No. 49—curated by a guest visitor
Tip top toppers, Tilda, and some tunes. Plus, a divine recipe and exquisite list of movies to keep you company while yearning.
Frequent Visitors is a weekly newsletter created to share a thoughtful selection of our favourite visits—both online and off—curated by friends, not algorithms.
For today’s issue we have a beloved friend of FV sharing their finds!
Recent Visits
by ALB
Good day, visitors.
I return to you a year older (though none the wiser) from our last rendezvous. My name is ALB and I hail from the bathtub - which is where I conduct most of my business affairs and think my most critical thoughts. It is this very spot that brought forth this very list.
I hope you find something peculiar in it.
-ALB
Toppers
Lately I have been ruminating on what I should crown my noggin with, as I am sure we all have. After careful deliberation, I think it best for us to take inspiration from this and this and this.
So where does that lead us? With any luck, to something far more fetching than we might have imagined (thank you Ms. Comey). Look at the fucking gull of this hat!!!!!! And this is all very Belle de Joury.
If Rosalind Russell was around to teach us one more lesson on how to dress our heads, I imagine she would recommend something smart in velvet. There is also lots to consider here.
Mess
Because it is now cold and dark at 4:13pm, my evenings are spent pacing my house in a state of general confusion, opening and closing and opening the fridge, before ultimately deciding to eat buttered toast in bed while rewatching White Collar. I would like to submit to the official record that there is absolutely nothing wrong with toast in bed (other than the inevitable slipsheet of crumbs), however, I have recently discovered this little number that cranks toast up a notch.
I recommend an element of sensible anarchy to every recipe one tackles and therefore feel obligated to add: 3-5 additional cloves of garlic, shallots, a fried egg, parsley and chilli oil - but don’t let me tell you what to do
Yearnings
Miserable weather reminds me of New York - which is maybe the chicest place to dwell under grey skies. For those of us without a plane ticket, I will refer you to the following list of movies that superficially fulfill my yearning for W 23rd Street:
The Naked Street (M. Shane, 1955) - a family movie (or at least it’s a movie about family)
An UnMarried Woman (P. Mazursky, 1978) - this movie is about three things: 1) sexual liberation, 2) re-creation, and 3) not wearing pants
Shiva Baby (E. Seligman, 2021) - I have never been so stressed out in all my life. God, I loved it.
Portrait of Jason (S. Clarke, 1967) - Tales told with effortlessly pizzazz
The Goodbye Girl (H. Ross, 1977) - a story about how hard it is to find an apartment in NY
Honourable mentions:
The Automat (L. Hurwitz, 2021) for the reminiscings over these functional yet naive eateries
The Odd Couple (G. Saks, 1968) for Walter Matthau saying “You can't spend the rest of your life crying. It annoys people in the movies.”
Every single Barbra Streisand movie ever (for the stair case, for the corruption, for the kitchen table, for my childhood)
Illusions
Let us all take a deep breath and really think about Tilda Swinton. Let’s think about Tilda’s red knitted uniform in the Human Voice, and her soft majesty in the Souvenir, and let’s think about her latest collaboration with photographer Tim Walker.
She is our mother, our father, our sergeant major, and our ghost of Christmas past, amen.
Sounds
I have been in a music slump lately. Kindly replaying the same 4 singles from the Last Dinner Party in not so patient anticipation of their debut album, and mourning over Boygenius’ disbandment to their cover of The Parting Glass, when along came Mr. 3000 himself with this kind of ethereal yet earthly wind instrument record, respectfully liberating us from the routine of commonplace sounds. This record seems to be an experiment in listening - with the whole thing being improvised in the recording studio, never to be replicated - on stage or otherwise. I have been bidding a special attention to Ants to you, Gods to Who? and BuyPoloDisorder’s Daughter Wears A 3000 (r) Button Down Embroidered.
History
Tucked away in 1960s Catskills was this important little joint known as a Casa Susanna, which was a kind of holiday house for gender queer folks. With Susanna as host, trans women (or those looking to explore the multiple facets of their identities) would bunk up for the long summer nights and weeks and months to participate in house held fashion shows and make-up lessons and maybe just exhale.
From the personal collections of hardcore rocker Cindy Sherman and daughter of C.S. alumnus Betsy Wollheim, comes this liberating showcase of photographs soon to be on display at the AGO that makes me say, “fine. I’ll go to toronto.”
Thank you for reading and we hope you enjoyed your visit! ALB, thank you for sharing this exquisite list with us 💌
Toppers to dream about, history to learn about it, and the perfect little meal to enjoy while watching these films and yearning for our next trip to New York. You never cease to make all my FV dreams come true.
Until our next visit,
Sasha
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