Well, here we are, slip-sliding into 2025, a sci-fi-sounding year if there ever was one (I'll save you the research; such luminaries as Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and Zardoz are set in 2025. More thrillingly, so is Pacific Rim). What have you been reading during the in-between spaces of major American holidays? I'm conducting what I call Vibes Research for a manuscript I plan to complete this year, which entails stacks of borderline-supernatural thrillers, weird women's fiction, and historical oddities. My inaugural 2025 read is the buzzy The God of the Woods; also dipping into And Your Daughters Shall Prophesy, which is self-assigned homework for a workshop I'm taking. I encountered another book by the latter's author in a local coffee shop, read it and didn't enjoy it, and I'll be honest that—in the midst of this book—I'm glad the author only has two books.

What have you been watching? I'll spend all day watching movies, and I especially love a double feature. When it comes to an in-theater double feature, I prefer when the films have something to say to one another, which is why I think a viral "Glicked" moment didn't transpire (though at the same time, it's hard to imagine that two ruminations on spectacle and empire didn't have something to say to each other. Did they? No iteration of Wicked is interesting to me) (sorry to one of Albany’s proudest sons). For Christmas I did indeed get what I wanted, which was seeing Babygirl and Nosferatu on the same day. They make sense together off the cuff, two movies for horny weirdos who like art films—but paired, they're mirrors positioned so as to reflect the same image eternally.

Obviously, at core both movies are about female desire, with Nicole Kidman and Lily Rose-Depp delivering gutsy performances. Yet that gutsiness is transfigured, as sugar transfigures black tea, by the characters' desperate grasp toward normalcy. Marriage quells Ellen Hutter's darkest impulses... as well, it's implied, as her innate otherworldly powers. She might believe normie husband Thomas can save her from perversity and damnation—but of course, ultimately it’s her own monstrous desire that saves the world instead. Babygirl’s Romy Mathis finds something unexpected in her affair with the intern: her unusual lusts aren’t exorcised:: she isn’t made normal, but rather enters a space wherein trust between two people dissolves normalcy’s necessity and power.

Good stuff! We love the movies, folks!! I recently set up a Letterboxd; join me as I attempt to remember every movie I’ve ever seen.

And now for the rest of the link jungle:

• A few years back I started doing a "two great flavors that taste great together" round-up of books and albums at year's end. This was previously on Instagram, but for 2024 I put it on Bluesky, which makes it easier to share. Spots to find me for more book and music stuff specifically: StoryGraph and Bandcamp.

• Speaking of round-ups, the year in writing reviewed on my website.

• Exciting news for the first part of 2025: if you're in central Florida, I'd love to see you in February... at the 2025 ReadOUT conference! I'll be participating in the "Queer Art as Resistance" panel, signing, and hawking stuff. Come hang.

• Finally, our December subscriber winner: Pauline! I’ll be emailing you directly for your shipping address. I appreciate you being here (all of you).