Ladies Who Lurch

A Wing and a Prayer From Oprah

by Emmy and Ellie Anglin, written at Mother's Pizza in April 2018

O, Oprah, give us wings...

I'm praying that you'll give me my first public forum

but first forgive my sinful decorum

give me a wing - mild, BBQ or plain

and if you don't lift me up, I'll go insane

I know I'm acting like a common fan

but i want chicken so small it'll fit in my hand

If you won't make me famous at least give me wings

but of the two we prefer the first of these things

the first, figurative wings, will set our careers in flight.

the second, finely sauced, will at least set us up for the night

Between these two desires we are torn

but if you give us our own show, we'll give you our first born

Time Moves Both Ways

Time passed hard
And the task was the hardest thing she'd ever do
But she forgot
The moment she saw you

So it would seem to be true
When cruel birth debases, we forget
When cruel death debases
We believe it erases all the rest
that precedes

But stand brave, life-liver
Bleeding out your days
In the river of time
Stand brave
Time moves both ways

In the nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life
The nullifying, defeating, negating, repeating
Joy of life

The moment of your greatest joy sustains
Not axe nor hammer
Tumor, tremor
Can take it away, and it remains
It remains

And it pains me to say, I was wrong
Love is not a symptom of time
Time is just a symptom of love

- Time, As a Symptom of Love by Joanna Newsom

Glitter Theory by Allie Brenner & Ellie Anglin

Glitter Theory

These photos are stills from a stop-motion animation collaboration that I worked on with the wonderful Allie Brenner in 2016. 

White Tears review

White Tears

By Hari Kunzru

Published in The Kitchener Citizen, October 2018

White Tears is the latest offering from author Hari Kunzru, who specializes
in “translit” -- a literary genre that seeks to collapse space and time while
maintaining narrative traction in the reader’s mind. Kunzru accomplishes
this so masterfully in White Tears that you will gladly surrender to his
ever-shifting reality.

Seth, our protagonist, is average in every way and therefore serves as a blank

screen on which other characters are crisply projected. The achingly cool (and

ultra rich) Carter Wallace is the focus of his attention, and takes him on the

coat-tail ride of his life to New York, where they become music producers.

Through Carter, we enter a world of record collectors: mostly white men who

are alienated by the present, and obsessively collect the past. The rarest and

most prized treasures are early blues records made by black slaves, ex-slaves

or descendants of slaves. It is not enough for Carter to listen to the music -- he

wants to own it, by any means necessary. He becomes increasingly unhinged

as he hunts down one record, the extremely rare and groundbreaking Graveyard

Blues by mythologized figure Charlie Shaw -- one we are not sure even exists.

When he at last gets his hands on it, the universe of the novel is flipped upside

down. Reality disintegrates and space, time, and sanity become fluid and shifting.

The book gains dizzying momentum, and you’ll find yourself devouring pages to

find what happens next. Kunzru shows how seemingly innocent acts of appropriation

are echoes of the total forms of violence they descend from. The collector’s desire to

own black music springs from the same well that fueled slavery. In the world of White

Tears, however, the would-be possessors come to be possessed themselves by the

ghosts of retribution. Dark secrets materialise, and the final pages sew everything

together neatly like an intricate quilt, as interlocking and systematic as oppression itself.

White Tears is an entrancing, fast-paced mystery full of twists and turns that feel at once revelatory and inevitable. But it is so much more than a great read -- it is a metaphysical examination of white privilege, cultural appropriation, and selfhood that in the end will leave you with the satisfying sense that justice has been served.

Amy Winehouse painting

Ode to Amy Whinehouse

Unchained Melody

A cataclysmic cat eye

a bouffant too close to God

A missing tooth

and something else inside you

that made you reach out

even to the paps outside your flat

lunging in blood stained ballet flats

It made you cry for Blake

when YOU were the gold chain

YOU were the lioness

And something in you belted out

that last night

but they took the very wind from you

they printed something broken

tracked what Perez posted

something they could never have

in your final days

the way you swayed

with melting tar and melody

the amber, booze soaked memory

and leopard print bruises

from a trite bon mot

even after your passing

and a last resort in Bermuda

with your father and betrayer

and now you,

melt in her legacy.

Sometimes Late At Night

"Sometimes Late at Night" by Agile Like This. Lyrics written and performed by Caroline Wesley, Music by Dan Schickerowsky, Video by Ellie Anglin.

Quats on Quilts

Dragula Doodles

Loris, from Dragula Season 1

Pinche, from Dragula Season 1

Xochi Mochi, from Dragula Season 1

Melissa BeFierce, from Dragula Season 1

Abhora, from Dragula Season 2

Eat Me Famous

My newest zine, Eat Me Famous, co-created with Caroline Wesley, Ryan King, Dan Schickerowsky and Molly Patterson (and more!) is now available at Open Sesame in downtown Kitchener, or from me if you catch me on the street. Full of food/celebrity pun artwork and poetry, it's finger lickin' good honey!

Digital art for Pride Month!

Trixie Mattel

I try to branch out from drag art, but it pulls me back. Here is a new painting of Trixie Mattel, star of RuPaul's Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 3, and The Trixie and Katya show.
This is on paper 11" x 14" paper in watercolour, india ink and with added sequins.

Librarianism

Working on a new zine/comic about working at the Library. Here is the cover.

Collages for Emilie

I made three collages out of old kids books, comics, and Disney books, some of which Danielle gave me, for her newest baby, with David, named Emilie! I hope she likes them!

Quilt for Andrea

In December of 2016 I started a quilt for my soon-to-be wife Andrea. I got a beautiful vintage ring for our wedding, and she didn't want anything other than the gold band from our engagement, but i wanted her to have a wedding gift too!  Unfortunately other art stuff took precedence, and it was intermittently put on the back burner, but I finally finished it, only a year later!  It's all made from batik fabric, which kind of reminds me of tie dye, which Andrea loves. the back is outer space fabric that she picked out, and I made a label and embroidered it with glittery thread.  Here it is!

Joyce theatre drawing, for Meagan

I went to NYC for the first time this year. I've always wanted to go but never have been able to, or never made it happen. I finally got there, with my best friend since high school Meagan Snyder, who was four months pregnant. We stayed in a great ram shackle hostel in Chelsea and we had the time of our lives. My favourite thing was just looking at buildings and people. One building I especially liked was this theatre right by our hostel that said JOYCE giant neon letters. I drew a picture of it for Meagan, whose Grandmother's name was Joyce, and will be giving her future daughter Joyce as a middle name.

Cream Soda collage

I've been experimenting with more abstract collage styles, using a lot of kids books and graphic novels (my love Daniel Clowes), stamps I got in NYC and small illustrations.

Our Ink, Our Stories for KPL

In September I started my dream job at the Kitchener Public Library, as a Library Assistant (helping people sign up for library cards, check in and check out books, DVDs, CDs, audiobooks, helping people use the internet, the printer, access classes and resources) at the main branch of the library, which is like a beautiful art gallery as well as being a breathtaking work of architecture, as well as a place that houses a lot of very happy personal memories of reading, learning, art and community, but also at the four community library branches (Forest Heights, Country Hills, Pioneer Park and Grand River) which each have their own distinct personality and populations they serve.

In addition to loving the work, I also love the organization and what they stand for. I also work with and for some of the nicest, coolest, smartest people in the area. I honestly enjoy going to work every day and actually believe in what we do. It's so unusual! Unlike some libraries, the KPL is super progressive and forward thinking in it's vision, and in the last year enrolment has increased by 20%! The library is so much more than a place to get any book, movie, or piece of music for free, but it's kind of the true manifestation of democracy - a non-capitalist town hall - where anyone is welcome regardless of where they are at in life, where people can come when they come as refugees to Canada, when they get out of jail after twenty years, when they don't know how to use the internet, when they have five kids and are about to have a nervous breakdown, when they can't read, when they have a disability, when they want to make art or use technology or make music but can't afford the supplies, and they are all welcomed as our customers. Or you can come use the library if you have everything you could want and need in life, and you'll get more than you could ever imagine out of it. You can borrow musical instruments, toys, try virtual reality, make a 3D print, make a podcast, make a video on our green screen.

As if the job couldn't get any better, one of the people I work with - Meg Harder, is an amazing artist and person, and asked me to help her with a really cool project that the CEO Mary Chevreau asked her to take on, and I've been loving to contribute to it. The project is Our Ink, Our Stories, and it is a blog telling stories of the residents of Waterloo Region through their tattoos (or other uses of ink/paint on their bodies).

Resist Psychic Death banner, Night/Shift 2017

Posing on the banner

the scheming duo, with banner draped on Andrea's car

the banner hanging outside of J&P Grocery

The banner lit up and on display - only sagging slightly - on November 4th 2017 for Night\Shift.

Some explanation.