October
When someone tells me that they’ve listened to an album I wrote about on here, or added a book or movie to their list, I feel embarrassingly sentimental. It is the greatest proof that something I loved reached someone I love. Last month a friend let me know she listened to Men I Trust on her way to Vancouver from Whistler, and I was transported back to a road trip we had taken through that highway many years ago. Exchanging recommendations has always been its own little language; a way of taking a guess to try and say, I think I do see you.
In October I got to visit my favourite people on the island, decorate our home for Halloween, go to events that reminded me of the (often hidden) coolness in this city. Neighbourhood walks, burger dates, matching tattoos. Last week I got to celebrate a dear friend’s PhD achievement a few hours after landing a cool gig of my own. It has all been a reminder that joy feels so much bigger when shared. The hard stuff gets easier in good company too, though that lesson always comes a bit slower. I’m cooking, I’m crafting, I’m excited about trying again.
Book Recommendation: We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle follows sisters Merricat and Constance Blackwood, who live in isolation after much of their family passes under mysterious circumstances. The townspeople accuse the sisters and the two become outcasts, spending their days inside their decaying estate where time seems to stand still. One day their cousin Charles arrives, and his intrusion unravels the delicate world the two have built.
This book is a mandatory annual re-read for me. Shirley Jackson had this way of capturing gothic horror in a way that is unsettling yet still gentle. Merricat and Constance are trapped in their rotting sanctuary, but they’ve chosen each other. It feels like isolation turned almost into something sacred.
Sometimes I thought of the drawing room and the dining room, forever closed away, with our mother’s lovely broken things lying scattered, and the dust sifting gently down to cover them; we had new landmarks in the house, just as we had a new pattern for our days. The crooked, broken-off fragment which was all that was left of our lovely stairway was something we passed every day and came to know as intimately as we had once known the stairs themselves. The boards across the kitchen windows were ours, and part of our house, and we loved them. We were very happy, although Constance was always in terror lest one of our two cups should break, and one of us have to use a cup without a handle. We had our well-known and familiar places: our chairs at the table, and our beds, and our places beside the front door.
Honourable mentions: Palm Meridian by Grace Flahive, Uncanny Valley Girls by Zephyr Lisowski, Dog Poems by Mary Oliver
Movie Recommendation: Hereditary by Ari Aster
Perhaps what first sent me down the A24-to-Letterboxd pipeline, Ari Aster’s debut film Hereditary has also become its own annual ritual. The movie opens with a family grieving the loss of their mysterious matriarch and quickly descends into something so much darker. It is a portrait of how loss becomes an exploration of inheritance, and the lengths we go to hold onto loved ones. Toni Collette is one of my favourite actresses, and here she is an absolute star; unflinching and feral as a mother led to madness through her grief.
The movie also marked the moment I knew I’d have to start following whatever fucked up story Ari Aster came up with next. It’s a five-star viewing for me every time, but not one to recommend lightly. I still get scared to watch it alone, and two separate attempts over the years have confirmed that it might not be the ideal date movie. Who could have guessed?
Honourable mentions: But I’m a Cheerleader by Jamie Babbit, Janet Planet by Annie Baker, The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof
Music Recommendation: The BPM by Sudan Archives
Thank goodness for William: my oldest pal, the first person I ever felt comfortable in my queerness with, and, unsurprisingly, also a fellow music aficionado. It’s been the thread connecting us for 18 years now, through adolescence and long distance adulthood (and okay, also, we’ve now known each other as long as it takes to grow a fully formed adult human… this is horrifying).
Most recently he recommended that I check out Sudan Archives, and it changed my life a bit. It may be dramatic to start a music recommendation this way, but if you’ve been here before you know I take literally everything to heart. Through these seemingly innocuous exchanges, I think we develop the ability to build each other into versions we might not have found alone. Is that not what this whole thing is supposed to be about?
Sudan Archives is Brittney Parks, a violinist, producer, and self-taught genre-bender. Layering her violin over gritty house beats and glitchy electronics, she crafts a sound that pulses with vulnerability and risk. In an interview with NME, Parks connects the personal with the historical:
My passion is to make the connection between all these traditional violins and how they stem from Black roots. It’s not just highbrow, white, classical music. It’s a very Black instrument. People danced to the fiddle long before house or techno existed. I’m reclaiming it as dance music.
The result is a record that feels inventive. The BPM found me at exactly the right time, snapping me out of impending musical boredom. My standout tracks are “DEAD” (the video’s worth checking out to get a full experience of her aesthetic) and “A BUG’S LIFE”. I was sitting on a bench in a new-to-me park listening to this album when I got news of my job, and now Sudan Archives will forever be part of that moment.
Honourable mentions: Burn Your Fire for No Witness by Angel Olsen, Madra by NewDad, The Art of Loving by Olivia Dean
Other Favourites:
Hayley Williams rightfully telling Morgan Wallen “find me at Whole Foods, bitch”
The way these guys never miss wishing me this every year!:
Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This being shortlisted for the National Book Award; probably the most important book you could read this year (I had the privilege of seeing him speak back in March)
Every so often I rewatch Schitt’s Creek from the point where Patrick shows up just to feel something, and their first kiss is forever one of my favourite moments
Thanks to a recommendation in the wild, I’ve been very into junk journaling lately! It’s turned into my own catharsis, and an excellent way of getting creative energy out while attempting to be okay with imperfections
Mary Oliver’s poem “Little Dog’s Rhapsody in the Night”; I can’t stop thinking about the line “he gets to ask, I get to tell”
Olivia Dean’s incredible COLORS SHOW performance of “A Couple Minutes”
Love of my life Eva Victor describing her favourite activity: “all I do with my best friends is we smoke weed, we sit on the grass, and we talk about every single thing we’re thinking, every single person we know” — it reminds me of the few times I get to be with Raven (like earlier this month), and how lucky I am to feel the greatest gift of being limitless with a best friend
See you next time,
Sabrina