There's a wide range of ways to step into the new year. The spectrum goes from rolling off someone else's couch, wondering what day it is, to waking up with the sun, meditating, then heading off to the gym, committed to a new paradigm.

A better way to spend Halloween proper in 2025 couldn’t have existed. It had been a minute since I’d been to the historic Cafe Cleopatre. Situated in what was once Montreal’s red light district, across Saint Laurent from the Montreal Pool Room, the main floor of the venue is a strip club with the venue on the second floor. Waiting in line on the stairs brought back a lot of (blurry) memories.

Anisia Alexe, also known as Amnesia, is a 22-year-old non-binary, mixed-media artist based in Montreal. While the name Amnesia is a staple of the local drag scene, they are also an accomplished hip-hop dancer, currently performing with the E.Y.E. dance crew under the mentorship of Professor Word.

Friends, the days are getting longer again. Sure, it's barely perceptible, but it's true. We've crossed the threshold, and now the same slow slide that brought us How’d It Get So Dark? is slowly leading us back to Early Sun / Prolonged Evenings, which is everyone's favorite show.

Mona Maarabani knows what she’s doing. She’s used to surprising people when she walks into a room for the first time, confident and ready to take on any challenge sent her way. “Being able to say that about myself right when I was starting out… It was very much a realisation of, ‘oh, I can literally do anything,’” she tells me.

Anthony Portulese is an emerging queer Italo-Québécois writer raised in the East End of Montreal. He first believed his future was destined for the health sciences, and studied pharmacology before taking a radical turn into art history, much to the shock of his family. Setting his ambitions for fiction aside, he pursued academia for a number of years.

See, I was on the waiting list for an adenoidectomy and a deviated septum correction. First, I must tell you, because I had no idea, but adenoids (spongy thingy like tonsils) go away in your tweens. Like, your body reabsorbed them. What the shit? We’re such wild creatures. But mine never did. Mine were huge, and angry, and blocking my airwaves.

For years, researchers have been talking about the Happiness Curve. The theory held that happiness drops off in your mid to late 20s, plummeting till 47, before climbing back to shiny, young standards. It explained the concept of the mid-life crisis, and explained why by the time we're grey, we’re enjoying ourselves again.

Thankfully, Forget The Box doesn’t follow suit. No, here at Forget The Box, you’ll get the nitty-gritty of arts journalism laid out for all to see. Instead of Santa, we’ve got Creative Director Andrew Jamieson, and playing the trope of Mrs. Claus is our very own Dawn McSweeney, Editor-at-Large.

Adrian (LCL GRL) is a Montreal-based musician originally from Brooklyn, NY, who launched their solo project in October 2024 with the release of their first EP. They bring serious vocal training to their work, having performed in the acclaimed Brooklyn Youth Chorus, which contributed to a Grammy-nominated album. After years of songwriting and developing their craft as a drummer, LCL GRL is now dedicated to producing new original pieces and establishing a presence in the local scene.