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Martin Seay@martinseay.bsky.social |
80 followers 97 following 134 posts
Author of The Mirror Thief (Melville House 2016). Suspicious of brevity.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Let’s see how epiphyllum oxypetalum content does on Bluesky. Thanks as always to @chutson99.bsky.social for giving @kathleenmrooney.bsky.social & me the cutting from whence he grew!
1 replies 2 reposts 12 likes
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Kathleen Rooney
@kathleenmrooney.bsky.social
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"Beefcake"
a typewriter poem
by yours truly
from the University of Chicago!
poemswhileyouwait.tumblr.com/post/7539922...
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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guess who’s here
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Elizabeth Niarchos Neukirch
@ejneukirch.bsky.social
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Happy to support incredible indy publisher @rosemetalpress.bsky.social and their authors! 📚✨️
1 replies 3 reposts 7 likes
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March Xness
@marchxness.bsky.social
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CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL SCORE Amerie / Sejal Shah 631, LCD Soundsystem / @katecarmody8.bsky.social 587! We congratulate the victor and made a little video to celebrate you can see here: marchxness.com/thegames#/da...
0 replies 2 reposts 6 likes
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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With under 2 hrs to go, this is currently a 60-point game in Amerie's favor. LCD fans, now's the time to weigh in if you haven't cast your @marchxness.bsky.social vote already.
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Robert Loerzel
@robertloerzel.bsky.social
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Birdsong, made visible in cold morning air.
1 replies 20 reposts 84 likes
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Erin Keane
@erinkeane.bsky.social
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You’ve lost your edge and that’s OK. Let’s go LCD Soundsystem fans: marchxness.com/danceness-ch...
1 replies 1 reposts 1 likes
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March Xness
@marchxness.bsky.social
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Here we go. The March Danceness CHAMPIONSHIP game tips off now. It's LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends," essayed by @katecarmody8.bsky.social vs Amerie's "1 Thing" essayed by @sejalshahwrites.bsky.social. Read, listen, vote by 9am 3/30: marchxness.com/thegames#/da...
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March Xness
@marchxness.bsky.social
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Here we go, tipping off the FINAL FOUR. Who ya got? Ke$ha and @jnicholasgeist.bsky.social or LCD Soundsystem & @katecarmody8.bsky.social? Amerie & @sejalshahwrites.bsky.social or Destiny's Child & Avery Ferin? /// READ, LISTEN, VOTE by 9am 3/28 at marchxness.com
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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My @marchxness.bsky.social vote goes to "Herre" over "TiK ToK" for the very reasons the essays lay out. Nelly's song is big-hearted, well-made, playful, ambitious in its goofiness. "ToK" is cynical: less crafted than calculated, expecting little of its singer & less of its audience. Vote!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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I particularly dig how @jnicholasgeist.bsky.social depicts falling down the @marchxness.bsky.social research hole to humorous & broadly emotional effect. & @kjmoulton.bsky.social's essay about problems confronting the builders of bridges keeps finding ways to go deeper & to do more. Both bangers.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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So Nelly has some work to do to catch Kesha—but this @marchxness.bsky.social match is FAR from over. It's a good chance to revisit 2 of the most impressive essays in the bracket!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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This deep into @marchxness.bsky.social the choices get tough. Like I just listened to "Danger" & "Thing" again & noticed that they're within a few seconds of being the same length. I would have sworn "Thing" is longer, but in fact it's a little shorter. Hm. I voted "Danger."
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Here's a matchup between 2 songs—both pretty great!—that I didn't really know pre-@marchxness.bsky.social, paired w/ 2 of the most formally WTF essays—also great!—by @sejalshahwrites.bsky.social & @Andrea Panzeca. Read 'em both!
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chris hutson
@chutson99.bsky.social
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green onions is a great name for that song. It sounds like green onions
0 replies 5 reposts 23 likes
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March Xness
@marchxness.bsky.social
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ELITE 8 HALFTIME SCORES
Amerie 206, Electric Six 108
Ke$ha 210, Nelly 155
Lots of game left! Read, listen, vote by 9am 3/26 at marchxness.com
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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What it does—to borrow a line from a dance hit from an earlier decade—is take those lies & make them true somehow. That's a little miracle in a mostly discouraging era. "Ladies" may not go home w/ the @marchxness.bsky.social trophy this year, but I'd like to praise it for that, at least.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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"Single Ladies" is a performative utterance in ways that are unique in @marchxness.bsky.social. By calling out the DJ's move, it exposes & cancels the coercion, &—best of all—it turns the coercive moment into what it ostensibly was in the first place: a celebration of single ladies' agency.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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But I WILL bend your @marchxness.bsky.social ear about "Ladies" for a second. Consider the moment it describes—ostensibly empowering but coercive in practice—when a DJ asks the unattached women in the club to make themselves known & available to be hit on w/ maximum efficiency.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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If somehow you have not yet read the @marchxness.bsky.social essays by Hea-Ream & Avery, please do; both honor their respective songs as arguments as well as, y'know, bangers. Vote for your favorite! I ain't tellin' y'all what to do here.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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The @marchxness.bsky.social bracket is full of songs that are infectious & expressive, & several that want you to literally DO something ("5 hops this time!"), but only 2 (I think) that deploy their full rhetorical potential. Both feature Beyoncé. One cannot advance.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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My @marchxness.bsky.social vote's going to "Friends," which has a bit more going on: more sarcastic than ironic, more self-critical than self-conscious, playing for higher stakes. Also, again: "This is the drugs stopping myself from stopping myself from dancing." SO DANCENESS.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Choices get painful in the @marchxness.bsky.social Elite 8, y'all. @erinkeane.bsky.social & @katecarmody8.bsky.social have written evenly-matched banger essays, & these are both great songs, swimming at the same confluence of dancer & hipster. Tough call!
0 replies 2 reposts 1 likes
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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& on this @marchxness.bsky.social Sweet 16 re-WATCH, what struck me in the "Club" video is the damn yellow legal pad. Love it!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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On this @marchxness.bsky.social Sweet 16 reread, I really enjoyed @kjmoulton.bsky.social's juxtaposition of Eliot & Nelly: both ridiculous & smart—much like "Herre" itself—& a great way to make the case for Midwestern high-horse descending. (Also: "People can relate to the *process* of the club"!)
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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I really like @dfsingleton.bsky.social's "Club" essay—esp its attention to the 1ST TIME we hear something, which seems important to the experience of a lot of these @marchxness.bsky.social songs—but I'm sticking w/ Nelly & @kjmoulton.bsky.social here. "Herre"'s got a bit more too-muchness!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Neither of today's @marchxness.bsky.social matches is especially close, w/ "1 Thing" extending its dominant run. It's a good song! Might be the last appearance for Andrea essay on "Yeah!"—& how its ubiquity unmoors it in time—so be sure to catch it!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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No sleep for you tonight!
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March Xness
@marchxness.bsky.social
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SWEET 16 HALFTIME SCORES
Electric Six 90, No Doubt 71
Ke$ha 104, Sophie Ellis-Bextor 71
Plenty of game left here. Read, listen, vote by 9am 3/21 at marchxness.com
0 replies 1 reposts 2 likes
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Oh hey, @marchxness.bsky.social gang, y'all have heard this, right? (I thought about writing about it for Faxness, but then I thought: oof.)
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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I continue to dig how the funny bits of @jnicholasgeist.bsky.social's @marchxness.bsky.social essay make the affecting bits more affecting, & to dig Luuk's linkage of "Murder" to a specific adolescent memory—which reminds me of the ferry in Duras' THE LOVER? But, y'know, more danceable?
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Kesha's up, but Sophie tends to make moves after dawn's rosy fingers brush Europe, so keep an eye on this one. "TiK ToK" is pernicious & "Murder" is growing on me, so that's how I'm voting—but don't miss either
@marchxness.bsky.social essay!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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"Danger" has been a good @marchxness.bsky.social rediscovery for me; I barely registered it back in the day, & I appreciate it's Ballroom Blitz / Rocky Horror energy. And I'd totally forgotten how "Hella" goes disco in the bridge! Nice touch! Vote vote vote!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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The east half of my @marchxness.bsky.social bracket is 100% wrecked—so liberating!—so I have no horses in today's matches. How to vote here? Read Kelly's & Andrea's essays: very different & both great. "Hella's" dancier—yet I'm leaning "Danger"? CHAOS!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Obviously don't miss Danielle's very smart & funny @marchxness.bsky.social essay on "Bad Romance," including the irresolvable simultaneity of "free" & "freak"—not a pun but an aporia, in keeping w/ this song's (improbably successful!) attempt to do All The Things.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Plus it has the @marchxness.bsky.social misfortune to be up against the "Bohemian Rhapsody"-level WTF-ness of "Bad Romance." I mean good lord. There are musicians—successful ones—who don't have as many ideas in their whole careers as we hear in "BR"'s 5-min runtime. & then there's the video!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Gaga's pulling away in this @marchxness.bsky.social match: probably also the right outcome. "BL" is great, obvs, but its rhetorical achievement—glossed impressively by Avery Ferin—is kind of a practice run for a still greater achievement in "Single Ladies"?
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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I've often wondered (& @marchxness.bsky.social & @katecarmody8.bsky.social's essay reminded me to check) whether the 1975 has acknowledged that "Sex" clearly began as an attempt to cover "Friends"—which led me to Matty Healy calling "Friends" "the cool guys' 'Mr. Brightside.'" IT'S ALL CONNECTED.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Looks like LCD is pulling away—& that's the right outcome, but don't miss @ashiepants.bsky.social's @marchxness.bsky.social essay on "Dirrty" & growth via doing bad things, which gets better the more I think about it. @katecarmody8.bsky.social's on LCD & blooming late is also fantastic!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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I've been thinking during @marchxness.bsky.social about how an earworm can result not just from a melodic hook but from a singer's surprising pronunciation or intonation of a word, like "kiss" in "Danger" & "fur" in "Low" (which you should vote for):
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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That would also be a good song potentially
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Mark Butler
@stereolad.bsky.social
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Ooof. I don’t love either of these songs, but guess what? I’m absolutely enthralled by both of these essays. This might be the championship match, played early… unfairly. You will pick a winner but only if you vote!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Y'all know how I'm votin', but if you still haven't gotten to
Sara's and Hea-Ream's essays, don't miss 'em. They're a great pairing: big moods & big ideas navigated w/ the right amount of grace & control—i.e. plenty, but not TOO much. Both are @marchxness.bsky.social high points!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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You've heard it a million times, @marchxness.bsky.social gang—but listen to "Single Ladies" again. This arrangement is insanely good. The low piano stab at 0:42, panned left? That repeats balanced in both channels? Setting up the entrance of the synth bass? SO GREAT.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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I particularly dig the way she sneaks up on 2P by way of the subjunctive ("You should only continue reading if...") which seems very immediate & conversational. At some point I'll have to revisit all this year's 2nd-person @marchxness.bsky.social essays. Not tonight! Vote vote vote!
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Read both essays for sure! All @erinkeane.bsky.social's well-chosen associations & details—Zinner's keyboard sound etc.!—keep sending me down rabbit-holes, so to speak... & while there've been a bunch of good 2nd-person essays in @marchxness.bsky.social this year, I think Caro's is my fave.
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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Both of these songs are great: "Low" b/c it's deeply committed to the bit, "Off" b/c it's not. The YYYs have lots of ideas; it's not clear that Flo does, so he's ALL IN on this one. The YYYs are cool. Dancing is many things, but it's not cool. My @marchxness.bsky.social vote is for "Low."
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Martin Seay
@martinseay.bsky.social
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A close match, & a real clash of the titans. I've been thinking of @angermonsoon.bsky.social's essay & the idea that "to write a great dance song you must love the song more than its subject" & commit to the bit. Very applicable in the @marchxness.bsky.social Sweet 16!
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March Xness
@marchxness.bsky.social
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SWEET 16 HALFTIME SCORES
Beyoncé 99, Shakira 50
Yeah Yeah Yeahs 130, Flo Rida 128
Bey's looking strong so far but the other match is TIGHT. Read, listen, vote by 9am 3/19 at marchxness.com
0 replies 1 reposts 3 likes