Artist of the Week
Amy Lam

By Jon McCurley

Posted September 11th, 2007.

In Jon McCurley's words: "Life of a Craph ead is all the projects we [Amy Lam and I] do together. We've made stuff like a free lunch where we ordered everything on the menu at a Chinese restaurant all at once, or we made rumble strips into Yonge by the Future Shop to make a musical road you drive over, we've made a bed sitting on a sofa, stuff like that. We also have a traveling store where we sell things like moose perfume and laser beam glasses you wear when your mad, or laughter treated wood, or jeans with the crotch blow out. We performed Dune (memorized), we made a cake look in a mirror. We made a man-made hill in a park once, we barbequed a box of waffles. It makes more sense then I've made it seem though. We've done art shows and events and comedy shows and have a store we set up sometimes."

MONDO: I have never seen you doodle. Why not! (Or draw, or paint, ever.) What is it you do if you are getting GRANTS and going to NEW YORK and going to dinner parties and hanging out with jazz musicians, am I right?

I know what you do — maybe I'm asking why don't you doodle? Are you too IDEA?

Amy Lam: Yes. All my I-D-E-As usually require spelling and doodling is almost the opposite of spelling.

MONDO: Where are we going to get $600!

AL: We will have to find $300 and then $300. Or maybe we will find $100 and then $50 and then $250 and then $200. Or $35 and $25 and $20 and $10 and $10 and $5 and $3 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1 and $1,000,000!!!!!

MONDO: When we come up with some idea we'll sit there and come up with 500 ideas, maybe that's what you do instead of doodling, but if every idea is interchangeable like that does that mean they're all the same? All the same and trite!

AL: Are all doodles the same? Are all poodles the same? Maybe all the ideas that We come up with are the same but I think that our one idea is different from all the other We's in the world, so even though We only have one idea, at least We're not Them! Do you agree or disagree? Imagine a black poodle in a room. Now imagine a white poodle in a pool. Are they the same?

MONDO: Why don't you just do freelance photography and drop all this running-around-paying-for-expensive-equipment-to-do-something-nobody-sees type stuff?

AL: No one wants to see my photos of cans of iced tea either. If we didn't spend our money on expensive construction equipment to cut four lines on Yonge Street (real story), or van-taxis to Don Valley Brickworks to install our big black "LIFE" sign for a party that happens all in the dark (real story), or on some kind of giant kite shaped like a wizard (future story), what would we do with it? Buy more expensive broccoli? Like not "more" broccoli, but the most expensive kind of broccoli? I guess then maybe we wouldn't have that problem of the $600 and we wouldn't be such stress balls. But if we weren't such stress balls then we couldn't sit around coming up with 500 ideas on how to stop feeling stress. One day we'll get to relax with huge cans of iced tea but that won't happen by becoming a freelance photographer. This question is kind of like asking the President of the United States why he isn't the President of Russia.

MONDO: Is the big idea is to make them go DUH! Why make everyone go like that?

AL: Sure. DUH is the sound of your brain shutting down. Imagine how loud and satisfying that would be, if we could make everyone's brains shut down at the same time. That is kind of what 2012 is going to sound like, if 2012 is when everyone's brains get shut down and then restarted again. I guess our brains are just like little rooms with tiny laptops in them! So when we hear that sound, the biggest DUH ever, we will know that we have achieved our Ultimate Goal of stopping the world. Life of a Craphead: Stopping the World, One Brain at a Time.

MONDO: Where do you shop?

AL: I shop at the convenience store at the bottom of my apartment building.

MONDO: Where don't you shop?

AL: I don't shop at the convenience store in Scarborough that is in the bottom of some other apartment building.

all content is copyright of the authors, 2007 — email us! editor [at] mondomagazine.net
hurrah!