@marchxness
The premiere yearly tournament of music and memory. 2026's tournament is Sad Songs of the 90s. Lottery for next year's tourney spots coming soon! Selection committee: @meganc.bsky.social & @angermonsoon.bsky.social
"It’s a moving double portrait of a lose-lose situation, and I adore it for its irreducibility."
Sometimes things end and it's not clear why. Either there's no evident reason, or there's too many evident reasons to sort out.
And you can maybe only show it thru art.
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Emily’s exploration of the runaways and kidnappings of Soul Asylum(‘s video) is harrowing, though I was in the “terrified of nuclear war” crowd more than the “terrified of stranger danger” one. You Don’t Even Know Who I Am is, as Kathleen says, “sad sad sad…with no redemption.”
it's about the game not the result
Me & Sammy may be insurmountably behind in the votes, but responses like this from my writing peers mean everything to me. March Xness rules.
the last lines of this @erinkeane.bsky.social essay on "November Rain," phew. (and also the whole thing.) as someone who writes often about women's experiences of rock excess, I have a hard time reconciling my GNR fandom. this explores tht tension so well
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it's a wonderful mix!
a @camelliagrass.bsky.social @marchxness.bsky.social essay is truly one of my favorite things. and then you add Sammy Kershaw to the mix. this essay made me cry, made me nod, made me revel in the language.
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Brutal matchup here between Emma’s deeply relatable essay on growing out of + into sadness via a fave millennial depression banger (underrepresented in the bracket imo!) and @lateration.bsky.social’s beautiful (and circumstantially unrelatable) essay around Nick Cave, Nora Ephron, and what we carry
Emma Allmann's essay feels pulled from my own brain in ways, down to crying for a burger and Catholic guilt. "If I think about it for too long I start to feel like a Roomba who sometimes sits at the charging deck for an inappropriate amount of time."
Reading @lateration.bsky.social's essay felt like listening to David Sedaris tell a story (meant as a high compliment, I love going to his readings) with so many great lines jumping out at me, especially "anything where you can hear the artist breathe is sad."
“None of my vital statistics are filled out. It must have been summer, mid-90s. The picture was taken at Marshalls.”
gotta vote your first CD
"Daydream" was the first CD I owned so I admit I'm biased here... Still, I'm finding so many quotes to love in @erinlangner.bsky.social's essay: "A fractured self is sometimes the only kind that can survive the disconnect between how we expect the world to be and how it ends up being."
rage-sadness is a potent mix
Damn, @erinmcreynolds.bsky.social jumps RIGHT in and doesn't stop. "[we] jeered at the Religious Right and its red-faced men who kept sticking their sausage fingers into forbidden funds (and females)." I'm here for this rage-sadness.
“Slash walks down the aisle alone, exits the church into the desolate landscape of wherever they shot this in the Valley, then cries to the heavens with his first guitar solo. So of course, that move made me believe the video storyline was about a love triangle. What else makes sense at sixteen?”
“At the time of this writing, we are trying to survive a supervillain’s rule.”
On every drive to Santa Fe, when we pass the Cerro Pelon butte in the distance and the road to Galisteo, I think to myself how the greatest guitar solo of my lifetime was filmed out that way…
Have loved Nov. Rain since that summer of ‘92 & @erinkeane.bsky.social’s work only makes the bond stronger.
looking that way
If I’d won my first-round matchup, I’d be facing the winner of this duel… and I was terrified to go up against “November Rain” even before I learned @erinkeane.bsky.social was its champion.
Well, it’s @awolfson.bsky.social’s problem now, bwahaha! Assuming Erin and Axl emerge triumphant…
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a @marchxness.bsky.social essay NOT discuss its theme as effectively as @lateration.bsky.social doesn’t talk about Nick Cave here.
MARCH SADNESS 90S EDITION DAY 8 HALFTIME SCORES
Soul Asylum 80, Patty Loveless 70
Blink-182 88, Nick Cave 67
GnR 111, Kershaw 54
Mariah 52, Crash Test Dummies 43
Last day of the first round games finishes up at 9am AZ time 3/11 at marchxness.com
guessing that's the case for some folks for sure; sometimes first-timers come into the tourney without knowing how hard some of us go!
My supremely talented friend Emma wrote a gorgeous essay on one of my favorite Blink-182 tunes…consider voting for her this fine March!
As someone's whose association with Soul Asylum was an SNL sketch (youtu.be/QVgNJb8yysg?...), this essay hit harder than expected. I never knew the story behind the video, so this, the first essay I read, has already made me cry.
I'm not a country fan but @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social does a great job convincing me, and with a great song! "The wife is not a saint, the husband is not a dickhead. ... They both failed to keep up a healthy relationship, an erosion that occurred slowly over time to the point of no repair."
seriously!
Didn’t expect a Shakespearean take on Guns ‘n’ Roses, but that’s @marchxness.bsky.social for you.
“Hamlet a tortured rock star, Axl a prince wrestling with his demons. Both of them making their problems everyone’s.”
@erinkeane.bsky.social
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Check out @erinkeane.bsky.social on "November Rain" and Axl Rose as Hamlet—an essay as epic as the song it covers! The sadness of faded glory, and of glory that really never should have been...
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HAHA NICE