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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

MULTIPLE PERSÖNLICHKEIT
More Asta all the time Tuesday evening at The Arsenal with Asta as Supermodel of the World, some sterling film fragments with Die Asta modeling a plethora of glamorous outfits in World War I Berlin, plus Das Eskimo Baby where Asta portrays a native girl of the North, who gets hooked up with a fey German riche boy. Hilarious hijinks result.
The Blue Bros, Tim and Kjohnny accompanied Das Eskimo Baby on Violin and Cello weaving a brilliant, sad refrain on the unpolitically correct proceedings. Its so lovely getting an opportunity to watch the Blues in high strategic command playing my favorite instruments chamber style.
Besides all the members of Cheap present dancer Jeremy Wade was at the screening, obviously looking for inspiration for a new project, as well as baby dyke musicians Sara & Tegan, actor Jürgen Vogel and his boy toy the British soap star Sean McGuire. After the audience was gone, curator Stefanie Schulte-Strathaus brought out some expensive pink champagne that was given to the program by the French Consulate and we all got tipsy munching on salty snax.
Friday i leave for San Francisco and the group show The Way That We Rhyme:Women, Art & Politix at the Yerba Buena Art Center. The opening is Friday March 28th 7-11pm, but i will be performing two different events on Saturday March 29th, a performative salon and rap session for women called "Bilitis-A Feminist State(Somewhere in Palestine) and another even more intimate happening for an audience of one-man-at-a-time called "Colonize Me" where you have to get naked, and have a personal accounter with la diva. For more info on all this please contact The Yerba Buena Art Center for the times and how you can take part in these misadventures.
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Extra! Extra Read all about it.
This just in from Marc Siegel. Karola Gramann told him that the legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau was at the Cheap Gossip Studio installation hanging out and slowly going through the area, after her hommage screening in the nearbye CineStar Theatre. Karola was so in awe of her, that she followed the star from a discreet distance, and even rode the elevator with her. As usual, the names continue to trickle in about those who have come to my Cheap Gossip Studio.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

SCHLAGEN SIE IHRE KINDER?
The return of Rising Stars, Falling Stars Sunday at Kino Arsenal was scintillating. The series took a two month hiatus during prep for the Berlinale, but came back in fine form as part of the monthlong tribute to the great Danish film star Asta Nielsen, with a screening of her 1913 comedic classic Engelein(The Little Angel) 1913accompanied by The Blue Bros. For those of you who inquired below is my introductory text:

Welcome to Rising Stars, Falling Stars our humble monthly performative inquiry saluting early cinema treats, avant garde dainties and experimetnal classiques all with a nod to the outsider ethos.
The first film i ever saw with the great Asta was G.W.Pabst´s The Joyless Street(Die Freudlose Gasse, 1924 in Los Angeles at the UCLA Film Archive. From that moment on i became an ardent Asta submissive, and vassel to her almighty will and power. 2 nite in fact i no longer want to be Vaginal Davis, continental film hostessa, but i want to transform myself into the faithful Josefine, the famed confidant, personal assistant, servant and valiant protector of die Asta at the old Nero Film Studios.
Yes, this is a performative evening, so lets stretch into the Anarchy of the Imagination, and create a lesbian seperatist/feminist utopia of genius feminine psychology. That is how i like to see the important ouvre of Die Asta in all its hallowed glory. Just think of the all encompassing possibilities.
I quote Greta Garbo, "In terms of expression and versatility, I am nothing compared to her." Bela Bela´zs, film theorist,"When our first dictionary of the language of gesture has been compiled with the help of cinematography, only then can the expressive treasure of Asta Nielsen be appreciated." And from the diary of Louise Brooks who followed Asta´s portrayal of Lulu in Die Büchse der Pandora 1919 directed by Arzen Von Cserepy and again in 1923 in Erdgeist(Lou Lou) directed by Leopold Jessner which screens here at the Arsenal on April 10th.
"The solicitious Josefine, who worked for Asta Nielsen, and knew she was the greatest actress in the world, but still came to love me tenderly as the worlds worst acress"

Seen partaking in the blue nectar of the gods after the screening: The wonderful Heide Schlüpmann and dapper Karola Gramann of Kinotech Asta Nielsen, who will be bringing Die Asta to Israel and the States, sex god Ulrich Ziemons of The Forum with a sumpteous posse of uber hottie associates, Felix Klave with Gallic actress Sophie Marceau in cognito, cutie pie art student Joana Coppi, visiting artist from Harlem, Wayne Hodge, juicy Danish Zoo Magazine scribe Travis Jeppeson with hunky, big footed Slovakian beau Mario, post birthday girl Anna Muelter of The Hebbel Theatre, Nanna Heidenreich who brilliantly decorated the Rote foyer with wallpaper images of Die Asta with her galpal Angie Baby, Cheap´s luscious Susanne Sachße, with Daniel Hendrickson, and distinguished film historian Marc Siegel, artist Jürgen Mau,Cheap intern Julius Bauer, film programmer Florian Wuest, influential lesbian curator Hildegard Westbeldt, humpy blondine teutonic actor Max Riemelt, Arsenal founders and the Royal First Family of German Cinema The Gregors, underground film guru Wilhelm Hein with girlfriend and famed photog Annette Frick back from a retrospective in South America, Austrian poet Sissy Spanks, Gertrude Koch, the founder along with Heide Schlüpmann of the feminist film journal Frauen und Film, DJ Mathieu Schreyer aka: Mr. French, Arsenal curating empress Stefanie Schulte-Strathaus and new Parisian "It girl" checking out the Berlin scene Marie Duplessis.