vol. 9: the days grow short when you reach september ed.
"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." - Albert Camus
While fall hasn’t officially completed its quick turn around Quebec yet, temperatures have certainly dipped and the leaves on Mont Royal are beginning to change. Canadians have swapped their birkenstocks for blundstones and jean jackets for shackets (thank you to my sister for the amazing TikTok) and I’ve found myself deep in the demands of doctoral studies. I’m slowly figuring out what it means to be both a performer and a researcher and how to manage my physical and mental health while doing so (spoiler alert: there seems no better remedy than visiting my street’s Thursday farmer’s market to buy/discuss dahlias and zinnias and curry-maple-hazelnut sourdoughs and Quebec apples in my imperfect French).
One way my family marks the seasons is with Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur celebrations. We’ll gather and eat, go for a long walk through one of Toronto’s beautiful ravines, ending with a visit to the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, and I’ll usually make some sort of boozy honey cake or indulge in Harbord Bakery’s extremely rich, eggy apple cake to welcome in the new year. As (*quite*) secular Jews, we don’t discriminate when it comes to holidays, so I’m also looking forward to next week’s Canadian Thanksgiving turkey and *dressing* (as my American sister-in-law calls stuffing!).
Instead of a novel recommendation this month, I’m going to sing an ode to magazines, specifically the quarterly The Paris Review. I grew up with my parents receiving a new copy of The New Yorker every other week, while my older brother collected National Geographics with hopes of becoming a photographer. Over the past decade of life as an opera singer, complete with tons of travel and an artist’s ever-eternal search for inspiration, finding a magazine to read on the train/plane that helps me centre myself and connect to art and literature has been a gift.
The Paris Review has led me to poets like Maya C. Popa and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (late to the party, I know) and novelists like Emmanuel Carrère and even George Saunders, through their wonderful Art of Fiction / Art of Poetry interviews. The quarterly’s art and poetry selections completely speak to my sensibilities. After perusing recent issues, I’m excited to read Annie Ernaux’s salacious new novel/diary and check out the works of Helen Garner, another auto-fiction writer à la Carrère/Heti (it really seems to be the thing!). I’m also debating buying a print of Danielle Orchard’s cover for this season’s issue to spice up my bathroom a bit. I was very taken by her accompanying interview referencing her desire to speak to the specificity of the feminine experience. In the painting below, she expressed a wish to display sensuality as well as humour only women might detect. Where a man might see sexiness and provocation, women might notice the subject’s discomfort, meticulousness and wardrobe malfunctioning, as evidenced by her stockings’ off-centre seam and her highly manicured nether regions.
As far as breakfasts go, I’m pretty thrilled to be back in North America where one can buy canned pumpkin at almost any grocery store (while living in Europe I had to undergo an elaborate roasting/peeling/mashing process that was truly hardly worth the effort). I love throwing it into oatmeal in the morning and am looking forward to making these pancakes this weekend.
See ya for a round up of Anne of Green Gables month, October. :)