THE SOTADIC ZONE

Trying to prepare for a foto shoot for Dazed & Confused Magazine. I did the interview with the lovely Australian writer Miss Carmen back in February during The Berlinale and Thursday I will get photographed by the young American photog Matt Lambert with styling by Sebastiano Ragusa.

Received this hysterical link from my old pal Skot Armstrong of Science Holiday Kollectiv about the feminist answer to the Whitney Biennial in the form of the Whitney Houston Biennial-I’m Every Woman that will happen in Brooklyn at Dumbo.

http://flavorwire.com/444458/the-whitney-houston-biennial-10-artists-to-watch-from-brooklyns-all-female-alternative-to-the-whitney-biennial/view-all/

For those of you visiting Berlina for the pre-Spring vacation season below is some girlish musical offerings that you might want to consider.

Thursday March 13
Schokoladen, Ackerstraße 169, U Rosenthaler Platz
7pm doors, 8pm show, 10pm DJ Affe
Event on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/606245786117011/

GURR (Berlin)
lo fi garage
https://www.facebook.com/Gurrband
http://gurrband.bandcamp.com/

RESPECT MY FIST
grrrl punk aus berlin
http://respectmyfist.blogsport.de/
https://www.facebook.com/respectmyfist?fref=ts

DJ Affe (3nt3nm3n)
1/3 of mOck & 1/1 of Kid Ikarus

UPCOMING
20.03. LIINES (ex-hooker) + Maybecyborgs, Bei Ruth
27.03. Sages Comme Des Sauvages + Kid Ikarus, Schokoladen (w/ M:Soundtrack)
17.04. still breathing + Friend Crush + xfirstworldproblemx, Schokoladen
19.04. Tom Tom Magazine Party w/ She Said Destroy + Jesus And His Judgemental Father, Bei Ruth (w/ Cut Loose)
09.05. Carla Bozulich, Bei Ruth in exile at West Germany (w/ Bei Ruth)
29.05. Rae Spoon + Heimwehhotel
12.06. Fettkakao Label Night, Schokoladen (w/ M:Soundtrack)
13.06. Las Kellies, Bei Ruth (w/ Bei Ruth)
07.08. The Blue Screen Of Death, Schokoladen
Your lucky numbers this week: 13, 3, 20, 14, 160
Moon calendar dos and don'ts this week:
Do: repot a plant, manicure, special discipline, slaughter day, drainage. Don't: harvesting, tattoo on arm or shoulder, water the plants, cleaning the windows

Our mailing address is: La Moustache Hermannstraße 48 Berlin, D 12049

ENDLICH SCHLANK

The brilliant and sexy scholar, theorist and Forum Expanded curator / film programmer Nanna Heidenreich invited me to her lovely and spacious Suedstern compound for a birthday din din that really rockt. It was wonderschoen getting a chance to spend quality time with the beautiful Frau Heidenreich who is one of Berlin’s most talented and respected women on the international culture scene. The menu she cooked was beyond delicious and simply out of this natural born around the world with 75 scrumpteous courses that included: artichockes with honey-dijon vinaigrette, roasted butternut squash with chickpeas mint & tahini sauce, eggplant with miso-sake sauce, celeriac remoulade, and sauteed swiss chard with caraway. This was of course followed by a terrif desert of gilded crepes with homemade blood orange marmalade,that got washed down by homemade grape juice made into a schorle that was perfect for a woman like myself who sometimes is stricken with gout. Thank you darling Miss Nanna for a meal made and devoured with girlish gratitude and love.
During the Berlinale I was so happy to be able to meet for drinks and Mexican food at Santa Maria in Kreuzberg with visiting royals Khalil &Emma the young curators of Homotopia Liverpool and their sweet boss Gary Everett. We were joined by Love Camel aka: Andrea Novarin, a handsome tall and hung like a mule Argentine artist named Lorenzo and Tobi Moehring the delightful Berlin Metallskulpturen.
Just got a funny emug from Daniel Hendrickson the Skandinavian Muslim translator to the academic shtars who is on a working holiday in Lisbon for two weeks. Mr. Hendrickson who is everyones favourite jahidist hungthrob will bask in Portugal’s ocean breezes,sunny skies and exotica no doubt. He deserves a welcome break from Berlina and will be joined for a few days by his boyfriend Piero Belhomo of the famous design kolleczione for what will probably turn into a second honeymoon.

SOME CAME RUNNING

A myriad of apologies for being so delinquent in my writing responsibilities but after the glamour of the recent 64^th Berlinale International Film Festival and Forum Expanded I caught the usual post Berlinale flu that always circulates and pre birthday blues mixed with another gout attack to my knock knees which laid me up for quite some time.  Before becoming ill La Susanne Sachsse cooked a scrumptious birthday dinner for me at her Eastside compound that also featured her male escort Dr. Professor Marcuse Siegel and Daniel “Haji” Hendrickson the Scandinavian Muslim.  Lady Susi the Fearless Leader of Kollectiv CHEAP and Mr. Siegel are always kept very busy with imaginative and innovative projects. Frau Sachssee was all over this year’s Berlinale with her triumphant performance in the Bruce LaBruce film adaption of Arnold Schoneberg’s Pierrot Lunaire which was presented as one of the major events of Forum Expanded under Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus whose curatorial genius really sparkled in a magical and mystical fashion this year.   I can't stop talking about how Miss Stefanie and her Forum Expanded curatorial team made such excellent choices and created such excitement that really made this year's festival jump. But getting back to Pierrot Lunaire, I saw the film twice at its premiere at the Dephi Kino and a follow-up screening at the Arsenal which was more relaxed and featured a brilliant Q&A with the audience where Judy LaBruce was quite wonderful in acknowledging the fact that the film wouldn’t have come together without Susanne who was really the co-director and co-editor and supervised every moment of its inception and fruition. In the audience at the Arsenal was the distinguished Romanian film critic and film programmer Irene Rudolf who has now joined the legions of Sachsse rabid admirers. I am so glad I got a chance to see the film twice as you really have to watch it multiple times to fully absorb every aspects of Susanne’s incredible performance as the man who calls himself Pierrot.  Not only is her acting so courageous and spot on conveying just the perfect tone throughout, but her singing of the score is equally hypnotic and entrancing. Susanne shows so many different sides of herself in this film and her vulnerability had me fighting back tears several times throughout both screenings.  The movie really deserves a lot of attention and I am so glad that it was awarded a special Teddy prize as it’s a movie that cannot be ignored.  Of all the members of Kollective CHEAP Susanne Sachsse has really emerged as a leading cultural force.  Her own film projects like the masterful Serious Ladies,and upcoming cinebon about her famous grandmother plus live art and installation pieces are just the tip of what is going to be a career that many writers and critics will be pondering over with radiant glimeze for years to come.
Other aspects of Forum Expanded that was abuzz: the young handsome Polish filmmaker Marcin Malaszczak who continues to impress this year with his short subject Orbitalna, veterana Laura Mulvey & Company with  her excellent  23^rd August 2008 and the Forum Expanded Think Film No 2 mini congress.

I was still not feeling tip top but was booked way in advance to DJane the record release party for the popular Berlin based duo Easter at Sudblock at KottBusserTor.  Easter is made up of my androgynous former student at Malmo Art Academy in Malmo Sweden Stine Omar and her beautiful beau Max Boss.  The two have become YouTube sensations with their arty electro fused music video short subjects and deadpan live shows which attract throngs of young cute admirers.  I was behind the wheels of steel from 10pm till a little after 1am before they emerged on the stage with a short set. The celebutants in the audience included the bootylacious Israeli modern dancer Assaf Hochman and his muscle pup studkin lover Little Telemachos Alex, Allie the Indie rock royal,Adam Black the Paris based teen dream and ItBoy, Butterclock the Berlin based French butterpop divette, Raphael Meinhart the Austrian Marimba stylist,Matti Hofmann the saxophone playing fairy godmother, performance artist Diego Bianchi fresh from Arco Madrid,William Massey of L’Officiel Art and Documenta 14’s Adam Szymczyk.  Sud Block’s cute and lovesexy manager Denis was the perfect host making sure that I was appropriately hydrated all evening long and when I got peckish he even provided the doll with a nice snack.  The entire staff at Sud Block are delightful.  The last time I DJaned there was last year for the Listen Up Feminist Music Festival.  My only complaint is the cigarette smoke almost caused me to have an asthma attack as there is very little room for the air to circulate. 

For more info on the band Easter go to this link: http://easterjesus.bandcamp.com/album/new-cuisine-pt-1

 

UND WIE MAN SIE SOFORT ENTLARVT

Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and her Forum Expanded team should be proud of all their efforts this year with the theme What Do We Know When We Know Where Something Is? This questions kept coming up during the Berlinale in marvelous and unexpected phenomena that will continue to resonate as Forum Expanded embarks on the Road to Oz and its 10 year anniversary/jubilaum next year.

Forum Expanded has become the talk of the town and is even eclipsing other areas of the Berlinale Film festival as it should. The art world of course wants to get its guey coated sticky fingers deep into the projectile fudge slide so expect a lot of jocko socko shake-ups and milk-a-magnesias by next year and even a smackdown or two. Even mainstream media outlets who for the most part always remain clueless by only focusing on The Competition section of the Berlinale were buzzed by the offerings on display by Forum Expanded.
Friday evening Forum Expanded came to a nice closing at the celebrated Berlinische Galerie-Landesmuseum fuer modern kunst, fotografie und architektur with Jack Smith: Beyond the Rented World II-Hamlet, Gems & other shorts-Coffin Scene,Abortion Pit Nightmare,Nun & Zebra,How to Select a Victim and Jack Smith at Cologne Art Fair (1974) featuring a performative introduction by the great Jerry Tartaglia looking dapper and bemused. When it comes to Shakespear Jack Smith’s Hamlet is the only version worth its grain of unadulterated sea salt. I was laughing and crying simultaneously at the sheer beauty of the proceedings which besides Mr. Tartaglia featured Marcuse Siegel as moderator, with appearances pre and post cocktails with the handsome  matinee idol looking Diedrich Dederichsen, Nanna Heidenreich, Uli Ziemons, Nora Melitor, Maria Losier, Susanne Sachsse, Bruce “Judy”LaBruce winner of Teddy Special Jury Prize for Pierrot Lunnaire, Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, Manuel Schubert of FilmHighlights Magazine, The Love Camel-Andrea Novarin, Wilhelm Hein,visiting artist Fred Dewey who teaches at Art Center School of Design in Pasadena and is also the director of Beyond Baroque in Venice, CA., Ruth Schonegge and hot girlfriend Miriam, fotographer Annette Frick, Evi Ruesseler the Bear Boy, Isabel Spengler, Daniel “Haji”Hendrickson, Trixie “Beatrice Cordua” Schonherr and that Norweigan god of gods Vegard Vinge looking more muscular and lovesexy then I last remember him. Yummy! Because I was DJaning the Pierrot Lunaire premiere party I wasn’t able to go to the first Beyond the Rented World program at HAU 1 that was dedicated to the late great Warhol and Jack Smith drag superstar Mario Montez that featured The Milkbath Scene from Normal Love, Boiled Lobster of Lucky Landlady Lagoon, In the Grip of the Lobster, Exotic Landlordism and Overstimulted plus Ken and Flo Jacobs, John Zorn, Jerry Tartaglia and Marc Siegel.

Received many emugs today of people enjoying my DJaning at the Forum Party. As I’ve said many times before I am not a proper DJ. The environ of the dank and smokey nite club world is not my scene any longer if it ever really was. The celebutants that came by to say hello while I was spinning in the beautiful Green Salon of the Volksbuehner: Shari Frilot, my former boss with the New Frontiers Section of the Sundance Film Festival looking radiant and healthy who came to Berlin from New York where she attended the NYU Memorial Services for Dr. Professor Jose Munoz. Shari is a party animule and really knows the meaning of spreading joy on the dance floor, she was in the nubian posse of NewYork filmmaker par exellance Thomas Allen Harris whose latest Through A Lens Darkly:Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People was in the Panorama Section of the Berlinale with his juicy jubas jubilee producer Gregory Warren Jr. who was breaking many preValentine hearts as every man who saw him wanted to take a nice big bite of all that Mandingolan eye candy. Mr. Warren also produces along with Mr. Harris their Digital Diaspora Family Reunion project, sweet Aussie actress Toni Collette also came up to La Diva and while I was resting between sets I held court with a relaxed Judy LaBruce, the stylish Carolla Graumann of KinoTech Asta Nielsen, Nanna Heidenreich, Sharmishta Sarker the Cultural Director of The Goethe Institute in Calcutta who will be bring Marcuse Siegel, Susanne Sachsse and Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus who was looking quite serene and sophisticated for a six week experimental film tour of India soon, Hungarian cineaste Bela Tarr, the grandson of JFK-Jack Schlossberg,, Stephan Geene of bbooks Kollective whose brilliant film Umsonst featuring a delicious young cast I found totally enthralling and sublime. Unsonst was just another one of the many delights of Forum Expanded.  Forum Expanded Rules!!!!While taking a break from DJaning I also chittle chatted with my old punk rock actress pal Patricia Arquette of the famous Arquette acting dynasty, Ellar Coltrane who plays her son and Richard Linkletter who won the Silver Bear for directing this critical fav and Love Camel lauded experimental narrative film Boyhood that was over ten years in the making. Thursday Feb 13th I was surrounded by a lot of award winners including Guillaume Cailleau and Michel Belague who won the Silver Bear for the short subject La Borat, lovesexxy Lebanese director Roy Dib who won a Teddy for his Forum Expanded short Mondial 2010, Karim Ainouz whose film Praia do Futuro was in the Competition with lover Mario,Koen Clarehout, Nadja Talmi,Julian Radlmaier whose film A Proletarisches Wintermaerchen is a sheer delight. I expect big things to happen for Mr. Radlmaier who is not only a gifted young filmmaker but is also an entrancing male beauty whose man milk is coveted by many henpecked horny admirers, Diane McCarthy of radio station ReBootFM,hunky Georgian actor Vakho Chachanidze with Andro Sakvarelidze of the Forum film Blind Dates, Assaf Hochman, Daniel Hendrickson and Vassily Bourakas.

During the Berlinale Sid Caesar of the 1950s TV variety and comedy hour Show of Shows that first introduced to the public the comic writing talents of Mel Brooks, a teenage Woody Allen, and Carl Reiner died age 91. Sid Caesar had a kind of barrel chested 1950s style manliness that was quite sexy and a little hard to describe. Also Hudson the famous New York City gallerist of the famous independent, non corporate Feature Gallery died age 63. I didn’t know Hudson that well but back in the early 1990s his gallery hosted evenings devoted to queer zines like my Fertile La Toyah Jackson Magazine and he also did exhibits featuring the work of G.B.Jones andTom of Finland. I will never forget that Hudson also paid for my plane tickets to New York on many occasions in the late 1980s and early 1990s when he heard that I needed airfare. That kind of generosity without fanfare is so rare these days. Hudson will be missed by many.

Will write more about Berlinale, as soon as I recouperate from a little flu bug and congestion plaguing me, so please sit tight and be patient with the Vagimule Doll who celebrates her 845th year on the planet Feb 20th.

WEG MIT DER WAMPE

The Vagimule doll is beyond exhausted from DJaning at the Forum Party at the Volksbuehne Thursday. I had a lovely time and wore my couture Rick Owens gown which looked great in the Green Salon where I was doing my Spinderella behind the mighty wheels of corugated steel. Thank god DJane Olga Damnitz aka Angela Anderson and Uli Ziemons aka: Parti Kruger also shared some of the spinning duties with me and were sensational! I was completely knackered when I was told to put the breaks on the excitement around 4am. Throughout the night i kept murmering the theme of Forum Expanded: What Do We Know When We Know Where Something Is? I also had The Love Camel Andrea Novarin helping me with all my CD's and vinyl LPs. Seems like people enjoyed my nutters collection of music. I am really not a proper DJane as I don't know how to mix or any of those kind of fancy things. I am more of a dolly bird jukebox. Will give you more about the party in another post, and highlights of Jack Smith Beyond the Rented World at The Berlinische Galerie with Jerry Tartaglia & Marcuse Siegel and of course more Forum Expanded, Forum and Berlinale Gossip.
Want to let you know about the book launch and reading from THE SUICIDERS at Ficken3000 Sunday (the 16th) that features Judy LaBruce DJaning afterwards as part of Club Pork. Judy and Susanne Sachsse just won the Teddy Special Jury Prize for the film Pierrot Lunaire. Congrats to Judy and Susi who deserve more prizes and awards!!!! It's free to get in so stop by Ficken 3000 before 11 and partake in a special reading by author Travis Jeppesen starting right at 10:30pm.For all you literary figurines out there Travis Jeppesen is part of the Object Oriented Ontology in particular or Speculative Realism in general, a philosophical movement that attempts to inquire into the life of material objects outside of human perception and discourse. Travis's work is the artistic analogue to this philosophical movement---whoda thunk?.

DAS PANZERT IHREN RUECKEN

My gout problem has gotten a bit better but I have had to curtail my activity during the Berlinale so that the stress of multiple screenings and events doesn’t overwhelm me and leave me immobilized. Will write more about the festival but please be patient with me.

Just received this announcement that German underground film legend Wilhelm Hein has won a very prestigious art prize. Below is the info with a link in German. Congragulations to Wilhelm who I am sure is going to be receiving many more accolades as we progressive into 2014.

08.02.14 20:28 Wilhelm Hein erhält den Ehrenpreis des Preises der deutschen
Filmkritik 2013
Seite 1 von 2 http://vdfk.de/news/view/162-wilhelm-hein-erhalt-den-ehrenpreis-des-preises-der-deutschen-filmkritik-2013

08.02.2014, 16:15 Uhr
AKTUELL
Kritiker-Panel auf der
Berlinale
"Halbzeit –
Internationale
Filmkritiker ziehen...
Wilhelm Hein erhält
den Ehrenpreis des
Preises der deutschen
Filmkritik 2013
Berlin, 03. Februar 2014
- Der Verband der
deutschen Filmkritik...
Aus dem
Befreiungsschlag
erwächst
Verantwortung
Stellungnahme des
Verbands der deutschen
Filmkritik zum Urteil
des...
mehr...
WILHELM HEIN ERHÄLT DEN EHRENPREIS DES
PREISES DER DEUTSCHEN FILMKRITIK 2013
Berlin, 03. Februar 2014 - Der Verband der deutschen Filmkritik
verleiht seinen Ehrenpreis dem Avantgarde-Filmkünstler Wilhelm
Hein. Die Preisübergabe wird im feierlichen Rahmen der
Verleihung des Preises der deutschen Filmkritik 2013 am 10.
Februar in Berlin stattfinden.
Seit über 40 Jahren steht Wilhelm Hein für den
Experimentalfilm und für das Undergroundkino. In
den 1960er-Jahren sind – in Zusammenarbeit mit
Birgit Hein – seine ersten Materialfilme entstanden.
1968 war er Mitbegründer von XSCREEN, dem
legendären Kölner Studio für den unabhängigen Film. Mit dem Ehrenpreis
würdigt der Verband der deutschen Filmkritik Wilhelm Heins konsequente
und kompromisslose Filmarbeit, die bewusst Position bezieht gegen
etablierte Kunst und für die Subkultur. Seit 1989 arbeitet Wilhelm Hein an
seinem Work in Progress, die inzwischen 12-stündige Filmcollage im
16mm-Format „You Killed the Underground Film or The Real Meaning of
Kunst bleibt … bleibt …“.
Der Preis der deutschen Filmkritik wird traditionell im Rahmen der
Berlinale in 12 Kategorien für Spielfilm, Spielfilmdebüt, Kinderfilm,
Dokumentarfilm, Darstellerin, Darsteller, Schnitt, Drehbuch, Kamera und
Musik aus der vergangenen deutschen Jahresproduktion verliehen. In
diesem Jahr werden erstmals ebenfalls in Berlin die Preise in den beiden
Kategorien Experimentalfilm und Kurzfilm vergeben.
Die Preisverleihung wird moderiert von Burghart Klaußner. Sie findet am
Montag, 10.02.2014, um 20.00 Uhr (Beginn der Verleihung: 20.30 Uhr) in
der Tube Station, Berlin, statt.