This right here is why we do this, and why @marchxness.bsky.social is so damn special. ❤️

Not now, mysterious large steel cylinder suddenly emerging from the ground in Japan! www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...

What a cruel bracket pairing. I'm maybe rooting for infinite overtime here. Unfair that only one of these essays can advance. marchxness.com/2ndround-hoo...

catch me in these places reading + talking DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS @nupress.bsky.social !!! plain text in alt ofc. can't wait to see you all in Toronto, Columbia SC, Amherst MA, and Minneapolis!!! if you're not going to be there and want a signed bookplate, dm me your address and i'll send you one!

So Trump is gambling the full faith and credit of the US government on oil futures in order to push down gas prices that have been ruinously inflated by his illegal and futile war?

Sometimes I think this sentence is the full encapsulation of what "the American experiment" is: "Voted that the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; voted, that the earth is given to the Saints; voted, we are the Saints."

Biggest way to drag me would be to set up like a Duotrope but for people emailing me, tracking how long it takes me to respond to emails

If you're in the mood for a good cry, and I mean a GOOD cry...read this essay on Mazzy Star by @cbiondolillo.bsky.social . I'd love to see it get some more votes marchxness.com/2ndround-fol...

New study finds what Germanic-language-group speaking ancestors knew hundreds of years ago through relation and land connectedness; knowledge which was entangled in the subjectivity of knowledge & hunger known by many names, Óðinn being one, associated most strongly with both wolves and ravens.

“This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters.” —Palantir CEO Alex Karp newrepublic.com/post/207693/...

Cole, Soul, Mazzy, & Bonnie are my March Sadness votes today, but things sure ain't getting any easier

Hell y'all, the very real, verifiable threats we face — including from the courts — are bad enough without adding bouts of panicslop inventing entirely new ones. This bs inflicts a real human cost.

The Lemkin Institute has issued a *THIRD* trans genocide warning, noting the next stage is widespread containment - and this was before the 4th Circuit ruled today that states can essentially do whatever they want to make trans people "appreciate their sex". www.lemkininstitute.com/red-flag-ale...

chili's might as well run a harry potter promotion now

Not my joke, but you begin to see how he bankrupted a casino

the 4th circuit echoing the language from the Skrmetti decision that U.S. states "have a compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex," but applying it to adults, is bone chilling.

There's a first time for everything, and so it comes for me: my 5th March Xness, but my first 1st-round defeat. @erinkeane.bsky.social's colossal essay on "November Rain" & Axl Rose & Hamlet double-Slash-solo'd its way into a toughhhh 2nd round. Very nicely done, and all best the rest of the way 🫡

@camelliagrass.bsky.social wrote a gorgeous essay on an artist I didn't know much about before, and as a person not super comfortable with competition I am bummed we can't both advance. That said, I'm pretty sure @awolfson.bsky.social's King of Carrot Flowers is gonna flatten me in Round 2.

We are back at it! A tough matchup with Sade. May y’all be reading these from the comfort of your homes instead of on a conference center floor!

shoutout to Thomas Dolby, who I wrote about a few years ago for March Fadness: marchxness.com/sweet16-base...

This is also part of why we do not get to speak for ourselves, they see us as ill and in denial about it, not as rational people so it does not matter how much we express our suffering in their eyes we are doing it to ourselves

I can’t escape @camelliagrass.bsky.social’s vulnerability here… But I feel within me the urge to take one last look. At everything. At the man himself. I don’t know if it’s an urge that can even be satisfied. … Maybe any attempt at looking at him is already, only and finally, a reflection.

Great @marchxness.bsky.social stuff here: @erinkeane.bsky.social on toxic masculine subjectivity—a reminder that bands' legacies shouldn't just price in their shitty conduct—& @camelliagrass.bsky.social on the material artifacts & financial implications of heartbreak. Don't miss 'em.

On a craft level I love self-referential callbacks. For instance, when I write in my Kershaw essay that my memories of my dad are preserved through the stuff in his house, I am calling back complicatedly to my essay Excelsior Springs Bottling Co., & its talk of me being preserved for him in memory

Me & Sammy may be insurmountably behind in the votes, but responses like this from my writing peers mean everything to me. March Xness rules.

well that's uhhhhh not a good sign

All these fantastic essays are making me appreciate country music?! Love @camelliagrass.bsky.social's essay on yard sales with emotion and a bit of humor: "Like a kind of hermit crab essay, really: A celebration of life in the form of a garage sale"

The attempted use of the NHS and other levers of state to wipe out an already incredibly marginalised group should be a national disgrace, and is indicative of a pathetic government that's terrified to stand up to a vocal minority of obsessive freaks and their far right financial backers.

For real! What a gift to be able to debate which of these excellent essays and memorable songs hit us squarely in the right soft spot to pull one ever-so-slightly ahead of another ... I learn so much about the songs, the artists, and how people engage with them every year.

Dang. I have now read all 64 essays for this year's @marchxness.bsky.social tournament for the saddest song of the 90s & I am sad & impressed in the most excellent way & grateful that this annual event gives us some of the best writing, reading, & community available on this godforsaken internet.

very excited for this to be out in the world: i wrote about repressed queerness in Elio, child surveillance in Inside Out 2, the post-Lasseter crisis, and the figure of the child in Pixar for The Baffler thebaffler.com/latest/probl...

New cammy essay on the most beautiful day in nearly half a year….coincidence? I think not……..

Refreshing my sale table since we're getting trounced in early voting. You see that pic of my mom & Sammy Kershaw there in my author bio section? You better believe there's more pics of my mom with Sammy Kershaw than just that. I'll post a few more in the replies. marchxness.com/1stround-gnr...

cammy’s heart is one of the most beautiful things i have experienced, and we are all blessed when she chooses to make the immense effort to offer us such a raw piece of it. please read and vote. 💖💖💖

the other 90s country essay today is by, & we're so lucky for it, Kathleen Rooney. She writes brilliantly about countrtly song structure and the marriage form. "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." 😢

getting to read a new piece by Cammy is one of the best treats available!!!

calling "nonstandard syntax" in literature a mistake "like a.i. used to make" is going to make me joker

“That’s what makes country music songwriting so effective across generations—the timelessness of the archetypes, the ease with which you can understand the world around you through lyrics and characters” @camelliagrass.bsky.social on Kershaw for @marchxness.bsky.social

GO GET IT

Patty Loveless’s country ballad “You Don’t Even Know Who I Am” is one of the saddest songs in human history & today, it needs your vote in the @marchxness.bsky.social tournament to determine the saddest song of the 90s. Please read my essay, then vote for Patty & me! marchxness.com/1stround-sou...

MY MARCH SADNESS ESSAY IS LIVE! 90s country music is close to my heart, and I got to write about my mom's beloved Sammy Kershaw. Its a very sad one, y'all. When a yard sale feels like selling memories of yourself, on the cheap. When publishing personal essays feels similarly. Please read & vote! :D

There's a broken cuneiform tablet from the Old Babylonian period, nearly 4,000 years ago, which preserves a tiny portion of a dialogue between two friends. It feels a bit like the conversations I've been having for the past week, so I wanted to share it.

asking a trans woman what her professional development plans are right now is a microaggression

I don't do many readings anymore due to health reasons, but when I am on a bill you know its going to be worth going out of your way for. March 31st, Philly. I'm going to read my March Xness essay & bum everyone out in a good way.

What happens when two equally matched essays and songs — by own personal rubrics — go up against each other in March Sadness? Read @modaviau.bsky.social on Cat Power and @silashansen.bsky.social on the Cranberries and vote! marchxness.com#/1stround-cr...

strong gummy and napping with a cat >>>

Reflooding bogs is a great way to help with sitting water AND fight climate change BRING BACK THE BOG

🎵 i'm at the anger stage/ i'm at the bargaining stage/ i'm at the combination anger stage/bargaining stage of petromodernity grieving itself 🎵

As an unwilling connoisseur of agitprop, Iran really hit it out of the park with "we're fighting the Epstein Class that either rapes children or kills them"