Monday Miscellany: Leave it on the slippery dance floor
Notes from April 20 - 26
A happy belated Independent Bookstore Day to all who celebrate! I stopped by one of my local favorites on Saturday afternoon and left with Moonbound by Robin Sloan for Jordan1 and Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata (trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori) for myself. Did you visit any indies this weekend?
↑ If so, I would love to hear of your adventures and the bounty you took home! ↑
Read this week
When I realized partway through Patrick Cottrell’s new novel that it takes place in the same world as his debut, I decided to go back and treat myself to a re-read of Sorry to Disrupt the Peace. Sorry was originally published in 2017 and follows a pre-transition Dan Moran as he copes with the immediate grief and emotional aftermath of his younger brother’s death by suicide. Though he hasn’t seen his parents in a number of years, he returns to his childhood home to provide support and maybe also investigate the circumstances surrounding the tragedy. These were my thoughts when I read it in 2019:
This is a deep dive into a grieving person's brain, and it is strange and funny and sad and it doesn't always make sense. It took me to a surreal headspace very similar to the one I visited while reading My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh and The Third Hotel by Laura van den Berg. I'm not sure that I completely "got" it, but I'd read it again.
Upon revisiting, I’d say it’s much funnier and more absurd than I originally picked up on. Whereas past Emily was focused more on the seriousness of the situation and the mental illness of the protagonist, this time around I could better recognize the narrator’s unreliability and laugh at the resulting miscommunications and awkward or uncomfortable scenes. If you’re interested in Afternoon Hours of a Hermit, I would recommend treating these two books like a duology and starting with Sorry to Disrupt the Peace.
Alas, though important and satisfying, my re-read side quest meant that I didn’t start House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk (trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones) for NCMA book club until the day before our meeting. And despite a marathon several-hour reading session after my coffee shop shift on Thursday, I showed up for the discussion that evening with about ten pages left to go. Luckily, this is a very vibey, theme- and character-based novel without much of an overarching plot, so I didn’t miss any last-minute reveals or have the ending spoiled for me.
The focus here is a small Polish village where an unnamed narrator settles with her husband. We learn about the land and the community through a tapestry of chapters that alternate between first-person observations, conversations with the protagonist’s mysterious old neighbor, leaps backward in time, and a story-in-parts about a young monk writing about the life of a saint. There’s so much to dig into I can’t possibly do it justice here but the tone and ensemble structure reminded me a bit of Herscht 07769 and When I Sing, Mountains Dance. One of the standout topics that came up in our book club discussion was the idea of binaries or boundaries—life/death, asleep/awake, male/female, Germany/Poland—and the nebulous space between them. I think we could have talked for another hour or more, easy.
And then, whoops, I started Vigil by George Saunders too late to finish it for Gretagram book club on Saturday afternoon,2 but here I come after the fact with some thoughts! This is about a ghost whose job is to comfort people as they’re actively dying so their transition to the afterlife is as smooth as possible. Her newest assignment is K.J. Boone, an old white oil tycoon and climate change denier who is now on his death bed, refusing to acknowledge or apologize for any of the terrible things he did during his career. And here’s my hot take: this should’ve been a short story. Even at only 192 pages, it feels too long, it drags, the message gets repetitive. Don’t get me wrong, George, I agree, climate change is very real, and dire, and people like K.J. need to face the damage they’ve done and continue to do, but like… tighten it up. We get it.
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Seen and heard this week
I caught two last feature films on Thursday and Friday as the second week of RiverRun International Film Festival came to a close:
Over Your Dead Body (2026) is a horror comedy about a married couple who set off for a weekend at a lake cabin, ostensibly to relax together and repair their rapidly disintegrating relationship. But a secret murder plan is afoot, one that immediately goes awry, setting off a whole chain of unexpected and increasingly bloody events. It starts out ridiculous, and every time I thought the chaos had peaked I was proven wrong. The gore and special effects in this movie are not for the faint of heart/stomach, but they are balanced by a lot of funny moments. The vibes reminded me of Ready or Not (2019)3 and Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010). This one is in theaters nationwide right now and I highly recommend seeing it on the big screen—the best part of the experience for me was gasping and laughing and reacting in community. What a ride.
In Transit (2025) tells the story of Lucy, a young bartender in Maine who meets a visiting artist one night at work and agrees to be a model for some new sketches and paintings she’s creating. Their encounters stir up unexamined feelings in both women and ultimately lead to a crossroads moment for Lucy—what does she really want to do with her life? This is a quiet film, shot beautifully and acted well, but the ending left me hanging, desperate to know what came next.4
I’ve only listened to it all the way through once so I don’t have capital-o Opinions just yet, but METRIC’S NEW ALBUM IS OUT! It’s called Romanticize the Dive and it’s easily one of my most anticipated releases of the year, especially since Jordan and I got tickets to their “All the Feelings” tour with Broken Social Scene and Stars this summer. For now I will just say that the song I immediately latched onto during my first play-through was “Tremolo,” which is all about resisting the “what if?” rabbit hole (a struggle I personally know very well).
With the tremolo soft and the guitar clean I can take your mind off what could have been
Why didn't I take another path at the crossroads? Crystal ball nobody can see All of these question marks, what could've been Leave it on the slippery dance floor, dance with me
Ugh, it resonates so much. I think Emily Haines might’ve written this one specifically for me.
New vocab just dropped
And now a short list of unfamiliar words I’ve encountered in my recent reading, because why not?
Klatsch (noun): Gossip or casual conversation
Persipan (noun): A confection made from marzipan and fruit puree, typically used in cakes and pastries
Gamelan (noun): An Indonesian musical ensemble usually featuring a variety of metal percussion instruments
Truculent (adjective): Aggressively savage or ferocious
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, April 20
Must finish my work in time to take a hot bath ahead of dinner
Tuesday, April 21
Ordering online could never replace browsing in a local shop
Wednesday, April 22
This Earth Day birthday is fitting; you’re my planet my haven, my home
Thursday, April 23
Past the bounds of fear lies quiet satisfaction if you stay open
Friday, April 24
These feet will take me wherever I need to go The city is mine
Saturday, April 25
Turn another page as raindrops patter on glass and tea warms your bones
Sunday, April 26
It’s transformative, the warmth and weight of feeling truly seen and loved
Until next time
In an email about Romanticize the Dive’s release, Emily Haines5 wrote of “Tremolo”:
It’s about breaking free of a fixation on what could have been and accepting how things are, how little we can control and the painfully arbitrary nature of fate.
This is something I’ve been stewing on for a long time, sparked anew by her words. We only get one run-through, yes? And by the nature of choices, there will always be alternate lives, billions of them, branching off from the path we’re taking. I used to feel oppressed picturing all of these possibilities, paralyzed any time I was presented with multiple options and forced to pick between them, because what if I went with the wrong one? Is this where I’m supposed to be? Am I doing it right?
But, hello, there is no “supposed to”! There is no “right”! I’m starting to understand the freedom in embracing this type of unknown. One timeline vs. another: neither one is superior, both simply different, which means my time is best spent not ruminating or panicking, but welcoming with curiosity and openness the experiences that arise as a result of life’s mysterious blend of personal agency and random chance. Here I find myself, doing this. What if I accepted my reality instead of resisting it? Could I explore its details and edges, settle in, be present, and even enjoy myself?
Easier said than done sometimes, I know, but damn it, I’m out here trying.
See you next week, and until then, let’s all throw our phones into the sea.6
♥︎ Emily
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Technically a birthday gift but let’s be real, I’m definitely gonna read it too.
The time management skills are a perpetual work in progress, okay? And yes, maybe I am part of too many book clubs and readalongs, but we don’t need to talk about that right now!
Which, incidentally, also stars Samara Weaving.
This is arguably the filmmaker’s goal, but [throws tantrum] I wanted something more satisfying!
Lead singer of Metric, forever crush, icon, queen
Does anyone else get lowkey choked up remembering pre-smartphone boredom and in-person conversation?