Seeing double

Welcome to Issue No. 004, “Seeing double”, of Discursives.

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This week, while I worked on “Seeing double”, I dealt with a hand injury that had me voice-to-texting pretty much everything. It’s quite revealing to see one’s horrible grammar laid out without proper punctuation and capitalization to make it seem more sensical. I also: 

• Read Luke Kennard’s Black Bag, so dark and funny. Next up on my Booker longlist to-reads is The Disappearers, of which Dwight Garner wrote in The New York Times that author Marlon “James has written a masterpiece, the novel of the decade and possibly of the century thus far”. 
• Had a relaxing evening doing the pool and sauna/steam circuit at Aire Ancient Baths Toronto. The baths are in a heritage building that used to house publisher Copp Clark. I was told that Aire’s owner contributed the books that line shelves in the atmospheric and dimly-lit lobby, and that a picturesque printing press placed by the wall of books is truly vintage (though not from Copp Clark’s time in the space).  
• Saw films at TIFF, for the festival. Standouts were The Dreamed Adventure and Masc. I didn’t want either to end, I felt so completely absorbed in the worlds each director created (Valeska Grisebach and Bertil Nilsson, respectively). 
• Listened over and over again to David August’s album HYMNS. It’s under 30 minutes long and so layered and rich an instrumental work that I just kept (and keep) playing the entire thing.
• Celebrated a friend’s milestone birthday, which involved enjoying a delicious honey cake that her lovely MIL makes and that I've been day dreaming about all week.
• Used the photobooth at Waterworks Food Hall, one of only 250 vintage analog photobooths in existence worldwide. Photo strips are printed inside the booth, in a miniature darkroom, and so they take about five minutes to come out and then another ten or so to dry. Felt nice to be forced into slowness.

Thank you thank you for joining me! Enter the map, and if you're not subscribed, sign up now for free and join me on a journey through "Seeing double".

xo Kat

P.S. Next week’s issue of Discursives, “Double vision”, will be a companion to "Seeing double". As with all issues, they can also be read separately.