Interviewed by Judy Thorn
August 2, 2026

The multidisciplinary artist Thomas Alexandre and I engaged in a Zoom call for a much-needed mind-meld. As a Montrealer, this is his debut to an American audience. I first met Thomas in the late 2010s and we became fast friends. He remains one of my most electric connections.

Describe your day without mentioning the weather.

It’s the sixth day I’ve worked in a row. I went to my cleaning job this morning, which is in a beautiful house in the Plateau. I listened to podcasts and music, and then I left. I went to get coffee because I needed coffee, and then I remembered I wanted to try this perfume from a small  local perfumery—parfumerie—called Lvnea, which the spelling of feels so entrenched in 2014. I get their newsletter, and they talked about the new seasonal fragrance that had just come out called “Selkie.” I’ve famously been hunting for a fragrance that smells like the sea, but not in a coconut or sunscreen way. In a very North Sea kind of way.

You want something brackish.

Yes! Yes! I actually have this card here that has the notes printed on it. I’m gonna read them for you. Notes: an ode to longing. First of all, that’s not real. That’s not a note. Ocean pine. Sea brine. Tangles of kelp. Sun-kissed wet fur. Blubber. Seashells. Marine musk. Ambergris accord. Sea moss. 

When you said “sea brine,” I heard “seed rind,” which feels so Steinian.

A hundred percent. I was actually just on her Wikipedia page because of something I saw on social media, and the article talks about how she and Alice called each other “wifey” and “husband.” I’m obsessed. Then I saw people who were arguing about whether or not it was reductive. I don’t care.

Is there anything you do think is reductive?

Electric bikes. I’ve been forced to take them to work lately because there’s a drought of non-electric Citi Bikes. For your American audience, it’s a Bixi here, but you guys would know it as a Citi Bike. There’s a classic one and an electric one. The electric one is cyan colored, and the classic one is gray. 

Seems like they’ve instilled a hierarchy by making the electric one a more sensory color experience.

Yes, and there’s a contest to win $100,000 if you ride the bikes, which is like season 12 Drag Race money. If you take the blue bike, you get 10 entries, and if you take the classic bike, you just get one. This is every time you take a bike. There’s a new form of bigotry that’s happening within the communal bike world. Anyway, I should finish my other story: I went back home and started reading Future Howl by Sue Goyette, and then I watched Canada’s Drag Race. This book is gorgeous, by the way. May I read to you the first line? “The mother impulsively swallowed the moon. ‘Oh fuck,’ she wanted to say. A quarter moon is one thing. A full moon needs its own luggage.” I’m obsessed with the idea of swallowing a moon and going “oh fuck!” Especially here on Earth, we only have one! At least if it was on a more, um…

A more moonish planet.

Yeah, then there would be options and it wouldn’t feel so grave.

Are you the same person you’ve always been?

Do you think children live in a state of perpetual return?

I would hope so. I remember mostly what my mom tells me about how I was as a child, because even though I have a lot of memories, they’re rarely of me. She loves to tell me that I spent hours just looking at bugs. Also that I was really scared of being touched by anyone for like six months because of a sensitivity training video we watched in Grade 3.

Beyond that, I remember being sure of who I was as a child, despite the fact that I was often bullied and that kind of thing. It didn’t phase me. My response was so improvised, by which I mean I was “yes, anding” when people told me “you’re so ugly and a girl.” I didn’t register it as being negative, because I was so in love with my little world, and my books, and all that. I’ve lost sight of that a little. It happened when I got Facebook. It destroyed something. 

You have an unusual way of living digitally. You’re extremely active in secret little pocket worlds, and then on Instagram, which some would think of as “the stage,” you’re much more of a minx. You’re much more of a sly, secretive kind of character.

I’ve ghostwritten so many things on the internet. I feel like it’s a motor for me, sharing recommendations for movies or shows or whatever. Like lighting a candle together. It’s freeing for me to share those things. It’s like, I love this song and I know you’re gonna love it too, which is why for a long time all my closest friends had a playlist made by me that was updated every single second. I feel like everything is a bit. I don’t really care for an audience so much with my work. It’s a fun thing for me to have, like a little collection of gemstones in my pocket.

People have a misconception that those who post less don’t want attention.

I love attention, but in a niche sense. Seven likes on a Tumblr post is the same as playing Madison Square Garden.

How many likes did you end up getting on your Andrew Wyeth meme?

I think I got six, as you predicted. I mean, I think it’s very the Lady Gaga thing of it all. There can be a hundred people in the room. 99 don’t believe you. There just needs to be one. Which is funny because I think for me, for a long time, you were that person.

I see your poems and drawings as being organs of the same animal. Does your creative world have any distinct boundary?

No, I don’t think so. I don’t really think about things before I start making them, which is a strength and a flaw in a lot of ways. Everything is very much instinctive. Sometimes I haven’t made something in a long time, and I go “oh, I have to make something now, otherwise I will wither away.” It always relates so much to the body. Of course, the body. 

Aaand you said it.

It even ties into running for me. The sport. The track of it all. You’re motioning either toward or from something, and that is where the writing and drawing comes from. I’m either leaving something on the page to get away from it or putting it on the page to move closer to it. Maybe  because of my relationship to the other world, and death, and grief, and all these things that have shaped my life in specific ways, I feel like I have to be perpetually moving. I had this dream a few months ago, and all the locals here will be rolling their eyes because I’ve already told everyone. I was in this weird trinket shop where everything was encased in resin. I was waiting for a woman to give me an astrology reading or something. I don’t remember the specifics, but there was this moment at the end when she asked me if I had any questions for her. And I revealed to her that I’m in this period where I feel like I’m changing, and everything is changing, and it’s so hard to keep track. Everything is going so quickly. So I asked her, “how do I deal with that?” And I do want the change. I like that I’m going toward something, but I feel like it just gives me whiplash. “It’s not the car that’s going,” she said. “ It’s not the horse that’s going. It’s you.” It was so funny in the moment. Essentially, she was telling me that the motion forward is your motion. You’re the one driving. If that car breaks down or your horse dies… Oh, that would be sad. Or runs away. I’m lacking kindness toward horses, but anyway, you can always walk. You can always take another bus. That kind of thing. In my dream, it felt like such a revelation. In the real world, it feels a little bit more like something RuPaul would tell me.

Is there anything you want to say to my American audience?

Music lives inside both of us. Give me a song to carry me through the rest of my week.

I don’t know the name by heart. I’m so sorry. Mama, let’s research. I would like to recommend a new Boy Harsher song. They’re famously adored by Perfume Genius. Shoutout Mike and Alan. I’m calling them by their first names because I’m signaling and gesturing to the universe that I want to be on first name terms with them. OK, it’s called “Jeans.” I love the singer’s voice so much because she has almost no range. It’s all about the tone. Sometimes that’s what poetry is for me. There’s no range. It’s all about the tone. That’s your song. That’s what I’m prescribing.

Is there anything else that’s brewing or stewing?

We didn’t really talk about my photo work at all, which doesn’t exist. It’s re-existing. It’s reentering.

We talked about transformation, and one of the transformations I’ve been going through is physical. Yes, I’ve been getting my artistic fitness project underway. So that’s brewing, and then I’ve just been philosophizing about gay guy world, which I hate to do, but someone has to! Lately, I keep talking about the prison of desire and the prison of envy, which all gay guys are in. Both are overfunded. I just think we have a deeply dehumanizing relationship to each other in the community.

Anyway, there is an embryonic project I was thinking about, in terms of photo work, hidden in there. It probably will never happen, but I love talking about it. Beyond anything, I’m so much better at speaking about my ideas than realizing them. That, to me, is oral history. Both of us would make excellent podcasters, but we would never stoop that low.