Monday Miscellany: Instructions in the event of a catastrophe

Notes from March 23 - 29

Mar 31, 2026

Good evening! This newsletter is another late one, but I was reading Project Hail Mary this morning with my coffee and I simply couldn’t put it down to start writing—I needed to know how it ended! And then we had book trivia at the bookstore tonight!

But I’m here now, and I’m excited to tell you about the one sentence1 I read this week, and the jams that literally made me run faster, and all the stuff I’m looking forward to in the near future.

Read this week

Honestly, Herscht 07769 by Lásló Krasznahorkai is not something I would’ve picked up on my own. It’s long, and in translation, and comprised of one extended run-on sentence, and the cover isn’t really giving “book I’d be into.” But it was chosen for art museum book club, and we know I’m a dork who loves a homework assignment, so I buckled up and gave it a try.

I’d call this an ensemble piece. It most closely follows Florian Herscht, the “gentle giant” of his east German town, who has been taking night classes in physics and is now convinced that the universe could end at any moment. When he isn’t at his day job erasing graffiti with his father-figure Boss (who is also a Nazi on the side!), he is writing letters to Angela Merkel, the only one he thinks can help save the world from imminent disaster. But the narrative jumps seamlessly between many other people in Florian’s world too, detailing the minutiae of their days and exploring the connections between them. In that aspect, it reminded me a bit of Toni Morrison’s Paradise.

There’s so much going on here—a disappearance or two, a serial graffiti vandal, a wolf attack, an obsession with J.S. Bach, an overabundance of honey for sale. Krasznahorkai uses the lack of sentence breaks to create a frenetic sense of urgency that builds on itself as the book progresses, and the cycling of characters into and out of the reader’s field of vision mimics the behavior of subatomic particles.2 The frequent transitions from person to person bring Virginia Woolf’s writing to mind; I love how the focus on a large group of individuals not only provides insights into each of them but also simultaneously builds a tapestry-like understanding of the community as a whole.

And while I’d call this more of a plot book than a language one, I did write down some good out-of-context quotes:

“there’s nothing better than tomatoes on the vine, he said to Jacob-Friedrich, for this it is worthwhile to survive the winter”
“not too long ago he had discovered the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and he felt that contained within this discovery were instructions in the event of a catastrophe, but he only felt this, he didn’t know the exact contents of these instructions”
“I don’t believe in the kind of life that’s being forced on us, always buying new stuff and then tossing it out, well what kind of behavior is that? what kind of thinking is that?!”
“there was no cure for weeping and it was not regulated by any kind of law”

Herscht 07769 is not an easy read, but it’s less intimidating than I initially feared, and really compelling in both granular and big-picture ways—it left me thinking about order and chaos and evil and complicity, and it made me itch to sit down at the piano and re-learn some of my old favorite Bach inventions.3 Group conversation definitely improved my understanding and appreciation of it, so if you’re interested in tackling this one, maybe rope a friend or two into book-clubbing it with you!

On the horizon…

After wrapping up Project Hail Mary this morning, I’m looking forward to catching the adaptation in theaters soon so I can hopefully talk about both book and movie next week
I might’ve slightly over-committed myself, but here are the April releases I have early copies of that I’ll be telling you about in the next little bit:
- Body Double by Hanna Johansson (trans. Kira Josefsson)
- Go Gentle by Maria Semple
- Cleo Dang Would Rather Be Dead by Mai Nguyen
- Afternoon Hours of a Hermit by Patrick Cottrell
Jenny Lawson’s new book, How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay is coming out tomorrow! It snuck up on me but I’m so pumped and will be buying a copy immediately! I simply love her.
I found out JUST THIS MORNING that another of my favorite authors, Dave Eggers, has a new release coming in June! And I might have snagged an early copy, so stay tuned for thoughts—I doubt I’ll be able to wait very long before diving into it.

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Seen and heard this week

I’ve mentioned that Jordan and I rewatched the original run of Dexter and have been working our way through the spinoffs and continuations that came after, but I forgot to share our most recent update! We finished Dexter: Original Sin, which is only ten episodes. The whole thing is a flashback to Dexter’s early twenties as he’s just getting started on his serial killer journey, and the interior monologue voiceovers are Michael C. Hall but the younger versions of all the original characters are played by new actors. It’s… fine? I enjoyed the novelty of it for an episode or two, but after that I just wanted the “real” versions of all my people back. And by the end I was annoyed that the initial framing of the show, that is, a near-death Dexter at the end of New Blood having a life-flashing-before-his-eyes experience, was completely discarded? or forgotten? Anyway. Onwards and upwards to Dexter: Resurrection, which picks up where New Blood left off and feels much truer to the show I know and love.

On the music front: do you guys remember Girl Talk?? My friend Caleb just reminded me of the album Night Ripper (2007) and revisiting it made me so happy. If you’re unfamiliar, this is basically forty-two minutes of nonstop, seamless mashup medleys, featuring pop, hip-hop, rap, and alternative hits from the early 2000s. It took me right back to my college days. And, fun fact that I learned when I blasted it in my earbuds on a recent run, the first several tracks match my stride almost exactly. After months of exclusively listening to podcasts while I exercised, this shaved a full minute off my average mile pace. Okay!

Monday’s view at the West Salem Art Hotel

Haiku round-up

This poetic form, containing seventeen syllables in a five-seven-five pattern, originated in Japan and traditionally includes thematic reference to the seasons. Mine vary in topic, but I’ve been writing one each day since the beginning of 2024 as an exercise in structured creativity. Here are this week’s poems:

Monday, March 23