Did you see my new stuff?

The big reveals this month were for Hannah Whitten and … myself.

Hannah was someone I met last summer at Literary Ink in Tennessee. She’s great and funny and supportive. Truly one of one, and someone I consider a friend.

Then myself. I met him in Maryland in 1986. He’s really wonderful, the best. I can’t imagine where I’d be without him.

He made these two giant pieces for Forest and Thread: A Group Textile Art Show put on by Kat Balistreri in Portland, Oregon. It’s a great show with so many cool artists.

FOG ON THE HORIZON

We talked about Baltimore Tattoo Convention and Forest & Thread.

I’ll ALSO be at Black Collar screenprinting May 3rd. Mostly selling remnants from the convention and swag - it’s literally a week after the convention.

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Then in late May, Plants Alive! in Silver Spring, MD, is hosting a two-day market the 23rd and 24th. I’ll be there with my good friend Glassyussy selling cool stuff. It should be awesome, the space is large and they have had a ton of interest.

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THEN! … thennn … I guess we’ll wait to reveal the other stuff, but late-August and early-October!

FOGJUNK has the
FOG Junk

For those of you in the know, the Stupid Girl keychains have shipped! I’m going to be so annoying about these when they drop.

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Customizable Kewpies!

These are on the site, always and forever. You can just go order one! Make it say whatever! Banners are back on the site, baby!

OBVIOUSLY LIBRARY MERCH

Thank you all SO MUCH for supporting the newest batch.

• Hoodies are totally gone.

• Crewnecks still got a little stock.

• Brown shirts were gobbled up like whoah.

• Each sweatshirt or hoodie purchase (or pre-order) is $5 to the library; already over $100 raised.

Shop it all below! I hate selling stuff during newsletters, but it is the business part of running a small business.

If your size is depleted, smash that pre-order, and do it QUICK.

🐢🎀Pre-orders close next week!🎀🐢

FOG Skincare

Whenever I don’t go to the gym, I don’t shower. When I don’t shower, I don’t do proper skincare or hydrate. I haven’t put a goop on my face since Tuesday.

FOG AOTY 2026

We are STILL(!) thirsting for a real breakout album of the year. Generally, there has been a lot of good music, but no bonafide AOTYs. Here’s what I’ve been liking.

Powerplant’s Bridge of Sacrifice. The title track sort of spells the whole shebang out.

Low-fi fantasy stuff that’s so unbothered with looking good, or sounding good, or even being good that it’s very endearing. If the harsh vocals turn you off, skip to the next track and get a load of the clean ones 🤣

One of two album’s on the prestigious Cover of the Year list.

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Sexistential by Robyn is good! No surprises there. I think Sucker for Love is an easy SOTY candidate. Maybe Talk to Me also.

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And then Neurosis with An Undying Love for a Burning World. It’s a well-crafted post-rock, post-metal, whatever kinda record - it’s a Neurosis record! Such an identifiable sound and band. Blind has a lovely, beautiful darkness in it’s middle and end. Also, just a good microcosm of the album.

**ADDENDUM**
The HOTLY awaited Angine De Poitrine record comes out today, along with a double disc Earl Sweatshiert / MIKE project. Those are two very promising leads!

And a new Sun O))) record? Things are trending up, up, UP 📈

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Uh, otherwise I’ve been listening to Born in the U.S.A. a lot. A little record that was <checks notes> the first CD ever produced for commercial release. It went triple platinum and has sold over 30 million(!) copies - seven of the ten songs were released as singles.

So, I obviously gotta ask… is this thing any good?!

It’s excellent. I haven’t listened to it years.

To paraphrase a friend, I’m Going Down is “up there with Beethoven’s Fifth.” A statement with which I agree. One of the best songs ever put to record - a good eatin’ song never hurt no one!

Whatcha Readin?

I’ve recently read Trust by Hernan Diaz. It was excellent. It won some award (Pulitzer? I barely know her!) and, yeah, deservedly so. Best modern book I’ve read in ages.

I am currently readin the first Earthsea trilogy by Ursula K. Le Guin. I absolutely devoured the first two in short, short order. Written between 1968 - 1972, they were penned as children’s / young adult books.

I gotta say, because the general caliber of writing is so far in the toilet nowadays, these books feel nuanced and wrinkled and practically Shakespearian. Well worth a return as an adult. They are just over bite-sized, and excellent.

Also of note, UKLG’s steadfast pushing of the racial and gender norms of her protagonists in a time where everything was whiter and more male-dominated than even now.

How are these books not SO MUCH MORE popular?

Persona 5 Royal is The Best

P5R (as we will be calling it) is a 10 year old game. A critical and popular classic. A behemoth. Without getting into the weeds, half of the game you are a normal high schooler; taking tests, dating, going to the park, working part-time, and everything else mundane.

You spend each day, broken into a morning-afternoon-evening cycle, allotting your time between doing things or seeing people. Your friends will be texting you constantly, begging for your precious time. It is so wholesome.

In the other half of the game, you go into an alternate reality through your cellphone, dressed as sexy leather criminals - The Phantom Thieves. You have weapons, guns, magic, and kill demons. The purpose is to change corrupt adults hearts from within. P5R is distinctly two halves.

Again, this game is a decade-old classic. It’s had numerous spin-offs and a full-blown animated adaptation. Objectively, P5R is a Good Game. It’s the exact kind of junk that you want to sit down to.

“Ooo, I want to go eat a bowl of ramen with Ryuji.”

“I need to do my [video game] laundry later, Ann wants to hang out now.”

It’s all so neat and fun… but it’s also not… at all!

The game immediately serves you up a heaping plate of Heavy Shit. The first real task you have is to change the heart of the abusive volleyball coach, who is beating some students and fucking some others. His actions drives one of your friends to jump off the school’s roof (I gasped).

Though you are high schoolers, you are very much handling adult stuff. And the game doesn’t look away from the horrible things people have to shoulder. These predicaments escalate and grow - each change of heart is a “level” to be beaten to advance - until your Phantom Thieves are hunted by the game’s FBI.

While juggling all the stuff above - the abuse, the murders, the horror of life - you also have to take mid-terms! It’s incredible and maybe a window into the push-and-pull that tears the modern human apart.

It’s a game that says so much, all of it explicitly. I have literally complained about my cellphone’s incessance in the game because it keeps me from following the threads I want to pursue. Coincidence or happenstance, it’s a reflection nonetheless.

It seems completely consequential that there is a talking cat, suffering from amnesia and wonders if it - hopefully - is human too. You spend half of the game behind and acquiring masks.

And what of the game? Like my other video game writings, I’ll say “who cares?” It’s a turn-based RPG (think, recently, Clair Obscur mixed with Stardew Valley’s relationship levels). But also much more a visual novel or life simulator at times.

But the game is the characters and their stories. I haven’t felt as genuinely into characters like this since Baldur’s Gate 3. I just want to become the best friends with all of them - most of them.

Learning each of their sadnesses is a journey and pleasure. It shows the worldly truth again and again; everyone is dealing with something.

Check it out!

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The balance P5R strikes is impossible. It’s a miracle, lightning in a bottle. The studio who made it, hasn’t even teased a sequel after a decade. It’s been clamored for, it would print money. But following up such a watershed game is seemingly too daunting a task.

So, if you have a spare hundred hours, I suggest you pick it up. It’s wonderful and an all-timer.

Lastly, and maybe most importantly, the soundtrack is incredible. Beneath the Mask has been on REPEAT over here.

Suffering!

Holy crap, quick shoutout to pollen for being a killer.

What allergy meds is everyone on?

It’s like all these Freaky Z trees are out here flying their flag and I am collateral damage.

˜”*° •New Designs• °*”˜

As promised here is a shortlist of new designs:

• “Something inside of something” (actual note, incredible stuff)

• Gun at Buc-ee’s (??????)

• Stack of skulls

• Frog Wizard

• Snail Cannon

• GaPiNg MoUtH (omg what)

• Psychic chrysanthemum

• “New School, Old School, Art School”

• Cute Rat King

You heard it here first! FOG’s got brilliant ideas.

So what do we think?

I hope you reach out and let me know what you’d like to see!

Thank you, I love you.