| 1. | glitter bomb | 7 up, 11 down   |
1. Defined as what explodes inside a strip club and causes an individual to realize that they are covered in glitter as they leave the establishment. 2. (Noun) In reference to an individaul engaged in an occupation where wearing glitter and little else is encouraged. Me and the guys went out last night; by 2:ooAM it looked like a glitter bomb went off. | ||
Sunday, August 9, 2009
FYI
As defined by Urban Dictionary:
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Goodbye for now sweet Berlin...
Morning internet cafe time and I find myself writing to you again. Something about really feeling the end of this trip makes me want to tell you about everything. You don’t mind do you?
So last we talked I was heading to Schwarzer Kanal (http://www.schwarzerkanal.squat.net/) a lovely queer wagon platz where Peter Pandrew is staying. I regret to say that I am returning there today with the heavy heart of someone watching video of a Panda because come January the platz will be kaput. Tear. Queer displacement aside, my friend cum fiancé Enna picked me up at the U stop and guided me to this love paradise to watch people fix bikes, eat cupcakes and see like half of my friends from Copenhagen over some craft projects.
After a fair bit of that Enna threw me on the back of her bicycle and took me to see the city on the way to a lady and trans squat where we were to meet the sweet and amazing Cleo. We biked all along the East Side Gallery (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Gallery) with me sitting on the rack of her back tire her tossing back bits of Berlin history and telling me about all the best places for Karaoke. We arrived and Cleo and our new friend Chase (a pilot from Perdue) were waiting with dinner and a few new Swedes. We climbed up on the roof and swapped stories and sang songs while the sunset over Berlin and our dinner. Some of these stories included one of our friends getting groped on the subway and responding by walking the guy up against the wall and putting her face 2 inches from his, saying `can I help you?` Lady be bad ass. I regret to say however that Chase did bring up the fact that the Women of the squat boarded up her windows yesterday because of a Nazi gathering happening here this weekend. The last year this happened they attacked the squat and threw stones through the windows and such. Cleo´s response to their arrival is going to be a gold chain mail ball gown and going about her business. We´ll see how this goes.
Eventually it was decided that I have to move to Europe and Enna proposed political marriage (thank you Sweden for your gay marriage). Choreographed dancing green card wedding? I think Yes.
anyway, Back to savour the last moments of Schwarzer Kanal before Cleo dresses me for Queer-o-matik where I will dance my last night in Berlin away to the sounds like 10 amazing lady DJs and drink ´vegan cocktail´... silly dykes.
Much love for the last time from Berlin,
Victoria
...
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
´The disney channel wasn´t ready for the dirty dirty south´
So, we´ve been back in Berlin for about a week and I can´t quite wrap my head around how I am going to leave. Lately we have been hanging out with a silly little crew of theory boys and a bad ass german theory lady. One particularly notable night involved a giant hord of 12 year olds dressed in crazy neon outfits and us dancing them into pure shock. Other moments have looked like this-
Now off to the big queer lady squat I go find my copenhagen friends and then off to two big parties tonight with my bad ass femme lady Cleo, then a big lady DJ party tomorrow night and then off to Hamburg for a big party on Friday. Clearly I am the luckiest girl in the world...
Now off to the big queer lady squat I go find my copenhagen friends and then off to two big parties tonight with my bad ass femme lady Cleo, then a big lady DJ party tomorrow night and then off to Hamburg for a big party on Friday. Clearly I am the luckiest girl in the world...
Monday, July 27, 2009
Queer Queer Queer Water ridge...
...gender isn't real. queerily queerily queerily queerily, live life how you feel.
Sweet Sweet Copenhagen.
You know those kids who go to camp and are obsessed with camp and only ever want to hang out with their camp friends?
Well color me a camper.
Or for those of you who saw Camp Queer Water Ridge, it was oh so exactly like that.
After a week of eating sleeping drinking workshoping dancing partying and swimming with the same set of lovely delightful queers every day I feel like a lifetime has passed and I can't wait until next year to go back.
Two tasty vegan meals a day, swimming in the harbor and a million djs every night dancing us til sunrise.
Sleeping in a room with 50 other people with varying definitions of quiet and contradictory sleep patterns was challenging, but thanks to my sleep pad and long honed sleep skills I did pretty well. Diva was such a hit that I had to teach it a second time and in addition to various spontaneous breaks into dancing (shout out to Carly) we got to be the final act of the strange and sexy cabaret.
I want to somehow go into all the workshops and give amazingly detailed descriptions of everyone I met, but I can't manage to get it through the sieve of my mind.
I guess I'll do as I often do and give you a few moments-
One of the most powerful discussions never made it onto the giant sheets of butcher paper where people wrote workshops as they saw fit, but was instead a spontaneous moment to talk about hate speech around some posters for "straight hate day" in Sweden. I don't like hate. I am a rainbows and unicorns and flowers and love people into submission kind of kid, but I couldn't help but be struck when one person said (loosely) "I have been a shield for so many of my friends, we get spit at, called names, there is violence. It isn't all happy and fun and dancing, We are angry and that is legitimate. We are dying out there." And they're right. A time to dance, a time to fight.
Discussions of hierarchy or oppression aside (is it the same to have sexist speech as anti hetero speech?) they had a point, We need space for our aggression. The posters came down because they made a lot of people unhappy, but the discussion of the validity of the gathering hung in the air and we had some really good discussion around it in the end.
Queer beograd. finally. After going all the way to Serbia in hopes of finding these folks I finally found them at the QueerFest. It was really great to hear them speak and to get a lot of perspective about nuance in organizing. They have to work outside of the Western Prescriptive Model Of A Gay/Queer Movement, that means working with people who see things differently, and also taking time and not always having the same goals. They don't have enough people to have the luxury of a fractured movement, and they sometimes have to prioritize safe space over Prides. One thing I found especially striking was when they decided to use the word queer and not translate it in their organizing because they realized that it had power as unrecognizable. Because haters in Serbia knew gay or homo, but not queer it gave them a few years of organizing power without as much fear about being found.
The maker of Travel Queeries came to show her documentary on... essentially the trip we are on right now. It was great to meet her and see her perform. If you ever get the chance, you should see the film. http://www.travelqueeries.com/
Other tid bits include the dress up room which had people changing and rearranging their outfits and representation a million times a day. And at some point at one of the 5 amazing all night parties one of the DJs announced that there were some queer bashers that needed kicking out and all who wanted to help should report to the yard. The dance floor cleared so fast you would think they had just put on Hanna Montana. It was amazing to see this huge wave of people defend their space like that.
Thats all I can really Say, so here are some photos for further illustration:
A Day-
The Legendary Peter Pandrew-
My new baby Divas-
What is camp without lost boys jumping off a dock?
The Gender flagging de-coder board-
Looks for days----
The "sleeping" room...
The Demo
The sun sets on my time in Kobenhavn-
Sweet Sweet Copenhagen.
You know those kids who go to camp and are obsessed with camp and only ever want to hang out with their camp friends?
Well color me a camper.
Or for those of you who saw Camp Queer Water Ridge, it was oh so exactly like that.
After a week of eating sleeping drinking workshoping dancing partying and swimming with the same set of lovely delightful queers every day I feel like a lifetime has passed and I can't wait until next year to go back.
Two tasty vegan meals a day, swimming in the harbor and a million djs every night dancing us til sunrise.
Sleeping in a room with 50 other people with varying definitions of quiet and contradictory sleep patterns was challenging, but thanks to my sleep pad and long honed sleep skills I did pretty well. Diva was such a hit that I had to teach it a second time and in addition to various spontaneous breaks into dancing (shout out to Carly) we got to be the final act of the strange and sexy cabaret.
I want to somehow go into all the workshops and give amazingly detailed descriptions of everyone I met, but I can't manage to get it through the sieve of my mind.
I guess I'll do as I often do and give you a few moments-
One of the most powerful discussions never made it onto the giant sheets of butcher paper where people wrote workshops as they saw fit, but was instead a spontaneous moment to talk about hate speech around some posters for "straight hate day" in Sweden. I don't like hate. I am a rainbows and unicorns and flowers and love people into submission kind of kid, but I couldn't help but be struck when one person said (loosely) "I have been a shield for so many of my friends, we get spit at, called names, there is violence. It isn't all happy and fun and dancing, We are angry and that is legitimate. We are dying out there." And they're right. A time to dance, a time to fight.
Discussions of hierarchy or oppression aside (is it the same to have sexist speech as anti hetero speech?) they had a point, We need space for our aggression. The posters came down because they made a lot of people unhappy, but the discussion of the validity of the gathering hung in the air and we had some really good discussion around it in the end.
Queer beograd. finally. After going all the way to Serbia in hopes of finding these folks I finally found them at the QueerFest. It was really great to hear them speak and to get a lot of perspective about nuance in organizing. They have to work outside of the Western Prescriptive Model Of A Gay/Queer Movement, that means working with people who see things differently, and also taking time and not always having the same goals. They don't have enough people to have the luxury of a fractured movement, and they sometimes have to prioritize safe space over Prides. One thing I found especially striking was when they decided to use the word queer and not translate it in their organizing because they realized that it had power as unrecognizable. Because haters in Serbia knew gay or homo, but not queer it gave them a few years of organizing power without as much fear about being found.
The maker of Travel Queeries came to show her documentary on... essentially the trip we are on right now. It was great to meet her and see her perform. If you ever get the chance, you should see the film. http://www.travelqueeries.com/
Other tid bits include the dress up room which had people changing and rearranging their outfits and representation a million times a day. And at some point at one of the 5 amazing all night parties one of the DJs announced that there were some queer bashers that needed kicking out and all who wanted to help should report to the yard. The dance floor cleared so fast you would think they had just put on Hanna Montana. It was amazing to see this huge wave of people defend their space like that.
Thats all I can really Say, so here are some photos for further illustration:
A Day-
The Legendary Peter Pandrew-
My new baby Divas-
What is camp without lost boys jumping off a dock?
The Gender flagging de-coder board-
Looks for days----
The "sleeping" room...
The Demo
The sun sets on my time in Kobenhavn-
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Neverland.
So after a train that went on a fairy and a bus ride to what looked like the middle of no where I had arived, Queer Fest København (which, to my surprise is how you spell Copenhagen). Luckily there was BIG chalk leading the way or I never would have found the charming little circus arts school where it is housed.
I have been to A LOT of queer festivals this year. This one is the best. Everyone is sweet and lovely and it is DIY at its best with a highly organized crew kindly guiding people into making it all their own.
In the DIY spirit I´ve been rocking some workshops my first being an introduction to Viewpoints.... and well, we´ll get to the others.
When I first arrived I was doing a bit of the scared, sit in a corner eat your soup... when something magical happened. Peter Pan biked by my window, looked in, and winked. I stopped in the middle of my writing and recalled that at some point on this project I had wanted to talk about the lost boys are queer-genderqueer characters. Needless to say Peter and I became fast friends and 15 minutes after meeting had planned our life together in Berlin and wandered off to Christiania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania) to find swings.
Other highlitghts aside from Peter and Wendy (my amazing new leather femme friend Allie) include-
An amazing dress up room
Hygge (pronounced huga) which is the active verb for being cozy, I have been learning 5 words of danish a day.
a gender flagging system to bring pronjouns out into the discussion for everyone. So there is a big board with different fabrics on it that correspond to different genders (trannyboy, femme, boi, trannyfag, transwoman etc.) and their pronouns. If someone is flagging you can go to the board and figure out their pronoun, if not you have to use neutrals like they or per (short for person).
Dive´. that is to say that my second workshop was teaching 40 new Dive´members the Diva choreographed dance which ended with us running to jump in the harbor and doing the dance in various states of undress on the dock.
Then I led a femme conversation workshop about femme gender queer identities which was amazing, there are a lot of bad ass femmes in these parts.
It has been pretty weird having heavy theoretical discussions with people from ALL OVER in English, especially when definitions come up. Its pretty interesting.
anyway, I have to head back to play more and dance more and joy more.
photos later, sorry about spelling, twas a rush.
Love,
V
I have been to A LOT of queer festivals this year. This one is the best. Everyone is sweet and lovely and it is DIY at its best with a highly organized crew kindly guiding people into making it all their own.
In the DIY spirit I´ve been rocking some workshops my first being an introduction to Viewpoints.... and well, we´ll get to the others.
When I first arrived I was doing a bit of the scared, sit in a corner eat your soup... when something magical happened. Peter Pan biked by my window, looked in, and winked. I stopped in the middle of my writing and recalled that at some point on this project I had wanted to talk about the lost boys are queer-genderqueer characters. Needless to say Peter and I became fast friends and 15 minutes after meeting had planned our life together in Berlin and wandered off to Christiania (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania) to find swings.
Other highlitghts aside from Peter and Wendy (my amazing new leather femme friend Allie) include-
An amazing dress up room
Hygge (pronounced huga) which is the active verb for being cozy, I have been learning 5 words of danish a day.
a gender flagging system to bring pronjouns out into the discussion for everyone. So there is a big board with different fabrics on it that correspond to different genders (trannyboy, femme, boi, trannyfag, transwoman etc.) and their pronouns. If someone is flagging you can go to the board and figure out their pronoun, if not you have to use neutrals like they or per (short for person).
Dive´. that is to say that my second workshop was teaching 40 new Dive´members the Diva choreographed dance which ended with us running to jump in the harbor and doing the dance in various states of undress on the dock.
Then I led a femme conversation workshop about femme gender queer identities which was amazing, there are a lot of bad ass femmes in these parts.
It has been pretty weird having heavy theoretical discussions with people from ALL OVER in English, especially when definitions come up. Its pretty interesting.
anyway, I have to head back to play more and dance more and joy more.
photos later, sorry about spelling, twas a rush.
Love,
V
Ladiy fest
Nia has done a terrible job of updating while I was in Neverland...
But lets just say, Polish drag kings, contact improv dance workshops with our friends from Ljubljana, sweet nights at Silver future, and amazing dance parties.
We found a zine called SOAP which led us towards a lot of amazing performers in Berlin that we happened upon, some of whom we saw perform and hopefully we´ll be hanging out and interviewing them when we get back to Berlin.
muchy love,
V
But lets just say, Polish drag kings, contact improv dance workshops with our friends from Ljubljana, sweet nights at Silver future, and amazing dance parties.
We found a zine called SOAP which led us towards a lot of amazing performers in Berlin that we happened upon, some of whom we saw perform and hopefully we´ll be hanging out and interviewing them when we get back to Berlin.
muchy love,
V
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Poor but Sexy
Berlin-
Last night I dangled my feet over the edge of the Silver Future. A place I had only dreamed of. Where the menu apologizes for the capitolism of their business and pledges to kick out anyone who hinders the comfort of the queers between its bright pink walls. A place dripping with femmenine charm with its gender queer pin up calender, chandeliers, lace and shiney fabrics... not to mention the glitter on the tables. A sign above the bar reads `Congratulations you have just left the heteronormative sector´and to the right there is a print of Audre Hepburn to which someone has added a fuzzy mustache. Every night that I leave my house I go out searching for this place and never find it. Everyone is quirky and transitory but happy and snacks dangle on a pulley from the ceiling. The beer is cheap and the drinks are printed on unicorn paper in a children's book. A preface defines the word ´Zweigeschlechtlichkeit´(gender binary in German). The sign at the entrance of this collectively owned bar from my dreams, right here in Berlin reads- Welcome Kings and Queens and Queer Criminals.
Now if only they had dancing...
Last night I dangled my feet over the edge of the Silver Future. A place I had only dreamed of. Where the menu apologizes for the capitolism of their business and pledges to kick out anyone who hinders the comfort of the queers between its bright pink walls. A place dripping with femmenine charm with its gender queer pin up calender, chandeliers, lace and shiney fabrics... not to mention the glitter on the tables. A sign above the bar reads `Congratulations you have just left the heteronormative sector´and to the right there is a print of Audre Hepburn to which someone has added a fuzzy mustache. Every night that I leave my house I go out searching for this place and never find it. Everyone is quirky and transitory but happy and snacks dangle on a pulley from the ceiling. The beer is cheap and the drinks are printed on unicorn paper in a children's book. A preface defines the word ´Zweigeschlechtlichkeit´(gender binary in German). The sign at the entrance of this collectively owned bar from my dreams, right here in Berlin reads- Welcome Kings and Queens and Queer Criminals.
Now if only they had dancing...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)