Got my vote big time. "It’s a song that shows how relationships can break irrevocably and that no amount of Pollyanna positivity or couple’s counseling or chore charts or forcing yourself to learn from the situation is going to make the experience something you’re kind of glad about once it’s over."
WHEW damn. @emilylauracosta.bsky.social that is a (literal) hell of a @marchxness.bsky.social essay on "runaway train." giving me all kinds of questions of the relationships between sorrow and fear & protection & inexplicable evil. marchxness.com#/1stround-so...
I sometimes worry that too many people think being a good critic means being a self-righteous dick about every little thing and I think far too many miss the point that you can't critique anything if you don't know how to love something.
@janeciab.bsky.social talks to Jun Yun, author of All The World Can Hold, about writing a post 9/11 cruise novel.
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.
Ummm @moirajo.bsky.social and @marchxness.bsky.social … a convergence in worlds may have occurred and I dunno what happens next…
oh! love the ending of this @silashansen.bsky.social @marchxness.bsky.social essay on "linger": "The crows didn’t come down from the tree...but I imagined them later that night, after downtown got quiet and they felt safe, coming down to investigate, to see what gifts these friends had left."
as a supplement i highly recommend @toriamos.bsky.social 's charming children's book "tori and the muses," which features kid prodigy tori explaining to her mathematician dad why she (with her muses) can't just practice other people's music but must make her own (feels related)
tapping in for the late shift of @marchxness.bsky.social reading/voting! first up: @nanette.bsky.social on @toriamos.bsky.social "winter" vs. @chrislkeller.com on wilco's "via chicago." two lovely essays, two heart-twinging songs. tough! marchxness.com#/1stround-am...
Good gracious / cat is bodacious
some lore for @marchxness.bsky.social community: legend @anniezaleski.bsky.social was my first editor- she took a chance & gave me my very first music journo assignment in 2009 (rip @riverfronttimes.bsky.social)! i was 23 with no clips/no idea what i was doing! so excited for her work here & always.
i too have a long history with "she talks to angels" (and listened to it a lot prepping to write about hootie because darius rucker set out to write his own version of the song with "let her cry"), and @levin.bsky.social's @marchxness.bsky.social entry is great!
marchxness.com#/1stround-bl...
this may have been THE hardest matchup day for me, song-wise -- i love them all! heartbreakers!
"...if I listen to something on a loop long enough, dig through the lyrics intelligently enough...I will be granted permission by myself to see myself. The searching itself could be enough. It never is." I gotta vote GOO!
cc @marchxness.bsky.social @googoodollsmusic.bsky.social
I can't believe we squeaked through! Against a probably objectively cooler song (that sax) & talented writer/strong competitor in @htownjenny.bsky.social ! Thanks for Hootin'.
“The most indelible art has something wrong with it, and the best pure-pop songs are logically incoherent” is a line of @kjmoulton.bsky.social’s that we’ll reference throughout @marchxness.bsky.social. But also “addiction never belongs to someone else. It remakes reality. It swallows the world.”
No surprise but @kjmoulton.bsky.social’s @marchxness.bsky.social essay is fantastic: outstanding music writing & devastating memoir. @htownjenny.bsky.social’s essay on Morphine, Texas & LA is also extremely good. Sucks that both can’t advance! Just compounding the heartbreak, ain’t we?
Holy shit, this @kjmoulton.bsky.social essay. I don't have the words to say anything more than that yet. I've dried my eyes, but I'm still blowing my nose and catching my breath. Just, holy shit. The way that sadness blossomed.
thanks so much for reading. <3
I like my sadness to have a bit of an edge. Caterwauling, or a weird dissonance, say. Ergo, I’m honestly kind of pissed at @kjmoulton.bsky.social for writing such a fucking *killer* essay that I just voted for a band that’s bout as edgy as an avocado. I need to walk my vote off to some Supersuckers…
I hear you and am with you! And yet, I have met some profoundly sad avocados
This from @kjmoulton.bsky.social hit me in a way words should:
"It got too painful and too dangerous to be around you. I stopped being able to see you behind your eyes. I said I was tired of the people I loved making me watch as they killed themselves. I told you so, because I had to say I tried."
"But addiction never belongs to someone else. It remakes reality. It swallows the world."
Hootie is safe in @kjmoulton.bsky.social's hands. 🙏
the last paragraph of @kjmoulton.bsky.social's essay on "Let Her Cry" is heart-in-someone-fist perfection
I spent the first half of @kjmoulton.bsky.social's essay thinking "I can see how Darius went country listening to this song. Still don't like it, 'I Will Wait' is the best Hootie." Then that record scratch and DAMN, this is the essay that made me cry today.
thanks so much. saving your essay to savor later. looking forward to seeing you this week round here (baltimore)!
thanks so much for reading. always in it.
Hootie and the Blowfish is unironically one of my all-time favorite bands, and "Cracked Rear View" felt like a near-perfect snapshot of my trauma-rattled 15-year-old brain.
Katie Moulton's essay on "Let Her Cry" reminds me of my sister, gone 10 years in April. Losing someone to despair is lonely.
Listen, Hootie had my vote no matter what (my first concert!), but I just read @kjmoulton.bsky.social’s @marchxness.bsky.social essay and holy shit. That ending! Bringing the bangers, Xness crew. marchxness.com#/1stround-ho...
“The most indelible art has something wrong with it, and the best pure-pop songs are logically incoherent.” I’m not a fan of Hootie, but I am a fan of @kjmoulton.bsky.social’s @marchxness.bsky.social essay about them! marchxness.com
