Birthday blessings

Sylvia Safdie: TERRA at the National Gallery of Canada

A perfect exhibit for Taurus season. I was instantly drawn to Safdie's meticulously organized piles of rocks, sand, and other earthly ephemera but what kept me rooted in place was her Earth Marks series, painted in linseed oil and raw earth.

The Book Barn

Outside of Wingham, Ontario you can drive down a dirt road and arrive at a giant barn filled to the rafters with used books. I spent hours amid the stacks on a random weekday without seeing another soul. A pilgrimage to a holy place.

Industry

A perfect television show! Also a reminder that watching something popular and acclaimed months after the hype dies down can be extremely gratifying.

Stoner (John Williams) and Postcards (Annie Proulx)

Depressing, beautiful novels about gnarled familial roots, thwarted ambition, and punishing environments. Indulge me in sharing a particularly devastating passage that will haunt me forever, in which the titular protagonist of Stoner reflects on the end of his parents' life:

"He thought of the cost exacted, year after year, by the soil; and it remained as it had been—a little more barren, perhaps, a little more frugal of increase. Nothing had changed. Their lives had been expended in cheerless labor, their wills broken, their intelligences numbed. Now they were in the earth to which they had given their lives; and slowly, year by year, the earth would take them. Slowly the damp and rot would infest the pine boxes which held their bodies, and slowly it would touch their flesh, and finally it would consume the last vestiges of their substances. And they would become a meaningless part of that stubborn earth to which they had long ago given themselves."

Learning to sew/quilt

My beautiful friend Jac taught me a new skill! Below is my modest first attempt, and the ultimate inspiration, Tracey Emin.

Trash pick-up

On a sunny Saturday morning I joined my neighbours and spent hours cleaning our streets of the detritus that had accumulated over the winter. You can organize or learn of planned clean-ups through local éco-quartiers here if you're in Montreal. In the absence of competent municipal administration, we keep us safe and clean.

Making the "Wisconsin Old Fashioned" from Shadow Ticket

I'll do whatever Thomas Pynchon tells me to do, even if it involves brandy.

Morality corner

"Surely it would be better if our form of life more reliably rewarded virtue, but when it comes to ethical life, facing hard choices between the dear self’s preferences and the sacrifices entailed by doing the right thing is, as they say, a feature not a bug." On the whole Jia Tolentino discourse (eye roll), but also more broadly on the possibilities of living an ethical life. See also: this Malcolm Harris essay I still think about often.

Two good snacks

Bonus: Velvet Couch IRL

I will be selling some books on Sunday, May 17! Come by and say hello.