Artist’s Notes: Created for 7x7.la in literary collaboration with Duncan Birmingham ~

"We took to calling them The Girls - a label too innocuous for the havoc they wrecked on us. It wasn’t like we didn’t already have our share of headaches. Clusterfucked infrastructure, tainted blood on the playgrounds, a police force militarized to the teeth, sewer rats large as linebackers. Don’t get me started.

And yet even among our daily grind of corruption and recreational arson, our new neighbors still managed to tweak us. 

A constant convoy from the city of sports cars, backhoes, big rigs and cement trucks swarmed to and from their place. They cut ribbons and broke ground on every nook and cranny of the property then threw parties that lasted for days - the Old Victorian’s broken glass rattling like teeth to whatever sonic weaponry they were blasting. They sat on the porch at all hours, high on something with an enormous dog at their feet, waving genteelly and drinking lemonade as if to mock everything our neighborhood had lost. No one had used their porch in our town for decades. They closed down our much beloved methadone clinic and in its place opened an izakaya. There was no question they had the money to buy and sell us off for scrap. It was rumored their father made a fortune with a chemical agent utilized in the Middle East the effects of which made  Agent Orange look like Tang.

When we began to push back - a hard look here, their likeness roasted in effigy on the front lawn there - they seemed to take it all in stride. 

Mr. Rodgers these sister/lovers were most certainly not. But most egregious of their offenses was the simple fact that they were here and none of us could fathom why."

-Duncan Birmingham, INTERLOPERS, 7x7la