SPACE! DAD!
by Ian Sullivan Cant & Melissa Bull

Sarah Steinberg let me repost this piece from Vice mag.
Just the perfect sentiment for Father's Day, kiddos.

DADDY'S GIRL

Just because my dad was never around because he was a drug-addled loser doesn't mean that he didn't teach me a couple of things. My dad (or "Dave" as he had me call him) taught me that jeans were made for wiping your dirty hands, that the word "toilet" should be pronounced like "troy-let" and how to play Ms. Pac-Man for at least half an hour on one quarter. I was thinking about calling him up to ask him a few questions about his life but then I realized that I didn't have his number. So I called my mom instead.

VICE: So it's Father's Day this weekend.

My mom: I guess so.

Have you talked to David lately?

Who's David?

My father.

Oh, David. No. Have you?

No. I didn't think he had a phone.

I don't know that he does.

Well, look. I had a question about him that I wanted to ask you. I was thinking about how when people do a lot of drugs how they usually sit around with the people they're doing the drugs with and talk about the big ideas they have and the big things they're going to do.

Yeah.

So I'm just wondering, what do you think he talked about when he was getting high? What were the things he was gonna do?

I don't recall David ever talking about things he was going to do.

Oh. But I mean, what were his goals?

I have no idea that he ever had any goals.

No goals?

No.

Well what did he enjoy doing?

He played pool. And he went to the horses. And he's like a master whaddayacallit when you can pick the right number combinations to win big money?

I dunno, but he couldn't have been very good at that because otherwise he might have had a pot to piss in, right?

Well it's interesting. He told me that the first time he went to the races--he was a cashier at a deli at the time--he won something like $35,000. And it so scarred him, because when you start out winning like that, for the rest of your life you're going to give it back. And that's exactly what he did. He just kept giving it back. By that stage in his life he was already headed down. He'd already left behind a bad marriage.

What are you talking about? Who was he married to?

I've told you this before. To a woman in Sweden.

Wait . . .

But they were divorced. He led me to understand that it was a marriage of convenience.

So that she could live in the States?

No, the other way around. So that he could stay in Sweden.

He was living in Sweden?

He was eventually deported. Or repatriated.

Because he was broke? Is that some kind of capital offense in Sweden?

Oh no, not at all! It's just that the US doesn't like having to pay to bring their people home--

But why was he deported in the first place?

I have no idea, you'd have to ask him.

But how did he get to Sweden?

You'd have to ask him. Me, I never got answers.

So could I have brothers or sisters?

Sarah, I have no idea.

Yeah. OK. Well, happy Father's Day.

All right dear. You too.

-SARAH STEINBERG

SPACE! DAD!
by Melissa Bull & Ian Sullivan Cant

TAYLOR BROWN-EVANS are free range eggs allowed to move around the womb?

9 minutes ago

You like this.






· Comment ·

Marcelle V.

There is no womb.

Saturday at 20:36

· Comment ·

EMERSON
by Dan Svatek

2 poems
by Brandy Ryan

re verse all – jeanette winterson’s

‘cup knife compass remedy’

iii.

The strange thing about learning to look

to watch without living

… is that the eye becomes sharp, sharp

is a slow death

as a blade, and

the basil leaf left on the counter

… We start to see

unused ,

the world

that eyes me

differently, not as

as i peel, smash, and finely mince

an intellectual response, no,

the garlic,

I mean actually see

sliver the red-skinned

it, alive suddenly to

onion, julienne

ugliness and beauty, repelled by banality

(not Julian, a boy i knew once; he played guitar)

instead of habituated to it

this leaf.

The new

cannot command my attention

sight [of] art

as i heat oil

allows … no more blur

i unnotice it,

no more failure

and so its edges indigo in protest
of vision
furl inwards finally it withers to half its size in bloom.

Or, i may look – a fate no different in its inevitability.

CIBC national student loan centre

This post-amount

account Revision first revises into how

to divide infinite yielding to reckon the Wilde, number & divide their expense what of the women restrictions from discovering Revision women I could write begrudge silent-speaking—the truth the end of inquiring As a result revise the terms the letter confirm you the world Information time
I take not taken to steal and fly As the letter principle check that my scalp hadn’t melted write to see I write close start at the end to write a world pushed into have there is nothing enter stuck and catalogued with me deliciously unknown I seek letter outside terms terms unchanged holding placing open please the air and nothing chance to be other, to be either, to be ether (E)(vers 4.2) not invoiced ink put hooks in your mouth between and local and reckoned, accounted, due,

record.

*

perpetually (sometimes petulantly) playing with words, brandy ryan lives in toronto as she considers her next move.

show details 04/09/2008

The barrista has the same cologne as you. She smudged it all over the lid of my allongé.

OLIVIA

- Show quoted text -

HENRY0245

Journal entry for September 4, 2008:

Told I smell like a female barrista.

Skipped dinner to sob.

2300mg thorazine.

- Show quoted text -

|

show details 04/09/2008

NEWSFLASH: FEMALE BARRISTA SMELLS LIKE SEXY MAN!

OLIVIA

- Show quoted text -

HENRY0245

show details 04/09/2008

AP Canada: Female impersonator found, arrested, found sexy.

show details 04/09/2008

MIXED MEDIA
works by Clea Haugo

A little Q an A
with Clea Haugo

What are you working on right now?
I am currently working on a series of mixed media portraits of victorian era ladies set in modern day surroundings; these are inspired by family photographs and early photographic techniques such as composites, dioramas and silhouettes.


Tell me about the vintage inspiration.
I incorporate a lot of vintage imagery and text into my drawings, paintings, and illustration--I am especially interested in the aesthetics and graphic design of vintage magazines; the simplicity, honesty, and lack of pretense.


What's your favourite era?
It's hard for me to pick just one favourite era... I am really fascinated by the 1930s--times were desperate and yet people were creative, it was the Jazz Age and people danced and sang and watched musicals! And I think there are similarities to today--the economic depression, markets crashing and job shortages.












*

Clea Haugo has a degree in Art History and Fine Arts from Concordia University, and is also a graduate of Algonquin College's Applied Museum Studies. She's had internships at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, at The Field Museum in Chicago, and at the McCord Museum in Montreal. Clea currently works as a writer/cataloguer for a fine art and antiques auction house. To see more of her work, visit factorycentral.ca. You can also buy up her cards at General 54.

--from Gus--

I have been moving a lot. Lifting heavy boxes all day. Last night I did a load at midnight. Then I filled the bathtub with cold water and got in it. I make it sound instantaneous but it actually took a long time for me to get in it actually.

SPACE! DAD!
by Ian Sullivan Cant
and Melissa Bull

we're all connected
by gabe foreman




(click to enlarge)

E R R A T I C A

by Nick McArthur

I

A Brief Monologue Wherein Our Hero, a Formerly Comatose and Wrongfully Accused Young Patient, Makes Good his Escape from Sayreville County Hospital, Displaying at Once Resourceful Cunning and Multiple Behavioral Symptoms of Having Sustained a Massive Head Injury

Greetings, Mr. Worthington! How are you feeling today? Good? I hope the answer is “good.” My name is Samuel Curtis and as you’ve probably guessed from my stethoscope and wristwatch I am a real doctor gainfully employed at this hospital. I will be attending to your case this afternoon. Please disrobe and lay face-down on the table while I look in this cupboard for a medical chart (i). Help yourself to a paper dress. The lollipops are delicious.

Now before we get started, you may or may not have noticed that aside from my stethoscope and high quality wristwatch I am dressed, let’s say, sort of atypically for a practitioner. This is entirely for your comfort, Mr. Worthington. Recent studies have shown that a doctor’s good health and professional success can be off-putting for some patients, especially those inclined to bouts of jealousy. These jealous bouts can adversely affect a patient’s willingness to open up, inhibiting channels of communication, and ultimately delaying the attainment of a useful diagnosis— sometimes with catastrophic results. According to these studies, a less professional appearance on the part of a practitioner can foster healthy relations between him and his patients. You will notice, for example, that I am not wearing a lab-coat or grasping onto a clipboard. I am dressed in a hospital gown identical to your own— my feet clad in slippers, my face unshaven and legs exposed. These are all tokens of my sympathy for your illness, Mr. Worthington. They are the symbolic evidences of our shared mortality, our mutual vulnerability, our unbreakable bond as diagnostician and diagnosed. Consider them a gesture of equalization. And please, Mr. Worthington, don’t think of me as superior, for we are embarked on this together just as sailors in a squall or as soldiers in a foxhole— companions united until the bitterest of ends. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Worthington? It is pivotal that you trust me and that I in turn trust you. This is the reason that I’m dressed the way I am— as a patient recovering from extensive cerebral hemorrhaging. Can you comprehend all this, Mr. Worthington? Can you understand what I am trying to communicate?

I’ll assume from your speechless terror that you cannot.

Excuse me one second while I lock the door…

Mr. Worthington, I believe I have surmised the reason for your discomfort, and I suppose that I owe you some kind of an apology. Obviously, my endeavors to put you at your ease have failed; my feigned congeniality has failed; these illusions of bad health have failed. You’re as alienated now by my paper gown and slippers as you ever could have been by a three-piece Armani suit. What is worse, Mr. Worthington, is that your attention (I can tell) has by this point been drawn to the upper-leftmost quadrant of my skull. Please do not be alarmed! It is my duty to emphasize, here, that the festering contusion which you believe you see is entirely an illusion— a synthetic wound designed to bring us together; to render us less like doctor and patient and more like two commiserating friends. I can see now what a terrible error in judgment this has been. You are obviously frightened. Perhaps if I were to— how should I say it— unveil for you the methods of my dissemblance— perhaps then your reservations would be assuaged? Please, Mr. Worthington, indulge me for one second:

The area right here resembling exposed skull is, as you will notice on further inspection, nothing but plaster bandages carefully shaped and painted. Go ahead and touch it, Mr. Worthington. Doesn’t it feel real? Doesn’t it feel like genuine exposed skull, throbbing below your fingertips? Please do not be disgusted. Nothing you’re experiencing is real. Those secretions you’re encountering are also synthetic.

And what about the fissure? At the center of the plaster, can you distinguish a long crack? A narrow little cavity? A hole that extends straight down to the interior? If you hazard a second look you will no doubt catch just the faintest glimpse of grayish pink brain, nestled below the surface. It is nothing but smoke and mirrors, Mr. Worthington! A little black paint for the illusion of depth; a little pink polish for the temporal lobe, and voila— a thoroughly convincing cranial fracture! Go ahead and get a pinky in there… that’s right, keep going… keep going… okay, that’s far enough.

Now, Mr. Worthington, have I thoroughly calmed your fears? Are your uncertainties abated? Your questions answered? Your prejudices quelled? As you can tell I am a man of science— abreast in every way of the latest techniques. My approach may be unorthodox, my demeanor may be odd, and I may smell unpleasantly of uncured ham— but I am nevertheless your doctor. And after everything I’ve shown you I hope you’re ready to trust me. I hope that you’re ready to begin the examination and move forward in our friendship. Are you, Mr. Worthington? Are you ready to trust again? Are you ready at last to let yourself be vulnerable?

Mr. Worthington, I have with me a sedative to dispel whatever lingering feelings of anxiety you may possess. I normally wouldn’t insist but— given your initial wariness— this may be the only way for us to secure accurate data. If you trust me as your doctor and have faith in my techniques, I will administer this needle before continuing your examination. If not, I will leave you in peace to locate another practitioner. The decision is yours.

But I should warn you, Mr. Worthington— there is a small chance that the sedative in question will present certain undesirable side-effects. You may feel disoriented. Your mouth might become dry. You may twitch uncontrollably. After a few minutes of these initial effects, you may experience various paranoid hallucinations. Just as an example, you may imagine that I’m stealing your clothes and rifling through your wallet— leaving you here in a state of prostrate nakedness. Possibly, these paranoid hallucinations will occur with such galvanising vividness that you will suddenly feel compelled to punch me in the throat. I urge you to resist this compulsion. It is important you remember that I am your doctor, and that I am only here to help. I am not here to run off with your clothes like some desperate, hunted person. Because I am not a desperate, hunted person. I am a doctor. I am here to help. I am here to help you with your illnesses, right now.

So, what will it be, Mr. Worthington? Will you take the sedative? Have you decided to take my advice? Have you decided to trust me?

---

(i) An excerpt from Mr. Worthington’s medical chart, located several days later by police investigators:

Patrick Worthington

DOB: 10/11/1959

03/14/2016

PHYSICIAN: Samuel “Wallaby” Curtis

PHYSICAL EXAMINATION:

VITALS: Still vital.

SKIN: White.

Head, Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Throat: One of each. Except for the ears. And the eyes. And the… nostrils?

CHEST: Present.

CARDIAC: Super.

BREASTS: In the A range, I suppose.

RECTOVAGINAL: Definitely recto.

UTERINE: This may be the wrong chart.

MENSTRUAL: This is almost definitely the wrong chart.

LABIAL: Where do we keep the other charts? Is there a cabinet for men? By which I don’t mean a cabinet filled with tiny little men, but rather a cabinet filled medical charts designed for regular sized men, with regular sized ailments. And where would we keep such a cabinet, if we had one?

EXTREMITIES: Good.

NEUROLOGIC: Very good.

NODES: Very, very good.

SPINAL: Very, very, very good…

*

Nick McArthur's first book, Short Accounts of Tragic Occurances, was published by DC Books last year. You'll want to read it.