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Me, Who Dove Into The Heart of The World // Sabina Berman

If I was talking to someone who I knew read books - not someone who would toss me the usual chat up line of “What’s your favourite book?” but someone who was asking for a recommendation and whom I know would appreciate it, I would say this book. I have gifted this book to one of my closest friends for her birthday. I have lent this book to many people who may have not been worthy. I have purchased multiple copies of this book due to wear-and-tear and the aforementioned loaning. Me, Who Dove Into The Heart Of The World is a book as beautiful as its title - it is relatable for any girl who’s ever felt weird, it is atmospheric in its description of the water and its creatures, it is deeply emotional and floats in a category of its own. It is unconventional but avoid being perturbing, easy to read without being juvenile. If No Longer Human was written about a girl with a special interest in tuna, you would then have Me, Who Dove Into The Heart of The World.

Blue Nights // Joan Didion

One of Didion’s under-recommended books, Blue Nights answers the question you have after reading My Year of Magical Thinking: What are the limits of resilience? How much grief can a human being hold? And where does it all go? Many readers know that Didion lost her husband because of the famous novel, but Blue Nights is its sister companion in sadness about her daughter’s death years later. If you have ever felt utterly alone, or are scared of aging and losing the people who were supposed to outlive you, or wonder how you would react if The Worst Possible Thing happened to you (twice), this book is both a hug and death watching you play chess on the beach. You can see the evolution of Didion’s writing in Blue Nights, and many of the sentiments written are even bittersweet-er since her own death.

Fat Girl // Judith Moore

When people ask me what my favourite book of all time is, I say Me, Who Dove Into The Heart Of The World, A Brief History of Time, or Breakfast of Champions. I believe those authors and subject matter best represent who I am on the surface, the person I am trying to project to prospective friends, romantic interests, intellectual acquaintances. If someone ever asked me which book I’ve read thirty times, which book got me through high school, which book was actually my favourite - I would say Fat Girl by Judith Moore. Everyone has certain subject matter they like to read about - for my mum, it’s political refugees and medical experiments. For me, it’s obsessive relationships with food and the exploration of both space and Antartica. Fat Girl is not about space or Antartica - it is Judith Moore’s memoir about being fat. It sounds so simple and, with everything people suffer through, banal and uninteresting, but there is a way in which Moore writes about food, and how much she loves it and how much she fucking hates it, and her body, except that feeling is just hate, that feels like she took the words out of my head and my taste buds and plopped them into a little novella. Reading this in middle school and high school prepared me for how people perceive others. It taught me how time-consuming hating oneself can be, and how it’s okay to be unhappy with yourself but you can’t kill yourself over it, but how goddamn difficult it is to not do that. I love this book so much I wrote Judith Moore a letter in high school, asking if she would release any more books. Her agent responded, which was when I learned of her death. I think Moore is deeply under appreciated and I have made it my life’s mission to recommend her to anyone who I know will appreciate her.

The Collected Schizophrenias // Esme Wang

Schizophrenia is an often mythologized - and masculinized - illness that we learn about through uncouth means. Depression and anxiety have their well-known prescription cures, well-practiced self-soothing methods, and countless books and movies with characters suffering from one or the other. But schizophrenia has very little - and often misinformed - representation. The Collected Schizophrenias is a poignantly written first-hand account of schizophrenia, blending lyrical turn of phrase with tenuous scientific research and impressive anecdotal recall. Like Benjamin Labatut, Esme Wang beautifully bridges the fiction/non-fiction focus gap, making this book very accessible to all readers.

In Cold Blood // Truman Capote

Speaking of bridging the fiction/non-fiction gap - my favourite (non-scientific) non-fiction book has to be In Cold Blood. I first read this book in my fourth year university Literary Nonfiction course, where the professor was deeply passionate about important stories being told from unique perspectives and introduced me to many of my favourite books (Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Hiroshima). In Cold Blood is so unfamiliar as a Capote work - its journalism and cinematic nature veers away from his typical writing, which is ironic as he wrote a few book-to-screen adaptations, but this is one that is the most poetically film-like to me. You can feel Capote’s attachment grow, but his integrity (in my opinion - not in many others’) never veers. His dedication to tell the story of victim and perp and how those roles can sometimes intertwine is a magical act that inspires me as a writer and human being. This book is a masterclass in patience, storytelling, interviewing, and painting a picture of a system, a childhood, a family home, a place that once held promise.

The Selected Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay // Edited by Nancy Milford

I love many poetry collections - poems were my first literary love as a depressed teenager with a hungry curiosity but short-winded attention span. Pansy by Andrea Gibson, Devotions by Mary Oliver, anything by Anne Carson. But there is something special about Edna St. Vincent Millay - something summertime, something bright but bleary, something soothing and relatable that I deeply love. I only read this collection recently but think it is beautifully put together, the language is straightforward and warm, and Millay’s talents are on full display in a digestible way that I truly believe has something for everyone.

Good Morning, Midnight // Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys is one of my favourite writers, and this meditation and reflection on depression and loneliness is achingly beautiful and poignantly poetic. I drink this little book like water. I love it deeply. Read it on a foggy morning or a stormy summer’s night. To love me and to know me is to love and know Good Morning, Midnight.

After // Bruce Greyson

I read this book during a trip to Tulum, and, other than learning how to scuba dive, this book was my favourite part of the trip. I categorize this in my un-put-downable list of novels, alongside The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb or Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. One of the few non-fiction picks on this list, After explores anecdotes from people who have had near-death experiences and the research/commonalities surrounding the things they saw, heard, and felt. If you are in the middle of grieving, this book is immensely comforting knowing how death functions and how we are often reminded of all of the best bits of life during our last breath. This also quelled my fear of dying and I was astonished by some of the personal stories in this novel.

The Stand // Stephen King

Okay, this one has definitely been on someone’s list of recommendations before, but it is a novel that has stuck with me long after finishing it, and one of the few really long books that I love (authors who write similar lengths and maintain my attention really only include Wally Lamb and Hanya Yanagihara, with few other exceptions). The Stand is a true statement of King’s craft - his ability to create narratives, complex storylines, and interwoven relationships that amalgamate but also separate into their own explorations of the human condition, resilience, loneliness, fear, and faith. The Stand is, in many ways, a metaphor for any life struggle - anything you have to go through with your own community. I listened to the audiobook while on a long drive to Northern Ontario and it was perfect in every way. I have fond memories of my parents reading this book up at the cottage and watching the (definitely of its time) miniseries shortly after. This book will always be a contemporary classic to me.

The Housekeeper and The Professor // Yoko Ogawa

The Housekeeper and The Professor is my most recent read on this list, but it was just a perfect little book. The story follows a housekeeper as she agrees to take on a “difficult” client that others have struggled with - a brilliant math professor who has a memory that only lasts minutes. The complex nature of his brain chemistry and her understanding of his loneliness and alienation is such a beautiful thing to watch unfold. I love how the professor treats her son and adopts him into his life, how the days are described - reading this book feels like completing a sudoku puzzle on the back porch during a warm evening. I love Yoko Ogawa’s way with words, her observations of people, and how she outlines the little things that go unsaid or the little actions that alter the trajectory of our lives.

Thanks for reading my list, and please let me know if you check any of these books out or have read them before! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. :)

“The knowledge is so painful. What does a woman do with the knowledge of misogyny?”

“She lives in enormous pain. Which is better than dying in enormous pain. That’s the only choice.”

Robin Morgan, “Some American Feminists” (1977)

No matter how many glass ceilings you break, autonomous freedoms you are granted, power ballads you write, times you girl boss too close to the sun, the simple and painful truth of being a woman is that we must always live on the precipice of humanity and respect. We will always feel almost fulfilled, almost happy, almost powerful, almost free. Patriarchy’s thumb weighs the same as the universe, it seems, and its perverted phalanges extend themselves to perpetuate racism, capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, exploitation on mass levels.

I have never desired a heterosexual marriage. I love the idea of a wedding because I like having nice pictures taken of myself and enjoy a good party, but signing a lifelong contractual agreement of stating this man will, more or less, own me seems counterintuitive to everything I believe in and fight for. Divorce runs rampant in my family, and in the majority of Western families nowadays as men are becoming lazier and women are realizing that they can, in fact, achieve peace through the single life. We are the homemakers, the breadwinners, and the mediators - gaining financial freedom and one less child to take care of makes divorce seem pretty appealing after ten years of cabinet door slamming and skid-marked underwear strewn across the floor.

“Single women, on average, spend slightly more hours per week on housework than single men. But when they get married, women’s time doing housework grows to about double that of men’s. If they have kids, it becomes triple or quadruple. And if you think that’s because men are busy making the money, I’ve got some news for you. The study looked at how housework breaks down in opposite sex marriages where both partners work. In homes where the female to male wage ratio is where women make 1/4 to 1/2 of what their husbands make, women spend over twice as many hours per week on housework as their husband. That’s not surprising, right? The husband earns more at work, the wife works more at home. But in couples where the wife earns anywhere from half her husband’s salary to the same amount as him, the hours spent on housework are exactly the same. She’s making the same salary as him, but still putting in twice as many hours at home. Let’s look at households where the wife makes more than her husband, up to twice as much - surely they’re doing equal housework? Nope. It’s the same again - twice as much housework. Marriage has become a bad deal for women.”

Max Fisher

I understand the privilege I possess in making the choice to not date, not get married, own my home alone and live my life free of a man’s shackles. Many, many women - the majority, unfortunately - have no say in the matter. They marry men who steal money, youth, sanity, and rights from them. They are married at 19 to their high school sweetheart who ends up being a total idiot, or 23 to their college boyfriend who cheats and lies, or 14 to a man with too much power and too little morality, or 12 to their rapist, or 10 to their father. We are taught through romantic comedies and reality TV dating shows and romance novels that love should be unconditional, a sacrifice, a lifelong compromise. Would you sign a job contract where you have to work 24/7, give up your bodily autonomy, and deal with constant burnout? If men showed up to work and stated “Yeah, I said I’ll get to it! Just tell me what you need me to do, or make a list” when their boss asked for an update on the report they were writing or the business proposal they were designing, how quickly would they get fired?

These dynamics can be exhausting, and the prospect of them means women are opting out of dating altogether. But this is a recent epiphany after years of Say Yes To The Dress and royal weddings and issues of Cosmopolitan - many middle-aged and older generations of women are desperately trying to come to terms with their own unhappy marriages and how to escape them. Escape does not always have to be literal - there are kids, finances, properties, and families to take into account. But with men’s literacy rapidly declining and women authors dominating the bestseller charts, there is a correlation to be made.

As mentioned, I moved into my own home recently - a wonderful, empowering experience that I wish every woman had access to. I was without WiFi for three days, so I relied heavily on my Kindle and physical books to keep me entertained. When Madonna In A Fur Coat was making my eyelids heavy, I would switch to something more fast-paced: Frieda McFadden. Is she the best writer ever? Absolutely not. But she has created a formula, conjures up effective twists, and delivers entertainment every time. The central focus of this entertainment is god-awful men and the way they terrorize women. These women often, very satisfyingly, get revenge on these men, but at a cost that reveals true love is sometimes full of deception and make-believe.

In the 1990s to 2010s, women authors were still fantasizing about the idea of the perfect man: he’s tall, handsome, good at planning dates and vacations, cares about female pleasure, makes six figures, doesn’t ask what you spend money on, and knows how to dress himself and cook. These stories always had a catch, of course - think of the sexual degradation of 50 Shades of Grey - but the fantasy was there. From the 2010s to now, literature has been mourning the idea of the men we thought we would meet, and is facing the reality of patriarchal brutality in one way or another. While McFadden gets revenge, Colleen Hoover takes a more questionable approach of revealing men’s true intentions after periods of love-bombing and putting her female main characters through absolute torture (under the marketing guise of “spicy romance”). An even newer author, Rachel Ried, takes a more wholesome approach by having the men date each other and learn what true love actually takes - time, communication, respect. My friend M and I love watching and rewatching Heated Rivalry, sadly agreeing that we will never experience a romance like that because that level of yearning, of slow adoration and undying effort to finally be with your soulmate, is something that only a woman could write.

The common theme between all of these authors’ books is how men often exist in women’s lives to serve as a cruel reminder of what we will never have. Modern men, for the modern woman, act as a push towards our independence and a dark cloud of grief eternally over our heads saying Maybe your standards are too high. Men only respect other men, and we exist as stepping stones, chefs, cleaning ladies, punching bags, door mats, mothers, teachers, and dating coaches under their power. Another common denominator is that the main audience for these books is heterosexual, married women.

The art and literature we consume reveals volumes about us, so what does this trend say about what women want? Well, initially it was just about respect - and some tall, dark, and handsome tropes to sweeten the deal. Since we’ve learned we aren’t allowed to have those things, especially after the past few years where the world has seemingly gone backwards in regards to internalized misogyny (here’s looking at you, the women of Turning Point USA), the tradwife movement, the overturning of Roe V. Wade, the girl’s education ban in Afghanistan, women across continents are using their voices to craft revenge fantasies and unattainable standards for romance with men as a temporary means of escape. Women want rights, autonomy, education, and clean toilet seats - men want to dominate and kill us into childlike submission. The beauty of literature is that we can become that male role, we can enjoy the cushion of endless power without consequence, even if it’s just for 30 minutes before bed.

This is a sweeping statement, but I am making an argument and sticking to my convictions: if you are married and find that Frieda McFadden’s stories or Colleen Hoover’s book or hallmark movies are a form of escape, you are unfulfilled romantically. You may want to make a TikTok about how your husband forgot your kids at soccer practice, and follow it up by saying that he’s the best man in the world and doesn’t usually act like this and people can’t judge your relationship based on one video. But we absolutely can. The moment you decide to post publicly about your partner’s shortcomings or read about the possibility of something better is the moment you realize they are not a good partner to you, and you need to hear someone validating that subconscious belief (maybe as future ammunition, maybe just to help you sleep at night until the divorce is finalized). I remember scouring Reddit threads looking for women who were having a similar experience to mine of paying their partner’s bills, doing the housework, and feeling unappreciated when I was in my last relationship - and I found thousands. If I kept looking instead of breaking up with him, I assure you the amount of posts would have entered into the millions.

The underlying issue of contemporary serial “romances”, these pulpy revenge fantasies with twists and turns and an ending where everything is wrapped in a neat little bow, is that they are created in mass quantities and marketed to women because publishers, writers, and readers alike are aware that we don’t have any other say in the matter of patriarchy. We don’t have any other power, right now, besides our words. Through these books, these online posts, these pleading videos and trends, women have found community and validation: Oh, I’m not the only one who feels like I’m married to a toddler! Oh, I’m not the only one being harassed every time I leave my house to go on a walk! Oh, I’m not the only one who thinks life would be better in a matriarchy.

I must admit, I am not entirely concerned about the future of marriage and child-rearing. With the influx of data centres mowing down sacred land, an economy that is so deep in the gutter it’s waving hello to Pennywise, labels and buzzwords causing various groups to be more politically and socially divided than ever, illiteracy at an all-time high, and a tidal wave of agoraphobia seeping into the cracks of every home, I do not think this is a great world to bring children into. But a part of me, perhaps a selfish part of me, perhaps a hopeful part of me, still wants to bring children into this world - preferably not fathered by a succubus of a man. I yearn to watch my baby grow up, discover the beauty of the world (a sunny afternoon spent planting a vegetable garden, going on an airplane for the first time, a day at the beach, the first time you figure out how algebra works, healing after your first heartbreak, inspecting the ladybug crawling up your arm and wondering how it came to be) and I yearn to answer, or attempt to answer, all of the questions that come with that curiosity. I think the world is quite a wonderful, magical place, but the systems that run it don’t allow us to be truly free in its fields.

These novels and these women, no matter how poorly crafted their writing may be at times, are giving all women a voice. There is a woman somewhere in midwestern America right now whose husband lays a hand on her every day, sneaking away to finish her Colleen Hoover book because it keeps her attention after a long day of being the only parent to her children, and it helps her realize there can be a life beyond this man. There is a woman somewhere across the world reading the Game Changers series realizing she is not being loved the way she would like to be loved. There is a woman who is getting revenge on her abusers and bullies by picturing them as the antagonist at the end of a Frieda McFadden book, locked away for life or having his breath slowly slip away from him. These little epiphanies, these small rituals of self actualization through the consumption of the patronizingly dubbed “chick lit”, have created a secret society of women across the world, glancing at another reader in their periphery and mouthing: I see you.

I’m excited to find out what happens when we start turning these epiphanies into revolution.

I wouldn’t say my mum suffers from Trump derangement syndrome, as she hates him, but she does not stop talking about him. Did you see that he painted the reflection pool blue, refuting the point of reflection? Did you see he skipped his son’s wedding to host a UFC match in the White House backyard? Did you see he bulldozed the Oval Office and replaced it with a gold statue of his perfectly normal-sized hands? I made up that last one, but you can see the common thread - lunatic commits lunacy, over and over and over. Shocker! I’m not saying it’s bad to consume news - you should absolutely be aware of the fact that your president is a pedophile, rapist, convicted criminal, money launderer, thief, and regularly commits treason. I find his taste in decor and hatred for talk show hosts to be ineffectual white noise amidst a swarm of nazi-traited mosquitoes - who gives a shit what colour he painted the Pentagon? Nobody has rights anymore.

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“People think his music is great so he is great. And to think that person is doing the worst possible thing to kids is tough for people to wrap their heads around.”

James Safechuck, one of Michael Jackson’s accusers

I saw the Michael Jackson biopic, Michael, both out of a childhood love for his music and a morbid curiosity for how they would depict him …

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This is the premise of season one, and the man who fell prey to this psychosis-inducing scheme was named Ronald Gladden. His trust was so impacted he had to take one month off of work upon returning home, but at least he got $100k to soften the blow. I wonder how many therapy sessions that pays for.

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Where is your favourite place to read - outside or inside? Bed or couch? Preferred season?

For the amount of time I spend reading, it is pretty cork-lined-walls-Proust devastating for me to reveal my favourite place to read is in bed. Wearing a bra and pants gets in the way of my thinking. I’m not kidding.

I don’t differentiate my reading seasonally, although I am as equally ashamed to divulge that even an Australian winter errs into a region of cold that tends to make me read less. Like a cold forgotten lump, languishing.

How long can you read for one single span of time? Do you carry a book with you when you leave the house?

I can read for 3 hours straight if it is exciting enough. I used to carry a book when I left the house until quite recently, now conceding that any meaningful reading never gets attempted when I am out. I have since leant my lesson and have some extremely battered and waterlogged books from when I used to try. Shackled to my phone, it becomes a last resort for epubs till its demise.

How do you discover books and authors? Where do you prefer to buy your books, or are you more of a library person? What is your favourite beverage to pair with a book?

These days I tend to discover books through the reading of books themselves. There are under 4 people I will trust with a recommendation. Other than looking at what particular publishers are putting out, I browse and can end up with anything at all.

Being a bit dismally strapped for cash, most of my books are from charity shops. I can usually afford a couple of books a month so I always go for whatever is the cheapest if there is something I really must have. I prefer buying second-hand and bargain bin reject stock of old classics no one wants. I recently decided that owning a book will in no way hinder and dictate what I read, so I be pirating that shit. Shoutout to zlibrary and anna’s archive. Real libraries themselves are wonderful. A kind of paradise.

An energy drink/coffee or electrolytes. This is both a test of endurance and a contact sport.

You also read a wide array of genres, ranging in time from BCE to right now. Do you have a favourite period of history?

I’m really into medieval travelogues. Fin de siècle, big boi modernism, frightened boy post-modernism, court of Versailles type beat decadence, surrealism. Against my better judgement I am choosing a whole century, the 8^th. Tang tang tangy.

Have you ever learned a language to read a book in its original form? Are you picky when it comes to translations?

There is a lot of Bemba interspersed in the Zambian literature I have encountered - otherwise, no. I am struggling with English enough as it is. I am picky with translations when I have options and this is based on nothing except my own frown lines and grumblings from deep within the pit of my stomach.

Who are your top 5 authors, and could you give one book recommendation for each of them?

Screaming in despair and jotting these down as quickly as possible so I can promptly forget I ever made such choices.

Do you write notes in margins, in a notebook, or on your phone as you read? Do you have a strong memory?

I write notes everywhere! On my phone, on my hand, in the book, on post-it notes, in notebooks scattered higgledy piggledy. I have a selective memory function. What time, or day for that matter, is that very important appointment? Who’s to say. A detail from something I read 5 years ago? I’ve got it.

Music is also a huge part of your life. You have a special affinity for Car Seat Headrest but have also put me on to quite a few great songs. If you knew you were dying, what would be the last song you listen to?

The last song I listened to, Biblical Violence by Hella.

Let’s talk about Car Seat Headrest. Why are you so drawn to them in particular - it seems the beauty is in the sum of its parts rather than just purely the musicality. What is a Car Seat Headrest song that you feel personally defines and describes you in one way or another?

Diaristic shame and sexual neurosis elevated to the cosmic dread of a lo-fi pop song? Will Toledo is certainly one of my biggest inspirations. He says some shit you would be embarrassed to write down in private only for it to then be thrown in a lake and dissolve, and he says it into a mic with people harmonising in the background. I respect that. Furries don’t deserve rights but he deserves the world. I’m halfway through writing what I guess you’d colloquially call a ‘novel’, and if anyone read it who knows their discography like the back of their hand it would be embarrassing for me. Embarrassing being the point.

Times to Die – “Art gets what it wants and art gets what it deserves”

Or

open-mouthed boy [laughing]

When you write, do you listen to music?

These days I find myself particularly plugged into Braniac, Rosalia, and Westside Gunn’s fucking generational rollout of HEELS HAVE EYES mixtapes. Blasting music and forgetting everything you once knew while staring at a blank piece of paper is the only way I can write.

Do you listen to music when you read, or do you need total silence?

While reading I live in either mausoleum silence or this YouTube mix called TRAPPIN IN H E A V E N I’ve been listening to for probably eight years now.

Do you have any favourite movies?

Tampopo.

What is more attractive to you in a mate - being well-read or having good taste in music? What is your relationship to your sexuality? What is your relationship to your gender and how you want to be perceived?

I generally have more favourable outcomes with people who don’t read at all. Maybe that solves the second problem? It’s okay to be a himbo. As John Waters astutely recognizes, sometimes cute and dumb IS enough.

My dizzying relationship to my own sexuality is one where I assume it is there and I let it do its own thing. What else am I to do with an unreasonable body? Currently, I prefer not to be perceived at all. But the body continually foils these perception-based plans and I will never forgive it for this.

You are, objectively, one of the smartest people I have ever spoken to. You are able to mix absurd, chronically online humour with deep, grounded insight that can sometimes give me a sort of intellectual whiplash. In a review of Sylvia Plath’s Unabridged Journals, you once wrote that this particular sentiment resonated with you: “Why do I feel I should have a degree, that I am aimless, brainless without one, when I know what is inside is the only credential necessary for my identity?”

What is your educational background? If you could go to school for any subject, what would you study?

First of all: abridge the journals.I finished high school, this much I am certain of. I came close to finishing a philosophy degree. I love the idea of having a piece of paper that I can point at to prove I am not a bum ass bitch, however, it really wasn’t the place for me. And, I’m a bum ass bitch. I yearn for an intellectual freedom that has no part in institutional forms of knowledge. Academia is a bit of a joke to me. Fortunately my smartest friend continually berates me with the mantra, “You lack discipline!” And so I keep going. Erudite in the field of worries and trite and obvious in everything else.

Recently, you posted different Instagram stories about attending a court hearing regarding charges against you during a pro-Palestinian march. Talk to me more about that - how do you like to show up as an activist? Tell me about a time where you received backlash or violence because you were fighting for human rights.

Oh, those stories were about protesting for Palestine. Boeing Defence makes weapons actively being used against Palestinians and one of the protests I attended was at their offices. They have since moved to offices with diamond vault security. Followed the ‘law’ and left after we got the move along order from the police. This did not stop them from arresting me out of bed one morning and tying me up in long and ridiculous court proceedings. So peaceful was the protest it was practically a poetry reading!

In concern with activism: do what you can, when you can. If they come for me in the morning… etc, etc.

What is something that is political that people often don’t see as political? Describe your beliefs in 5 books.

What you read is political. How you talk with the people around you is political.

There is a thread I’ve observed between your life and the literature you read - fighting back against the systems that betray you. How do you deal with betrayal? How do you harbour anger and where do you direct it?

I direct it all into what I am writing currently: Realism, or The Oyster.

I see you as a very strong-minded individual, someone who truly knows herself but would not be afraid to admit you are still growing. I’ve had this odd honour of watching you metamorphosize over the past few years, through major life events and moments of self actualization. How do you ground yourself? What is hell to you? What do you never want to do again?

I ground myself through care for my family around me. It is in the cooking. It is in the cleaning. Hell is seeking through denial. And I rather hope that I never again forget myself. I never want to do that one again! Oh golly.

You also have a wonderful bond with your family, particularly your mum and the matriarchs that you surround yourself with. Tell me a bit about your background, your upbringing, and how it defines your identity today. What is your favourite thing to talk about with your mum?

You can’t tell by looking at me, for obvious reasons, but I’m half Zambian, and don’t know the other half of my family. My mom and aunties offer me so much solace and wisdom and it is wonderful because it is always transmuted through laughter. We got that irreverence, reverently. The cosmic joke of all things.

My favourite thing to talk about with my mom? Death or reddish egrets.

What are your thoughts on “booktok”? Do you know what Fourth Wing is? Do you hate “romantasy”? Do you think it’s okay to bully people for what they read sometimes? Or do you think all reading is good reading?

No idea about any of all that. But I do sincerely believe everyone should be bullied for what they are reading, whether they are reading anything good or not. This is some of the most fun you can have.

Are you working on any projects right now?

Since July of last year I’ve been tumbling my way through my first draft of Realism, or The Oyster.

Is there a piece of advice that has stuck with you?

This early Bashō poem makes me laugh so much I find myself repeating it often under my haggard breath. I think it functions as advice:

Alana Clegg is 31-year-old recluse from Brisbane, Australia who self-perportedly spends her days “reading too much and feigning attempts at writing”. You can find her Instagram here.

As outlined in Lovelace’s piece, the preparation for Carnival is half of the battle. Our main character, Aldrick, spends the entire year preparing his dragon costume: the day after Carnival, you get ready for next year’s Carnival. Aldrick’s life is essentially empty except for Carnival, he lives to work on and wear his costume, and this year he boasts how it is going to be the highlight of the hill. We get a synaesthetic idea of the feelings conveyed during Carnival through a simple exclamation on page 5 of the novel: “Drink a rum and say ‘fuck it!’” Through this, we can feel the carefree nature of both Carnival and calypso music, the upbeat nature and rhythm of being able to forget one’s troubles for a day. Carnival acts as a period of rejuvenation and self expression for everyone on the hill, like Easter: “This is when they show the world: They is people.” (Lovelace, 136).

Each chapter in the novel describes every individual character as they get ready for and then subsequently celebrate Carnival, with our protagonist, Aldrick, woven throughout every part. We are introduced to Cleothilda, the queen, Sylvia, the princess, Aldrick, the dragon, Fisheye, the Bad John, and Philo, the calypsonian, amongst many others. The main synaesthetic experiences found in the build-up to Carnival are the excitedness of Aldrick making his costume, and the implications of the festivities themselves. Through Aldrick, we feel every piece of his costume, all of his hard work and focus going into the dragon, where every thread is a memory and every bit of the dragon is a part of him. We can literally feel the costume, as well, by how he describes the heaviness of it. By feeling both Aldrick’s dedication and the weight of the dragon (both literally and metaphorically), the reader also becomes part of the celebration and, therefore, an extension of the dragon and everything it represents.

Additionally, the religious imagery in novel during the Carnival preparation provides a new realm of historical and cultural synaesthesia wherein one can relate a religious experience to a lived experience of one of the characters. For example, the Carnival tent is described as a cathedral, and there is deep symbolism in the novel being set on Calvary Hill (where Jesus was crucified). The people seek salvation and identity through the festival, “mas” is a reference to Catholic Mass, and they are celebrating the eucharist (Aldrick acting as the high priest). On page 6, the dance itself is even described as a “chant that cuts off the power of the devil”. Through the synaesthetic lead-up of Aldrick’s costume preparation and the religious symbolism of the setting of the Hill, the escapist aspects of Carnival, calypso, and community are greatly built upon to guide us into the event that people wait all year for.

Finally Carnival occurs, and the importance of calypso music is highlighted through both its history and the novel’s rhythm. “Sections of The Dragon Can’t Dance read like a set of lyric poems. A lyric does not describe actions; it is an expression of intense feeling in metred language; and the prose that Lovelace invents, with its long vivid oral sentences, is a lyrical prose which functions in relation to his characters in the evocative way that lyric language works in relation to feelings.” (Ramchand, 7). With this rhythmic importance in mind, one can deduce that reading the novel itself is a synaesthetic experience, similar to reading a Beat poem or song lyrics.

Calypso music is often referred to as political “jump up” music, with themes of incest, race, sex, and daring lyrics - so, despite its upbeat nature, it also delves into the struggles of the Caribbean people. Calypso music originates in France and Africa, with its percussive beats, call and response, and satire, and is often a tool used to attack the upperclass and rich, deconstructing inequality. Therefore, Lovelace’s use of calypso music as a framework for the entire novel, as well as a key part of the festival itself, is pertinent to our understanding of the rhythm and themes behind every character’s intentions and actions. In a sense, The Dragon Can’t Dance restores calypso, steelband, and Carnival meaningfully “to the living communities whose original self expression they are; and celebrates the heroes whose deeds went into the making of what we have of ritual custom and ceremony.” (Ramchand, 5). In these ways, the synaesthetic nature and culture of calypso music is utilized poignantly to emphasize the themes of the novel.

The feelings that Carnival provokes are a main driving force for many of the novel’s characters in terms of hope and happiness. “And watching, fascinated by it all, as if he were seeing with the boys’ eyes, Aldrick felt a tallness and a pride, felt his hair rise on his head, felt: ‘No, this ain’t no joke. This is warriors going to battle. This is the guts of the people, their blood; this is the self of the people that they screaming out they possess,, that they scrimp and save and whore and work and thief to drag out of the hard rockstone and dirt to show the world they is people.’” (Lovelace, 122). Through this quote alone, one can see the excitedness that Aldrick feels for Carnival, and his feelings are shared with everyone else in the novel. He has put his all into his costume, avoiding things like paying rent or working on his relationships just so he can enjoy this one festival. Lovelace’s comparison of entering Carnival to going into battle shows the amount of preparation and the history that surrounds the festival, and it is a full body experience of dancing, singing, and pride that cannot be matched any other day of the year - especially for the struggling characters of this novel. Therefore, with the aspects of costumes, music as lifeform, togetherness, and escapism finally coming into play, Carnival in the novel is a completely immersive, synaesthetic experience of epic proportions.

Once Carnival is over, the community, especially Aldrick, has to face the reality of life after the festival. In the love between Aldrick and Sylvia, nothingness provides the key for somethingness (that is, existential freedom), just like a pause in music provides the key for the next note. For Aldrick, his status as the best dragon in the Port of Spain used to be the only thing that could make him feel he had a presence; however, he realizes that the costume invested him only with a pretend identity. “His love for Sylvia is based on the premise that the traumatic lack of identity within himself will be resolved in his connection with her.” (Nakamura, 7). While Aldrick learns that his identity wasn’t just in the dragon after getting out of a 6 year jail sentence, Philo loses his happiness when he realizes he hasn’t become the man he wants to be, saying that the people around him are “like robots.” (Lovelace, 233). Aldrick is able to accept his new life after seeing the Hill mature and grow outside of Carnival, learning to live once the dragon is slain by the white knight (the police raid), Philo sadly states, “I am an imitator and imaginator and fabricator - that’s how I live here.” (Lovelace, 215).

These contrasting feelings of finally discovering one’s true self and complete inauthenticity highlight another struggle experience by Cleothilda, one that deals with appearance and its relation to power. Since Cleothilda is light skin, she has always maintained a “queen” status - but now that she is getting older, Sylvia is threatening her position of power. The fear of aging is a synaesthetic reality that intertwines anxiety with vision and power, as well as Lovelace incorporating the important theme of race relations (how different your social standing can be depending on the colour of your skin). There is a heavy synaesthetic element of living for something other than Carnival, and it is felt through the slowing down of the novel’s rhythm, acceptance and loss, and the sense of sight via Cleothilda and Sylvia which greatly contributes to The Dragon Can’t Dance’s felt escapism.

There are prominent themes of struggle and satire that can be found both in the calypso music of Carnival and of the festival events of the novel. Lovelace depicts nearly all his characters as wanting to be seen and wanting to be part of something bigger - Fisheye, for example, becomes a Bad John. “Later, having found a more satisfying role as a panman, he urges that the bands should stop waging war upon one another and unite against their common oppressor.” (Ramchand, 8). Philo is ultimately depicted as a sellout, for he “diluted” his calypso music to make it appealing to a wider audience. This dilution can be seen through the the downbeat at the end of the novel - the lost lust for Carnival and the engagement with a serious life cause each character’s story to play out like the end of a song, slowing down and stopping until you flip the record. Finally, our protagonist, Aldrick, moves onto his Ash Wednesday confession, which comes right after Carnival. “He had been living in the world of the dragon, avoiding and denying the full touch of the Hill. He had been cheating himself of the pain, of the love, of his living. He had been laughing here for seventeen years.” (Lovelace, 131).

In the end of the novel, after years in prison and a failed attempt at revolution, Aldrick is surprisingly liberated from his position as the dragon, and decides to enter the world as a sign painter. It’s not so much about him leaving the dragon behind, as it is about the metamorphosis of dragon into sign painter - the spirit is still there in him, it just changes forms. He is no longer afraid of the system or of taking on responsibility in life, while everyone else who, before Carnival was maintaining responsibility, are losing vital parts of their positions (Philo as ingenuine musician, Cleothilda as aging queen). “Maybe he could paint some new signs, signs of life, of hope, of love, of affirming, and let his own living match and mirror them.” (Lovelace, 205). These contrasting narratives of self doubt and self assurance create a synaesthetic downbeat that greatly ties into the calypso framework of Lovelace’s novel and the aftermath of a festival that a lot of people base their whole lives around as a chance for escapism.

The synaesthetic elements of Earl Lovelace’s The Dragon Can’t Dance are seen through calypso music, Carnival, and a community doing its best to repair years of oppression. With the excitement and recklessness of the Carnival preparation, the framework of calypso music, the escapism of every element of the festival, the ultimate struggle with acceptance and loss, and the implications of all of this for the future of a community that is brought together by Carnival, Lovelace’s novel beautifully intertwines synaesthesia and political narrative. As stated by Kenneth Ramchand, one cannot wipe out one’s childhood, just like one cannot ignore a cultural heritage however vaguely felt.

Towards the end of this episode, Oprah brought in a hospice nurse who explained that she had cared for many people whose family members - predominantly children - had gone no contact with them. This woman was a wonderful example of empathy and understanding - something you would want to see in a hospice nurse, of course. She made sure to call the no-contact family member(s) asking if they would actually want to see their distant relative one last time, if they would like to write or receive a letter, or if they would prefer to continue going no contact and only be made aware when they passed. A few people opted to visit the disowned relative once more, but reported feeling as if they were roped into a situation of guilt tripping rather than a lovely final moment with someone who may be making amends. The vast majority of people chose to continue to be no-contact with these relatives, but wanted to know when they passed just so they didn’t find out through another family member or social media - completely understandable. And a few said I’d rather not hear from them or about them at all. This nurse graciously respected and understood every decision, no matter how guilty the dying made her feel about the happenstance and goings-on of each relationship.

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“I met the devil

He gave me a choice

A golden heart

Or a golden voice.”

Florence Welch

My earliest memory isn’t very early at all - around seven years old. I was at our family cabin in Bobcaygeon and my grandpa was visiting us for the Canada Day long weekend with his third wife, Jeanie. I really liked Jeanie, because I was a kid and she was fun, but as an adult I realize she had some odd, sadistic tendencies about her - even outside of how she treated my grandpa in hospice. One of these odd tendencies was an affinity for religion despite no familial connection to it - I don’t think my grandpa believed in God, and if he did, God really screwed him over. Jeanie brought a Bible with her to the cottage, almost sneaking it into the living room like it was a forbidden text or a clever decoy for pot storage. That night, she told me about Jesus’ crucifixion, in full detail. Also that night, I had my first sleep paralysis episode - as I remained unmoving and terrified in my bunk bed, Jesus sat at the end of it, ripping the nails out of his hands.

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“The reigning economic system is a vicious circle of isolation.”

Guy Debord

Like death and taxes, AI has become a certainty in our lives. The discussion surrounding its ease of use and infiltration in everyday practices is now a guaranteed topic at parties, work, in elevators, waiting rooms, and Thanksgiving gatherings. My only perturbance is that these discussions are often led with an excited naïveté, a tone of wonderment rather than concern. Halloween is in a couple of days, so allow me to frighten you.

AI’s conception began in the 1940s and 50s with the “electronic brain” - an idea stemming from the invention of the programmable digital computer and machine-based mathematical reasoning. Japan became one of the first countries to truly invest in AI research and development, growing the industry into a billion-dollar enterprise by the 1980s. However, the pace of its development began to scare governments, science fiction writers, and several labour sectors. Both I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream and 2001: A Space Odyssey were released in their respective mediums in 1967 - reflective, predictive, and reactive of what was to come and what had already been incubating for years in the palms of those we would hope possessed the responsibility and humanity to control its usage and development. And they did that - until the 2020s.

In recent history, AI has been used as a tool for data collection, coding, and advances in areas like medicine and online accessibility, streamlining processes for businesses across the world and garnering data to use against us (or for us - depending on the sheen of your tinfoil hat), so we buy more things that we think are catered specifically to our personhood, a living, breathing entity that exemplifies the wonder of the Internet and how it knows us better than any of our loved ones - or so we think.

My sister-in-law gave birth to the love of my life, my niece, almost one year ago. I have watched this sweet girl grow, try new foods, learn how to swim, and giggle any time we play peek-a-boo. I also know that my brother is an avid user of ChatGPT, and I learned that he has used it continuously since my niece’s birth to ask questions about her health, her habits, and everything in between. At first I found this odd - why not just Google it or, better yet, consult your own mother who has more kids than you - but upon further reflection I find it borderline disturbing. All I can think about is that without her permission, her entire human experience thus far - every mistake she’s made, every injury she’s acquired, every ailment she has struggled with, every new thing she has tried, every developmental delay and success - has been collected as data that she never consented to have collected. By the time she is 5, there will be 5 years of her own autonomy thrown out a data-driven window for the sake of convenience.

I believe the use of AI in one’s personal life, from asking ChatGPT to make you a grocery list to generating pictures of you enjoying cocktails in the Maldives, is a sign of a very bent moral and intellectual backbone. If you believe the concept of thinking is the same as actual human thinking, then I know any critical discussion about AI is lost on you. I recently worked a short stint at a dispensary near my apartment because my full-time job gives me the capitalist luxury of living paycheque to paycheque and I needed to pay off some credit card debt. My manager, 10 years my senior with two children and a wife, had one hobby - generating Sora AI (an offshoot of Open AI) videos of himself doing “funny” things like pushing people off of bicycles, or falling from a plane and landing in a field of cow shit, or meeting Snoop Dogg. He would also sometimes use ChatGPT to create code for him to build single person shooter games for mobile devices, proudly showing them off to me and my coworkers as if he actually created them, because he believed he actually did.

When my manager showed me the “hilarious” videos and “impressive” game development, and my coworkers began using similar applications to generate stupid, racist, and low-brow videos and images of themselves inspired by my manager’s “talents” and seniority, I genuinely started planning to quit. Amongst other issues at the dispensary like harassment from my coworkers and incredibly late closing shifts that turned my 8-hour work day into a 17-hour time log, this lack of intellect, humour, and creativity - especially when a few of these people had families and children - made me feel slightly ill. To proudly proclaim that your only hobby is letting your phone think for you is a sign of something much more nefarious within human evolution - almost a unified and unanimous agreement to allow ourselves to be demoted on the food chain, one link below Scarlett Johansson’s seductive robot voice in Her.

On a macro scale, AI is contributing to labour shortages, environmental treachery, and a decrease in critical thinking. On a micro scale, AI creates a false sense of community and leads to isolation and - in some cases - fatality. As a writer and editor, I have witnessed job titles of PROOFREADER and COPYWRITER and EDITORIAL STAFF transform into a Frankenstein’s monster of AI CONTENT EDITOR and AI TRANSLATION CHECKER and AI GAME TESTER. It is difficult to write a piece about AI without mentioning my own personal afflictions, my fear of being replaced - and worse, complacently.

AI also threatens or has made extinct data collectors and analysts, secretaries, administrators, speech writers, diagnosticians, factory workers, auto manufacturers, actors, musicians, graphic designers, marketers, therapists, life coaches, doctors, travel agents, midwives, cinematographers, and extremely important entry-level positions that aid in adolescent work experience, access to supplemental income via part-time or seasonal work, opportunities for elderly people to engage with their community, for the formerly incarcerated to begin a new chapter, for new immigrants to work their way up in the name of a better life. Everything you use ChatGPT for is something we have been already doing perfectly fine for centuries, you just don’t want to wait more than two minutes for things to be done.

But let’s say you are in an industry unaffected, or you simply don’t care whether teenagers can find jobs. AI has severe environmental implications that affect the world your children will grow up in - duller and dryer and destitute of precious flora and fauna, concrete and steel instead of the beauty of pastoral plains and towering trees, a world much warmer in cold months. According to MIT News, “The computational power required to train generative AI models that often have billions of parameters, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, can demand a staggering amount of electricity, which leads to increased carbon dioxide emissions and pressures on the electric grid.”

AI is predominantly based in data collection, numbers and statistics, and personal details, which requires a great deal of complex computing and that computing requires a great deal of equipment - all of which is stored in data centres. Continued: “A data center is a temperature-controlled building that houses computing infrastructure, such as servers, data storage drives, and network equipment. For instance, Amazon has more than 100 data centers worldwide.” Adding to the emissions and electrical demands, a shocking amount of water is needed to cool all of the hardware used to generate AI models like ChatGPT and Google Gemini and Grok, disrupting ecosystems and the water supplies in the municipalities in which these data centres and cooling centres exist.

And maybe you also don’t give a shit about the environment, and you don’t care if your grandkids never get to see a sunrise - let’s think about you for a second then: your behaviours, like interests, your burning questions, your deepest worries, your weird rashes. Data farming is used on all of your favourite apps and websites to influence your behaviour and play into your addictions, whether it be sports gambling or pornography or shopping. Even if you have phenomenal willpower and really only use AI to make lists and answer basic questions, there may still be a transformation in that dependent behaviour to turn into you asking ChatGPT if you were the reasons for your parents’ divorce and programming it to sing Happy Birthday to you.

Adam Raine used ChatGPT as a substitute for friends, guidance counsellors, and therapists. If he had a question about his homework, he asked the chat bot. But sometimes at night, when he was feeling sad or particularly lonely, he turned to the program for a familiar friend. At 16 years old, Adam Raine was replacing community with his laptop screen, unfurling his bad days and good days and changes in mood and deepest fears. And when ChatGPT encouraged Adam Raine to commit suicide, he took his friend’s advice.

Per Today Magazine: “Like many teens, he started using it for homework, but the AI platform later became a trusted companion that gave step-by-step instructions he used to take his own life.”

There is an inherent danger in fully entrusting a prototype. Frighteningly enough, AI is still in its infancy in many ways. The perceived innocence and brilliance of inventing a generative computing system has turned into a creature of our own undoing - our own hands molding the clay of our eventual immolation. The fast evolution of AI as God rather than Data Collection Tool has posed the questions:

What happens when we cannot think for ourselves? Why are we so excited to not use our minds? Can we trick our brains and hearts into becoming solitary creatures?

If Googling something is difficult, reading, cooking from scratch, writing, holding a conversation, and following a movie’s plot line will become obsolete. We are seeing a drastic plummet in literacy rates, critical thinking, and creativity amongst adolescents and young adults.

@eli_carbullidoThey literally act like the world is ending 😭 #fyp #apathy #historyteacher #highschoolstudent #youngteacher

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A lack of literacy, creativity, and curiosity lends itself to a lack of patience. When you cannot sit still and absorb or envision, you demand things to entertain you in an instant or you are not gratified, and when you suffer from a chronic lack of gratitude, you become not only impatient and entitled, you can become violent. Everything that is not specifically catered to your convenience and desires is a threat and must be eliminated. We can no longer sit through a movie, wait in line, make conversation with a cashier, keep ourselves occupied on flights, plan a date, spend time cooking or even enjoying our meals - we demand our questions to be answered and in a way that doesn’t discomfort us and we demand it now.

Per Wikipedia: “The rapid adoption of these AI technologies sparked intense debate about their implications. Notable AI researchers and industry leaders voiced both optimism and concern about the accelerating pace of development. In March 2023, over 20,000 signatories, including computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, Elon Musk, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, signed an open letter calling for a pause in advanced AI development, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.” I can’t believe I’m agreeing with Elon Musk, but a broken clock is still right twice a day.

We have been creating and thinking and understanding since the dawn of man - why stop now? What a waste of a brain - to use it to create something that kills it.

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The intersection of the Venn diagram of scientists and atheists is quite populated, but I never had an interest in any branch of science until I started reading classics and contemporary literature. The more Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species or Einstein’s Theory Of Relativity were referenced in the fiction books I read, the more my curiosity piqued and these texts made their way into my non-fiction lexicon. I asked my mother for a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time for Christmas when I was 14, and she doubted my ability to understand such a complicated novel, settling on a copy of A Briefer History of Time to my dismay. I read this condensed version of my desired gift to death - before bed, in the bath, walking to school, in the back of the car until I got sick. This was a world I had never explored - a world that was not our world at all but rather a series of ideas and possibilities that provided me with an idiosyncratic hope, a belief system made up of atoms and invisible vibrating strings. I eventually purchased a copy of A Brief History of Time once I got my own job, and it remains one of my favourite books to this day.

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*Trigger warning for talk of weight loss and eating disorders

When I was 12, my mum began attending Jazzercise classes on weekday mornings at the local church. She wanted to find a form of exercise that she didn’t hate and, more importantly, meet women her age with whom she could be friends. Her go-to line that made everyone endear themselves to her was: “Hi! My name’s Laurie and I’ve been Jazzercising for 6 months, even though it doesn’t look like it!” It got a laugh every time, because just like misery loves company, women love self deprecation - especially when they are trying to lose weight. There was one member of the class that my mum was “grateful for” because this woman was bigger than her - someone to whom she so kindly referred to as “Big Fat Rebecca Cane”. As teenagers, my brother and I thought this nickname was hilarious - the punchline of every movie we grew up with was either someone’s weight, sexual orientation, gender, or ethnicity. While on my lunch break today, I was scrolling on Facebook and a Recommended Friend popped up - Rebecca Cane. In her Facebook profile picture, she smiles brightly while hugging her grandchildren. I felt ashamed and had to face the fact that my household joke was actually a kind, loved woman who was everything but her weight. I felt ashamed that it took a Facebook Friend Suggestion to make me realize this. And worst of all, I felt ashamed that my first thought was: “She’s not even fat.”

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Women create whether they intend to or not. Children, cramps, meals, stories, bloodlines, clothing, ideas, success, resilience. In many ways, it is necessary for our survival when considering the system to which we were born. To adapt to a machine that tries to kill you, that inherently hates and demeans you, is to find freedom through other outlets - the perfect hem of a pant, a carefully placed garnish on a Sunday roast, a baby blanket passed down for decades - and while these may seem like stereotypical, sexist creative outlets for women, it was how we began our yearning for an escape. As waves of feminism trembled through the veins of the Industrial Revolution, early and late stage capitalism, and the ever-present white patriarchal waving finger of politics, religion, and law, women’s expression of their pain transformed with each movement.

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Suffering comes to us as an interrogator. It asks “Who are you?”

- David A. Fiensy

As books like A Little Life, Lapvona, and Tender Is The Flesh leave their cult followings and become part of the literary tenor of the 2020s, I have noticed a surge in the discussion of whether or not these books are “trauma porn” - a term pejoratively stemming from the “misery lit” genre. Depressive literature has always been popular - look at Les Mis, Crime & Punishment, and more recent books like Angela’s Ashes - but we were more accepting of this despair because it either reflected the times we were living in, delivered great moral queries, or made for a page-turning memoir or historical fiction. Now, when authors lean into trauma or depravity as a method to move the plot forward, readers look away in disgust, give the book 1 star on Goodreads, and say its conception was unnecessary.

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Investing in travel is something I had always wanted to do, but the debts of partners and difficult employment arrangements made it tough to explore the idea of travelling anywhere outside of a northern Ontario road trip. As soon as I left my last relationship, I decided to invest in travel as a way of investing in myself - my curiosity, my lust for life, my appreciation of other cultures and my desire to explore them. But once the trips were booked and the itineraries were made, conversations with my family caused me to be intrigued by the idea of a travel partner - finding someone on my level in terms of independence, finances, and ambition who could travel the world alongside me in between trips with friends with the same gratitude, organization, and sense of adventure that I possess and did not find in previous partners.

The three apps of the dating apocalypse are, arguably, Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge. Tinder seems a bit lascivious for me, so I decided to download Bumble and Hinge a couple of months ago with no real plan of action - I just wanted to meet people in this new town, be introduced to some great restaurants or unfamiliar interests, and enjoy good conversation. People warned me about the current dating scene - how grim it is, how finding a partner nowadays is like picking through a digital Last Chance bin at your local Goodwill that is also a landfill shrouded by secret Republicans, 100 hand grenades with pins pulled, and a myriad of weird, tiny moustaches. And I, stupidly, thought How Bad Could It Be?

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