Fran Magazine: Sunday Dispatch, Jan. 28-Feb. 3

The Iron Claw and a whole lot of classical music

This is the Fran Magazine Sunday Dispatch, a weekly culture diary for for paid subscribers only. The Sunday Dispatch details what I’m watching, reading, playing, and listening to. Paid subscriptions help stabilize my career in culture writing full-time, but all readers — paid & not — are appreciated. Feel free to follow me on Instagram or Letterboxd (for free!). Thank you for reading!

Leap month

These past two spring semesters I’ve taught at 9am which requires setting the alarm for 6:30 and then setting a backup alarm for 6:39 and then another backup alarm at 6:40. If I’m lucky, I’m actually out of bed at 6:50 after reading (sans glasses, bleary-eyed) through emails and chugging a nalgene full of water. In the winter, it’s pitch dark during all of this, the sun rising closer to 7:15 when I’m actually getting ready to leave the house. This was the first week that when I got to the kitchen just after 7, my view looked like this.

It’s not the kind of light that wakes me up in the morning, but it’s a kind of light I like regardless.

It was an abnormally busy week: school kicked into gear, I had back-to-back nights of live performances, a lot of writing to get done. Just as I was ready to log off for the day on Friday, I learned that one of my longtime freelance clients was temporarily, but also maybe permanently, laying me off, which really goes to show that you ought not walk around saying, surely I can’t be laid of a third February in a row. And yet—! At this point, you almost have to laugh. I went insane for a little, and then I had a martini, and then I still felt insane, and then I got on with everything. I’ve fallen behind on my reading, and if nothing else, it’s good to have some time back to work on that and hope and work to make sure the other pieces all fall into place.

This week I watched The Iron Claw, finished a YA reread, saw two live classical performances, and wrote a lot. More on all below.