infrequent posts make the heart grow fonder? is that how it works on the interweb?

Joaquim was sent to escort me, in a black Peregrino,
to a triple-tiered desert complex. It rises from the sand,
he tells me, like a periscope of smoked glass, and inside
a South American paradise fit for a business man: many
chandeliers of kaleidoscopic resin, an open bar, young
women with caviar and soft roe painted across their naked
breasts as a delicate offering. The appropriate music always.
We’ll both get paid. I’m the only girl in the car, snapping
chicle with my teeth by the minute; unfolding someone’s
lost Jacob’s Ladder toy at each Exit. I’m still struggling to
understand how I got here. I wonder why I’m the only girl,
but I understand his instructions never to leave the car.
Despite the Peregrino, he looks awful. Joaquim Phoenix’s
head sits above his shoulders on a dull pivot. Like a man
in a bear costume, he has no neck. I can’t imagine him
naked, even abandoned in dreams, instead wrapped in his
waist-long dreadlocks, felted into moldy flannel. As we
drive, I see teenaged rancheros exhume a grave. I see
chunks of toilet bowl strewn across the shoulder. I see
empty Industrial Parks. I can name them on my fingers.
I see Joaquim aim two fingers at a passing car and shoot.
I close my eyes, and open them again to a grove of clouds
miming a treeline. I see an arch of amber lights blink at
the car; beyond that, the low tower.

PHILIP K. DICK’S NIGHTMARE (THE ROMAN EMPIRE NEVER ENDED)

by barn owl, 2009 dead medium records.

video shot and edited by JON MARCK

PLAYERS

lead vocals/rhythm guitar: JARED BOTH

harmony vocals: ZOE ALEXIS-ABRAMS

percussion: PAT PIPER

bass: ERIC BRAUER

violin/effects: JON MARCK

keyboards: MICHELLE DREW

fun fact: yes, the vibrato-crazy female vocals are mine. but (!) the girl in the video is michelle drew, the band’s current keyboardist. i was unable to make it to the video shoot due to a conflicting project.

courtesy of the personal collection of elijah dylan alexis-abrams

SHRINE

zoë m. alexis-abrams, 2010

paper, acrylic, watercolour, archival material, glass, wood.

(higher quality photos soon.)

not for sale.

SCIENCE FICTION, 2010

by NATALIE LOGAN and KATE McEDWARDS

composition by JACQUES MINDREAU, recorded by TEN THOUSAND CREATURES and DEAD MEDIUM PRODUCTIONS, toronto

players:

JACQUES MINDREAU, NEIL CAVALIER, PAT PIPER, DREW TAYLOR, ANDREW DZENIS, JOEL ELLIOTT, GRAHAM CAVALIER, ZOE ALEXIS-ABRAMS

by julia dickens

MirrOrriM (Mirror Mirror) is the 1st exhibition at the new Whitehouse:

Work by:

Adam Cowan
Vanessa Rieger
Xenia Vakova
Julia Dickens
Xenia Benivolski
Christy Kunitzky
Jonathan Mayhew
Emily Cook
Krysta-Lee Karenina
Gregory Denton
Zoe Alexis-Abrams
Nadia Berlique
Rebecca Fin Simonetti
Hayden Menzies
Derek Aubichon

Installation and performance by:

Jennifer Chan and Sebastian Koever
Jessica J. Cimó and Misty-Dawn MacMillan
Jen Hutton and & Bel Pierce
Martin Zellinger
Cameron Lee
Kaitlin Till-Landry
Mark Connery

ADVISORY POEMS

1. when you play a harmonica through an amplifier on a new orleans street corner, quote william blake to your lover, or to no one in particular.

2. when you are too harsh, get someone to help you.

3. when you are engulfed in flame, call the psychic hotline to request a year-long forecast.

4. if you are lydia davis, work out the logistics of staying out late and waking up early.

5. when your job makes a glorified babysitter out of you, grapple with your transgressions over a pot of tea.

6. if you suffer from hysteria, throw a dinner party to forget “it all”.

7. when you “go to town”, surf the ‘net for related clues.

8. when you eat a handful of dates, cross the street at odd intervals.

9. when you are taken hostage, write a letter and press it into a thimble-sized shape.

10. if you like break-core music, trace the shape of the moon on a window with a bar of soap.

watercolours, paper. 2010.

or, upon the death of heath ledger