This is monthly muses, a roundup of the month’s song, film, words, art and various thoughts.
March film: Short Term 12
My absolute favourite sad movie of all time, Short Term 12 will leave you in emotional shambles and unable to think about anything else for days. I cannot put into words how much I love this movie but I do try to convey it in my review. It’s such a deeply human and devastating movie.
March song: Wild Dogs, Divorce! by Jordaan Mason
This entire album is brilliant beyond measure. It’s strange, it’s queer, it’s nonsensical at times, nothing is off limits, it’s indulgent, it’s just so lovely. I adore this album beyond words but specifically this song for its sharp lyrics and the fact that it makes me want to go out into the woods and scream with the instrumental swell.
Also, I just love the album cover:
March words: I recently found this blurb about the previously mentioned album by Jordaan Mason and fell in love with it so it is going to serve as this month’s words:
March art: Susan Lichtman
March thoughts:
General musings
It's been a weird month. I want to start feeding the crows I see on my walks. I think the last minute of I’m Your Man by Mitski captures an indefinable emotion and it makes me want to cry. I write in my journal:
Spring has always made me feel tender, like a bruise. I don’t know why — something about the world opening up. I don’t mind it this year.
That's right, I journal now. I’m an intellectual. My handwriting is wonky as hell but that’s okay — I think I used to write in a journal for someone to read after I was dead (rather delusional of me) but now it is firmly for myself. If I’m not careful my margins slant to the right. I inherited my mothers loopy, fraught, nearly unreadable handwriting and I love it, it gives it character. Anyways, I tape ticket stubs and terribly lit photobooth strips into the journal and it’s just wonderful.
A recommendation
I recently finished The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi and I cannot recommend it enough, especially if you want to educate yourself more on the history. It’s extremely well written and I learned a lot from it. Rashid Khalidi is a Palestinian-American historian and has deeply personal ties to the Palestinian struggle for liberation through himself and his extended family. The book is an extensive overview of the political and social aspects said struggle and is certainly worth a read.
Updates
I have been working on a piece about bodies for a while and I’ve had to put it on hold because I am Thinking Too Much About My Body lately and it’s simply terrible. I don’t know if writing about my strained (to say the least) relationship with my body brought up some unpleasantries or it was bound to happen. I have always valued objectivity in writing about personal subjects; I write the way I do about depressive episodes and harm because I am not in that place anymore. I’ve been having a hard time writing about my body because I haven’t left the view of it that I’m writing about behind, but I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that sometimes honesty takes precedence over objectivity. I will write about bodies and it will not be entirely objective because I can’t separate myself from my body like I can the years I lost to those episodes, but I promise it will be a part of me that is raw and bloody and honest. All of this is to say that I don’t know when that will see the light of day, I think I’ve still got a lot to work through, and that’s okay.
I do, however, have a few things coming up:
An essay about being bad at existing and not getting along with the world i.e anxiety in different forms, coming soon.
A review for Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda which I recently finished and it went immediately into my all time favourites list. I know I say this a lot but it’s truly the strangest book I’ve ever read and I absolutely adored it.
+ some shorter pieces of poetry scattered throughout!
Book lists for Trans Day of Visibility (March 31st):
I haven’t been reading a ton but I did read Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt this month, a horror/haunted house book written by a trans women + has a trans women as a main character and it was unbelievably good, it was one of those books that I finished and had to digest for a a while, but Rumfitt’s writing is so brilliant and sharp. If you can stomach intense body horror and upsetting themes, I’d recommend it!
March restack:
This month I am sharing this achingly wonderful post about loving your friends so deeply that it feels sacred. Reading this evoked some visceral memories in me and I just adore writing that has the ability to do that. Make sure to subscribe to
if you haven’t already!Resources for doing some good in the world and learning:
Find a protest near you - Canada
Palestine Feminist Collective Action Toolkit
That’s all for now, take care of yourself, and don’t forget to tell me what your song, book, & film of this month were! I want to know!
"I used to write in a journal for someone to read after I was dead (rather delusional of me) " I used to do this and throw in some old English in the hopes of tripping up the historians. Glad to know I'm not alone!
Loved this post, thank you for all the Palestine/Congo links 🫶🏼
Song for me — Ndokulandela by Bongeziwe Mabandla
(https://open.spotify.com/track/1kQjyyI3xZixtByFizxlXE?si=SnYfHgl6ToqriXyJeFohbA)
Book — The Colony by Audrey Magee
and movie — Perfect Days by Wim Wenders