Building and Re-Building Community: Conversations at the Read Quebec Book Fair

The Read Quebec Book Fair, photo via AELAQ

On November 3rd and 4th, the 8th annual Read Quebec Book Fair transformed Concordia’s McConnell Atrium into a warmly lit, buzzing market for English-language books, magazines, and translations. The event series is organized by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec (AELAQ) in partnership with the Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF).  Publishers with a stall at the book fair included Maisonneuve, Drawn and Quarterly, Metonymy Press, Vehicule Press, Concordia University Press, and many more. The book fair represented the diversity of the anglophone literary scene in Quebec, showcasing a multitude of voices, styles, and genres as well as making space for emerging writers and publishers. The attendees were not only able to peruse titles and make purchases, but also to form connections with local writers, publishers, and translators in an intimate setting. The space was alive with conversations about old favourites and new discoveries. 

In addition to the market, the book fair also offered a series of public literary events. On the first afternoon, the eight finalists for the Quebec Writers’ Federation Spoken Word Prize did live performances of their work. Nour Abi-Nakhoul from Maisonneuve, Leigh Nash from Assembly Press, and journalist Adam Leith Gollner spoke about how to “Perfect Your Pitch” for those interested in non-fiction and magazine writing. Billy Mavreas gave a workshop to children on how to create their own comic strips and write postcards to their future selves. Catherine Hernandez—Toronto-based author of Scarborough, Crosshairs, and The Story of Us—also participated in the book fair this year. She took part in a conversation with Linda M. Morra and author Eva Crocker for the live podcast recording of Getting Lit with Linda. She also attended the screening of the film adaptation of her novel Scarborough, an event co-sponsored by Image+Nation Queer Culture, Montreal’s queer film festival, and the queer reading series Violet Hour. 

It is clear that the Read Quebec Book Fair emerges from a web of collaborations and seeks to create and maintain ties within Montreal’s anglophone literary community. I had the pleasure of speaking with Rebecca West, executive director of AELAQ, as well as Catherine Hernandez. We discussed the significance of public literary festivals, the opportunities and challenges of various storytelling mediums, and issues around representation. 

West remarked that the Read Quebec Book Fair started as a holiday book fair: “The initial thinking was to offer publishers a way to connect with their readers ahead of the holiday gift-giving season, which is the biggest book-buying time of the year across the country.” However, attendees started to value the book fair for how it helps them navigate the Quebec English-language literary landscape and, accordingly, the organizers’ objectives have transformed since its inception. The timing of the book fair has also shifted further back from the holiday season, landing on what is for many a rather challenging time of year with the fall semester in full swing and the people of Montreal adjusting to the loss of daylight, colour, and warmth outside. However, it is during these periods that occasions for community building offer the most solace. “It’s still a nice opportunity to get gifts a bit earlier.” said West, “but mostly, it’s a really beautiful opportunity for publishers and authors to connect directly with their readers and have conversations with them. We do have such a nice English-language literary community in Montreal. That’s my favourite thing about the fair.” 

Linda M.. Morra and Catherine Hernandez recording Getting Lit with Linda, photo via AELAQ

The book fair also responds to the challenges faced by the local literary community. Local publishers and booksellers have a limited reach compared to larger presses and corporate distributors and are often squeezed out by the latter. Long-form cultural magazines are shuttering left and right, or otherwise struggling to survive because of limited—and, sometimes precarious—funds. The increased cost of living makes it more difficult for writers to devote time to their creative practice, let alone to engage with their audiences, and our cultural habits are also increasingly algorithmically siloed and directed away from local writing. Visibility alone is not a solution to these problems, but it is nonetheless important for maintaining the relevance of local publishing.

West also points out more specific challenges to the English-language literary community in Quebec: “There’s something to be said about maintaining and strengthening ties in the English-language literary community, especially when we’re seeing what feel like threats to the strength of the community – whether it’s tuition hikes for out-of-province students that have just been announced, or new language laws that are limiting access to services for English-language folks. Our mission, at its core, is always about promoting books but, as part of that, we’re strengthening ties within the community.”

Hernandez also foregrounded the value of having real-life encounters with writers at a time when many of our engagements with literature take place online. She suggested that online forums can, at times, encourage impulsive, rigid reviews of literary works rather than thoughtful discussions of how these texts function and connect with the wider world.  “[I love the way] that a festival allows people to be in the same space and see each other’s humanity,” she says, “It also gives me the opportunity to read the book [out loud] because there is always this oral aspect to my work that comes from having worked in theater and now in film.”

In our discussion and throughout the book fair, Hernandez gestured to what is distinctive about different kinds of storytelling—literature, theater, film—as well as how one can experiment with their boundaries. “I think a major thing you’ll see from Crosshairs onwards is that I always try to name the audience,” she tells me. “In theater, that’s really a common practice… In Crosshairs, the reader is addressed as the long-lost lover of a character named Kay. In The Story of Us, they are spoken to as Liz, the elderly client of the protagonist MG… In naming the audience, you are almost saying ‘you’re part of this journey’… It also just helps you understand why you are being told this story now. It doesn’t take the reader for granted. I love the immediacy of it. I don’t know if I’m going to use this technique in all of my books but, for me, it’s really a call back to my theater roots.” 

The Read Quebec Book Fair, photo via AELAQ

Hernandez also described adapting her novel to film as a way of revising and reimagining the text, with members of the cast and crew bringing in their own interpretations of the story. “What is so beautiful about filmmaking is that it’s not just you. You’re collaborating with a whole bunch of different energies. There were 300 people who touched this film to make it a success. That means that they are bringing their artistry into the work and bringing it to life in a way I never believed was possible.” At the same time, she describes learning to account for the financial expense of making creative decisions in film and television: “If I make a change in my book—a location change, a character change—it doesn’t cost anything. Whereas in film and television, when you make creative choices, it could cost thousands. Something I didn’t truly understand right away when I was writing the screenplay was how my decisions were going to impact the budget.” While financial limits are particularly decisive in film and television, Hernandez reminds us to examine the material conditions (money, resources, space) that enable and limit art. 

Hernandez also spoke about her reckoning with performative inclusion within literary institutions. In recent years, there has been a trend of many of these institutions using their publicly stated commitment to diversity merely as window dressing. “I don’t think people who considered themselves allies really understood that when you give QTBIPOC a space at the table, you actually have to listen to what they are saying and maybe change the DNA of your organization in a progressive direction. A lot of organizations were not willing to do that.” In particular, Hernandez takes issue with the way that racialized people who are included in the fold are implicitly and, sometimes explicitly, asked to be understated about their politics. However, she believes herself to be surrounded by writers who do not acquiesce to these demands: “I definitely am part of a beautiful, burgeoning community of QTBIPOC authors who are not afraid to be a bit more brazen with their politics and to tell undertold or untold stories of Canada. When we’re in a world where storytellers are being silenced when they speak about genocide and [advised] instead to appear neutral in situations [of injustice].” Hernandez was a crucial voice at the Read Quebec Book Fair; she sees the importance of not only celebrating the literary community but also critically (and bravely) responding to the institutional challenges encountered by storytellers. 

Oftentimes our engagement with literature tends to be solitary; we read alone at home, at a cafe, or in our offices. The Read Quebec Book Fair represents an occasion to engage with books collectively. Moreover, through talks, panels, and workshops, it offers much-needed space for reflection about reading and writing: what are the lenses through which we can understand a work of literature? How do literary works resonate with ongoing issues in our world? How can we present our work to publishers so that we can reach our audiences? How can we utilize different modes of storytelling? What is standing in the way of meaningful representation? These sorts of conversations are essential in facilitating in-depth engagements with literature, and for ensuring that our literary communities are viable and constantly evolving. 

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AELAQ

Instagram | Facebook

Aishwarya Singh is a culture writer based in Montreal. 

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"Creating Space": A Conversation with Author Josie Teed

Josie Teed by Lauren Cozens

Josie Teed’s debut memoir British Columbiana, out now through Dundurn Press, explores a period of transition. After completing back-to-back degrees — a bachelor’s in art history and cultural studies at McGill and a master’s in archeology at the University of York  ​​— Teed accepts a job in the remote heritage town of Barkerville.  Located in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, Barkerville showcases the nineteenth-century gold rush which led to the industrialization of the province. Teed works as an archivist and later as a heritage interpreter — that is, an actor who portrays significant figures from this era. Barkerville and the adjacent village of Wells, where Teed takes up residence, are composed of a diverse array of people ​​— some of whom are settled there for good, and others who are just passing through. 

People tend to not feel very present during transitional phases like the one that Teed undergoes in this memoir. However, Teed shows that transitions are often times of great experimentation, in which we parse through our desires and discard those that no longer serve us. I meet up with Teed on a mild spring evening to discuss the pursuit of belonging, the instability of friendships, the relationship between history and storytelling, and the complications of the memoir form. 

We begin our conversation by talking about what motivated her decision to move to such a small, insular community after completing her master’s degree. Teed describes how she felt worn out by the pace of life in Montreal, where she did her undergrad, and was overwhelmed by having to encounter the same people every single day. After this period of her life, Teed really “just wanted to create space,” which is why she chose a school in York as opposed to a bigger city like London. 

At the same time, Teed’s move to Wells was not so much an intentional decision as it was a leap of faith. “After I was done with York, I really had no one trying to get me to stay anywhere,” says Teed, “so I applied to a bunch of places through the Young Canada Works program. The only job offer that I had was from Barkerville. They were the only people who were saying, ‘you should come here.’ I also think that, on some unconscious level, I believed that it was important for me to go somewhere weird — just to be able to say later in life that I had been there. This idea is something I’ve definitely moved away from as I’ve gotten older.” In this memoir, Teed seems to oscillate between two desires — one to simplify her life and the other to revitalize it.

British Columbiana revolves around Teed’s pursuit to find community in Wells — where many people have politics which depart from her own. “In a university social justice space like the one I found myself in at McGill, there was this expectation that every interaction you have will be informed by your politics and that disagreements were meant to be approached in a confrontational way,” Teed explains, ‘but I learned very quickly that this would not really work if I wanted to have a comfortable life in a small community where people don’t always think so consciously about their politics. So the only thing I could do while I was there was lead by example and engage in gentle conversation when issues arose. I don’t know if that is how I would deal with the same kinds of situations now, or if it would even be ethical to do so.” 

However, we also see that many of the people Teed connects with during this time prove to be inconsistent — and ultimately surprising — with their values. For instance, her friend Logan, who holds frustrating, retrograde ideas about gender roles, offers Teed valuable reassurance as she navigates her relationships with men. Meanwhile, Bobby, someone who Teed connects with on the basis of their shared political beliefs, cultural tastes, and educational background, becomes oblivious and — at times — unsympathetic towards Teed’s distress. “Logan was the greatest friend. She cared about me in a really active way that I hadn’t experienced in a long time,” Teed tells me. “But I felt so challenged by the differences in our beliefs and ways of conducting ourselves. Bobby and I felt relatively aligned, but she wasn’t available to offer me care  — but maybe this is okay because that’s not what she wanted ultimately.”

British Columbiana by Josie Teed

The memoir also dissects Teed’s fraught relationship with men during this period.  “I think living in Wells was the first time when I really felt like an object of desire in a continuous way,” says Teed. While Teed sometimes longs for the intimacy she witnesses between couples, she also seems to struggle when finding herself to be the recipient of romantic attention. She intermittently sets the intention of only cultivating friendships with men. She says to me: “When I was young, I think there was a big intimidation factor that kept me from being friends with men. I couldn’t help feeling that they were a cut above me. So I really wanted to lift the veil of mystification by actually spending time with men, but a lot of my experiences with men that I wrote about are really horrible! I just kept having these encounters where they really demonstrated a lack of character — at least in how they interact with women.” 

I propose to Teed that perhaps men have a tendency to pigeon-hole women as sexual conquests or, if they do not see them that way, to display an almost cruel level of inattention. “Now I’m much more critical of them,” responds Teed, “but I don’t want to see people as incapable of showing me kindness. I also want to believe in people’s capacity to grow.” 

While many millennial memoirs are rooted in the author’s interiority, British Columbiana conveys a distinctive sense of place. Teed represents not only the rugged geography of the region but also the way in which heritage sites like Barkerville function. In our interview, she notes that the town is “...owned by the government and perpetuates the state’s narrative of Canadian history.” 

“A lot of people who worked there had a very different agenda from myself,” she remarks. “Barkerville was originally a mining town and they basically destroyed the area to build it. Something that I felt conflicted about was the minimization of this environmental destruction — the interpretation never really tapped into that stuff. It is also just a reality that a lot of funds are funneled into the upkeep of the heritage site and very few resources are left for anything else. I will say, however, that the summer I was working there was the first summer that they had Indigenous interpretation, and it was really interesting to witness the negotiations between the longstanding interpreters and the new Indigenous interpreters. I have my criticisms, but I also feel like Barkerville and its workers need support.” 

Teed’s time at Barkerville ultimately challenges her passion for history, prompting her to realize that she is much more interested in how history is narrativized: “I really loved history, but sometimes you love a discipline, you enter it, and then you’re just there. With some space from academic work and research, I’ve realized that I’m much more of a storyteller.”

The memoir form tends to receive criticism for flattening out the people surrounding the speaker. Likewise, Teed felt the ethical complications of writing about real people. “In the beginning, I felt super guilty about writing this story. But one thing I tried to do was leave a lot of space for the audience to have their own judgements. I also tried to balance things out by truly exposing myself.” It is true that Teed is just as transparent about her own emotional hang-ups as she is about others’ and foregrounds the impact they have on her relationships. 

This memoir also creates some of this ambiguity by representing the dialogue between Teed and her therapist Barb. Barb helps her approach problems from different angles but also brings a lot of texture to the narrative. “I think that the therapy sessions help create some distance from my initial impressions of some of my experiences,” Teed notes. “Through Barb’s interventions, these sessions function to prevent the reader from seeing my perspective as so definite. And I think they definitely soften some of my interactions.” 

A recurring feeling that Teed experiences throughout the memoir is the sense that she is on the outside of other people’s stories: that life is happening to them and not to herself. As a result, Teed often finds herself wondering what kind of narrative her experiences will amount to — or fall short of. This can be a dissociative experience which increases the stakes of every moment and, I think, cuts you off from your desires. However, writing this memoir allowed Teed to revisit her desires from this time in her life and to feel “...less ashamed for having them in the first place.” 

“I made a lot of decisions based on the kind of person I thought I was,” she states, “and a lot of my time at Wells was marked by thinking things and not expressing them. I realized writing the book that there are things I could have gotten if I asked for them. Expressing yourself is actually healthy and often yields results.” 

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Josie Teed

Twitter | Instagram

Aishwarya Singh is a culture writer based in Montreal. 

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"I hated working with Porky Pig" Frosty Valentine Gets Real on the Cartoon Industry, Shares Beauty Secrets and More!

Photo courtesy of Debaser

If you aren’t already in the know, Toronto’s Frosty Valentine is the next it-girl. Now retired from three decades in the cartoon industry, Valentine is turning heads as a triple-threat performer; singing, dancing and animating her way to the top of the charts, all while setting the record straight on her previously unrecognized talent. Rather than a thorn in her side, Valentine’s plight with the seedy underbelly of the entertainment world fuels her desire to make change in the form of sugary-pop anthems and elaborate, uncanny productions. 

We got the chance to connect with the pop-star leading up to her performance at the second edition of PIQUE, a new forward-thinking, artist-driven quarterly event series featuring eclectic musical, visual and multimedia artists produced by Debaser. Valentine will be performing at the festival this coming Saturday, September 11th, 2021 at Arts Court in Ottawa. 

Read our exclusive tête-à-tête with Valentine below. 

Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter for Also Cool: Hi Frosty! Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with Also Cool. To start, can I ask you how your retirement has been going? It seems like you've taken an unconventional path since leaving cartooning behind. Where did this new energy come from?

Frosty Valentine: My whole cartoon career

I was a shadow in the back.

I sang, stunt doubled, danced

to be honest I lost track…

I dressed as Lady and the Tramp

for the scene with the spaghetti.

Cause Lady was gluten intolerant

and I was camera ready!

I hated working with Porky Pig

and looked for a new job.

It was nearly impossible

and every day I would just sob.

I sang at Chucky Cheese at night

and then got my big break!

Manager Sticky was sitting there

and said that I was great!

Also Cool: You've spoken candidly about the industry leaving a bad taste in your mouth. Knowing that ethics are important to you, how do you cultivate an ideal work environment now that you're the ringleader of your troupe?

Frosty Valentine: Since being in the industry

I really saw it all.

That’s why I only have puppets

and a robotic doll.

AC: Speaking of your entourage, how did all of you come to know each other?

FV: I studied to become a wrestler

that was my retirement plan.

My costume is for a wrestler

just so you understand.

Every time I got knocked out

these visions came to me…

That’s when I came across

my heavenly puppet Pinky!

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Frosty Valentine and Pinky by Kate Killet at The Harbourfront Centre - Long Winter Festival, 2019

AC: At the same time, how do you take time for yourself, and look so good doing it, while managing your recent rise to fame? Any words of wisdom, or beauty secrets, that you'd care to share?

FV: It’s true that I'm famous

there are days that I forget…

But then everyone will know my name

Whenever I go to the vet.

You better drink lots of water

if you want to look like me!

Wear sunscreen every single day

and “Miscellaneous Water” by Cerave!

AC: Knowing that you're beginning to tour again, how will you keep yourself grounded and motivated as your schedule picks up and the paparazzi begins to swarm?

FV: I wear a tinted sunscreen

every single day.

it takes care of my skin

and it makes me look okay.

I stretch every morning

to release yesterday's stress.

If I don’t do that daily then

I promise I’m a mess!

AC: We’re excited to see your performance this Saturday in Ottawa at Debaser's PIQUE festival. Can you give us any hints about what your set will entail?

FV: This time my robot won’t be there but,

I have a body double.

I can’t say too much more

or you might get me in trouble.

I will say that a lot of local

people are involved.

I feel so grateful to them

that my heart will soon dissolve!

Frosty Valentine will be performing in-person at the second edition of PIQUE, Debaser’s new forward-thinking, artist-driven, quarterly event series at Arts Court (Ottawa Art Gallery - Jackson Courtyard) on September 11th, 2021 at 9:30PM EST.

For more information on PIQUE and to purchase tickets to Saturday’s event visit thisispique.com

Frosty Valentine

Instagram | Bandcamp | Youtube | TikTok

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Your Canon is Dead: Exploring Trickhouse Press and Virtual Oasis

Front cover of Virtual Oasis. Designed by Dan Power

When I think about the future, I admittedly drift to something ominous. Today’s youth must concern themselves with disenchanting realities: the rise of hyper-capitalist overlords, crises and collapses in every corner of the world… it’s easy to feel jaded with what could be.

But the future has also brought new opportunities for innovation, for tomorrow’s visionaries to tear it down and start anew. This era of interconnectivity can breed possibility and creativity like never before. This is the philosophy that guides Trickhouse Press, an online indie publishing press – particularly with their collection Virtual Oasis, a “dream shared between machines both fleshy and fibre-optic”.

Trickhouse Press and the Defense of “Weird Work”

Trickhouse Press is the brainchild of Dan Power, a Lancaster-based creative who takes inspiration from the gaps he longs to fill in the publishing industry. Trickhouse was founded during the UK’s lockdown in July of last year. Power notes that the press’ goals are “...to offer high-quality books at low costs, to treat each book as an object in itself, and to try and upset the stodgy UK poetry establishment by dropping books which are risky, playful, inventive, and wilfully going against tradition and convention.” 

One principle of the press is that its only physical components are the publications themselves – submissions, sales and promotions occur entirely online using their webpage and Twitter. “I like the idea of these objects coming out of the ether,” Power shares, “like the digital has transferred into the real world when usually it's the other way around.” These relations between the digital and the physical are of key interest to the press, both thematically and in operations.

Each Trickhouse publication is treated as its own entity, bearing no resemblance to other releases and with no universal stylings for publishing design or format. Each publication carries its own creative philosophy and purpose. As Power puts it, “...each book is treated as a project in itself, and not like another gem in the press' crown.”

Front cover of Sticker Poems. Designed by SJ Fowler

Power is committed to taking the attitudes and processes of today’s creative outlets and flipping those on their head. “I want the press to be a space where weird work can be treated as something other than a novelty,” he explains, “and put on a level footing with the rest of the contemporary canon.” His perspective is inspiring, and much-needed on the scene – creative experimentation is not a cultural phase, but a longstanding and respectable tradition.

Power also expresses that the press holds a deep appreciation for aesthetics, and how “...visual culture forces language to adapt.” Trickhouse aims to “...stretch the definition of a poem as far as it can [go] by playing into the visual properties of the words as much as their meaning or contents.” He offers i know god is watching by Crispin Best as an example – a ludicrous collection of Minion memes accompanied by existentially-strained musings. These memes, a dialect within the digital language of boomers, are re-examined as vessels concealing the heaviest weights of the collective psyche. If this sounds ridiculous, yet believable, good – Trickhouse has delivered on its promises.

The first season of Trickhouse Press’ publications. Photo courtesy of Dan Power

Virtual Oasis: A Human-AI Anthology

Building off of these values and goals is Virtual Oasis, a poetry collection published by Trickhouse Press this past April. 

Virtual Oasis is primarily an exercise in ekphrastic poetry, with human writers taking creative direction from AI-generated photographs and compositions. Creative submissions came from across the UK, representing contemporary scenes in Glasgow, Lancaster, London, and a few places in between. Power observes that “...the poems [in Virtual Oasis] tend to be more conventional, although the variety of the approaches ... and previously untapped source material allow [the work] to feel fresh and striking.” It humours me, how I underestimated these adjectives.

Going into my review of the collection, it was made clear that every stylistic choice in Virtual Oasis serves a purpose and warrants consideration, further obscuring the boundaries between human and artificial intelligence. The main idea is to suggest something far more reciprocal than AI as a source of creative inspiration – AI is in itself a creator, capable of mutual exchange and possibility.

The cover design of Virtual Oasis is a callback to cyberculture, with a Windows 95 WordArt banner and a shore of vaporwave gridlines. While this aesthetic hit its peak years ago, I interpret its purpose (and that of the title) as something precursory to comfort the reader with technological memories. I feel stretched between visuals of the near-past and approaches of the near-future, leaving me with a sense of disorientation that fits perfectly with the freefall of what’s to come.

AI-generated image for “to the woman on the Zoom open mic who started crying” by Rhiannon Auriol. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

A first look inside leads to a subverted oasis. All images for the collection were taken from artbreeder.com, a machine learning-based art website that relies on the ‘remixing’ of existing database images to generate new––and increasingly obscure––creations.

Cross-bred mutant pigs stand with assertion amongst a floating pool of sea anemones. What appears to be both a bird and a banana gapes at me from the depths of a sapphire sea, because why not? I am fascinated by the simultaneous freedom and limitation involved in deciphering this imagery. Does this technology ruminate on failures and successes in the name of creativity? Do the authors?

Regarding the collection’s typeface, Power notes a deeper consideration:

“The font was chosen to resemble code text, since in this anthology the poems function in the same way as lines of code - just as code was read and processed by a computer to generate the images we see on one page, the poems are read and processed by a human reader to generate mental images on the other. In this way, the distinction between artificial and natural intelligence is called into question, as the reader is asked to perform the exact same task as the AI.”

This reflection weighs heavy on my sleepy brain. Let’s see what this reader can accomplish.

AI-generated image for “Leaving is a sense of breaking contract” by Naomi Morris. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

Flipping through the collection, the reader is subjected to the same system crashes faced by technology. I naturally––unintentionally––fixate on the pieces that my brain can make sense of, but every passage is worth the mental exercise. 

Accompanied by a knock-kneed girl with distorted attire, Naomi Morris’ piece “Leaving is a sense of breaking contract” describes personal habits of independence and detachment. I take comfort in its relevance and the synergy of this collaboration.

Matthew Whitton’s “from [ ] [ ] of what remains, With little else [ ] [ ] who complains?” stems from what appears to be a tilted desk lamp illuminating crimson-red walls. This postmodernist piece situates the function of a poem as a lighthouse meant to both highlight and obfuscate literary messages:

“...and what is our purpose, of course, but to say this: that the poem illuminates, without necessarily clarifying, the stream of revolution, which is, at once, an overturning and returning, and our metaphor of the lighthouse, therefore, is not a happy accident or the smug self- assurance of the perfect image; no, it is at work in the poem itself: steadfast, reliable, the light alights always on the same point, but always in motion…”

AI-generated image for “from [ ] [ ] of what remains, With little else [ ] [ ] who complains?” by Matthew Whitton. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

In fact, it is more fulfilling to make one’s way through the thickest fogs of experimentalism that the collection deploys. These entries revel in the syntax errors, ensuring speculation and deep reflection between reader and artist. Somewhere in the contents of James Knight’s “Drone” is commentary on modern technology’s ever-changing forms and functions. This piece is inspired by a similarly chaotic corruption on the AI’s behalf, involving an almost-collage of a disfigured entity strolling through clouds.

Visual Oasis has not done enough to dissolve my skepticism of artificial intelligence – but fortunately, that is not its intention. The collection pushes boundaries and challenges the mind to meta-rationalize its definitions of artistic merit; it prepares us for the future and appeals to our past. Virtual Oasis rejoices in the imperfections of both man and machine, delivering a coherent collection that only sometimes makes sense.

AI-generated image for “Drone” by James Knight. Photo courtesy of artbreeder.com

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VIRTUAL OASIS

An anthology of human-AI responses

Edited by Dan Power

Trickhouse Press

Lancaster

April 2021

Featuring the creative work of Alex George, Calum Rodger, Dan Power, Denise Bonetti, Emma Bolland, James Knight, Kirsty Dunlop, Maria Sledmere, Mary Clements, Matthew Haigh, Matthew Whitton, Max Parnell, Memoona Zahid, Naomi Morris, Nasim Luczaj, Rhiannon Auriol, Robin Boothroyd, Sam Riviere, Sameeya Maqbool, Scott Lilley, SJ Fowler, T. Person, and Vik Shirley.

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Trickhouse Press

Website | Twitter

Rebecca L. Judd (she/they) is the features editor of Also Cool Mag. She writes and creates out of her studio apartment in Ottawa, kept company by vivid dreams and a cuddly grey kitty named Dora.

This interview was conducted over email, and has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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Sourdough for the Soul: Glutenmolly on Coping Through Cooking and Awakening Your Inner-Chef

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Molly Stead (glutenmolly) with her 30% spelt sourdough boule, photo provided by the interviewee

At one point during the pandemic, it’s likely that your Instagram feed was filled with mutuals cheffing up something. Whether it be banana bread or sourdough, it’s without a doubt that younger people have turned to cooking and baking to kill time in the era of COVID-19. However, to longtime home cook and baker Molly Stead (AKA glutenmolly), there is more to the rise (pun intended) in bread making than it being a simple time-filler; it’s therapeutic.

Other than her sentimental approach to cooking, Stead is setting herself apart as a Gen-Z head-chef in many ways. From crafting Vancouver-exclusive holiday recipes for her experimental cookie biz, to promoting cooking from a resourceful, accessible and anti-diet culture stance, Stead has found a way to make her passion wholly her own, and share it with her online following.

We had the chance to connect with Stead to chat about her relationship with the culinary arts and how she is breaking conventions surrounding the world of foodie Instagram. Check out our full conversation below!

Zoë Argiropulos-Hunter for Also Cool: Hi Molly! Thank you so much for collaborating with Also Cool. To start, can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself and where your passion for cooking began?  

Molly Stead: I’m a home cook and baker currently based out of Ottawa. I grew up in Vancouver, and cooking was always a big part of my life from a young age. Both my parents, especially my dad, were always experimenting in the kitchen and loved to cook, so I guess my love of cooking started there. I went vegetarian and moved into my first apartment at the same time in 2017, which forced me to learn a lot about cooking and nutrition very quickly. It was that year I started a food account on Instagram as a separate space to record the food related things I was learning about and experimenting with. I’m no longer vegetarian, but I still love to cook and bake, so this account has stuck around!

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Labbneh balls coated in zaatar, nigella seeds, sumac, and toasted sesame with Aleppo pepper, by Molly Stead via glutenmolly

Also Cool: Do you have any dishes that are a particular favourite to craft? Or, are there perhaps any that you lean to because of a strong connection or memory associated with it?

Molly Stead: I feel like this answer has become a little unoriginal because of the pandemic, but I adore bread baking and especially baking sourdough bread. I became obsessed with bread baking in my early teens and I would bake multiple loaves a week at that age. I had recently lost a close family member, and in hindsight, bread baking was something I dived into to cope with grief. Despite the circumstances that kick-started this hobby and skill, bread baking has evolved into an extremely grounding and joyful practice. I specifically started baking sourdough the summer of 2019 and almost 100% of my loaves are naturally leavened. This means that no commercial yeast is added, which is something I am very proud of! I love the challenge and care maintaining a sourdough starter requires. It’s sort of like a low maintenance pet. 

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Sifted red fife flour and whole spelt flour sourdough batard, by Molly Stead via umamimolly

 AC: Like you said, there has undoubtedly been a surge in baking during the pandemic; what are your thoughts on this phenomenon as an already avid chef/baker?  

MS: The most obvious answer to everyone baking in the pandemic is because we are all stuck at home, but I think there is more to it than just that. Similarly to how I used bread baking as a coping mechanism for dealing with grief in my early teens, I think many people turned to bread baking in the pandemic to cope with grieving the loss of normalcy. It sounds a little corny, but I think there’s some truth to it. Bread is a living process: when you break down the process and look at the science behind it, it can be simplified as creating a healthy and nourishing environment (flour + water + salt + the right temperature) for little microorganisms (sourdough starter aka “wild yeast,” or store bought conventional yeast). You capture the peak moment of this happy little microorganism home by baking it. To be able to create something as impressive and nourishing as a loaf of bread out of just a few ingredients is so rewarding.

AC: In that vein, do you have any advice for people just starting to venture out into the world of cuisine?

MS: I think a lot of cooking is more intuitive than people think. If you’re just starting off, try recreating things from your childhood or playing around with ingredients you know you love. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and just have fun! Some of the best things I’ve cooked and baked have been the result of mistakes. While fancy gadgets and specialty ingredients can be fun, there really isn’t a need for that and anyone can have fun in the kitchen just using what they’re comfortable with and have access to. 

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Lemon cake with lemon cream cheese frosting and local strawberries, by Molly Stead via umamimolly

AC: Outside of your independent love of cooking, you're involved with so many related projects! Let's talk about the cooking zine KitchenSink, of which you are an editor and contributor. Can you tell me about how the first issue "Comfort in Times of Change" came to be?  

MS: I think something unique about KitchenSink is that it came together super organically, and was intended to be a community-driven project from the start. A couple of months ago, Danielle posted about seeking help for creating a collaborative zine to explore everyday food feelings during the pandemic. Myself, alongside quite a few others, expressed interest in helping, so she created a group chat and we figured everything out from there! We ended up receiving way more submissions than we anticipated, and we were able to publish the vast majority of them in volume one. We accept anything from illustrations, essays, poetry, and photography, as long as it is related to food and the theme. KitchenSink zine really is a labour of love because it was made and organized by a handful of similarly-minded young people who wanted to talk about the realities of food, nostalgia, and obviously comfort as we cooked and baked our way through this turbulent year.

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Sourdough discard, acid whey, and cornmeal pancakes with yogurt and homemade blueberry compote, by Molly Stead via glutenmolly

AC: Branching off of that, you've also spearheaded an experimental Instagram cookie business, Kuketista, with your friend Jade. How do you two come up with your incredibly unique recipes? 

MS: My friend Jade and I started up Kuketista a few months ago out of a combination of pandemic boredom and a shared love of baking and cooking. Our original year-round cookie is called Zander, and is a miso-rye-sourdough dark chocolate chunk cookie. We both do sourdough baking, so we knew we wanted to incorporate sourdough discard into a cookie because of the amazing flavor and texture it provides to baked goods. We also both prefer cookies that are not overwhelmingly sweet and have a good contrast of flavours and textures, so it made sense to make the year-round cookie a fun chocolate chunk cookie. The miso adds extra umami and fully replaces the salt in the cookie batter, while the rye flour rounds everything out with a punch of earthiness. I can honestly say that Zander is the best chocolate chunk cookie I’ve ever made.

In addition to our year-round cookie, we decided to have changing monthly cookies rather than a larger pre-set menu because we wanted to highlight seasonal ingredients and flavours.  Our current monthly cookie for January is affectionately named Rob, and is one of my favorites so far. It’s a toasted oat and whiskey cookie with raspberry jam, white rabbit candy-inspired drizzle, and sliced almonds. It draws inspiration from the Vancouver-based cultural event Gung Haggis Fat Choy. Gung Haggis Fat Choy is a Robbie Burns Day x Lunar New Year celebration that has been one of the main fundraisers for the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWF). Gung Haggis Fat Choy was not able to run this year due to the pandemic, so we are donating a portion of sales from our January cookie to the ACWF. Additionally, if you send us your donation receipt to the ACWF, we’ll share the recipe for our January cookie in exchange! 

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Kuketista January cookie “Rob,” photo by Molly Stead via umamimolly

AC: Before we let you go, we'd love to know about any other projects you're working on! We know that you have an upcoming Instagram takeover with Doof magazine, which is so exciting!  

MS: Yes! I’m really excited to do a Doof takeover later this year. In case you aren’t familiar with them, Doof is a magazine that celebrates everyday eating and cooking. They have different people do Instagram takeovers every week and I have one lined up for late March. They also recently raised enough money for their first print issue. I’m hoping to elaborate more on bread baking and grief in my takeover, draw attention to ongoing food sovereignty and food justice issues, and post a few simple recipes for baked goods using sourdough starter discard.

Other than the Doof takeover, I’m pretty busy developing recipes for Kuketista (our February cookies are going to be so fun!) while also working a full time job. You can keep up with me on Instagram if you’re interested in a lot of sourdough content and the occasional food-related rant and selfie.

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Dark chocolate rosemary olive oil cake with miso buttercream, cherry compote and fresh blackberries, photo by Molly Stead via glutenmolly

Molly Stead

Instagram | Kuketista | KitchenSink

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Body Journals: Dana El Masri on Senses and Sense of Self

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Dana El Masri is an Arab-Canadian perfumer & interdisciplinary artist. She is the owner and creator of Jazmin Saraï, a perfume brand exploring scent, sound, and culture. I was introduced to her perfumes through a friend a couple of years ago, and have been amazed by both the scent and concept of her creations. She uses a synesthetic approach to creating her perfumes and scent-related projects, tying together music and perfume. I was so excited to interview her for this Body Journal given her unique relationship to her senses - especially scent and hearing - and the ways her senses, and subsequently her body, are embedded within her work. Delve into our conversation below to learn more about her work and her embodied understanding of scent, self-expression, and identity. 

Simone: I would love to start with a little about how you define yourself, who you are. How would you introduce yourself?

D: I’m in an ever state of trying to define myself, or unlearning and removing how other people define me. I’m a creative. I’m an artist. I’m an emotional, sensitive being. By trade, I’m a perfumer. I like to connect different mediums and senses within my work. Essentially I’m a blender. It’s really finding the connections between things, which is also how perfumery works in a lot of ways. The more I explore perfumery, I realize how everything is connected and how perfumery covers all of these different industries and modalities. 

S: You said connecting the senses. I think that’s really relevant to this conversation about the body. How does that come up for you in your interdisciplinary work, in perfumery.

D: Scent is intimidating for a lot of people to describe or to even experience, because it’s quite invasive. You feel it right away, it’s primal. Historically, all the philosophers thought it was a tertiary sense, an animal sense. Nothing to do with intellectualism, nothing to do with emotion, which, to me, is the complete opposite of what it is. The only way you can process scent is through the memory and emotion banks in your brain. 

I see a lot of similarities between scent and sound. They’re both time-based, they’re both emotion-based, they’re both invisible. We have a lot of musical language in perfumery. Top, middle, base notes. A perfumer’s workspace is an organ. And I have a musical background, so I already had that in my head - and that’s really where the scent and sound developed together. I went into the synesthetic aspect of it and I was like, “What if I break down a song and then make an olfactory reinterpretation of that song?”

Simone: Tell me more about your musical background! Your value and understanding of interdisciplinarity is so clear through your experiences & interests.

D: I always wanted to be a singer. I actually moved to Canada to pursue a singing career and to study. I was also a ballerina when I was a kid. And I wanted to dance forever. That’s really what I wanted to do [when I grew up]. But I was also surrounded by many friends my age whose parents were very religious and that trickled down through them. And [my friend] basically said that my dancing was haram. It felt like she was telling me about [what to do with] my body - and how I shouldn’t put my body out there. I stopped dancing because I couldn’t get it out of my head. In the beginning, it was just about the love of dancing, and expressing myself, and being in the moment. There was no shame ever related to it. And now that there was this idea of being observed by someone and being judged - it changed my whole relationship with it - because it was no longer free.

S: I know sometimes when we internalize that shame at a young age it stays with us for a long time. Was there a point when you realized that the shame had dissipated? Or did you actively work on dissipating it to feel free? Are you still working through it?

D: I never got back to fully expressing myself as a dancer. I’m definitely still working through it. My friend is doing a project about shame - I just spoke to her about this. There were so many experiences I could have shared [with her], but this was the thing that popped up. I thought, “Wow, this must be something that I’m still trying to resolve within myself.” And [I want to] just hold the little Dana inside and be like, “Hey, it was okay. Fuck her. What does she know? You are so good.” And that’s a lesson for adult life. Why do you let someone else’s opinions affect you? 

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S: I think that your reaction as a young girl was normal. Especially people that we trust - they tell us something about ourselves and we listen. It sounds like you pulled an important lesson from that experience.

D: I think it’s something to do with freedom. When you have space to move and dance and jump - there’s something about that movement that literally frees you. And it’s funny because now I actually have a lot of structural problems. I have scoliosis - I was diagnosed as a teenager - and I have four rib humps that stick out of my chest. I feel constricted a lot. I always associated dance with freedom of movement - and now I feel almost caged in my own body. 

I believe in meta-medicine - what is happening in your brain will also manifest in your body. When I saw someone about [the scoliosis] she was like, “Scoliosis is the idea of being afraid to be seen, and of hiding yourself,” and I thought, “Woah, could that be related?” 

S: I definitely believe that there’s a connection there. I’m glad you’re healing from it. You shared that you grew up in Dubai and I know that your parents are Egyptian and Lebanese. I’ve noticed in your scents that you draw on a lot of Middle Eastern scents and music.

D: I try because there’s a lot of appropriation in my industry and a lot of misrepresentation. There are very few Arab perfumers on an artisan level, or who have control over the narrative that they’re sharing. 

Arabic music is set up differently than Western music, so already it’s a totally different form of creation, which I thought was really interesting to explore. But I also grew up with that kind of music. Senses are, almost in their essence, nostalgic. So, it’s even harder to forget where you come from because sense is what connects you [to your identity]. Food and smells connect you to home. And that’s something I never want to forget. 

I also just really wanted to have the narrative in my hands. In North America, there’s also so much propaganda. A lot of the images that you are being fed [of the Middle East] are often of violence, and anger, and war, and sadness, and blood. I didn’t want that. I just wanted to create new narratives of beautiful stories that do also exist. No Orientalism, no over-fantasy or exoticism, just purity and genuineness.

S: I sense that a lot when I smell your perfumes. Having all these roots and clear connections to the places you call home, how do you experience the connection between body and community? Is there a way you forge a connection between the body and culture?

D: I don’t know if there’s a word for it in English - I guess the closest word for it would be ‘yearning’. Yearning is a physical experience for me.

S: Where do you feel it?

D: In my heart. In my chest, in my shoulders. Everywhere where I’m actually crouched [from scoliosis]. It’s really weird. When I miss home, or when I’m trying to connect to that part of me, there is a physical yearning for being in that place. All the things that remind me of home are still very sensory. The plants, the colours, the feeling, the scent of the air, the gasoline - I almost feel a responsibility to translate it. 

S: That’s really a beautiful sentiment - to physically feel love and connection to home with your whole body. What lessons or gifts has your body given you?

D: It’s given me a lot of lessons in the way that I’ve learned to appreciate myself. I had a really complicated relationship with my nose. I found it big. Growing up in the Middle East, where a lot of girls get their noses done, I just always felt ugly. I was always really afraid to show myself. And it’s the same theme of being seen, of showing my entire true self. It’s also now my biggest asset. My biggest gift. It’s about reconciling the dark and the light within me. And that’s always been the battle, which I reconcile through my body and through scent.

This insightful interview was everything I had hoped it to be and more. Dana is truly connected to her sensory and embodied experience. She has an exciting project on the way called The EP, which is a diffuser scent collaboration with four local musicians: Meryem Saci, Kallitechnis, Lunice, and Hanorah. It will be released in October, and you can find more information on the release of this project at her social links below. My thanks to Dana for sharing her story and her gifts with me. 

You can follow Dana’s perfume releases and art on her brand’s Instagram

You can check out her offerings on her website

And, you can also check out her multisensory work here

Listen to an sensorially inspiring playlist by Jazmin Saraï here

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Meet Sage, the Montreal Brand Supporting East Asian Community

Via Sage’s "In the Heat of the Sūn" collection

Forget fast fashion; invest in your community. Support Sage, the Montreal/Toronto clothing brand focused on East Asian representation and community.

We interviewed the Sage and got to know the talented, hardworking friends behind the brand. But that's not all -- Sage happens to be our first brand sponsorship and has gifted us something extra special for YOU, our community. Stick around till the end of the article to find out how you can get some Sage swag for free.

Malaika for Also Cool: How did Sage get started? What are your backgrounds, and how did you all decide to come together?

Sage: In Fall 2017, Yutong, Rulin and I were in the back of a bubble tea shop, our regular hangout spot on Sainte-Catherine street. I took a sip of my Yuzu drink and asked Rulin and Yutong, if they wanted to start a clothing brand. We loved browsing through SSENSE and Haven seasonal sales, so creating something related to fashion was always of interest. At first, they feared that we would release something undifferentiated, but after debating about the brand's purpose we decided to focus on the thing we knew best, which was expressing our passion for East Asian culture. 

While we brainstormed for ideas, it became apparent that we needed a sense of artistic direction. The only person perfect for the role that we could think of was Victoria. She grew up downtown and was exposed to high-end Japanese brands while we still thought Urban Outfitters was the pinnacle of streetwear. One day after class, while she was waiting for the bus, I approached her without a concise proposition and asked if she wanted to join our newly formed brand. In line with our brand's direction, Sage was complete with a tastemaker!

Also Cool: Tell us a bit about the "In the Heat of the Sun" collection and the artist collaborations that came with it.

Sage: Our newest collection "In the Heat of the Sūn" is an interpretation of the classic Chinese story "Journey to the West". For my first five years in Canada, I only had Chinese cable TV at home. I had no idea who Spider-Man or Superman were and instead, my idea of a hero came from Sun Wukong, a hooligan monkey. We wanted to give exposure to this icon so we used visual elements from shows we used to watch such as "Havoc in Heaven" and the "Journey to the West 1986 TV" series as an inspiration for "In the Heat of the Sūn". 

With every drop, we try to involve various local artists in order to grow our community! For our past collections, we used to host physical popups in galleries and bubble tea stores in order to showcase our new merch, blast Nujabes beats and feature works from local artists. However, COVID hit Montreal and Sage took a major L regarding our ability to host our usual events so we decided to make a virtual shift. Over the summer, we linked up with Hae-In from Underdog and approached her with the idea of co-hosting an interactive-virtual popup. We brought in new members to the team, mostly our close friends, to create a new Sage online experience. We believe all our efforts paid off since we got so many heartwarming feedbacks which is something we're very grateful and proud of.

Via Sage’s "In the Heat of the Sūn" collection

AC: What kind of visual and musical inspirations influence Sage as a brand?

Sage: We are mostly inspired by things we grew up with. Whether it be from popular media like 90's Hong Kong drama to mundane memories like Victoria's mom watering her money tree, we try to incorporate whatever influenced or has influenced us into our products. We then draw or re-design those inspirations from our own perspective!

AC: Can you describe one of your favourite childhood memories?

Yutong: My dad driving me on his motorcycle with 3 wheels to night stalls to eat yangrouchuan

Vic: Going shopping 

Mike: Looking at freshwater turtles at the pet store 

Rulin: When I was walking down the street in Beijing, and I saw a guy I knew and I was like, hey! It's that guy!

Via Sage’s "In the Heat of the Sūn" collection

AC: What's next for Sage? Do you have anything exciting planned for this year?

Sage: We are consistently working on bringing new projects, capsules and collections! We are always open to collaborate so feel free to shoot us an email or DM anytime. As for the upcoming months, we are working on a new capsule that will be VERY cozy.

AC: How can we best support Sage and the artists that you collaborate with?

Sage: Minimum of 200$ spending on every drop :). Just coming to our events and pop-ups is good enough! Our main goal is to be able to connect and chill with as many of you guys as possible. 

Also, check out the lit artists featured on our virtual popup for this drop here. 

Now that you love Sage as much as we do, why not rep the brand? Sage has been gracious enough to gift us some exclusive merch for an Also Cool x Sage GIVEAWAY!

The giveaway INCLUDES one reversible Sage bucket hat (black and beige), a Sage dark green Family tee (exclusive to this giveaway), a green limited-edition Also Cool tote, and as many Also Cool stickers as we can fit into the mailer. Giveaway details below.

SUPPORT SAGE

WEBSITE I INSTAGRAM

Giveaway details:

• ENTER by following the rules on our Instagram post “SAGE X ALSO COOL GIVEAWAY”

• Share & tag us in your story for an EXTRA ENTRY

• The Sage t-shirt is a unisex size “medium”

• The giveaway OPENS Saturday September 25th 2020 at 11am and CLOSES exactly a week after

• The giveaway is open internationally

Please DM or email Also Cool with any questions about the giveaway, or future brand partnerships

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