James

Seconds before falling asleep my toddler looked at me and said “don’t let it get you daddy” as if I didn’t have enough on my plate already

The nice thing about owning my own bookstore is that I can just set Green Arrow by Yo La Tengo to loop for as long as I want. The bad thing about owning a bookstore is that I think it makes me part of the petite bourgeoisie and I’ll have to give myself the guillotine in the end

Let’s see I’ve got the plot, the setting, the characters, the voice… so all that’s left is to say something beautiful and true!

[document last opened 9/5/25]

They were, obviously, heartbroken about it

Every time I sell a copy of Giovanni’s Room to someone I tell them “come back if you need to talk about it” and today was the first time that someone actually did!!

Wearing a really cool jacket today, but it turns out that my meeting was more of a blazers kind of thing

The people that I get along best with are the ones who had their lives changed by these five seconds in the 2000s, even if we’ve never talked about it. You can just sense it in certain people.

We’re starting a poetry book club at the store where there will be no outside reading required—you show up, we read a poem together, and then talk about it—but my knowledge of contemporary poetry basically stops at the pandemic. Who are we reading now?

11 hour solo shift at the bookstore today. Used the toddler’s blue bubblegum flavored toothpaste as a little treat before bed. I deserve it.

And then you turn the page, and descend into 400 pages of war.

Absolute gut punch. I was already a Vollmann true believer, but that’s real GOAT stuff

At the halfway point of Fathers and Crows, there is a brief section about a Jesuit missionary who embraced the the native population with love and converted 4k people single-handedly. The chapter ends with “it could have been done this way in Canada. It could have been done.”

I fear that the Soviet Union really gave everyone unrealistic expectations for the collapse of empire. There’s every chance that America fizzles out over the course of literal centuries

ice aren’t cops but they are bastards in their own right

It’s demoralizing and dehumanizing to see posts cheering on the jackboots and justifying street executions, so please try remember that by some estimates as much half of all internet traffic is just bots talking to each other. Lotta good people out there, too.

Day two with a cold

Elisa Shua Dusapin Is The Real Deal | Defector Every so often, an obvious talent will suddenly appear from nowhere. The initial instinct, among critics, is to indicate this event as an event via a rush of comparisons. One such case was that of…

Elisa Shua Dusapin is the real deal: defector.com/elisa-shua-d...

Elisa Shua Dusapin Is The Real Deal | Defector Every so often, an obvious talent will suddenly appear from nowhere. The initial instinct, among critics, is to indicate this event as an event via a rush of comparisons. One such case was that of Eli...

“The Old Fire is a masterpiece of restraint. A book that deals in sensitive subjects, but eschews void-gazing and bloodletting to craft a truly unique approach to grief and trauma, even in the moments when actual blood is involved.”

Wrote about Dusapin in Defector!!!

defector.com/elisa-shua-d...

Had the thought that I could really use a “reader’s retreat” like a writer’s retreat but for reading books and then I realized I had invented the concept of vacations

I understand it in the context of the 2010s but if people are going to keep calling things “alt lit” I would really like to know what, exactly, it is an alternative to

The Devil: I am prepared to offer you a Faustian bargain….

Faust: I’m sure it’s fine that you’re calling it that

Customer at the bookstore wanted a copy of The Art of War and I told him that we don’t have it, but I could order it if he was okay waiting a few days, and he said “no thanks… I need it for later today” ???

Booked a sort of marketing/creative consulting meeting, and I think I would like to do that for more writers/small presses/etc. if anyone else trusts my tastes and sensibilities enough.

Plus, I can’t grow a good beard so I promise not to do any Rick Rubin hack shit.

Using the Lion King to explain to my toddler that not only will daddy die one day, but that’s also exactly how it is going to happen

Excellent footnote

My wife’s master’s degree is in international relations and I want you to imagine her with cigarettes between every single one of her fingers

In Hopscotch, near the start of part two, Cortazar uses a “sic” in the omniscient narration to point out that a character has used a word incorrectly, and I am yelling about it like it’s sports!! Can he do that??? Ref???

I love it that IKEA sometimes gives you extra parts and gives no indication of it. They want you to doubt.

Now that the hype is dying down, I’ll finally celebrate Christmas

And a very merry “—Merry Christmas! the man threatened” to all my fellow brodernists

I am not a very good Catholic because I only go to mass on the major holidays and also I was raised and confirmed as a Presbyterian