A woman was recently killed by an ancient driver who collided with her body on the streets of Toronto. She was a mother. She was walking her baby in a stroller as the car ran a red light and continued to roll towards them, full speed. In that split second, fate offered her a choice: save herself or save her baby. She saved the little one. She made the decision to save the baby and then she died. This is a tragedy.

What if the reverse were true? How would popular opinion differ if it was the infant who perished and the mother survived? The image of a dismembered baby is much more offensive to public taste than a mutilated adult. Why is this? Surely the death of an adult, already accustomed to the world of objects, is appalling and cosmically unjust. There is not a lot of loss in the death of a child. Truly, the death of an infant should be a cause for celebration; they shall not have to suffer through this upside-down woman-man world.

Cursed is the child who grows up without mother.

Blessed is the woman who can hear of her child's dying and say, “So be it.”

A mother dies and it is grim. A child dies and it is joyous. The infant spared on Toronto’s streets has a hopeless life ahead of him. The mother has tacked a senseless finale onto the already senseless narrative that is her life. Yes, it would have been much preferred if it was the child who had died. Either way, it is inane.

Some will read this and think I am a monster. Those people cannot speak from lived experience. Those people have never faced this question directly. I have. I am a father and my child has died. I have killed my own child, with a little help from my friends.

My name is R. Nansen. Your poets have written about me. They have said this: “blood on both hands/he walks amongst us/a fruitless orcharder/dressed in fraggled and frayed faux pas.” They have called me “a nihilistic mystic/with the powers of shaman.” (Poetry attributed to A. McLaren)

These words about me may be true, but firstly I am a creator. A father. You may have heard of my creation, my child. She is called SPAY, and she has died.

Have you not heard of SPAY?  Allow me to educate. Some have said that SPAY stands for the Students for Practical Application of Youth. Still, others claim that SPAY stands for the Silver Painter Anarchist Yodellers. Truly, I say this is false. SPAY stands for nothing but itself.

The history and practices of SPAY are amoebic at best, but to say that SPAY was a disorganization dedicated to the production and pro-life-ration of art would not be untrue. We were an art group founded on this dictum: EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD IS SIMULTANEOUSLY A STUDENT, A PROFESSOR, AND THE AUTHOR OF THEIR OWN LESSON PLAN.

Using this as a curriculum we went boldly forth to reveal the disjunct between theory and practice in general. Through writing, visual art, and performance we spread our message of egoless individualism. Let it be know that R. Nansen started SPAY and intended it to be egoless. Let it be known that R. Nansen started SPAY and called for horizontal leadership, not vertical power struggles. Let it be known that R. Nansen failed SPAY’s cause precisely by proclaiming, “Let it be known that R. Nansen...”

Everyone who has ever made a proclamation in the name of SPAY has failed SPAY.

Yes, an overall silence on the matter of SPAY would be preferred.

After a performance or gallery show people would often ask me, “Is it art, or is it SPAY-art?” This is the same as asking, “Is it art, or is it bad art?” Somehow by proclaiming yourself a part of a higher cause, you excuse yourself from conversations and condemnations of the normal criteria for art. While this may be helpful in that you won’t be teased, it renders your work meaningless.

A student named Joshu once asked me, “Is there artist-nature in SPAY or not?” I said no. He clucked like a rooster. I said “Give me a word of practicality or I will kill SPAY!” He barked at the sun. So I killed SPAY.

Remember this, Dear Reader: The highest purpose of art is atonement. Good art contains both the sin and the repentance. The finest art is transgression, confession, and reconciliation concurrently. The artist wants nothing more than to become clean. In order to do this, the artist must first get dirty.

SPAY was born out of wedlock. SPAY was a bastard child. SPAY was the sin. Sometimes the murder of a child is the only way to hide the evidence. So be it. Now our child will be spared the suffering and embarrassment of canonization.

Should we mourn? That is up to the individual. I got over the death quite easily. In my house I have had installed a sensory deprivation chamber. Whenever I feel the need to think, or elsewise destroy my thinking faculties, I spend some hours in there. I float in warm water in a completely isolated tank and allow my thoughts to do as they will. Following SPAY’s demise, I climbed inside the tank and lay in complete darkness, stillness, and silence for a solid six hours. And then I was blessed with a vision. A voice came into my consciousness. It was a voice which was not my own. It sounded like some funny Italian. Over and over in steady rhythm he sung: “Zang-tum-tum, Zang-tum-tum, Zang-tum-tum, Zang-tum-tum,” in repetitive ecstasy. The sound then transformed into the roar of a car motor: “Zang-tum-tum, Zang-tum-tum.” In my field of vision came images of roads sprouting off in many directions, a rhizomatic array. A highway!

I arose from my chamber as if a newborn spat out of a womb. Soaking and naked, I made for the window, opened it, and made this decree: “One’s art should never be in service of an ideal! The ideal should serve the art. SPAY was an ideal which only lead to nihilistic knots and homogenized artists. I present to you that which has been moving us the whole time: The TransCanaDada MotorWay.”

And thus a new model was born for us shitheads. Allow me to break it down:
Trans=Transformative, Transgressive, Transgendered, Trans-anything, etc.
Cana=Canadian. Respond to your environment, people!
Dada=Dada=Dadadadadada
Motor=Motorik
Way=Tao

To reiterate: Make art which strives, which sins, which forgives, which atones. Make it unique to your time, your place, your person. Make it spontaneous. Keep it moving. Keep it natural.

Art creates these avenues for us as we create the art which creates these avenues which create us. Become the builder of that which will move you and move others.

Sure, SPAY is dead. TransCanadada Motorway Services lives. Still, there will be accidents.

Remember: a real body is easy to kill, all it takes is a strong will and a sharp knife. An ideological body is significantly harder to destroy. We have dropped the name SPAY, but the spirit continues to live. The spirit has migrated down different avenues. Let us follow the spirit and the spirit alone.

SPAY is dead. So Provide Alternate Yammering.