by @angermonsoon.bsky.social and @meganc.bsky.social! Available for preorders (+ ARC requests) NOW, link in our bio or www.splitlippress.com/march-xness-anthology

YES LORD IT IS NOW

I love @splitlippress.com! I love @marchxness.bsky.social! I really, really love them smushed together!! 🎶👩‍🎤

amazing!

Amid everything else, preorders for the @marchxness.bsky.social anthology Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music are open! Includes possibly the only thing I will ever try to write about music, from the 2023 80s fadness bracket, on Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight! www.splitlippress.com/march-xness-...

"The love you had for these bands was so tender and so loyal." Whoa here we go into to the first of our extracurriculars for March Sadness: @lydiapaar.bsky.social on Modest Mouse, STRFKR, and marchxness.com/the-essays#/...

Pumped that my extracurricular pitch for @marchxness.bsky.social was given the green light. It's going to bite! (like in a good way)

This was... like... a country-sized dagger straight to the heart. Sheesh!

This Ani DiFranco song might be the saddest song I've ever heard.

One like, one horror thought.

Some observations on the unpicked songs in the @marchxness longlist (2/2) Red House Painters? Springsteen? Sundays? The Verve Pipe? Lucinda Williams? Just saying there are some absolute BANGERS on there just waiting to have an extracurricular essay written about them. Pitch us!

That's the field. Some observations on the unpicked songs in the @marchxness longlist (1/2): Sarah McLachlan: wow unpicked Alice in Chains?? Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart??? Garth Brooks? The Cure? Live's "Lightning Crashes"? Magnetic Fields? Pearl Jam?? Radiohead??

Here it is, our last pick for 2026's March Sadness: with the very last spot Danielle Deulen selects Sade's "No Ordinary Love" (1992): www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WcW...

I'll be spinning this a lot in the coming months. Join in! Marchxness is so much fun, and interactive.

next March I'll be writing about my mom's early 90s crush, Sammy Kershaw, and about garage sale culture; the yard sale as public marker of having sorrowful life changes seen & recognized by your community; the costs of making that transactional; idk my divorce probably. We're gonna go deep.

90s Sadness Spotify Playlist up y'all

Here's the full March Sadness 90s Edition youtube playlist pending our last selection: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

With the 56 pick (corrected) @camelliagrass.bsky.social selects Sammy Kershaw, Yard Sale (1991): www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF1C...

Picking 41st Samuel Rafael Barber selects The Silver Jews' "The Wild Kindness" (1998): www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDDU...

🐴

With the 64th pick Danielle Geller selects Portishead's "Roads" (1994): www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nxW...

Here's Ryan Carter coming in with Gin Blossoms' "Hey Jealousy" (1992) with the 55th pick: ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah5gAkna3jI

With the 49th pick @erindorney.bsky.social selects Paula Cole's "Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?" (1996): www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUmK...

With the 57th pick @jamcharlesworth.bsky.social selects Collective Soul's "The World That I Know" (1995): www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7TL...

Whoops we mixed up some correspondence and accidentally posted one incorrect pick: it's Barry Montgomery who selected Grandpaboy, not @camelliagrass.bsky.social, whose pick is still outstanding. Sorry about that.

With the 52nd pick Drew Krewer selects Fiona Apple's "On the Bound" (1999): www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c6O...

The first one of these I ever read was @toddkaneko.bsky.social's essay about Loudness' "Crazy Nights." I reread it last night and can't get over how good it is. Please, send me your favorites from over the years; I need to prep for writing my first one (over Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On," duh)

Was hoping someone would pick this so I can call them out in mine! "Desmond Child, who produced the album, got the idea for the title after hearing the Bush song "Glycerine". Child misheard the title as "Kiss the Rain". When he was told the correct title, he decided to use "Kiss the Rain"..."

With the 60th pick @emelkrishnan.bsky.social selects Savage Garden's "To the Moon & Back" (1996): www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCm6...

With the 54th pick Andrew Arthur selects Sinead O'Connor's "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance" (1990): www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrSm...

With the 62nd pick @jasonthayer.bsky.social selects Bush's Glycerine (1995): www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOll...

With the 63rd pick Brittany Uecker selects Mineral's "Parking Lot" (1996): www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj87...

SO many good songs left to choose from. I wanted Madonna or PM Dawn or TLC or Whitney F*ing Houston! But I think I’ll pitch an extracurricular on Crystal Waters “Gypsy Woman,” as it’s my strongest essay idea. Join me! Someone HAS to do Whitney.

I’m gonna make you fuckers appreciate this song (/record) if it kills us all

The full March Xness — ‘90s Sadness Edition — list is out!

With the 61st pick @keithpille.bsky.social selects The Jayhawks' "Bottomless Cup" (1997): www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMa_...

So here is your 64 lottery picks with their song choices updated as they come in. Congratulations to those who got lucky in the lottery this year! Those who didn't: pitch us EXTRACURRICULARS! We start running essays in September/October. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Our 2 replacement lottery picks (hopefully these are the last replacements): Brittney Uecker Danielle Geller

We have 2 more numbers to redraw, as we haven't heard back from 2 earlier picks; we emailed and texted, and it's been a week, so we are moving ON. Folks who got the nod in the last 2 days will have until Monday to get back to us.

Here are your last 2 lottery #s: 63. @keithpille.bsky.social 64. @jasonthayer.bsky.social

this one's for my mama