DIE BRAUT DES BÖSEN
One of my favorite film star sopranos died recently, Ms. Kathryn Grayson who was under contract to MGM back in the 1940s and 1950s, and starred in such films as Anchors Aweigh, Showboat,Lovely To Look At,The Toast of New Orleans,The Desert Song,Kismet,and So This is Love? Ms. Grayson was lovely, but always seemed a bit self-conscience on film and shy because of her rather pert and perky busom. She was most effective in the 3-D film version of the Cole Porter hit Broadway musical Kiss Me Kate in which she co-starred with the handsome Howard Keel along with Ann Miller, James Whitmore and a very young Bob Fosse in high fag mode. The director of Kate George Sidney knew how to coax a good performance out of her despite her limitations. Her singing voice had a nice tremor to it that gave her songs a certain undefinable richness.
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One of my talented Wiesensee students Katja von Hellsdorf is in an incredible music project with the young Argentinian artist Cristian Forte. Below is info on something he has put together that you Berlin readers of this blog may find interesting.
Caosmos – visuelle Poesie von Cristian Forte
und fotographischen Register von anonymen Autoren.
Ausstellungseröffnung
Am Sonntag 28.02.2010 18-23 h.
Montag und Dienstag von 17 bis 21 h.
Kotti-Shop , Adalbertstr.4 , Kreuzberg
www.kotti-shop.net
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I am saddened to relay that the gifted LA Times writer, and Silverlake resident Mary Herczog who had been battling cancer has died. I enjoyed reading Mary´s life affirming blog where she coined the phrase “food porn”. Mary had dropped kicked that olde krab 12 years ago, but it came back with a homocidal vendetta.
I lost my mother Mary Magdelene to cancer in 2000,my sister Gloria Jean in 2007, and my oldest sister Gracie Lee is at the moment on deaths doorknob from the disease, so reading the Pollyanna positive words of Ms. Herczog over the years has been a true comfort. I will always remember when Mary visited my club Bricktops at the Parlour and brought her underage niece who was a 1920s fanatic. Being the rebellious woman that I am I eagerly ignored the rules sneaking Mary´s relative into the club where she had a night she will never forget, and Mary was all decked out looking radiant in period garb borrowed from rock goddess Abby Travis. My mother a black French Creole is from New Orleans, Louisiana which was one of the favourite stopping grounds of Mary and her handsome music writer hubby Steve Hochman. I have been crying my eyes out over Mary´s death. Her last posting said that her goose was cooked, but somehow i was refusing to believe it hoping that she would somehow recover and continue with her writing and travels.
For all you many Mary Herczog fans here is the beautiful piece about her in the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-mary-herczog19-2010feb19,0,1310821.story
I miss you Mary, I love you Mary!
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The weather has warmed quite a bit in Berlin and the awful sludgy snow seems to be melting.Thank god.I can´t wait till its Spring again. Its been a very difficult winter in Berlin.
I forgot to let my faithful readers know what a wonderful Forum Expanded program I saw last Thursday the day before jetting off to London. That’s right The Silence of Marcel Duchamp a live film /expanded cinema event by Ela Troyano and Uzi Parnes featuring original music by John Zorn which had some of the SRO crowd fleeing. What pussies! I really loved how Ela popped in some footage from her narrative feature Latin Boys Go To Hell that starred the narcissistic photographer Mike Ruiz, plus some other gems of her from the 1980s and Uzi´s photos of Jack Smith, plus Susanne Sachsse reading Jack Smith text live. It was a perfect way to end the 60th Berlinale for me.
Monday, February 22, 2010
SLOAN POWER RANGERS
The Vaginal Davis doll celebrated her 440th year on the planet in merry ole queen mumdom of London England. Dominic Johnson the dashing young Queen Mary scholar and performance art darling hosted a gala celebration at his Miami on the Thames home in Hackney. Dom also cooked a divine vegan feast of the Magi, and the alcohol never stopped flowing. The guests included: Newlywed Ron Athey and his handsome Argentinian husband Alfredo Hunter, mega art schtar Franko b and his lovely art bride Tom Qualmann, dapper Martin Hargreaves of Dance Theatre Journal, lovesexy Gavin Butt of Goldsmith College, hunky Italian fashion and art photog Manuel Vason with actor James Purefoy,live artist Marisa Carnesky and her rock god husband Rasp Thorne of the band The Briars, orthodox Jewish drag king legend Oreet Ashery, aka: Marcus Fischer, The Love Camel, Andrea Novarin of the BFI, dynamic Brazilian bombshell Nando Messias with hubby Lawrence and gorgeous gal pal Bel Domingues visiting from South America, club kingpin Lee Adams and beau Chris, visual artist Thom Shaw and companion Ryan Ormonde.
Saturday Camel and Dom took me to dinner at the yummy Mexican eatery Pacifico in Coven Garden, and in the afternoon Dom treated me to the beauty of Broadway Market with coffee and dainties at La Bouche and lunch at The Premises. The weather was sunny and a bit warmish. I even saw some big footed men wearing flip-flops. Can you imagine beach thongs in February? Being an anglophile I adore the English beauty roses with their peaches and cream complexions. Like Germans, the British are either major Ms. Gorgeous or uber fugly with very little inbetween those two options. Saturday night Dom took me to long running performance club Ducky, the brainchild of the great Simon Casson. I can’t believe Ducky has been around for 16 years and still going strong. All the irregulars were there like host Amy Lamy, DJ’s the Readers Wives and the guardians of the gate Jay & Father Clothe. The performers for the evening was the Berlin based Scandanavian duo Nuclear Family which features Nicolai Tange Lange who DJ’s at Pork at Ficken 3000. I loved their first song “I Hate Everything” but the second ditty “HIV is the new Virginity” sort of fell a little flat. But it didn’t matter as the crowd was happy to be anywhere. The first performers Owen Parry & Elena were a hoot. Mr. Parry was wearing an oversized sweater ala Ann-Margaret’s reverse strip in Bye Bye Birdie and the sheer nuttyness of his music hall style short format piece was hilarious, plus he has a nice pair of Birkin Bag sized testicles, and is such a sweet looking humpy dork. At Ducky Dom scored the evenings beauty prize picking up a young Swedish aerialist and circus performer named Leo. I left the club and went to Chariots of Fire Sauna which was packed with muscle studkins all zoned out in a K-hole and drug deluze adaize. Didn’t get my nappy dugout worked on, but I talked to some interesting people including an Afghan, an Egyptian, an Iranian and a Jamaican jubas jubilee who hates people who wear dreadlocks.
Before coming to London I stayed up all night at the Forum party at the Volksbuhner. My date for the evening being NYU scholar Tavia Nyongo. I actually had a great time at that party flirting with tall, young, cute blondine German actor types who were unusually flirtacious, and getting excited by Chinese pop starlets.
The Vaginal Davis doll celebrated her 440th year on the planet in merry ole queen mumdom of London England. Dominic Johnson the dashing young Queen Mary scholar and performance art darling hosted a gala celebration at his Miami on the Thames home in Hackney. Dom also cooked a divine vegan feast of the Magi, and the alcohol never stopped flowing. The guests included: Newlywed Ron Athey and his handsome Argentinian husband Alfredo Hunter, mega art schtar Franko b and his lovely art bride Tom Qualmann, dapper Martin Hargreaves of Dance Theatre Journal, lovesexy Gavin Butt of Goldsmith College, hunky Italian fashion and art photog Manuel Vason with actor James Purefoy,live artist Marisa Carnesky and her rock god husband Rasp Thorne of the band The Briars, orthodox Jewish drag king legend Oreet Ashery, aka: Marcus Fischer, The Love Camel, Andrea Novarin of the BFI, dynamic Brazilian bombshell Nando Messias with hubby Lawrence and gorgeous gal pal Bel Domingues visiting from South America, club kingpin Lee Adams and beau Chris, visual artist Thom Shaw and companion Ryan Ormonde.
Saturday Camel and Dom took me to dinner at the yummy Mexican eatery Pacifico in Coven Garden, and in the afternoon Dom treated me to the beauty of Broadway Market with coffee and dainties at La Bouche and lunch at The Premises. The weather was sunny and a bit warmish. I even saw some big footed men wearing flip-flops. Can you imagine beach thongs in February? Being an anglophile I adore the English beauty roses with their peaches and cream complexions. Like Germans, the British are either major Ms. Gorgeous or uber fugly with very little inbetween those two options. Saturday night Dom took me to long running performance club Ducky, the brainchild of the great Simon Casson. I can’t believe Ducky has been around for 16 years and still going strong. All the irregulars were there like host Amy Lamy, DJ’s the Readers Wives and the guardians of the gate Jay & Father Clothe. The performers for the evening was the Berlin based Scandanavian duo Nuclear Family which features Nicolai Tange Lange who DJ’s at Pork at Ficken 3000. I loved their first song “I Hate Everything” but the second ditty “HIV is the new Virginity” sort of fell a little flat. But it didn’t matter as the crowd was happy to be anywhere. The first performers Owen Parry & Elena were a hoot. Mr. Parry was wearing an oversized sweater ala Ann-Margaret’s reverse strip in Bye Bye Birdie and the sheer nuttyness of his music hall style short format piece was hilarious, plus he has a nice pair of Birkin Bag sized testicles, and is such a sweet looking humpy dork. At Ducky Dom scored the evenings beauty prize picking up a young Swedish aerialist and circus performer named Leo. I left the club and went to Chariots of Fire Sauna which was packed with muscle studkins all zoned out in a K-hole and drug deluze adaize. Didn’t get my nappy dugout worked on, but I talked to some interesting people including an Afghan, an Egyptian, an Iranian and a Jamaican jubas jubilee who hates people who wear dreadlocks.
Before coming to London I stayed up all night at the Forum party at the Volksbuhner. My date for the evening being NYU scholar Tavia Nyongo. I actually had a great time at that party flirting with tall, young, cute blondine German actor types who were unusually flirtacious, and getting excited by Chinese pop starlets.
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