Exquisite Corpse – Stray Cat Strut

by angeliska on July 12, 2011

_DSC0622
My look for the evening ended up looking something like if Dark Lily from Legend
had ended up doing it with a cat on the side. Maybe one that had a penchant for KISS?

This scene is definitely at the top of my list of things that made me weird…
Hello! Amazing. This may well have been the birth of my gothness, right here.
If you were a child when this film came out, wasn’t this film just EVERYTHING to you?
I know it was for me. Unicorns, faeries, goblins, Tim Curry as the Devil? I mean!
_DSC0630
_DSC0643
I was also thinking a lot about the Tarot of the Cat People by Karen Kuykendall
while I was getting ready… I’ve loved this deck since I was a child – it’s so strange and beautiful.

_DSC0850
Raven + Monika worked all day on their crazy-amazing cat ensembles!
They were totally mindblowing! I honestly still can’t handle how perfect they were.
I’ve instructed them to both wear these costumes as their everyday clothes, from now on.
_DSC0522
Amelia made the perfect mermaid! She was a sequinned sea-treat to tempt all the kitties!
“Do you see that fishy swimming round and round
Maybe we can reaching in and make it drown…
If we sneaking up upon it carefully
There will be head for you a tail for me”

_DSC0751
Beware leaping tigers in the jungle!
_DSC0656
Gina, Kitty, Devi, and myself gettin’ wild….
_DSC0662
Azz everywhere!
_DSC0512
Devi!
_DSC0517
and with Xander Harris
_DSC0883
Casting hexes on my intended! It’s the only way to keep ’em in line!
_DSC0539
Lovely Drew
_DSC0542
Rowr!
_DSC0699
Summer Lawson
_DSC0550
Celeste Chesser
_DSC0594
Meow!
_DSC0908
Proud parents with their litter.
_DSC0910
Oh Norah!
_DSC0764
Kittens!
_DSC0746
Hairballs!
_DSC0726
Lali Ferpecto!
_DSC0762
It kind of ended up being that kind of a night…
_DSC0721
Exquisite Corpse – Lovecats
To purchase prints go here….

Stray Cats – Stray Cat Strut

Squeeze – Cool For Cats

Exquisite Corpse – Serpentine Gallery

by angeliska on July 6, 2011

_DSC9143
We are the witches who bring you Exquisite Corpse:
Lau – brain-melting hex projections
Angeliska – hostess priestess
Norah – door-empress gatekeeper
Charlene – DJ Pasht – song sorceress!
All photos by Devaki Knowles of www.funlovingphotos.net
_DSC9085
Beautiful Monika and Nemesis
_DSC8852
Jackie bought her beautiful new ophidian companion from a guy who was leaving the country, and couldn’t take her.
_DSC8786
Mr. Bones happened to be riding in the guy’s front seat when he pulled up for the snake hand-off.
He very kindly lent the handsome skeleton to adorn our photobooth for the night! A snake and a
skeleton? It doesn’t really get more goth than that! How perfectly synchronicitous it was…
_DSC9180
Radiant Norah
_DSC9159
Sass!
_DSC8816
Miss Blue Madrigal working Elegant Gothic Lolita REALNESS (serpent sold seperately!)
_DSC8804
La Belle Colombe – Elaine
_DSC9043
Devi + Natalie gettin’ wild!
_DSC8711
I love this lady, and her songs.
_DSC8930
Rachel Dobos wears Nemesis well, but the snakes – they are not for eating! They are for kissing!
_DSC8886
David Salazar, creature of the night.
_DSC8893
Wooing the wonderful Miss Maranda!
_DSC8780
Liz + Katzen!
_DSC9118
Ramon’s shrine. Rest in peace, dear friend.

Exquisite Corpse – LOVECATS

by angeliska on July 1, 2011

For this month’s Exquisite Corpse, I chose the theme LOVECATS
for a variety of reasons. Firstly, it falls on July 7th, which years ago
I randomly decided was my beloved cat Junior‘s birthday. He was
the most amazing cat I’ve ever known, and I still miss him horribly.
I got him as a kitten when I was 5, and he lived to the ripe old age of 21!
So, this night is for Junior, and all the other awesome cats we know and love.
My other reasons? Well… Lovecats is an amazing song, and I just don’t hear
played often enough, so we’re going to fix that! Also, there was a store here
in Austin in the 90’s called Lovecat that definitely shaped my style: lots of gaudy
vintage dresses, bleached out satanic punk shirts, glittery psychedelic flowers and
platform shoes. It was in a cool old house on West 12th – man, I wish it still was!
I found these amazing images over at Mlle. Chromium Dumb Belle’s lovely blog
thank you to Mlle. Ghoul and Mlle. Avril-Violette for your help in identifying provenance!

“La Belle et le Bête, circa 1940. Tirage argentique d’époque”
(The others are Leonor Fini
André Pieyre de Mandiargues – Masques de Leonor Fini
Paris, La Parade Éditions André Bonne, 1951

We move like cagey tigers
We couldn’t get closer than this
The way we walk
The way we talk
The way we stalk
The way we kiss


We slip through the streets
While everyone sleeps
Getting bigger and sleeker
And wider and brighter
We bite and scratch and scream all night
Let’s go and
Throw all the songs we know
Into the sea
You and me
All these years and no one heard
I’ll show you in spring
It’s a treacherous thing
We missed you hissed the lovecats…


We’re so wonderfully wonderfully wonderfully
Wonderfully pretty
Oh you know that I’d do anything for you
We should have each other to tea huh?
We should have each other with cream
Then curl up by the fire
And sleep for awhile
It’s the grooviest thing
It’s the perfect dream…


Hand in hand
Is the only way to land
And always the right way round
Not broken in pieces
Like hated little meeces…

I must admit, ever since Lundi Gras, I’ve been itching to do more crazy cat make-up!
It feels so right, somehow! These shots are from the 7 Minutes ‘Til Heaven Party in New Orleans:

(photos by Glitter Guts)

Me an’ my brother form another mother, Rusty Lazer!

It’s probably not surprising that after seeing the musical Cats at a very impressionable age
that I became fascinated with leotards-as-clothing, and that I still sing “Memory” (loudly!) in the shower.
In fact, maybe I shouldn’t admit that I was incredibly titillated at the part where all the cat-dancers come
into the audience and get all purry and fondly. Was that just me? Does that make me… A furry?!
Oh well!

Another big inspiration is Soo Catwoman!
I remember loving her most of all, poring over pictures of The Bromley Contingent in
Greil Marcus’ Lipstick Traces when I was just a wee thing. Free admission to anyone with
genuine Catwoman hair! I always wanted it, but was never brave enough! You do it!





The Cure – The Lovecats (Top Of the Pops, 29th December 1983)


This version by Tricky is killer – can’t wait to dance to it…

Clip from The Mighty Boosh…
Goodnight, moon! See you at Lovecats…

Peacock Spider Honey

by angeliska on June 29, 2011


✸ I’ve become very obsessed with Peacock Spiders recently. Certain experiences have been contriving to teach me to look
very closely at the tiny wonders in our world: the mysteries of minutiae, the infinitesimally small and complex creatures who
might otherwise be overlooked in favor of those grander in scale. These wee beasties wave their little legs at you, beckoning.

Dr. Jürgen Otto‘s footage of the courtship and mating behaviour of the Australian peacock spider Maratus volans.


✸ I’ve been getting really excited about Triboluminescence lately. Such a strange phenomenon!
5-10-15-20: Antony – I loved this article from Antony where he talks about his musical influences.
Christian Death, Marc and the Mambas, Nina Simone and Selda! Inspiring as always.

Lakshmi Bai – the Rani (queen) of Jhansi
freedom-fighting warrior heroine from On This Deity

St Clemens, Church of Sts Peter and Paul, Rott-am-Inn, Germany – photo by Paul Koudoun­aris
✸ A wonderful article about the The amazing jeweled skeletons of Europe from Fortean Times

✸ Caddis fly larvae are known to incorporate bits of whatever they can find into their cocoons,
be it fish bone or bits of leaves. Hubert Duprat gave them gold, turquoise, gems and pearls.
“Since the early 1980s, artist Hubert Duprat has been utilizing insects to construct some of his “sculptures.”
By removing caddis fly larvae from their natural habitat and providing them with precious materials, he
prompts them to manufacture cases that resemble jewelers’ creations. Information theory, as explained by
biologists such as Jacques Monod and Henri Atlan, helps us understand what seems to be the insect’s aesthetic
behavior. The activities of the caddis worm, as manipulated by Hubert Duprat, are prompted by the “noise”—
beads, pearls and 18-karat gold pieces — introduced by the artist into the insect’s environment.”

Victorian-Era Dress, Made With 1,000 Beetle Wings, Restored for £50,000
This is my dress. I need it back! Can someone go tell them?

✸ I’ve been meaning to moon about my love for the Kenzo Spring/Summer 2011 show for ages –
of course it’s right up my alley with the combination of hyper-saturated, rich color, exciting prints,
delicate silks and loads of intricate details. I go crazy for anything resembling an ethnic costume,
and this show was a mish-mash of Russian doll, Peruvian shepherdess and Japanese geisha. Heavenly.

It starts out a little dull, but watch and wait for the gorgeous and perfect grand finale. J’ADORE!





✸ The Orchid Mantis (Hymenopus coronatus) is called so, because it mimics orchid flowers.
They are usually white, but some of them grow little tints of pink over time. They live in papaya trees,
orchids and blossoming frangipani trees in Malaysia, Indonesia & Sumatra.

When everything flies away, the outline of the heart goes black
Hans Christian Andersen’s illustrated “stamp books” from 50Watts
What is Peter Falk Doing in Wings of Desire ?
Oh darling man, you will be missed! I used to watch Columbo and eat dried mangos with a couple of macaws every afternoon.
The Paper Cuts of Chad Merritt featured in Hi-Fructose
Hooray for Chadling! I love that we will be living in the same town very soon!
Norman’s Ghost Hole via Coilhouse
I love this. A lot.
That what I’ve got for right now! Send any bits of excitement + enchantment my way, won’t you?

Summer Solstice – A Lush Green Wish

by angeliska on June 21, 2011

I kneel in the night on a high hill in the back country, I bow my head,
and make this fervent wish, with the memory of green tendrils wrapped
around my heart, squeezing there, holding me fast against the earth.

By Kaycee
A solstice wish for the rains to come back and wet the cracked and dry
lips of our land, so thirsty, so cooked. A lush and whispering wish,
a green and liquid gaze, a beetle-wing hum and scissor of wings
to accompany a change in the wind, in the weather. Let the fireflies
come back, the poppyheads, the bare feet in soft dark earth. Come back,
you voluptuous nights that made me lose myself in the air, the air the exact
temperature of my blood. Nightswimming in you, I become weightless, invisible.

The membrane between my flesh and the dark green leaves, my heartbeat and the cicada
song grows so permeable that I nearly forget to exist, breathing there in the night, on the path,
no light but the moon. Lay me down between the rows, under that spicy canopy of tomato
stalks, sharp and greener than green. Heady and hot, stinging my upper lip studded with
silver sweat, the mosquito wail, the drip, the thunder. Come back dark clouds, furious black,
riddled with the swarming termites of heat lightning. Give me a tympani boom that makes
my little dogs shake and tremble, give me the insect alarm call, the pressure drop, wind lifting
the hair stuck to the back of my neck. Come feverish storms! Pound at my windows at the witching
hour, and maybe I’ll just fling them all open and let you in. Come back you tempests, you ponderous
fierce summer thunderstorms, bristling with electricity, gray wolves of cumulus hunkering at the horizon.

Denishawn dancers doing their Thai magic.
Bring back those nights where no one can seem to leave their porches, where your silk slips are soaked
though, even though you’ve barely moved a muscle in an hour. Laying there with your back glued to the
wood floor, watching the ceiling fan sway, the fat moths gossip, another lizard hunting party making a foray
back across the screen-door. “Iced tea and no deep thinking” indeed. Rum and cigars and dominoes and
no thoughts of work or money. Only your friend laughing with her red lipstick on, the fairy lights, that night.

Moth photographs by my friend, amazingly talented photographer L.E. Lake
I petition the leafy sea-dragons I have seen swimming beneath the skin of the sky for their watery blessings.
I will ask the creatures made of violet prism who live in little fires to make inquiries about where our paperwork
might have been mislaid. I’m sure we filled it out correctly, in triplicate even, but nixies can be tricksy I reckon,
and it seems we’ve been bumped to the bottom of the list. May their fiery ears be tickled by our wishmaking into
issuing benedictions, and may they be gentled by our songs, by our gifts. What else can we do now, but beg
elementals to take pity on us? Let our wishes be enough for them. Let them bring back our green world.


Photograph by Tamera Ferro – aka. Mlle. Verhext
This is the song a slow afternoon rain that would sing so sweetly, on one of those dim days
where you sit at the kitchen table with your tea and all the lights off, and wish
that the rain could be your lover, and come around every day at about 4 o’ clock,
like it does in New Orleans still. While you sit there clutching your mug and making wishes.

Orlando

by angeliska on June 17, 2011

Oh today, today. I don’t really want to write about what today was like, because it was quite awful.
Instead, I’ll write about something that makes me happier: my favorite film. I know, I know – just one?
Is it even possible to pick only one? I think so. For me, it’s the film that found me at an early age, and
provided a defining moment in my sense of beauty and aesthetics. It is the film that no matter how many
times I see it (many, many!) it remains perfectly fresh: never fading, or withering, never growing old – just
as Queen Elizabeth exhorted. I have my beloved grandparents to thank, for their good taste and judgement,
and for exposing me to so many wonderful films. I was thirteen years old, and visiting them when they still lived
in Los Angeles. I remember devouring L.A. Weekly when I was there – so hungry for culture, for information,
for the lures of forbidden concerts and drag shows. We all decided Orlando looked interesting, and the three
of us went to see it at a little old art-house cinema with incredibly creaky and uncomfortable wooden seats.
I was forever changed. The music, that beautiful soundtrack, the gorgeous costumes and cinematography,
and of course – the pink, the pearl, and the perfection of her sex: my first flaming female crush and future wife, Tilda Swinton.
Oh, androgyny! This perhaps was my first encounter with how wonderful, how right it could be to not have to choose
one gender over the other. That one could be as Orlando said: “Same person. No difference at all… just a different sex.”
Combined with my feverish and everlasting love for meticulously executed costume and historical dramas, and just the simple
beauty of the story and the characters – well, it caught me up then and has never let go. There is no moment in that film that
is wasted, that is unecessary. From beginning to end, it is truly perfect. If you’ve never seen it, I hope you will. If you do, or
if you have, then you will understand some essential and inexpressible things about me, and what I find beautiful.
All quotes below are from Virginia Woolf’s book, Orlando: A Biography, upon which
the film was based. Obviously, they go hand in hand in the wonderfulness department. Read it.



“He loved, beneath all this summer transiency, to feel the earth’s spine beneath him; for such he took the hard root of the oak tree to be; or, for image followed image, it was the back of a great horse that he was riding, or the deck of a tumbling ship — it was anything indeed, so long as it was hard, for he felt the need of something which he could attach his floating heart to; the heart that tugged at his side; the heart that seemed filled with spiced and amorous gales every evening about this time when he walked out.”

“The taste for books was an early one. As a child he was sometimes found at midnight by a page still reading.
They took his taper away, and he bred glow-worms to serve his purpose. They took the glow-worms away
and he almost burnt the house down with a tinder.”


“For it would seem – her case proved it – that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person.
The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.”


The brilliant Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth. What a clever thrill is the scene between he and Tilda,
him playing a great old dowager empress, and her playing a young sprig of noble youth, a gingery boy.

“But Sasha was from Russia, where the sunsets are longer, the dawns less sudden
and sentences are often left unfinished from doubt as how to best end them.”



“Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, then to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.”

“Was not poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?”

“In the 18th century we knew how everything was done, but here I rise through the air, I listen to voices in America,
I see men flying- but how is it done? I can’t even begin to wonder. So my belief in magic returns.”







“Nature, who has played so many queer tricks upon us, making us so unequally of clay and diamonds, of rainbow and granite, and stuffed them into a case, often of the most incongruous, for the poet has a butcher’s face and the butcher a poet’s; nature, who delights in muddle and mystery, so that even now (the first of November, 1927) we know not why we go upstairs, or why we come down again, our most daily movements are like the passage of a ship on an unknown sea, and the sailors at the mast-head ask, pointing their glasses to the horizon: Is there land or is there none? to which, if we are prophets, we make answer
“Yes”; if we are truthful we say “No”; nature, who has so much to answer for besides the perhaps unwieldy length of this sentence, has further complicated her task and added to our confusion by providing not only a perfect ragbag of odds and ends within us—a piece of a policeman’s trousers lying cheek by jowl with Queen Alexandra’s wedding veil— but has contrived that the whole assortment shall be lightly stitched together by a single thread. Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither. We know not what comes next, or what follows after. Thus, the most ordinary movement in the world, such as sitting down at a table and pulling the inkstand
towards one, may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim, hanging and bobbing and dipping and flaunting, like the underlinen of a family of fourteen on a line in a gale of wind. Instead of being a single, downright, bluff piece of work of which no man need feel ashamed, our commonest deeds are set about with a fluttering and flickering of wings, a rising and falling of lights.”


“For Love, to which we may now return, has two faces; one white, the other black; two bodies; one smooth, the other hairy.
It has two hands, two feet, two tails, two, indeed, of every member and each one is the exact opposite of the other.
Yet, so strictly are they joined together that you cannot separate them. In this case, Orlando’s love began her flight
towards him with her white face turned, and her smooth and lovely body outwards. Nearer and nearer she came
wafting before her airs of pure delight. All of a sudden (at the sight of the Archduchess presumably) she wheeled about,
turned the other way round; showed herself black, hairy, brutish; and it was Lust the vulture, not Love, the Bird of Paradise
that flopped, foully and disgustingly, upon his shoulders. Hence he ran; hence he fetched the footman.”


I found this beautiful photo and great quote over at Sophie Ward’s Papercastle Press: PYJAMA TOAST
“One of Tilda’s many ideas about having the big house in Nairn was that people would come and be around;
interesting people for her kids to meet. Like a salon, I suppose. It’s peaceful out there but often at weekends there’s
a whole variety of people. It’s quite variable and chaotic. There’s no television. You can get a lot done and you’re
in very pleasant company. It’s never boring. The guy who does their decorating is fantastic, really interesting to talk to.
You’ve got a huge continuum of people who may or may not be high powered in the outside world, but you don’t know
because everybody’s just in their pyjamas eating toast. Which is how you should meet people”

–AL Kennedy, Writer
This is so, so great:
Sally Potter and Tilda Swinton Discuss Their Film Orlando

Orlando trailer

A change of sex

I couldn’t resist this sweet La Roux/Orlando mash-up. Again with the ginger ladies! Sigh.
So, also the kitten we found in the bushes last year, Bojangles, went through a similar transformation.
We had always assumed that Bojangles was a boy – the orangeness (orange cats are 80% male), the appearance of what
we thought were testicles (eh?), and the fact that he was spraying things down territorially with piss. I mean! Really?
All signs pointed to dude. Imagine my shock, when one night at 3am I looked up from my book, hearing a strange squalling.
A little peachy lumpkin had tumbled out of my Grampy’s old armoire and had become tangled in a hat veil. I was so perplexed!
Where had this little thing come from? A pregnant cat has snuck into my armoire and given birth to two kittens! Strangely,
Bojangles was very interested and concerned about these newborns. I took in the dilated, crazy-mom gaze, her mowling,
and the fact that these two larvae looked exactly like her, and it finally dawned on me – my cat had had a change of sex.
Well, probably not – but! Given the story, and her gingery complexion, we decided that maybe we should change her
name from Renfield Bojangles Whiskerwitz Tom Tum Shrimp Scampi to Orlando, or Tilda, or maybe Tillie for short?
Of course, none of that happened – we call the cat Booey. Very undignified, but it stuck. She’s fixed and happy now!


Did you ever see anything so adorable in your entire life? I thought not.
We gave them to my two little cousins, Molly + Eliza who decided that they
should be named Pumpkin Pie and Apple Pie Zucchini Bread. Well, of course!

Grrizelda and Booey are best friends. The cuddle like this and make out all the time.
It’s ridiculous. You can see here that they are actually holding hands. Paws. Whatever, it’s amazing.
More about when we found poor little Booey here:
Peachtree Moon
So strange to think it’s been nearly a year since then.
So much has changed in my life. So much happened right
then, and it was hard changes – but I can say now, for the
best. Funny to look at that old tarot reading and be able
to see it all so much more clearly now. It’s all there.

Belljar Honey

by angeliska on June 8, 2011

French time capsule mansion maison mantin frogs diorama 32088 600x450

(Photograph courtesy Jérôme Mondière)
Battle of the Frogs from the collection of Louis Mantin. His majestic late 19th-century French mansion was shuttered
for more than a century, but opened its doors to the public in February, to reveal “an array of outdated luxuries and oddities”.

Agent Ribbons – “That’s Not Edgar’s Heart” from Ryan McCoy on Vimeo.

✸ My friend Natalie has an amazing band called Agent Ribbons, and the music they make is very wonderful indeed.
I am completely thunderstruck by the beauty of their new video: “In keeping with the band’s minimalist indie spirit,
“Edgar” is an elegant video with a Mobius strip-like construction the viewer will discover as the narrative progresses.”

I C 1 03
Ruysch festooned infant skeletons with various objects, organic and non-organic, and arranged them in landscapes of body parts.
I C 1 O9
Ruysch’s “repository of curiosities” included displays of infant and fetal
skeletons, placed in landscapes of human and animal body parts.
This ghastly musicale is notable for its morbid whimsy.

I recently stumbled across the strange and wonderful world of Frederik Ruysch, via a link from a terrific resource: Dream Anatomy
These images, funnily enough, led me to the writing repository (The Laughing Bone) of an old friend, Scott Casey (aka. Bonesy Jones),
who I met back in the days of FringeWare. He wrote this great piece:
Frederik Ruysch: Vene, vidi et judica nil tuis oculis
No surprise then, that I was also led to this article:
Frederik Ruysch (1638-1731): Anatomical Artist, Museologist, Morbid Anatomy Patron Saint
from my favorite source for anatomical inspiration, Morbid Anatomy
A virtual new museum dedicated to his works has recently been set up,
and hopefully will soon be translated into English: Frederik Ruysch – Virtual Museum
“Ruysch made about a dozen tableaux, constructed of human fetal skeletons with backgrounds of other body parts,
on allegorical themes of death and the transiency of life…Ruysch built the ‘geological’ landscapes of these tableaux from
gallstones and kidneystones, and ‘botanical’ backgrounds from injected and hardened major veins and arteries for “trees,”
and more ramified tissue of lungs and smaller vessels for ‘bushes’ and ‘grass.’
The fetal skeletons, several per tableau, were ornamented with symbols of death and short life–hands may hold mayflies
(which live but a day in their adult state); skulls bemoan their fate by weeping into ‘handkerchiefs’ made of elegantly injected
mesentery or brain meninges; ‘snakes’ and ‘worms,’ symbols of corruption made of intestine, wind around pelvis and rib cage.
Quotations and moral exhortations, emphasizing the brevity of life and the vanity of earthly riches, festooned the compositions.
One fetal skeleton holding a string of pearls in its hand proclaims, ‘Why should I long for the things of this world?’
Another, playing a violin with a bow made of a dried artery, sings, ‘Ah fate, ah bitter fate.'”

– Steven Jay Gould – Finders, Keepers: Eight Collectors
A Miniature Fascination – The Paris Review – The dollhouses of Huguette Clark
“…Miniaturists—the people, the hobby, the history—deserve more than to be dismissed as an easy metaphor.
It’s a fascinating world that continues to capture people—whether they admit to it or not. Wrote one confidante of Clark in later life,
She just wanted to be home and play with her dolls.‘”
I can relate.

My newfound friend Mr. Tom Negovan is launching a Kickstarter mission to create
the first cylinder record/all analog recording made since 1924.
He’s 19 days away, and just a tad short of making his goal – if you are a fan of archaic recording technology
and unusually beautiful music, please consider taking a moment to check out his amazing project.
✸ Mr. Sean Lee has been charming and entertaining me with his marvelous new bit of fancy bloggery over at Leaf & Arrow
His latest article about D.S. & Durga is making me exceedingly hungry for new scents…
There’s a few I think I’ll need to try out from them! Siberian Snow! Orris Root! Cowboy Grass!
✸ I’ve fallen hard for Sophie Ward’s brain: Paper Castle Press
Punchdrunk – “Sleep No More”
“If New York’s junk shops, antiques fairs and confectioners have fielded some odd requests
recently, it may be because the British theater company Punchdrunk is coming to town for the first time.
The props list for its show “Sleep No More,” an environmental, stylized mash-up of Shakespearean drama
and Hitchcockian noir, reads like the contents of a madman’s shopping cart: plastic teeth, animal eyes,
hair samples, several kinds of blood, caramel spray.”

I so, so, so wish I had gotten to see this. Anybody in New York get to experience it while it was up?
A Wayfarer’s Cabinet of Curiosities
Rima Staines and her ever-enchanting Into The Hermitage
So much loveliness!

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes set to the song ‘Sherlock Holmes’ by Sparks.
This has been my dancing around in my underwear with a hairbrush microphone theme song lately,
thanks to Lau, who got me hooked on this amazing mix: Take Me Away – Mixed by The Cosmic Orphan
She says it best: “It is really a stunning, perfect mix, and very very recommended listening.”
For real. Go get it. In fact, I’m listening to it again right now!
Fog matters to you and me, but it can’t touch Sherlock Holmes
Dogs bark and he knows their breed
And knows where they went last night
Knows their masters too
Oh baby, hold me tight

More wonderful photos from From Joanna Ebenstein’s “Private Cabinets” Photo Series, Volume 1:
From the Collection of Erik Sanko & Jessica Grindstaff, Phantom Limb Co., New York City
From the Collection of Erik Sanko & Jessica Grindstaff, Phantom Limb Co., New York City
From the Collection of Steve Erenberg ("Radio Guy"), Art Director and Dealer, New York
From the Collection of Steve Erenberg ("Radio Guy"), Art Director and Dealer, New York
The Cave of Forgotten Dreams – If you haven’t had the opportunity yet to see Werner Herzog’s
new 3D documentary about the marvelous paintings of Chauvet Cave, I really cannot recommend it enough.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams from Nate Calloway on Vimeo.

“There’s a cave in France where no humans have been in 26,000 years. The walls are full of fantastic, perfectly-preserved paintings of animals, ending in a chamber full of monsters 1312-feet underground, where CO2 and radon gas concentrations provoke hallucinations.
It’s called the the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, a really weird and mysterious place. The walls contain hundreds of animals—like the typical Paleolithic horses and bisons—but some of them are not supposed to be there, like lions, panthers, rhinos and hyenas. A few are not even supposed to exist, like weird butterflyish animals or chimerical figures half bison half woman. These may be linked to the hallucinations. The trip is such that some archeologists think that it had a ritual nature, with people transcending into a new state as they descended into the final room.”

Hermanas mumias
Time to make a roadtrip up to Dallas – I absolutely must see this exhibit:
“The Accidental Mummies of Guanajuato”
I’ve wanted to go visit them for years, but now I really have no excuse…
ATLAS SHRIEKED: Ayn Rand’s First Love and Mentor Was A Sadistic Serial Killer Who Dismembered Little Girls
– Just sayin’. An important read. Pass it on to anyone you know who lists Atlas Shrugged as their favorite book.
Oh and – “Ayn Rand Assholism” as Institution/Ideology
another gem on the subject from Coilhouse
Santeria, Vodou, and the Media from The Wild Hunt
Queen of the Sun – I also really want to see this documentary about bees.
Mr. Quintron has great taste in music, and he writes funny and true things about 9 record he loves
6a010535647bf3970b01538eafa5d4970b 800wi
This baby tiger having a bath is showing a good example of my current facial expression.
Okay, well – not exactly. Internally, though – yes. I feel like I want to bite on some faces!
Irate baby tiger is my animal totem right now. Small, and apparently cuddly, but mighty fierce.

Queerbomb 2011!

by angeliska on June 2, 2011

QB front

Our annual Queerbomb rally, procession and party is tomorrow, and I’m just taking a minute to reflect with amazement at this beautiful phenomenon that I’ve had the honor of being a part of for the second year running now. To be surrounded by such a vibrant and loving community of queers and allies working hard to create our vision – a vision of PRIDE that for has given me such a profound sense of belonging and acceptance. It’s something I think about a lot, especially since moving back to Austin from New Orleans in 2005. I feel like it’s changed a lot since Katrina, but I can say that when I lived there, New Orleans was definitely a gay mecca, but it was not a queer town. Especially for ladies, and lady-lovers: I mean, you know it’s bad when the only lesbian bar (Rubyfruit Jungle!) has to have a ladies’ night, right? Whew! The gay bars are fun and fabulous, but they’re very clearly demarcated as being for men, queens, and the occasional token fag-hag. I never felt welcome in the same way I felt back in Texas – and partially that might be an Austin thing: the sense of strength in numbers, of a jumble of oddballs who stick together because there’s nowhere else to be. For a lot of people who grew up in this Texan oasis, that mish-mash of freaks was just how it was: the gay kids, fledgeling queens and baby-dykes were all tossed in with the other weirdo punks,goths, skaters, heshers and hippie-wannabes. We didn’t differentiate so much, and all hung out at the same crappy clubs despite our tastes in music or dress – and didn’t pay much attention to the genders of who was making out with who. Maybe that spoiled me, in a lot of ways – I still am baffled by “scenes” and people who won’t break their invisible boundaries to check out something outside of their ken or comfort zone. I’m by nature an all-inclusive person – I want everybody to be together, because it’s a hell of a lot more interesting that way. I’ve never felt comfortable being forced to explain my sexuality (well, who is?), especially as someone who loves women, men (and especially everything in-between!). The word “bisexual” has become anathema these days. It seems to have become a synonym for “wishy-washy“, “can’t commit“, “afraid to come out all the way” or “I only do it with girls when my boyfriend’s out of town“. It’s the kind of word that really means something good, but when you hear someone describe themselves using it – you just can’t help but cringe. It’s like calling yourself a poet. Instant cringe. Isn’t that sad? I love poetry, but when someone describes themselves as a poet, I just picture a self-aggrandizing ass-hat who likes to stand up on stage blathering about The Man in a ruffly white blouse. I read poetry (privately!), but if I enter a coffee-shop or bar where there’s a poetry slam, I’m outta there like lightning. I mean, I actually AM a uh, bisexual poet, you know… But I would never admit it in polite company.
So, when I discovered the word queer, and actually looked it up, and realized that it described me – well, let’s just say that it was quite a revelation. The even bigger revelation came when I found myself part of the beautiful queer community here in Austin. To feel so welcomed and appreciated, and to never have my right to be included questioned – despite the fact that my partner happens to be a man – well, I can’t even explain how special that is. No one has ever approached me with a gaydar device to monitor the full extent of my gayness.No one has ever treated me like a second-tier queer because I like dudes as well as ladies – and that’s super-refreshing. I felt shame for a long time about not fitting in anywhere. Deep, deep shame for such long time at not being straight, or gay, or feminine enough, or tom-boyish enough.
Finally, finally – I don’t feel that anymore. I’m actually crying as I’m writing this, because I don’t think I’ve ever really tried to express, even to myself, how difficult this has been. For my entire life, I’ve felt like an outcast – a deviant. I never had a label to cling to for comfort, or at least one that I felt comfortable with. Queer has been the only word that’s ever resonated – and Queerbomb has made it ring loud and clear. The fact that all those letters have a place here: the L for lesbian, G for gay, B for (yes, cringe!) bisexual, T for transgender, Q for queer, I for intersex, and so importantly – A for allies! – well, it’s something incredibly special. I’m willing to bet you fit in there somewhere!
I know I do, at last – and for that, I am profoundly grateful.
I also really want to share this letter from my fellow Queerbomb comrade and new hero, Melissa Smith. She graciously permitted me to re-post it here so you all could read it. Her story moved me so much, and combined with the fact that I know that she has been working her ass off for months to make Queerbomb a reality (literally getting her hands dirty and making shit happen!) makes it even more special. Please read:
“Fellow Queerbombers and new friends,
I sat at my desk this morning reading the Chronicle article and found myself choked up, streaming very happy tears. I had to dig deep to identify the emotions I was feeling, as there was a deja vu feeling I couldn’t quite place.
I sat for a minute and recalled coming out in a very small town at 15. It’s an old memory that I don’t think about too often, but I gave it a moment today. I wanted to know where this feeling was emanating from. My teenage life was pretty awful as I am sure many, if not all of you, experienced as well. My life was threatened, my parents were harassed, my younger sibling was beaten up for my lifestyle, and I was publicly banned from coaching freshman basketball because of my homosexuality and so forth. I’m sure we all have our stories. But I remember finding a subculture at a young age.
I hopped on a train to Boston in 1996 and found my way to my first queercore/riotgrrl show and my world changed entirely. I had this tingly feeling, and this overwhelming sense that things would be ok; there were people out there just like me, who supported me. And they were so out! I remember that sensation so clearly; my eyes welled up a bit on the train ride home to Cape Cod and that little town that kept me shy and terrified. I felt like a shell of a person there; completely afraid to be myself, and embarrassed at the sound of my own voice. This newfound community was everything. It gave me hope and it saved my life. It took me in and made me feel whole. I was proud of being gay; but even more so, was proud to be myself. I made it out of that town as fast as I could and spent my time in Boston making zines with friends, going to queercore shows all over the east coast. I found out who I was outside of the place I was raised. I found out I could be who I wanted to be, not what they said I was.
It was a pivotal and precious moment in my life.
Today, sitting here in my office, I type this to say thank you. It’s been so long since I had that feeling of pride. As I grew up I took off the creepers and the black fingernail polish and my Heavens to Betsy records are collecting dust. Life, my job, my disdain for current Pride celebrations and the portrayal of gays in popular culture had taken over. That proud kid had gotten lost again. The term is bounced around so often I forgot what it meant.
Being involved with such a dynamic, talented, friendly and caring group of queers and allies has been completely amazing. I am so very proud of the blisters on my hands this morning, and what our crew accomplished and will accomplish in the next 48 hours. And I am so utterly and completely overwhelmed with emotion and love for everyone who spoke for us in that article. You spoke from the heart and said everything that needed to be said. You brought me back to a time where I felt a fire inside me; that we do not have to assimilate to gain acceptance. That a group of people can get together and make a change by supporting and caring for one another without turning a profit or alienating people by class, race, gender, or any of the shit that has divided us in the past. That we can offer something radical to a teen from a small town coming in to experience PRIDE. The term is for everyone. It no longer represents a corporation. It’s a feeling and it’s survival. We are helping foster an environment that can shape and save lives of those young(and old) queers who need community.
Thank you for this opportunity. I feel like I’m 15 again, standing in a crowd of amazing people, as the show is about to begin.”

If you’re in Austin, please join us – it’s going to be incredible.
More info over at www.queerbomb.org
Here’s my Queerbomb writings and photos from last year:
QUEERBOMB
QUEERBOMB MAGIC 2010
Also, here’s the great articles from the Austin Chronicle, as well as a wonderful piece from Coilhouse that’s definitely required reading:
QueerBomb/Pride Roundtable: Extended Remix
QueerBomb Weekend
Fear of an Androgynous Model: Andrej Pejic Brings Out the Hyenas

Exquisite Corpse – Cinco de Mayo

by angeliska on June 1, 2011

_DSC6910
For this month’s Exquisite Corpse, we will be dedicating the evening’s festivities
as a special memorial to some of our friends and heroes who have died this month:
Ramon, crazy-cat extraordinaire, Leonora Carrington – the surrealist sorceress,
and to Nefairia Devi, Bharatanatyam dancer and true gothic beauty. Bring something
to add to the altar for them if you wish, and come prepared to dance and celebrate their spirits.
_DSC6980
Ramon and I. This is one of my favorite pictures of us together. He was very protective of all the ladies
of Swan Dive – acting almost like a dad (albeit a crazed, over-protective one!) A few weeks before he
died he told Amelia, “Ain’t nobody gonna be messin’ with you – they would rather be walking through hell
wearin’ gasoline drawers!”
He was so great. We had a beautiful Second Line Jazz Funeral for him the other
night, and following the procession of friends playing “Just a Closer Walk With Thee”, something just broke in
me. The wall of weariness crumbled, and the numbness that has reigned in the face of losing so many amazing
people was replaced by waves of grief. Tears flowed down my face as we marched in a crowd packed with
people who knew and loved Ramon. It was the music, and being surrounded by such a beautiful community of
friends who would gather together to celebrate the life and mourn the death of one of our own. Ramon was
basically homeless, a veteran whose health (both physical, emotional and mental) had been severely
damaged by what he went through in the war, and in his difficult life – and he carried demons with him,
no doubt. Despite all that, his huge heart won out – he was a loving person, a good man. It’s just not going
to be the same without him. Lots of the fellas who work at the bar have gotten tattoos of his main motto:
IMG_3826
Truth. One that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
_DSC6965
Amanda Stone and Marshall LaCount (of the Mudlark Puppeteers and Dark Dark Dark, respectively.)
_DSC7370
Beautiful Norah
_DSC7284
Devi cracks the snake!
_DSC7236
Laurel and I worshipping the gilded skull.
_DSC6989
Monika Hakkinnen
_DSC7191
Monika + Colin
_DSC6993
Stunning visitors from Germany. They wandered into the party and were much delighted.
_DSC6902
_DSC7147
Amelia was so beautiful that night that I was inspired to say some downright naughty things to her!
Luckily, she’s a tough dame who can handle my dirty talk. Must’ve been that vicious absinthe/tequila combo…
_DSC7094
In honor of Cinco de Mayo, Naomi Elliott performed an incredible Aztec dance ritual that involved a watermelon being disemboweled! So beautiful.
_DSC7006
Les Surrealistes
225794 1843574327438 1183004348 31679661 2431207 n
Nefairia Devi (Elizabeth Emily Mincho)– December 7, 1976 – May 14, 2011
Photo by Solvej Jordahl
Flowers from Nefairia
Strangely, I never actually had the chance to meet this amazing woman, though we came from the same town,
and had many friends in common. She left for London when I was still a blooming wee gothlet, and somehow
our paths just never crossed, even though she had moved back this way for a few months before her untimely
passing. When I lived in New Orleans, she started sending me sweet parcels: gifts of books and music, and
even this incredible heart-shaped floral arrangement, accompanied by an actual honest-to-goodness telegram!
Both were delivered to Sideshow, where I was working at the time – and I remember my boss teasing me mercilessly
about my admirer. Nefairia was like that: someone who would shower affection on you, just because she could.
I love how the card on the flowers reads “Angel M. Gorgeous” – what a sweetheart! It’s truly bizarre that’s she’s
gone – just like that. A freak car accident resulting in a severe brain injury, and in a flash the world has lost one
of its shining lights. It makes no sense to me. I hope her journey across the river is easy, and am lighting candles for her
and sending love to her family and friends. Nefairia, I wish we’d been able to meet in this life. Perhaps in the next.
We also lost Leonora Carrington – (6 April 1917 – 25 May 2011) last week.
Oh death! I wrote a piece about her life and work for Coilhouse.

LEONORA CARRINGTON by Pamela Robertson-Pearce from Neil Astley on Vimeo.

This video is an excerpt from the film GIFTED BEAUTY – directed by Anne Kjersti Bjørn,
with music by Maia Urstad and animations by Gustav Kvall. (Ragg Film, 2000)

New York Is Killing Me (Chris Cunningham Remix)
Damn, and Gil Scott-Heron too? The afterlife is being populated with poet angels
wearing tarnished silver halos. The beating of their flaming wings is deafening.

Sweet Violets

by angeliska on May 25, 2011

Earlier this month, we took a journey up North, where it is still spring.
Little green fiddleheads are just starting to poke their drowsy heads up
from the dark earth. The air was sharp and green, the black branches
of all the stonefruit trees heavy with bright blossoms. Here in the South,
it is mostly already summer – our gardens suffer, stunted without rain.
It was good to have a bit of respite: an unnatural rewinding of the the
season’s skein so that we could have that little taste of spring back under
our tongues: it tastes like moss and makes my heart beat faster. Feel it?
IMG_1092
Everywhere, wood violets congregate prettily, in purple and white flounces,
casting their winking National Velvet gazes dirt-ward, mischievous smiles
playing at the prim corners of their tiny petal faces. They look like my sister.
I saw a pair of little fox kits in the woods, and they looked like us when we
were small, and red-headed. They wore black stockings and curious faces.
I had never seen such a thing, and it moved me beyond words. Kindred.
IMG_1093
You are brief and frail and blue-
Little sisters, I am, too.
You are Heaven’s masterpieces-
Little loves, the likeness ceases.

– Dorothy Parker
IMG_1084
We stayed in a marvelous wooden lodge on Stone Lake,
and caroused with family, and drank lots of champagne.
Parties of morel-hunters combed the woods, and brought
back a bounty to be fried up. Fresh asparagus, artichokes,
and strawberry-rhubarb pie. Butter on black bread as dark
as turned earth. This is the way we were born to eat – like
wise peasants who know where to find all the best mushrooms.
IMG_1096
I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight:
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

– William Shakespeare
IMG_1095
Who hath despised the day of small things?
As violets so be I recluse and sweet,
Cheerful as daisies unaccounted rare,
Still sunward-gazing from a lowly seat,
Still sweetening wintry air.
While half-awakened Spring lags incomplete,
While lofty forest trees tower bleak and bare,
Daisies and violets own remotest heat
And bloom and make them fair.

– Christina Rosetti
IMG_1099
This little town once made these majestic woodstoves – modern hearths,
designed to sustain a family throughout a long and bitter Michigan winter.
The factory that made this vessel of iron made to hold fire, so carefully ornate,
is now a buckled ruin.
A fascinating, haunted place near the train-station,
where I found this beauty. The train rushed by so fast it stopped my heart.
It only stops here twice a day now, though the station is the handsomest
I have ever seen. I envy the woman who works there, in her immaculately
preserved office with elegant bay windows, old wood, tea and the radio on.
I could hear in her voice a deep contentment with her work. She is framed
behind glass at all times, sacrosanct. Her face is dark and gentle. Kind.
Jack + betty
The reason for our journey was to celebrate Colin’s grandfather’s 88th birthday.
Jack + Betty, in love for all these years, the two trees which have borne so much
fruit. We watched old home movies of them, standing in fields, gathered at the
old homestead, kissing deeply when they thought no one was watching, laughing,
flickering there – young and large as life for an instant, and then gone. Play it again.
At the big family dinner (which was a mostly hilarious disaster of epic proportions),
I was coaxed into singing Sweet Violets in front of the massive Biek clan, which I did.
Not well, without considering the complicated lyrics, and without the benefit of any
liquid courage to bolster me, but nonetheless I sang, hands shaking – with Marge
and Paul backing me up on Casio keyboards
. I would do anything for Betty, my
beloved soon-to-be grandmother in-law. It made her so happy, she even got up
and sang it with me. It is our song, after all… Have you ever heard it? It’s catchy!


Sweet Violets
Sweeter than the roses
Covered all over from head to toe
Covered all over with sweet violets