Autumn 2025
A collection of seasonal excerpts from the commonplace:
"Hell is the pain you made for someone else." -Hanif Abdurraqib
"Yes, the new life/feels like death again." -Joseph Fasano, "Autumn Hymn"
Abundance Reigns!, Nick Capozzoli
How to Blow Up a Planet, Trevor Jackson
What Job Is A Guy With A Nazi Tattoo Qualified For?, David Roth
"It’s hard to say which came first: our so-called media illiteracy or the dumbing down of the media. Complaints about our inability to read, interpret, or discern irony, subtlety, and nuance are as old as art. What feels new is the expectation, on the part of both makers and audiences, that there is such a thing as knowing definitively what a work of art means or stands for, aesthetically and politically. This strikes me as a blatant redefinition of art itself." -The New Literalism Plaguing Todays Biggest Movies, Namwali Serpell
"Within this amorphous framework, men’s biggest problem is, likewise, a feeling—an unreachable itch, or a marrow-deep belief—that men should still rank above women in the social hierarchy, just not as much as before . . . What these pundits are nudging us to do, ever so politely, is accept that women, in the main, are accustomed to being a little degraded, a little underpaid and ignored and dampened in their ambitions, in ways that men are not and never will be." -What Did Men Do To Deserve This?, Jessica Winter
"Fantastical thinking, alternative realities, battles between good and evil, the anticipation of a redeemer or messiah or a deus ex machina, the assumption that there is a hidden realm beneath ours, the heavy sense of fatedness and the consequent irrelevance of individual moral conduct, the desperate wish for a decisive ending that will dignify and justify the babble and chaos of the present moment, the cheeky glee in embracing it all: these are features of both the real world and the romantasy world (books and fandom communities included) into which so many wish to retreat." -Escape Artists, Daniel Yadin
Why I Keep Returning to Middle-Earth, Michael D.C. Drout
Also Reading: Chainsaw Man Part 2, Revenge of the Sith novelization, Scythe, Catching Fire, Witch Hat Atelier Vol. 9-12, The Moon on a Rainy Night Vol. 7, Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You vol. 5,
ecumenical (adj.): worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application
cause célèbre (n.): a notorious person, thing, incident, or episode
Podcasts: Fall of Civilizations, Critical Error, Trails through Trails, Side Story, Never Post
Watching: Avatar: Fire and Ash, Knives Out, Arcane, Fionna and Cake Season 2, Percy Jackson Season 2, Civil War, Journalism and the Passive Aggression of Civil War, Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, Hades II's ending isn't fixed
Playing: Battlefield 6, Of The Devil, Kirby Air Riders, Trails Beyond The Horizon
Film: UXF 400, Ilford Delta 400
ICYMI: I wrote about Hosoda's take on Hamlet as an anime girl, make the classics case for Chainsaw Man, thoroughly snuff out any remaining fervor for The Force Awakens at 10, guest on Critical Error, and return to Bullet Points to talk ruins.