October Favourites

I’ve been looking through my meagre Substack posts to create a “where to begin” listing and got distracted re-reading my early monthly favourites round-ups. I only managed 4 (with one month being split into two posts, lol), and I think I stopped because I couldn’t be assed to create the gif I began making those with, but uh, reading those was kind of fun?

In honour of the assumptions early Internet writers (bloggers) had that people cared what they loved, here is a new instalment of MONTHLY FAVOURITES (woooooo!).

Okay, so I’ve been reading Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series since like, July, when Amazon canceled the series just as it started to get really good. I’ve probably written about it here, but truthfully, I’ve been unable to read anything else while I’ve been in the middle of it. Which means that I’m stuck reading this giant series because there are fourteen novels in the series (!) and they average about 826 pages (not including the prequel, New Spring, which is only about 400~ pages long) each. I’ve finished Lord of Chaos, which is the sixth book, and am in the middle of New Spring, which is like, so short to me now that I’ve been reading 900+ pagers.1 And I’m so mad that it’s so good because there probably won’t be any more live adaptations in my lifetime.

It’s a bit standard high fantasy fare, but good. I love fantasy, but I don’t think I’ve really hunkered down a series this intense and sprawling. So, I would say that my feedback is from a perspective that I would consider n00b-y. I am and always have been a big reader, however, and I will say that this series has captured my attention in a way that not many series has done. (I gave up midway through the first A Song of Ice and Fire book.)

Also, one of my favourite facts is that Robert Jordan lived in Charleston when he was alive, so it’s funny imagining him him writing these books in the same place as where Thomas Ravenell, Shep, and Whitney from Southern Charm are picking up girls half their age. Like, do you think he’s had dinner with Patricia Altschul?!

Honorable Favourite Mention: the Kobo Mark gave me for no reason this summer, as he now struggles to think of what to get me for Christmas.

Okay, so I really wanted the tiny blue one from the Porter Yoshida collab, but I’m not made of money.

Really, I was trying to be good and not purchase anything but they dropped this in a new colourway (I’d missed the first drop because I was being Good) and I was in a very stressed out state, and so IDK, I bought it. And I’m happy about it! It’s actually a much better size for me, a Bag Lady, than the Porter Yoshida one that I could afford wanted.

It’s such a good travel bag, because I refuse to wear a fanny pack and I’m not in the mood to wade through a cavernous tote, especially when I need to locate my passport, train tickets, et al. I’ve brought it with me to Sicily and it’s now my main bag for a month-long jaunt into our oppressor’s (very beautiful) land.

I know you’re wondering: “What do you keep in the little keychain bag, Carina?”

I have my lip products, a blush, bobby pins, an eraser, and anti-anxiety medication, of course.

I’ve had this twice in October. First, per Mark’s sister, Jane’s, request when she was visiting. And then again when Mark and I had lunch in Borough after seeing the Cai Guo-Qiang show at White Cube (by chance, I had an errand! Justice for Tibet!2). Anyway, it sounds kind of like a dodgy dessert, to be quite frank. It’s essentially a gelato sandwich with deep-fried bao bun and a malt flavour. However, it’s pretty perfect, actually.

The gelato is rich and creamy with a familiar taste, if that makes sense. But it’s not crazy sweet either, or sickly, like how some chocolate or caramel desserts can be. And it’s sitting between two halves of hot bread that’s crispy on the outside and pillowy in the middle. Perfect.

I fell swiftly and deeply into Planner Internet about two months ago. Again. However, I will say that I have actually been using a Hobonichi since purchasing one in Taiwan in 2015, and it’s nice to see that it’s still mostly working for me.

Currently, I only have the Hobonichi Weeks Mega for planning for 2025. Predictably, I’ve bought the other two sizes (Cousin and Techo) for the new year. While I’ll mainly just use a Hobonichi Weeks (not Mega, so no exorbitant number of blank pages, sad) for planning my life, I’ll be using the Cousin as a journal of sorts. A bit like a dated commonplace book and Project Life or something. The Techo was actually a 2025 one I got on sale, but I was going to do my daily comics on there as well.

I KNOW. Who has the time? Let’s see if I do, lol.

Some have asked for a planner set-up, which I will have up at some point before the new year, so stay tuned for that.

I went on holiday with Mark’s family towards the end of September, and it was the first time I’d gone into a Schengen country since moving to the U.K. in 2017 (!). I’d never been to Sicily, so it was quite amazing Italy with a sprawling landscape rather than the cities I had seen a decade and a bit ago.

The food was gorgeous; anywhere we went, the food tasted amazing. I had hoped we could have swam a bit more in the ocean, but a lot of the beaches we went to had some rocky shores and the waves were quite strong.

I spent my 37th birthday there, too. Incidentally! So it was nice having family to celebrate with. Jane made a lovely spread for dinner, and I really appreciated her cooking for 6 people on her holiday.

This is for a commission, and I loved kind of going back to the way I used to paint, but also not really. It’s gestural and therapeutic and scratches a wholly different itch than when I finish a “pour painting”, which is where most of my work has been headed for the past two years or so.

This is also the biggest piece I’ve ever made. It’s a tetraptych, but the final size is a bit over 8 feet by 8 feet.

I barely get to go to the Tate anymore, so it’s kind of handy when people are visiting because a) that’s an easy place to take them, and b) it’s where they want to go anyway. They’ve rearranged a lot of the permanent collection, actually, and I loved seeing the Pacita Abad acquisitions displayed so prominently in London, since I just saw them in a small room in Tate Liverpool when they first bought the pieces.

However, just across my favourite room (the one that houses Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals), they’ve hung up Joan Mitchell’s Iva. Which is fantastic.

I’m trying to remember what was hung in that spot before, but I can’t recall. It was either Agnes Martin or Gerhard Richter, maybe. Both great choices, but I was so drawn in by Iva.

Whenever my sister visits London with her partner, they’re always kind enough to bring us along to their fun meals — usually somewhere we wouldn’t go unless it was a special occasion. This last trip, we were able to taste Cornus for the first time!

One of the people we met at Akoko the last time we all ate there started working at Cornus, which is how they found out about it. Like Akoko, it has one Michelin star.

My favourites were the crab and scallop, if you were interested, but everything was lovely.

The thing about shopping shopping is that you keep the stuff you buy, and you have to live with all of that stuff. And when you move? You have to pack all of it up and find a way to bring all of it with you.

I used to find it a waste of a trip to the mall if I came back home without buying anything; the treat meter at a zero was unacceptable. However, since I’ve had to keep my own spaces and make sure they’re (more or less) tidy, I’ve just been so overwhelmed with the amount of stuff I have. That I bought and can’t keep track of. How dumb!

I still enjoy going to shops and looking and trying stuff (not trying stuff on. A detestable exercise). I do not, however, have that desire in me to own everything I want. What a blessing to be in this place. Obviously, I still purchase stuff, but I was speaking to my brother recently about having no appetite for shopping like we both used to. He mentioned that while that was true, he did still want things, but very specific things that he wants because they fill a gap, a void, what-have-you. Not necessarily necessities, but things that aren’t redundant or a duplicate. I think it’s the same for me. Mostly.

I loved going around DSM and Liberty with my sister, and I loved walking out of those places without the compulsion to get something just to get something. You know?

I’m actually in the middle of a very long holiday with my family right now (we’re in Spain!), so I’m in a sort of time delay in terms of favourites in my mind. As in, I have an updated list that I’m really, really wanting to share. The problem with growing up documenting everything to share online like a natural reflex is that once you hit your 30s or something, you just have a bunch of pictures that no one sees. That you’re always meaning to share. Even though you don’t.

My “main blog” where sort of “evergreen”, SEO-friendly (lol) things like travel posts, photographs, and reviews should go has been languishing since before I even moved here. But I think I’m clearer now on where things should live. I think. If you’ve ever had a self-hosted blog that was like, your only friend, you’d know what I mean.

If you find yourself in Manila, please drop by my solo show, Eight Views From the Border, which is my first one with Silverlens. Which I’ve been wanting since 2015, lol. It opened on the 20th of November and runs until the 20th of December. I’m not going to be able to be there (boo flights, boo work), but I hope you will be?

More importantly, I hope you are all doing as well as you can be and are enjoying small (and even big!) things in life that make it bearable and, also, joyful, too.

2

Speaking of Cai Guo-Qiang at the White Cube, there was a documentary of his site-specific works at all these places like Moscow, Philadelphia, Japan, etc. But they conveniently omitted the spectacle he made for Arc’teryx where they set off fireworks alongside a protected mountain area in Tibet.

There were protests when the show opened, and there seems to be no accountability really from White Cube. Speaking of the documentary, I really enjoyed the matchbook landscapes his father made.