21 Comments

Can confirm I'm really enjoying the Evangelion discussion. Also your perfume writing helped me do some Christmas shopping which is maybe not what it's for but thanks anyway haha.

Expand full comment

I hope your loved ones like your purchases!

Expand full comment

Hi BD - I help nonfiction authors improve their book proposals for a living. If you'd like some feedback on your rough draft / partial draft (pro bono), let me know. - Will

Expand full comment

I really appreciate this! I'm working with an agent so I think it's in pretty good shape—but if I want your eyes on it I'll absolutely email you. Thank you!

Expand full comment

I know you said you won’t be tamed, but just in case, please write about old movies people don’t care about! Those are my favorite posts.

Expand full comment

don't worry, we'll press ever onward… also to be fair to both of the posts in question, they're partly the least read because they come at the beginning of the year I think. if I wanted to know what the least read post was in some more meaningful sense I'd have to like adjust for differences in overall subscriber count etc… i'm not doing all that but perhaps The People have been maligned

Expand full comment

love the Eva posts. one of my fave critics Willow Catelyn Maclay did a similar Eva watch through a few years ago and it's been fun to read yours and experience that from a different perspective. I really like series like this from writers I like, so when you finish Eva doing it for something else could be fun!

https://mubi.com/en/notebook/posts/author/533 here was her series if you're interested

Expand full comment

oh wow I am interested! (also finding it kind of funny that we have such similar last names… the M(c/a)clays long for Eva) I might save it to read for a bit but that's so cool.

I think after the ten remaining episodes + the movie + the manga if we do it + the rebuild movies + some inevitable couple weeks I miss, Eva won't be finished until maybe summer of next year? So there's a lot of time. The obvious other candidate is Utena but that show is longer than Eva.

Expand full comment

You will sell your book! I’m reading Princess of 72nd Street now and want to read your review after I finish

Expand full comment

it's a good book! it feels very doomed to be revived to me… like in fifteen years somebody will be reviving it again… but that's not a flaw exactly

Expand full comment

[dramatically raising hand from the middle of the crowd] I will read the posts on old movies The People don't care about

Expand full comment

trying to decide what's the oldest movie nobody cares about i could plausibly write on

Expand full comment

I vote for Me and My Gal (1932)

Expand full comment

If I'm nobody it's Busby Berkeley's Wunderjahr: 42nd Street, Footlight Parade, Gold Diggers of 1933, Dames, and Fashions of 1934

Expand full comment

Would definitely read this post. Gene Kelly’s least charming role?

Expand full comment

As a professional Numbers Guy, I always enjoy these posts. Kudos on a good year.

Expand full comment

thank you! I like looking at other people's numbers myself, I just find it hard not to take the moment-to-moment numbers fluctuation personally… like if my subscriber count goes down by one i'm like nooooooo what did i doooo… so until I learn how to view it differently I just try not to look.

Expand full comment

you should be really proud of all that you did this year!! i’ve been saving all your evangelion posts for a moment where i can hopefully watch it for the first time in the new year 😇

Expand full comment

lol I hope you'll like it! I think the series will probably keep going into the summer before it's over because after the show there are still four movies I think… and the manga. so lots of time to join in. we're just hitting the part of the tv show where things get CRAZY now

Expand full comment

I can usually already tell the evangelion posts from the subject line, and I don’t even know what evangelion IS. And I ain’t about to find out.

Expand full comment

hahahaha—that's the path of wisdom!

Expand full comment