connor garel (@nopeconnor)

outtakes @ssense @lawrencejcortez

anyways, a couple of #recent #items

had fun interviewing and writing a tight group portrait about some of my favourite ballroom girls for this @function10.ca x @holtrenfrew pride campaign! i will spare you the video of ray j saying “it’s gay pride month, shout out to all my GAY niggas” and will instead share the lovely campaign video, styled by my brilliant friend @lebaniosmani ❤️‍🔥 read online etc The House of Renfrew: Mother: @tamar.carter1 Father: @heterosexism Daughter: @jazmine.pdf Daughter: @leisurelylavender Daughter: @lameimulanwest MC: @akilelijah Creative Direction & Production: @superfantastic.design @heterosexism @tamar.carter1 Makeup: @ms.mylesmua Stylist: @lebaniosmani Assistant Stylist @briannafunkclements Music: @djdeliiish Photographer: @largecrewneck Video Production: @madebyplot Writer: @nopeconnor

cosplayed as a brit (again!) & profiled the king of grime, @skepta, for the summer issue of @dazed 👨🏾‍🔬 it’s a story about legacy, hating fame, loving the rave, the difference between grime clashes and hip-hop beefs (yes…THAT PARTICULAR beef…), creative rebirth, & why skepta thinks the UK should be included in convos about the greatest living rappers 🫠🫠🫠 story online & in print now! thank you 2 the guys @kaci0n & @jackstuartmills 🫂 photos by @pieter.hugo.official styling by @zaraeloise eic @ibkamara art direction @gareth_wrighton

@ssense sent me these perfect jeans from our legacy and all they got in return was this fun silly little essay about cysts and fascist silhouettes and why marlon brando makes me want to smoke cigarettes, thank you @chrisgayomali @lawrencejcortez 💐

[a lone saxophonist plays in the distance] 📸: @cozydq

i love the movies & i love nickel boys & i loved talking to Ethan Herisse for the third issue of AnOther Man — about his political identification with Elwood, how STEP UP ignited his love for performance, his appetite for films about the embarrassments of the american project, & so much more online now 👓 thank you @ted_stansfield @elliegracecumming 🖤

went to New York in November to chat with the lovely Colman Domingo for @anothermagazine, and to watch Rahim Fortune take these really breathtaking photographs! we talked about Colman’s films—Sing Sing, Zola, Beale Street, an upcoming Joe Jackson biopic & another on Nat King Cole—but also music, acting as flirting, a second coming of age in San Francisco, bartending as creative research, Hollywood’s belated applause, etc etc etc read it online, if you like 🪷 @kingofbingo interview by me 🗞️ photography @rahimfortune styling @raphaelhirsch eic @susannahfrankel art direction @sj_todd_ casting @gkldprojects grooming @jessicasmalls tailoring by leroy gough production @prodn_artandcommerce producers @jamminmccann @samanthaleenyc

i wrote about @brontezpurnell ’s freaky brilliant books, his debut poetry collection, and his dysfunctional, neurotic characters. it’s out now in the walrus, with this beautiful illustration by arthur dennyson hamdani! initially i used the word “cum” six times in the first paragraph but i guess that is not allowed.

whoever said this year was like being awake during surgery was correct! still: danced, wrote, thought, cried, laughed, talked, felt, read, noticed more than maybe ever before—& the gift is that there’s more, always. in love with those of you (some not pictured, because there are too many) who made it beautiful! even and especially when it was not 💐

what a pleasure & honour not only to have edited Issue 05 of Justsmile, but also to have profiled for the cover a brilliant & deeply compassionate artist from my own city, someone whose facility with language moves me beyond description! Mustafa and i spoke about his phenomenal debut album, Dunya; about memory and writing as failed catharsis; about borders and airports and what we all owe each other; about Toronto and Palestine and Sudan and the role of the artist in times of war. i’m sure there’s more we discussed that didn’t make the cut — Lydia Davis, Future-as-grief-poet-laureate, the luxury of anonymity, driving to the end of the earth — but what’s left still satisfies, a portrait of one of my favourite artists working today 🫁 buy the magazine! there’s so much greatness inside: a profile of @kelvharrjr by @iamntyrell, an interview with @kevinmbeasley by christopher l. lew, a photo story by @marcusjcorrea and carlos jaramillo, an interview with curator adrienne edwards on alvin ailey by @yaniyalee, a profile of @connormcknight by @josh_greenblatt, a profile of @biancarobyn by @habi.lisa… will surely share more previews later but the point is, I LOVE MAGAZINES! read this one! 💌 photography: @boladebanjo eic/stylist: @studiokevinhunter creative director: @mrbrycethomas art director: @anthonybones_ editorial associate: @ismailscoronation groomer: @homasafar at @dayone__studio photography assistance: @echoalex motion: @duncan_loudon

my cousin got married and i officiated and cried and it was beautiful, i look great in a bowtie, me and kelsey heard beethoven at the orchestra, director x talked to me about his work and mentorship under hype williams onstage (justice for “Belly” [1998]), chad spiritually resembles Kafuku in “Drive My Car”—and some other autumnal encounters