Be the spange you wish to see in the world JULY 2025

It's nearly July at 4pm on a Friday. The barometric pressure has had my knuckles screaming ‘sanctuary’ from inflammatory pain for most of the day. It burns like a chemical fire and when i put my fingers to my ears like a phalangeal conch shell, slowly make a fist, I can hear how my joints creak like a rusted door hinge. 10/10 do not recommend.

Thankfully, I've found a reprieve in the basement of my favorite pool hall on 17th Ave, sheltered from the witchcraft of sky science and its curse upon my hands. I've secured my favorite Valley table in the back right corner of the room and managed to get a single practice game in when I am no longer the only patron in this gritty Shangri-La, as in walks

Alex Terakita, and out walks any thought that I would be shooting a decent game.

Alex is PRFMYYC's graphics guy. In Tarot he would be the Magician—the one who conjures the images. That endearing flea mascot we've all come to know and love? That was Alex. The instagram banners and all the countdown posts with their neon-saturated colors are also embedded with the grooves of Alex's unique fingerprint: in essence, whenever you see something posted under the PRFMYYC flag you're looking at Alex's inner world turned outward. And shucks, isn't that just nifty?

It comes as no surprise that Alex would be such a pivotal cog in this DIY machine. Not purely for his innate ability to craft eye-catching visuals, but because he and PRFMYYC's founder, Amanda, have been nearly lifelong friends. As such, when Amanda said “I have an idea” in regard to establishing this behemoth of a market, Alex's response was nothing short of “Let me draw it like one of them French girls” and the rest is history. Or, alternatively, a flea wearing a barret while holding a baguette.

Alex spent a total of six years at AUARTS. Not for reasons of truancy or academic delinquency, far from it—the design program at the time was vastly smaller than what it is today. Subsequently, his semesters became defined by a dogged application process more than a graduation. That was until the Fates deemed it appropriate he be accepted into the design program in 2013. He graduated in 2016, having accomplished the Herculean feat of slaying the Minotaur at the end of the postsecondary labyrinth.

Alex dabbled with his own projects for a brief minute before his mind's eye was utilized to illustrate Raina Schnider’s “My Canadian Family”, a children's book in 2018. Then Covid happened, as is tradition, and Alex shortly thereafter found himself in the Matrix as a designer for a real estate company. My first question upon learning this was, “so are you responsible for all the bleached smiles and Godless eyes staring at me from the bus benches?”

“No,” he said, “that's not me. I mainly do the flyers and pamphlets for open houses and all the home layouts we put up on the website,” he said with a deflated monotony akin to that bird from the Flintstones—“it's a living…”

Even though I was certain I already knew the answer before I volleyed a rather shallow “Do you like it at least?” with near, if not outright, Pavlovian reflexes. His answer was one of the many alley-oops I'd experience during our brief time together. Not because of what was said but because of what it revealed. 

“I mean,” he paused, thinking for a moment before answering, “what i like about it is how i have opportunities to teach my coworkers things. Like, I was having a conversation with one realtor about how we could be better at recycling, and that conversation developed into ‘well, what's better than recycling?’ Reducing. And I feel like it helped broaden his mind a bit about certain practices we could implement.”

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"I travel around Canada and the US competing as a 10 pin bowler."

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And it's only now as I write this with a hindsight far removed from the moment in recollection that I'm realizing just who Alex is from that answer—he is, in the most admirable sense, an unassuming double agent hellbent on making the world a better place.

He is unassuming. Inasmuch as he would rather not have any attention drawn to him. And by all accounts presents himself in a clean-cut manner that facilitates such a goal. Yet, as Biggie Smalls once said, "Trees to branches, cliffs to avalanches"—Alex's moral compass is an all-encompassing cause and effect. Let me explain. 

For what he strives to do, by his own admission I may add, is “make things better.” Whether that be through bolstering visibility for other people's projects, like, say, a punk rock flea market with his skills as an illustrating virtuoso. Or through his succinct, borderline savant ability to visualize a solution for those around him. Alex just makes things better.

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"I have a Ball Python with one eye named "BIG BOSS"

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Case in point when I admitted that I really didn't know what I was doing with regards to this interview, let alone the newsletter- my uncertainty and doubt suddenly became his cause. No sooner had i said this that his undercurrent of nervous energy shifted into an eager and palpable focus on my situation in a way that wasn't anything other than blatantly kind and genuinely helpful- which inevitably is his effect.

It was then I saw how he needs to be needed; a disposition that can foster an array of pitfalls, but with Alex there is a caveat: we need him more than he needs us. I say that with the macro and the micro in mind- we benefit from his involvement in the market, and the world would benefit greatly from more folks like him.

His actions are quiet and stripped of anything self-congratulatory or stinking of martyrdom—a walking counterculture to vapid influencer hubris. His sentences are spoken earnestly and they speak with a candor that's equidistant with good intentions and the lived experience of how, if said intentions are selfishly pursued, end up as the cobblestones to Hell. 

“Everyone deserves a second chance. And that's what I want to do for people in this community. If a person says some problematic shit, I can maybe show them why what they said is problematic and hurtful to others and maybe change their way of seeing things... That change is possible. That people can change.” 

Now, whether he was indirectly referring to himself or someone else from his life, I cannot say. There is a marked tenderness about this man and a learned dignity about him that makes such speculations difficult to pindown. Yet regardless of whom he may, or may not, have had in mind when he said those words, the fact of the matter remains he fully believed every vowel and consonant with an unquestionable sincerity that it verged on pastoral splendor.  And, honestly, by the end of it I couldn't help but believe him. Rather, I couldn't help but believe in him.

Call it intuition, or, if I were to be more contemporary about it: real recognizing real. But the sort of fortified softness and unyielding but tethered empathy I gathered from Alex doesn't come easy in life. In fact, they're lessons and instances that are often quite brutal and not the sorts of details you bring up around a pool table. Yet from my own experiences i've learned that if a person can synthesize their sins, or the sins done onto them, into an alchemy of their own understanding then they're no longer an immovable object stuck in the past, but an unstoppable force hurtling towards a future of their own design: enter Alex Terakita.

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"My Backyard is a literal Cemetary"

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We played pool for roughly two hours before Alex needed to eat so we said goodbye. The score was 8-2 with eight being in his favor and my two victories were because he scratched on the eight-ball. To think I catfished myself into thinking I was a shark only to have one show up and eat me alive.

As I left the pool hall around nine with my knuckles no longer accosted by a middle-aged reaction to impotent storm warnings; twilight replaced the sunny heat; and my mind was chewing over the past few hours and, in so doing, began the process of turning food for thought into cud before digesting it all. 

A week later I've managed to distill everything into a single takeaway:

Alex refuses to settle for anything that isn’t uplifting or inspirational.

Such standards were born from unknown origins but what can be deduced is how committed he is to making the world and those around him shine that much brighter while also drawing beautiful things in the process. And I think that's pretty fucking punk rock.

Written by @Alottacollage - PRFMYYC June 2025