on changing seasons, physical media & ephemera

+ a media recap

Something about the seasons changing makes me feel like time is slipping away. Especially in this city, when the weather is always a step ahead of me, there’s so little time to get situated before the seasons change again. It’s a welcome pattern though, it reminds me that there’s a force constantly propelling us forward, no two days are ever the same.

Recently, I’ve found myself desperately wanting to build my own little collections of physical media. DVDs, CDs, vinyls, stamps, books, posters, you name it. The decluttering YouTube videos that my mom plays day in and day out urged me to abandon my physical possessions to create space in my mind. Our homes, our rooms are a reflection of what’s happening in our head, they’d say. The emptier and cleaner, the more we’re able to optimize our lives.

But I’m really tired of treating my life as a thing to be optimized. Feeling like I have to keep adding new features or streamline my day-to-day processes in order to earn this life I live.

A few months ago, we sorted through all of our stuff in the basement before my brother’s wedding. I spent time poring over little artifacts from my childhood: art projects, journal entries, photos, report cards. It’s a privilege to even have them at all. I felt grateful to have a sea of items to wade through that remind me of all the little versions of myself. I felt pangs of regret for all the missteps that I tortured myself over, the ages when it felt like the entire world was crushing my chest. I felt pride for how big little jeevan thought, her hopes and dreams so tender and real and true.

I’ve been reading a lot about how can get lost and altered in online archives, too (There’s a lot of power in archives, there’s a lot of violence in them, too. That’s a piece for another day). Shots from a film cropped significantly, skewed colour grading, censored documents and more. And that’s not even including all the things that don’t make it into digital archives at all.

Growing up in the digital age, we were cautioned that the internet was forever. Anything captured on the internet good or bad, will come back to haunt you. But I forgot just how fallible the internet is. Digital media isn’t perfectly crystallized, few things are, I suppose. That scares me more than I can articulate.

There’s nothing novel or revolutionary about wanting to collect things. Over the years I’ve donated or thrown away things I’d kill to have now because I had no purpose for them. But I realize now that the memories they hold was the whole point of having them in the first place.

I hope when I’m grey and flipping through the collection of things I accumulated in my 20s that I have an archive full of letters and books and films and albums that made me feel. Objects that remind me of a full life—messy, painful, loving and everything in between. I can only hope it’s a cluttered life that I’ll be grateful for.

media lately

Reads 📚

“Communion” by bell hooks
Yeah, yeah, yeah the most annoying girl you know just read communion. A really interesting look at dating in the modern age. Holds up really well and anytime I read something by bell hooks I’m taken by how strikingly direct she is with her ideas. Appreciated hooks’ thoughts on building a loving life that’s multi-pronged and doesn’t directly rely on romantic partnership to achieve that.

“coexistence” by Billy-Ray Belcourt
This book really got me out of my fiction slump. The prose is truly gorgeous and provides intersecting portraits of Indigenous love, longing and loneliness through short stories. Belcourt imbues this text with so much tenderness and care. I return to it often, definitely worth adding to your library.

“The Diddy Discourse Has Lost The Plot” by Craig Jenkins (Vulture)
There is so much to say about Diddy’s reconking. I can’t help but think of the strength of the survivors, and how the music industry failed to protect them. People who speak out about facing sexualized violence are so seldom believed and conversations around power and the abuse of it can often take an unsettling shape in the public consciousness. This piece by culture critic Craig Jenkins unpacked the curiosity around the scope of Diddy’s evil and how by fixating on scandalized conspiracy theories, we do a disservice to the survivors who face so much in coming forward.

Listens 🎧

Charm by Clairo
I instantly fell in love with this album. Such a lovely project, delicate and fluttery but grounded with a quiet confidence. It’s such a gentle way to explore desirability and solitude. Perfect listening for a slow Sunday morning, or main character walks in the city. Fav tracks: Nomad, Slow Dance, Sexy to Someone

TIMELESS by KAYTRANADA
Okay so this project I don’t think has received the love it deserves. KAYTRANADA is one of those artists that I love to watch morph and melt into his artistry with each project. His collaborations are so thoughtful, designed to bring the best out of the artists he worked with, or tap into energy they haven’t often expressed elsewhere. To me this project felt a bit like a playground, trying out things he hasn’t always thought would work before. Maybe not always as punchy and bold, but fun nonetheless. Fav tracks: Pressure, Hold On (feat. Dawn Richard), Witchy (feat. Childish Gambino), Do 2 Me (feat. Anderson .Paak & SiR)

Bird’s Eye by Ravyn Lenae
I’m very new to Ravyn Lenae’s discography. This album runs the gamut, it has the mellower straight R&B tracks, a reggae-inspired track, some soft rock and more. It was so refreshing to hear all that in one project (similar to how I felt when I listened to AP Dhillon’s latest EP). Fav tracks: One Wish (feat. Childish Gambino), Dream Girl (with Ty Dolla Sign), Love Me Not

Watches 🍿

Industry (HBO)
Probably one of the most batshit crazy shows I’ve ever seen but I can’t keep watching. Set in the world of investing banking, it follows a set of recent grads at Pierpont & Co. who are desperate to climb the corporate ladder. It’s a really interesting look at corporate greed, and how vacuous and sinister the pursuit of power for power’s sake can be. The episode on trader Rishi Ramdani (played skillfully by Sagar Radia) is one of my favourites. It’s a very on-the-nose Get Out-esque look at respectability politics and internalized racism for South Asians in the UK. Like I said, Industry is certainly batshit crazy, but at times just so thrilling to watch despite having little knowledge of anything investment banking related.