First Frost Josh

It’s hard to believe that its been over a month since Red (Taylor’s Version) changed my life irreversibly. Hyperbole aside, the release of Taylor Swift’s re-recorded masterpiece provided the perfect foil for a wet November rife with gloomy forest hikes. While my preferred Taylor Swift autumn tastes lie elsewhere, its impossible to deny the association Red has with the season. And rightfully so. The range of emotions the album covers is tremendous. It may well be the perfect breakup album, covering not only painful heartbreak but ecstatic forgetting, yearning relapses, and tremulous renewal. As such, you can imagine the excitement of fans upon learning that the new album would include nine songs “from the vault”. Nine songs that didn’t make the album in its initial release would be included on this iteration. After talking a month to reflect and listen to the album on repeat, I have come to the definitive tiered ranking of the vault songs from Red (Taylor’s Version) . Enjoy!

I'm a huge fan of the young adult thriller genre, and few have done it better than Holly Jackson in the A Good Girl's Guide to Murder series. Released in 2021, As Good As Dead caps off the trilogy in unexpected and increasingly macabre ways. Jackson takes the reader on a twisting journey of trauma, morality, and difficult choices that will leave them questioning just how thick the line between good and evil truly is. The bulk of my review is dedicated to my thoughts about the book's "big twist", so take this as a first and final spoiler warning ! I discuss key plot points from all three books in the series, so if you haven't read A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder , Good Girl, Bad Blood , or As Good As Dead , I would recommend giving them a read first!

Bite-Size is a new feature I'm adding to the blog. Bite-Size posts will be shorter and more informal than regular posts. They'll allow me to talk more about my interests and random things that pass through my head without having to stretch it into a 1000+ word bloviation. Enjoy! § As the first full week of November wraps up, reality is slowly sinking in. In Canada, daylight savings time has turned the clocks back an hour and night descends like a premature Grim Reaper. Carol of the Bells and Canon in D are slowly replacing the soundtracks of Halloween (1978) and Tonight She Comes , and the weather is on the precipice of taking that next big plunge towards freezing.

Alas, Halloween has ended. It is time to compost our pumpkins, pack away our spooky decorations, and shelve our desire. Halloween is fleeting—it feels like October just began yesterday. Which makes sense. Autumn is a transitional holiday, a passage to heights we never thought we could reach. This transitional nature is nothing new, embedded in the history of the holiday itself. A history that reaches back to before even the Middle Ages.

During the Halloween season, atmosphere is everything. Every mundane activity must be transformed into a dark undertaking befitting the season. Taking out the garbage at dusk transforms into a perilous journey spent dodging shadowy corners and imagining escaped lunatics lying in wait behind every tree. Washing the dishes becomes an exercise in inescapability as you watch bleak clouds of grey slowly overcome the bone-white sun. Interlocking scattered puzzle pieces turns into solving a ghostly mystery concealing deeply buried secrets of yore. In my opinion, there is no better way to evoke atmosphere in otherwise ordinary situations than by listening to music. And what music is better to elicit a spooky mood than a good horror movie soundtrack? 

It’s been a mild autumn in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) this year. Two weeks into October and twenty-plus degree temperatures persist—it breaks my heart. Nevertheless, if I waited on the weather to begin my fall activities, I would miss out on weeks of exploration. In my first real autumn escapade of the year, on Canadian Thanksgiving, I decided to travel to Victoria Falls. 

Who can resist the sounds of autumn? Leaves crunching underfoot, whispering winds gusting through half-naked trees, the sharp cracks and hisses of an evening bonfire, and the dulcet tones of Taylor Swift. It’s undeniable that certain songs resonate deeper with us during specific times of the year, and, for whatever reason, large parts of Taylor’s discography tend to cut deeper (in a good way) during the fall season. I know that not all of Taylor’s music is “autumn music”—don't worry, I’m not trying to convince you that Cruel Summer or 22 are fall songs. I also understand that associating songs with seasons is very subjective. Honestly, 99% of it can probably be attributed to where and when we heard the song first. However, I maintain that there are specific criteria for classifying "autumn songs" and that large parts of Taylor's discography fit within that criterion.

In this week's post, I am sharing the short story I wrote over the past few months. It was inspired by the legend of Šulak (pronounced shoo-lak), the so-called demon of the privy. I encourage you to look at the Šulak Wikipedia page after reading the story to learn more about the history of the legend. This was my first short story attempt, so I definitely learned a lot throughout the writing process. I hope you enjoy it!

I finally figured it out—why they still build houses with fireplaces. I mean, when you think about it, it’s 2021. We have furnaces—hell, the Earth sets itself on fire every other day now. I think we’re a bit past the days of huddling around a fire, swaddled in blankets that resemble a well-intentioned chokehold more than a snuggly embrace. And before you start talking my ear off about aesthetics or prestige or property value—I get it. Fireplaces certainly look nice. At least they used to. Gone are the fireplaces of yore: roughly laid brick and stone framing a chasm meant for a roaring inferno that would warm your toes from across the room. These days it’s all about minimalism—avant-garde—clean lines—monochromatic. It's too clean. Lacks character. The fireplace too. You’re really gonna have parties just so you can show it off? You paid how many extra thousands for an ornamental façade you’ll never use? It might as well be electric—you could eat off that hearth! But look, I’ve tho...

Nothing quite imprints on the memory like the places we have called home. Whether the tiny apartment you spent a semester abroad in or the childhood abode you said goodbye to upon leaving for college, I bet you can still remember every detail. Who else could recall, with tender nostalgia, the dog-shaped discoloration just above your bedroom window or the careful art of jerking open the sticky back door? These are the details that occupy our mind at coincidental moments, unexpectedly blooming in a burst of familiarity. In short—the places we live in form our experiences.

Autumn air tastes of urgency. The creeping chill and trees’ spectacular descent into hibernation note the passing days with the same inevitability as a ticking clock. As each expiration of breath becomes more and more visible, we are reminded of nature’s steady countdown to winter. Change is everywhere and inescapable. Rather than reject it, autumn invites us to embrace it. For the me the peak of autumnal anticipation is the start of the school year in September. There’s something magical about those first few weeks of school: not yet besieged with assignment upon assignment, the temperature imperceptibly dipping, reacquainting yourself with the faces, new and old, and all that has changed about them over the summer. At that age, it feels like every small event has the potential to completely change life as you know it. The highs are high, and the lows are low, but above all there is an instinctive craving to try new things and experience as never before.