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Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Spaete Einsichten




Large crowds at the Arsenal’s screwball comedy program with screening of You Can’t Take It With You the other evening directed by Frank Capra 1938, starring Miss Jean “I Only Photograph Good on My Right Side”Arthur  a skinny baby faced Jimmy Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Spring Byington, Eddie Rochester Anderson mugging more then Mickey Rooney, Edwrd Arnold and 14 year old Ann Miller running around in a tutu on point.  All these depression era comedies seem like they were written for todays economic turmoil and come with lots of lessons that I think really resonate with a German audience.  Ran into my Blood of Abraham Israeli art son Assaf Hochman who got kicked off of an Easy Jet plane to Greece because of his ultra tight bubble butt, and Jozo Juric the Croatian publicist BFF of Jamaica Troy from the Rosa Caletta CafĂ©.
Went back to Dr. Weigel in the Mehringdamn kiez for my second appointment.  Was expecting just to have a filling but it turned out I needed a root canal.  With any other dentist this would have been a big problema, but not with Dr.Weigel who has such a lovely manner about her and is so comforting  with personality plus.  Dr. Weigel is also related to East German cinema royalty, as her father Kurt Maetzig was a very important film director in the GDR who directed some of the banned films of the 1960s along with the state endorsed bio pic of Ernst Thaelmann.  Herr Maetzig was also the first artistic director of the film school in Babelsberg and only died a few years ago at age 101.
I just got a signed copy of the booklette The Dynamics of the Queer Movement in Turkey before and during the Conservative AKP Government by the hot tiny muscular sexy Turkish/Arab scholar and stud Zuelfukar Cetin.  Zuelfukar is one of those new breed of young academics who is getting a lot of attention at the moment.  Zuelfukar is from the ancient city of Antioche and has been living and working in Berlin as a scholar, prolific writer and activist for several years.  You can read his booklet the first of his tomes translated into English by Scandinavian Muzlim Daniel Hendrickson here:
Over a decade ago I got upgraded  to business class on a flight from Europe to Amerikkka I sat next to an old gay white man who struck up a lively conversation with me.  He told me his name was Fred Koch and that he worked in art philanthropy.  I told him about my work as an artist and it seemed to peek his curiosity.  I didn’t think much about this encounter until a few years later when I was in a hotel in the States and I saw a news report about these conservative  industrialists brothers named Koch.  The news report showed a picture of the two brothers whose names I don’t remember now, but it also showed the eldest brother who was the man I met on the plane who is not part of his brothers business.  If I had known he was from a super duper billionaire clan I should have worked my feminine wiles on him and turned the rich geezer inito my sugar Opa.  He must be a dinge queen because he was certainly giving me the hairy eyeball on the plane.
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I normally do not like crowd funding announcements as I feel crowdfunding takes the responsibility away from institutions to finance artists projects where it should be and turns artists into art panhandlers and beggars of life. I would never do a crowdfunding myself but I will on occasional recommend the funding of certain projects of people whose work I admire and respect.  This is indeed the case with the work of the young Israeli artist Miss Liad.  Read on and donate accordingly:

Hi there!

if you're getting this email, there's a chance that you've heard that I just started a kickstarter campaign to fundraise my upcoming short film “No Democracy Here”, or even seen the trailer.

In case you didn't here's a link. Watch it til the end! It's fun! 


the film deals with a left-leaning dominatrix who conducts 'political domination' with her right-leaning slaves and teaches them about democracy and free will through power-based bdsm techniques. It was shot live and on location in israel on election day, in and out of the voting poles and includes participation from the public at hand. It challenges notions of what electoral democracy is, and of all sides who partake in it.

The film was shot a few years ago, before the unfortunate degeneration of israel into a much tighter-controlled fascist-leaning state. We got detained by police – and we have great footage from it that we wanna use in the film. Today such actions would be impossible to commit, as they'd land us in jail or beaten in the street. So it's important that we get a chance to turn it into a film.

To finish the editing process - we need money. This money isn't simply a 'donation'. You're not just helping us complete this project, you're actually buying something, in most cases at least an ability to see the film or part thereof.

I really only try to send it to people that aren't dirt-ass broke. And 10 euros is really an affordable amount for many people I know. If you can give more (and perhaps you can), consider doing so. If you're totally broke, but you've got facebook or twitter, spread the word and the link.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/763505520/no-democracy-here?ref=email

If by chance you got this by both email and facebook – sorry for the spamming. I'm desperate here.

Thank you so so much!!!!

Liad.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Alles andere zeigt die Zeit




I love the Arsenal’s screwball comedy series that has been screening for the months of December and January. The George Cukor directed Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant starrer Holiday from the play by Philip Barry which I’d never seen before I found unexpectedly timely to the current political/economic situation. Was woofing on young humpy Henry Fonda opposite openly Lesbian Hollywood Golden era star Barbara Stanwick in Preston Sturges The Lady Eve.
Watched ganymede Cary Grant in two Howard Hawk films 1938’s Bringing Up Baby and 1949’s I Was a Male War Bride which the last time I saw was in the 1970s on TV. I didn’t remember Ann Sheridan being so butch nor that the movie was filmed mostly on location  in post war Germany.
Can’t wait to see Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It WithYou and Preston Sturges’ 1948 film Unfaithfully Yours starring Linda Darnell and Sexy Rexy Harrison. Ran into my juicy son the blood of Abrahamic covenant Assaf Hochman and his prima flat Israeli stomach. Assaf is a modern dancer and choreographer who sometimes is a part of Catherine Sullivan’s inner sanctum. He just returned from Chicago with Sullivan and spent some holiday time in Los Angeles staying with my darling high art daughter ZacKery Drucker who is a producer on the Emmy award winning TV series Transparent. Assaf and his dimunitive husband Lil Alex Telemachos enjoyed their stay in Californication going up and down in the elevators of the Bonaventure Hotel and eating at the Grand Central Marketa that is now gone completely upscale. Lil Alex who is no longer a twinkypie at age 30 is back in his native Greece writing yet ANOTHER film treatment. Alex is fast becoming the Armand Rizzo of queer cinema.

Have a brand new dentist named Dr. Weigl who did an amazing job cleaning my one and only tooth left in my big flapping horsey mouth. Dr. Weigl is a no-nonsense east German lady with a great personality and nice manner as a dentist who is very sensitive to my pain issues and overall hysteria when it comes down to dentistry.

Had a wonderous breakfast meeting with Ali Jenka of the Vienna Austria kollektiv Gelitin at his baby papi lover Gunther’s spacious flat at Viktoria Louise Platz. Ali is the new chief of the sculpture and transmedial department at the Kunst Universitaet in Linz and he wants me to come to his school to teach one of my popular seminars. I am certainly one lady in high demand, getting offer after offer since even before all my accolades in NYC with the Magic Flute.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Die Neue Sachlichkeit



Haven’t seen for a coons age that crazed older black busker that usually haunts the Yorkstrasse U7 station with his big keyboard and erratic behavior. He looks like a cross between a spinster Rick James and Peaches from Peaches & Herb fame. I can’t remember if he wears his hair in dreadlocks, cornrows, a gherri curl or some combination thereof. A lot of Americans who long for a mainstream career in the entertainment arena come to Germany where I gather they think there is less competition and lower standards. I guess they rationalize if mediocre types like David Hasselhoff can become household names in Deutschland so can they. This poor man in the U7 singing maudlin, histrionic renditions of the lamest pop hits becomes downright psychotic if those passing his music station don’t give him a tip. I guess he is so deluded he thinks that people aren’t there to ride the train but to hear him perform. His occasional outbursts have been recorded into urban lore and most likely have resulted in him becoming persona non grata on the Yorkstrasse platform. Now if only the subway adverts of American expat cabaret singer Gayle Tufts frequent performances could also get the same treatment. In all fairness I have never seen a performance of Ms. Tufts and her Dinglish shtick, but I have been told that  the creator of such hot buttons titles as Some Like it Heisse and Love appears often on German television and is quite cheesy in a bad way and not anyones ideal of a guilty pleasure. One ItalioGerman pal who has been living in Berlin for over 25 years and is vaguely aquainted with the Gayle Tufts orbit told me she is married to a German man is financially independent and popular with a certain middleclass Deutche element, but my young German students share my eyerolling disdain of her very visage lurking in the metro.

Received a cute little new years missive from someone who is actually a true talent the electro soul diva Billie Ray Martin who use to be my Rote Insel downstairs neighbour a couple of years ago when she moved back to Berlin from Hamburg. From what I can muster she is inviting a select number of fans to witness a studio recording session. Check out the links below for details:

Hi all.

This very special event is now open to the non-subscribing public.
Join, get involved, comment, share, share, share.

https://billieraymartin.bandcamp.com/merch/10th-feb-four-ambient-tales-live-recording-exclusive

facebook event for all updates: https://billieraymartin.bandcamp.com/merch/10th-feb-four-ambient-tales-live-recording-exclusive


Thank you.

billie ray martin
disco activisto records
www.billieraymartin.com


That milkman of human humpiness The Love Camel aka:  Andrea Novarin had sent me two rare film titles that I have never heard of.  The strange 1969 incest tale In Search of Gregory starring Julie Christy, John Hurt(pre Naked Civil Servant) and hot-to-trot Michael Sarrazin as the title character, and 1968's trippy Wonderwall starring a gorgeous Jane Birkin.
With my Rising Stars, Falling Stars partner in grime Daniel Hendrickson the Scandinavian Muzlim we had a very fruitfull meeting with the lovely Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus at her gorgeous spacious compound overlooking Gorlitzter Park. Rising Stars will move in the spring from Arsenal Institut fur film und Videokunst in Postsdamer Platz to the new cultural institution of the Silent Green Kulture Quartier the former crematorium in Wedding. I playfully refer to the Silent Green as the Soylent Green. When we move to Silent Green which already houses the Arsenal public film archive and is headquarters to the Music Board Berlin, the label K-7 Records and other productions and projects we will screen from the archive a quarterly program of sweet 16 milimeter films. I’ve been presenting RSFS now for 8 years at Arsenal so moving to a new locale is very exciting.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Saftig & Kraeftig




So many celebrity deaths lately. Just heard from Scandinavian Muzlim Daniel Hendrickson that David Bowie who shared his birthdate of January 8th died Sunday Jan 11th after turning 69. I was never a big fan of his not owning even one of his many albums. But when I was in New York recently for two months I would walk down 4th Street every day on my way to the 80 WSE Gallery past the theatre with his photo on the front advertising his most recent theatrical endeavour. I did love Mr. Bowie in the films The Man Who Fell to Earth, Absolute Beginners and The Hunger where he co-starred with Catherine Deneuve and my friend the performer and actress Ann Magnusen.

As a friend of his former wife Angie Bowie and also the legendary Jayne County I never really believed in the cult of David Bowie like so many of my generation and younger kids who shared an affinity through so called “alternative culture” a term which of course doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Was having cafĂ© & kuchen with Piero Bellomo of La Collecione and we walked by the flat that Mr. Bowie lived at during his Berlin sourjourne on the Hauptstrasse and it was flanked with young girls with bad hair and make-up crying, candles and flowers ala the death of Princess Diana.

The French fashion designer Andre’ Courre’ges who also died at age 92 was more of a hero to me. I adored his futuristic 1960s work and 1980s new wave comeback. One of my former Weissensee Art Akademy art students Lydia Hamann inherited many Courre’ges outfits from the 1980s that belonged to her stylish mother. Courre’ges also designed the costumes to the 1960s films The 10th Victim and Barbarella.

Had a lovely reunion the other day with that mega beautiful NewYork treasure Lia Gangitano of Participant Inc. who came through Berlin working with her lovely and very sweet Bard colleague Ms. Jeannine Tang. Lia along with Wolfgang Tilmans will put out a book on the late great artist Greer Lankton which I am really excited about. Lia curated a show of Greer’s work in New York which was the talk of the town and generated universal press kudos. Wolfgang brought Lia to Berlin last year to do a version of her Lankton exhibition at his gallery here which was also a huge hit. There is no one on the planet smarter or sexier then Miss Lia and so I was excited that La Sachsse--Susanne and her boyfriend Marcuse Siegelstein hosted a little private intimate dinner party for her. The food was heavenly, and the gossiping went on until the wee hours of the evening. Yes your ears were burning for a reason as we were most likely badmouthing YOU.

I am not one to gossip so you didn’t hear this one from me, but I was gagging on the lovely extravaganza when I was told by a young LA curator recently that he has had it with a certain vanity gallery in Hollywood and its owner who he calls “Grifty Gertie”. The things he was saying about this supremely icky person had me cackling so loud that we were getting dirty looks from the other patrons of the restaurant he took me to for brunch. I am constantly being asked by people if I miss Los Angeles. Yes I sometimes do but not certain people who shall remain nameless who give the town its bad rep.

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Behoerde, Eiskalt






I am so glad winter waited till after the new year to rear its fugly Gydra three heads.In Berlina its beyond freezing temps with snow on the ground. But in London and Paris where I am making pit stops for a big project with the Tate, Pompidou, and Palais de Tokyo its still a bit unseasonably warmish. Before leaving had a deli reunion with Gottheit aka Akira Knightley the make-up artiste suprema who has become a Gallic delight. Akira designed my wig when I was recently in New Yorika and she will have an upcoming 16 page fashion editorial spread in a men’s mag that features her ultra nate modern make-up and hair do dos. La Frau Sachsse hosted the tete’ at her eastside compound and cooked a scrumptious meal and powerhouse gin martinis by her mixologist lover Marcuse Siegelstein. The Fearless Leader of CHEAP kollektiv also hosted a formal post Xmas dindin that was very chic and scrumptious with a guest list that included scholar Heather Love and her lady love Mara, Arsenal Empress Stefanie Schulte Strathaus, the personable Miss Kalani of Goethe Universitaet, Muzlim jihadist Daniel Hendrickson and the super famous and handsome Deidrich Diedrichson.

Just learned of another celebrity death in the form of Oscar winning Hungarian born cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond(Close Encounters of the Third Kind,The Deerhunter). He was 82 and no I never met him or had any personal contact with him.