@erinkeane
Writer, editor, poet, critic | Chief Content Officer at @Salon.com | Author of Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me | Faculty at Naslund-Mann MFA | KY Colonel | Blair Water Literary Society chair | https://linktr.ee/eekshecried
Inexplicably, I'm not the only Xness competitor whose essay features my hometown, "the Jersey Shore of the Oregon Coast."
Emily Podwoiski's essay on Des'ree's "I'm Kissing You" examine's love's beauty & brutality, its ability to levitate us, & to break us apart
marchxness.com#/1stround-go...
"I’m past the geography of those boys..."
&
"However, there are peripheral gifts in the photo album."
🙏🙏🙏 Seeing all of these iterations of Amy Barnes pleases me to no end.
Surely we can get more than 29 votes for Skid Row &
“Wasted Time feels like an emotional rarity: a song about friendship & a song in which a straight man sings intimately & passionately about his feelings for another straight man…just anguish and worry distilled down into questions without answers”
I cannot decide!!
I am in awe seriously
MARCH SADNESS 90S EDITION DAY 5 HALFTIME(ISH) SCORES
Belle & Sebastian 51, Lauryn Hill 50
Des’ree 99, Goo Goo Dolls 79
Ben Folds Five 77, Skid Row 29
Lisa Loeb 65, Lee Ann Womack 27
Vote by 9am AZ time 3/6 at marchxness.com
Bluesky needs better handle search honestly… I keep not finding the right writers for @marchxness.bsky.social to tag. Anyway read @grossman.bsky.social on Lisa Loeb!
Ok this is commitment
Belle & Sebastian is my favorite band. I've never ever ever heard anyone refer to BLASTING "Fox in the Snow" (or any other B&S song), and I absolutely fucking adore this, Andrew Schumacher Bethke.
Ya did the Scots proud with this one.
marchxness.com#/1stround-hi...
@aesb.bsky.social
Booooo
Amy Griffin, a best-selling memoirist, was sued on Wednesday by a former classmate who contends that Griffin’s story of being sexually abused — as she described in her book, “The Tell” — was based on assaults the classmate herself suffered at their Texas middle school in the 1980s.
“‘Too bad we’re both too old for him now,’ I text back.”
I love everything about. Emily Podwoiski’s @marchxness.bsky.social essay about Des’ree’s “Kissing You,” including this sick burn of Leonardo DiCaprio.
marchxness.com#/1stround-go...
"Joining the queer community in midlife, I discovered that the heteropessimism of Miseducation's love songs has more than one possible solution."
So much love for Jendi Reiter on Lauryn Hill ❤️🔥
"I suspect that much of this has to do with how B&S as a group, and Murdoch as a lyricist, understood just how delicious melancholy was, and how the place of sadness was always better as a place you built in your mind."
- Andrew Schumacher Bethke on Belle & Sebastian (w/ a timely bio)
“And so, if I am not blameless, I might have to settle for being forgiven. So, I do. I forgive the girl that I was.”
The way that Cicily Bennion builds up to this ending in her @marchxness.bsky.social essay on “Brick” is amazing.
marchxness.com
“NOW you can pivot from Disney kid to sexpot, from harmless reality TV himbo to fascist political monster, from porn star to first lady. You can pivot and pivot until Words no longer mean Things.” I am so into @meganc.bsky.social ’s @marchxness.bsky.social on Skid Row. marchxness.com
“I have written for this tournament six times, and nearly every single essay has, on some level, been about my fear of actually knowing myself.” It’s always a pleasure to read Moira McAvoy’s @marchxness.bsky.social essays & this year’s on “Iris” is no exception.
marchxness.com
haaaa this got flagged with a “rude” label by the mods
YOU DON'T IS THE ANSWER IT IS ALL XNESS SUCK IT AWP
“Music feels like the ultimate mirror; if I listen to something on a loop long enough, dig through the lyrics intelligently enough, venerate the idea of self-reflective naval gazing enough, I will be granted permission by myself to see myself.” Read @moirajo.bsky.social on the yearning of Iris.
“It’s NOT a romance, it’s a tragedy! they say, as if both can’t be true.” A @marchxness.bsky.social thesis, and a line from Emily Podwoiski’s essay on Des’ree, Romeo + Juliet, and sand dollars (the final image is a knockout) marchxness.com#/1stround-go...
Austin Grossman is doing something cool with “Stay” but the photos! the Boyfriend Book! in @amygcb.bsky.social’s Lee Ann Womack homage are also what @marchxness.bsky.social was made for.
“There are sad songs for every nuance of romantic heartbreak, but there aren’t so many about the ways friendship can break your heart” @meganc.bsky.social on Skid Row’s lament for Steven Adler slots nicely with my GnR research this tournament but don’t sleep on Cicily Bennion’s slow burn on Brick.
I have known the pain of a first-round loss. You left it all on the court!
A fanfuckingtastic way to kick off AWP. @jaimefountaine.bsky.social had me believing all kinds of scandal about Peter Tork.
The main thing I am learning from this year's @marchxness.bsky.social bracket is that my personal definition of "sad" apparently does not align with anyone else's. Anyway, it's fun, the essays are terrific, you should play. Visit marchxness.com to read and vote.
If you're enjoying March Sadness, you will also enjoy this book.
My essay on Skid Row's neglected masterpiece, suburban basements, Dial MTV, and whether Liking Things really matters is up today! @marchxness.bsky.social
MARCH SADNESS 90S EDITION DAY 4 SCORES, 45’ to play:
Mineral 75, RHCP 57
No Doubt 83, Gillian Welch 79
Hootie 133, Morphine 129
Counting Crows 136, Savage Garden 32
Lot of game left here but these are INTERESTING SCORES.
Vote by 9am AZ time 3/5 at marchxness.com
How am I supposed to focus on AWP events when there are new @marchxness.bsky.social essays to read?!