Little october list
Favourites by way of the five senses
Foreword
“…the dead feel that the living are very overdone. We’re very weighty. We’re very fevered.” —Diane Seuss (“Diane Seuss on Punk, Plath, and the Poetry of Rage,” Interview Magazine)
“I will cut adrift - I will sit on pavements and drink coffee — I will dream; I will take my mind out of its iron cage and let it swim — this fine October.” —Virginia Woolf (October 15, 1927 diary entry)
I chose these epigraphs because I think they are trying to teach me how to be looser, how to change like the seasons, how to let things fall away and die, rather than build up inside of me. I think I have been spending time this year quietly shedding some skins, and as winter approaches, I simply want to burrow away and mind my own business. I want to move slowly, heal my overactive nervous system, cultivate focus, stay in my lane…
It is in this spirit that I am trying on a different form and voice for my “little list” of the month. What would happen if I moved into this entry from a different angle, in a new skin, sloughing off the Internet-y/listicle girl voice that I reach for too quickly? If I reflect instead of recommend? I’m offering these favourites as prompts, as treats, as ideas to sit with, but also to discard as necessary, to move through and past. Fall is the season for collecting what we want to take with us into the dark, but also for leaving behind what we don’t need, and finding the beauty in that change.
Seeing
When I walk to campus, I see trees not yet ready to de-green. I see posters for garage sales. I see lots of people wearing Gazelles in bright colours and a spectrum of dressed-up beige cargo pants. I am wearing leather or suede, and carrying a Trader Joe’s or Muji tote bag with pins for my labour union and for Palestine. I am turning off social media and trying to heal my attention span.
I am reading a biography of Cy Twombly by the poet Joshua Rivkin, who writes about the painter’s work with an affection that is almost spiritual. Twombly’s scratchy flourishes adorn the back of my phone case, and I have a book of his paintings sitting open beside the TV. It’s the poppies, which are not my favourite of his: I prefer the fevered writing and smears of colour which feel like a soul poured out and rearranged into a riotous ballet.
I think of Ana Mendieta too—always—because I am now writing my dissertation chapter about her and Alice Munro. For the Mendieta portion, I am thinking about the ethics of witnessing that her work demands, as well as her use of stillness and pose. I think of the Siluetas series, where her arms are raised in a shape of surrender, or Rape Scene, where she lies prostrate on her front for hours. I think of her use of fire and blood—thick reds that punctuate a seemingly peaceful landscape.
At the beginning of the month, I saw John Early’s The Album Tour live at The Opera House. I’ve been a John Early fan since Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (2015) and can embarrassingly quote half of his videos with Kate Berlant from memory, not to mention scenes from Search Party. There is an uncanniness to seeing someone you’ve watched for so long through a screen actually be alive in the same room as you… so weird to be humans!
In a similar vein, I’ve been watching English Teacher, the new Disney+ show from Brian Jordan Alvarez and Stephanie Koenig (I’ve also followed them on YouTube for the better part of a decade). Whereas a lot of comedies today give one good laugh an episode, this show is full of bits and I think it’s really clever. It’s also about someone who teaches literature, so of course that gets points from me! Here are a few choice entries from the Brian and Steph canon:
^ Eight words: that baby’s face is covered in spider eggs!
Feeling
My body is exhausted for no particular reason and I’ve been on edge—a little crabby, craving time by myself or with small groups of trusted friends, drained by obligations, small talk, big talk, large crowds. September’s prolonged heatwave overextended my capacity for patience.
I am feeling my warm alpaca wool sweater against my arms; it was scratchy at first, but now it is soft (me next, please?). This evening I am writing outside at my parent’s house and I can feel the weather turning at last.
I am now putting Vitamin E, tea tree, rosewater, and niacinamide on my skin in the morning and evening, relishing changes that are subtle and slow, that require commitment to a routine or ritual. I am adding lavender, vanilla, and melatonin salts to my bath, urging myself to sleep. I am trying to remember to stretch in the morning and dance in the evening.
I am reading lots of books and films that take up loss and witnessing (albeit separately). One of my current projects has me returning to Charlotte Wells’ incredible Aftersun, and I cry from the midpoint on. As a repeat viewer, I know to anticipate the film’s turn towards loss, but I also think Wells herself is interested in this very emotional tendency: as Sophie looks back on herself as a young girl and budding filmmaker, she seems to see the urge to record as an anticipatory gesture, a desire to save a body even before she knows it will ‘need’ saving. Sometimes scholars write about witnessing in similar ways, since the witness or testimonial speaker are always trying to recreate something that is gone but their view of the past is inevitably shaded by the present. And of course, we are all witnesses to so much loss everyday as the bombs fall on Lebanon, Palestine, and Ukraine, though media attempts to intervene in how we experience that loss, or the right to grieve and be grieved.1
Hearing
I am listening to Toronto multi-instrumental artist Luna Li, whose new album When a Thought Grows Wings is the kind of music to which I want to nod my head, shake my shoulders, and sway, but would also put on in the background for a dinner party or chill night in.2 At her hometown show at the end of September, I watched her drift effortlessly between vocals, harp, violin, flute, and both electric and acoustic guitars; I imagine being so thoroughly proficient at something—in this case, music—that when you’ve mastered one side of it, you can just turn it over and master another.
During the days, I work with the window open, until the sound of leaf blowers makes me go into “I’m going to complain to my elected official!” headspace. Then I know it’s time to put on an Irene Athanasiou sound bath and get focused: after an hour or so, I always notice the tension in my body and my racing heartbeat have settled, and I can lock into my work or whatever I am doing without too much distraction. I went to a dog therapy event this week and petting a 12 year old English retriever had the same effect.
In the evenings while I cook, I put on Harmony Youngs’ Autumn playlist or this Hallowe’en screensaver with oldies on my TV.
Tasting/Smelling
If I slack off on cooking for a week and resort mostly to microwavable meals and leftovers, I notice that it affects my mood. Time to cook as interludes to my work day are essential, even if it’s something simple. I’ve recently made sandwiches with apple, sharp cheddar, pickled jalapeño, crunchy potato chips, and honey dijon. I’m making lots of ramen soups, homemade baked mac and cheese, creamy curries, and sweet potato & bean bowls. Next week, I am making this fire roasted tomato white bean parmesan soup for guests. I am replacing snacking on chocolate with slices of red pear, and dreaming about a saffron/cardamom gelato I had at the beginning of the month.
Before John Early’s set, I met my friends Winnie and Emma for dinner at The Wood Owl in East Toronto and enjoyed the roasted carrots, fried polenta, cauliflower, and squash with whipped feta. The food was lovely and so was the atmosphere. They recently received a Michelin mention (the restaurant, not Winnie and Emma :P).
Right now I want everything in my home, including me, to smell like oranges. I’m dabbing sweet orange essential oil on my neck and buying cleaning products and soaps that smell like it. Apparently it keeps away fruit flies too. I added a mandarin body oil to my routine this summer and am asking for new perfume at Christmas.
Currently:
What I’m Reading:
Witnessing: Beyond Recognition by Kelly Oliver
Still working on Rivkin’s Chalk
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (about to start)
Radical Virtuosity: Ana Mendieta and the Black Atlantic by Genevieve Hyacinth (about to start)
What I’m Watching:
Outer Banks 4
Once I am through this busy period, I am going to take myself to see The Outrun with Saorise Ronan and Megalopolis. Also waiting eagerly for All We Can Imagine as Light.
What I’m Writing:
An essay on dance and gesture in Aftersun, the seeds of which I will read at Saffron Maeve’s “Bring Me the Head Of” salon on October 22. I will work over the rest of the year to turn this into an academic article. I’m hoping to share a version of what I read as an upcoming edition of the newsletter.
Finalising a review of a new biography of the leftist Dust Bowl writer Sanora Babb.
A guest lecture on Audre Lorde for a course I am TAing.
Judith Butler’s Precarious Life is an important book on this subject, and includes a chapter on Palestine, as well as other US imperalist wars.
I keep thinking about the line on “I Would Let You” that goes: “I would trade love for respect / I would do anything to be equally addressed.”
Lovely list, lovely voice