ARIES: You're in a song-lyric phases, aren't you? One of those seasons when every song on the radio is about you, exposing your secret heart, no matter if it's Leonard Cohen or Justin Bieber. When all you want to do is drive somewhere alone, belting out songs at the top of your lungs, palming away tears or letting out those primal yips and howls that threaten to erupt morning to night. You know what, Aries? Do it. Get in your car and turn up the Top 40 and borrow the words to feel your feelings.
Recommended sweater: cardigan
GEMINI: The world needs more queeroes. We need more drag stars, more lipstick femmes, more dirty knees and torn fishnets. We need more rock stars who fuck their fans, more trans liberators, more random acts of affection between friends. We need less toxic masculinity and emotional labour. We need more glitter and more tenderness, more butch bears and more leather. We need the fringes, because that's where things really start to sway. Do you have enough fringe in your closet, Gemini?
Recommended sweater: crop turtleneck
TAURUS: You always make me think of muscle cars! To me, Taurus is the most macho sign in the zodiac, a real emblem of butchness and posturing. I think of Brando in his silly hat. I think of McQueen from Cars. I think of cigarettes dangling from the edges of lips, scraped knuckles, whiskey straight and slammed back. Anyway, this is all to say: don't be a cartoon version of a person, a paper-doll outline of a 1950s detective, or a 1980s Aquanet secretary or a 2017 Tumblr gender nerd. Give yourself dimension and shadow. Don't pose.
Recommended sweater: fisherman
CANCER: I read an interview with Rashida Jones recently, where she talked about the difference between feminism (the goal of lifting up women within a patriarchal capitalist society) and the feminine. And I was like, "YEAH!" but then I realized I didn't really know where to go from there. I love being feminine, and being queerishly femme—interrogating what it is to be female in relation to both men and other women, in both a capitalist system and edging outside it. Cancers have a great gift for empathy; your goal this fall should be to channel that intuition into channels where the waters are murky.
Recommended sweater: angora waist-warmer
LEO: Tap into your feline side this fall and stop working so hard. Cats sleep like ten thousand hours a year (Ed: not true?), and they also give zero fucks about other people's feelings (Ed: confirmed), so maybe it's time for you start gazing out the window in a tawny, "ask me again about the Edson file, Carl, I DARE YOU" manner, and then slowly pick the steak out of your teeth with a credit card before falling asleep at your desk. And if your current job doesn't allow for this, pivot until you find one that does.
Recommended sweater: sweatshirt with a cat's face on it
VIRGO: Last month, The Knife released their Live at Terminal 5 concert video, rife with weird instruments and highly choreographed dance routines. It's unclear, from watching the video, who exactly is in the brother-sister duo of the The Knife and who's doing support; the idea is that everyone would meld together into one cohesive entity. No backup singers, no stars. The world could stand a little less hierarchy, which makes me ask: are you upholding these less-awesome power structures, Virgo? Do you share your limelight?
Recommended sweater: sparklegoth capelet
LIBRA: Every time I think about Libras, I think of candles and altars, animal skulls and feathers. I think of my old friend the Libra, who had the most beautiful green eyes and who smoked like a chimney. I think of broken hearts and velvet ribbons—tactile gifts we give ourselves to heal and mend, to remind ourselves of old wounds. I think of how hard it is to be kind to those who have hurt us, and how fucking important is it that we try anyway.
Recommended sweater: Pendleton blanket wrapped just so
SCORPIO: Did you know that scar tissue is sticky? It binds together layers of our bodies—skin, the underlying muscles and fats, fascia and organs—into a mess of connection. This connection, which isn't really how our bodies want to work, causes pain and other side effects. Physiotherapists recommend scar massage, a process of poking and prodding these over-enmeshed areas to loosen the connections and work towards better health. It's a metaphor, Scorpio: don't let yourself become too connected, too enmeshed. Keep some layers in your life.
Recommended sweater: Fair Isle
SAGITTARIUS: Can we talk about Winona Ryder in Stranger Things? Can we talk about how affirming it is that this messy, shaky, edgy, unbelieved character—who is so yelly and jittery for most of the show—is, by the final episode, whispering soothing salvations into our heroine's ear? And can we talk about how mothers have it so hard? To be jittery and jumpy is antithetical to the Earth Mama ethos; it's off-putting and not calming. But there she is, doing her mom job, despite being a total mess, and it made me feel SO MUCH BETTER about all the times I feel like my blood has been replace with carbonated iced coffee and I still manage to pull it together for my kid. It's possible. Thanks, Winona. I needed that.
Recommended sweater: v-neck cashmere blend
CAPRICORN: A short list of things I don't understand: why men get all the props in modern art; how I'm supposed to feel about Yayoi Kasura's infinite rooms (claustrophobic? agoraphobic? both?); how people who live in Toronto afford international vacations; what is included in an all-inclusive resort; how transfers work with TTC Presto cards; how vaping is "not smoking"; why I'm so puffy all the time. A quick Google search could probably clear about half of these, but I kind of like living with a little bit of mystery in my life. How comfortable are you with the unknown, Capricorn? Do you fight the compulsion to know every answer?
Recommended sweater: the one your ex left at your house two years ago
AQUARIUS: I've been thinking about manifestos a lot lately. What's the difference between a manifesto, and say, an artist's statement? A list of demands? An explanation? A poem? A manifesto feels to me both grandly self-indulgent and the act of carving out space in the cosmos, claiming space, demanding to be counted. For women and femmes, this act is not self-indulgent at all, but a moment of violence against the status quo. You may not be a woman or a femme, Aquarius, but I hope you count them as part of you allies and your inner circle. Read their manifestos. Stitch them on a flag and fly them from your rooftop.
Recommended sweater: oversized cotton blend with holes at the hem and the thumbs
PISCES: Many years ago, I went out for Nuit Blanche and ended up at OCAD very early in the morning. Wandering the pillars of the school, I came across their student exhibits—paintings, drawings, and a curious section devoted to the "curatorial" students. One corner was heaped with images of the Virgin Mary: candles, paintings, icons, sculptures, mannequins dressed in blue, so on and so on. I remember feeling a bit affronted, because, to me, curation has less to do with whole-hog collecting and more to do with editing: the careful inclusion of what matters, and fuck the rest. But maybe I'm wrong, my fishy friend. Maybe it's not about what gets put in, but what gets left out. After all, you can't have everything. Where would you put it?
Recommended sweater: cable-knit
