The Face of Gen F

fig. a: Adam & the Miracle of Fruit

As you can see, Adam & the Miracle of Fruit played to a full house the other night at Librairie Drawn & Quarterly.

It's kind of hard to tell from the snapshot above, but at the time Adam was well into the second half of his show, the half dealing with the mystery of "the lady fruit," a fruit whose appearance is just as suggestive as its name,* a puzzle that took him from Thailand to Montreal, Montreal to the Seychelles, and back again. Hence, the rapt audience.

fig. b: the mysterious "lady fruit"

"The lady fruit" has a number of lurid nicknames (even more lurid than "the lady fruit," that is), but its official name is the coco-de-mer, its native habit consists of two remote islands in the Seychelles, and if you want to know what it looks like up-close, you can see a kid-friendly, G-rated photograph of it directly above (complete with official coco-de-mer permit).

The long and short of it is, throw together apricot beer by McAuslan, cupcakes by Reema, cocktails by Michelle, ribald tales by Adam, some Paradise Nut husks, a hollowed-out Coco-de-Mer, and a ripe--and I do mean ripe--durian fruit and what you get is a good time--an ultra-exotic good time.

fig. c: still life with durian

Seriously, when was the last time you attended a book event and the crowd bounced a fresh durian up to the front of the stage like a beachball?

I thought so.

One more thing: for a sneak peek into the magical mystery tour that resulted in The Fruit Hunters (or if reading your copy of the book has left you starved for visual accompaniment) check out Adam's website/photo-journal.

Actually, I changed my mind: one more thing: more photos of the launch (including a couple provocative ones) can be found here.

aj

* Describing the plant's whole bewildering apparatus, Adam writes, "It's almost pornographic, yet so natural."