Manchester-Margaritte and Elliat explore the north of England - July 15-18, '06

(Margaritte)
I realized this morning that I want to be a writer again. I want to spend my time at Evergreen writing stories and taking pictures. Sound like a good life plan at the moment.

Hear we are in the midst of northern England memories. Lets start at the beginning.
We left on the mega bus, a double-decker long distance bus with a pig like conductor painted across the back of the bus winking at us as if to say “welcome to the hellish ride of your dreams.” After an hour of combating traffic through city center the bus abruptly stops on the side of the road, another scratchy British voice comes over the intercom, sounds familiar doesn’t it? “Due to engine troubles the bus will be paused until another bus can come and take you the rest of the way.” After about 5 min. the bus starts again and keeps going with no explanation. This repeats 3 times through out the ride until another bus meets us half way there and we unload bags onto our second mega bus. As this happens it is also a “Wee” pee break. Being used to the grey hound routine and a little fuzzy in the head from a nap I walk off the bus to “take a wee” and inspect my surroundings. After finding the perfect black current juice I walk out to no mega bus. In a moment of horror I realize I don’t even have Elliat’s number because we have been joined at the hip for the past few days, and I don’t even know where I am, plus all my stuff is on the bus, oh yes and I have all the money for both of us on me. In a state of shock suddenly I see a red faced Elliat running towards me shouting, “get on the bus we are leaving.” In a state of embarrassment and relief we board our bus and laugh most of the rest of the way there.

Manchester, our sweet industrial city. “The Basement” the info. shop and queer film festival, Primark our cheap cute clothing hookup. We arrive with heavy bags and make our way to the awesome info. shop “The Basement.” Nice people with northern accents and a place to stay for the night immediately greet us. The space itself is colorfully painted and full of resource and queers. There is a vegan café with sparkling elderflower drink, yummy and cheap big meals with cake. 3.50 pounds for 2!

We watch gay cinema including a movie called “the pink mirror” a campy Bollywoodesque film about drag queens in India. We plan to distro it in the states. After the film we went back to the organizers house, Humey where we hung with Manchester queers and talked about Kafe Queeria, the collective that put on the film festival. They also put on a café for queers at the info shop with performance, knitting and socializing.

The next day we explored Manchester. We had our first official British breakfast that morning, baked beans, eggs, tomatoes, sausage, thick bacon, shhh don’t tell the vegans, tea and brown sauce, something similar to ketchup with dates that has a vinegary taste to it. It was all-good and we finally felt full. The city center contains a large green with dead grass and a fountain full of kids running around in there underwear and teenage boys filling bottles with recycled water to splash there mates and girlfriends with. We took pictures and watched the children play until it got to hot and was time for some air-conditioned shopping. Primark was the cheap clothes hookup. Polka-dot belts for 1 pound, pants that fit Elliat, skirts that come right up to your bum with big red buttons, we were quiet happy.

That night we had our first interview with Humey talking about race and the queer community, all the organizing in Manchester for ladyfest and the work between Leeds and Manchester. I could already see that I would be learning a lot from the interviews. I usually try to explain that queer identity is about having no barriers around who you love. To be open to being with anyone not just one sex or the other but gender queer folks and other identities. Humey described it as uniting all the facets of gay identity. Like not being segregated to one identity but uniting under an umbrella term that brings people together. I really liked that.

Our last night in Manchester was the Gossip show they were a fun piece of the Pacific Northwest in a far away city. We hung out with Bob and Helena from Jean Genet and all danced hard and sweaty in a crowd that looked exactly like the Northwest except for the British accents and all the smoking inside. After the show we went downstairs to hang with Beth, Hannah and Nathan the band members. Elliat made a date with Beth to hang out in Portland and eat hamburgers and get earrings. We then went home in a cab. This was our first cab in England. They are large, enough room for 7, and I am still getting used to this opposite side of the road thing.

We left Manchester that morning a fresh start to Leeds.

London- travel queeries film begins... July 12-14, '06

(Margaritte)
London: Margaritte’s Arrival
I arrived in London on Wednesday night in a sleepy state already to be put into a real bed. Elliat picked me up later then I wanted after being on a broken down tube train. No matter, we were off to a good start hugging and sharing in the new somewhat blurry landscape (from lack of sleep) around me. We waited for our train that never came. A crackly British voice over the intercom told us that the last train had broken down which forced us onto an over crowded city bus through the suburbs of London. Welcome to a big sprawly city where you don’t know the stops because they are not clearly marked and the bus driver will not shout them out. We made our way to the back and squeezed in with all my gear as Elliat filled me in on the details of Copenhagen and her first day in London. Which included juicy tidbits of big squats, queer football (soccer) and fresh filming ideas. We arrived at Sherry’s tiny flat in Brixton at three am and immediately cuddled into the couch for seven hours.

The next morning we awoke to her flat mates cooking up a breakfast under our noses as we, and all of our equipment, were squeezed in between the fridge rater and the door to the hallway. We took showers and found a market to buy mangos, 3 varieties including one called Alphanzo, and some bread and eggs. Atop Sherry’s apartment is a little bit of Eden. It is a beautiful garden full of flowers and magical tables and chairs and sunshine between roses and borage plants. We talked for hours and then went in to take naps before going on a proper British evening walk round the Jamaican neighborhood. We saw a church steeple made of stone, found Shakespeare Street and got to know a few dogs.

That night we slept at the apartment squat across the street, the “Clifton Mansions.” It was a huge old and dusty apartment complex with a fake horse head above the door. When we came in a courtyard with various sculptures and plant bits growing out of old bathtubs greeted us. On the left was Arika’s apartment, which she shared with her girlfriend, a friend and a very jumpy dog, named Mollie.

Arika shared stories over mint tea of squatting in London for the last 10 years and how Britain has been the best place in the EU to squat because of some old squatter rites law. We talked about the history of the building, how the landlord disappeared and most of the tenets just stayed and didn’t pay rent for the last 20 years. More recently the city council decided to evict all the people there and the half block of squatted apartments around the corner to make way for development this fall. This has become a problem as the gentrification of cities is becoming a worldwide issue, pushing poorer folks out of their homes. Squatters are also under a lot of pressure from the government threatening to change this old law, many cases are brought to court each year trying to save free spaces. The forced move will be hard for the tenants of Clifton Mansions but Arika said in a way it was good because of some recent harassment from a neighboring businessman and his friends. They were dealing crack and verbally assaulting the queer folks in the building as well as the women. Though this was some of the harsh reality of city life on the fringes plenty of people have squatted securely and viably throughout the city and country. We hope to visit more squats in the countryside and city’s in the north.

Our last day in London, the first time through, was full of fun sweet moments. Including Sherry’s musical performance at the White Chapel Gallery. She does a combination of electronic noise art and performance with a screen in front of her projecting images across her body. We met up with some of Elliat’s friends from Queer fest Copenhagen and Sherry’s lovely flat mate Joe. We all watched the next band together leopard legs, an all gurl drumming sound art band. Our friend Scratch and I stood on top of benches fanning off cigarette smoke with postcards and taking in the intense bass of drums and ten howling womyn all dressed in white with thick black eye makeup.

Afterward, after a two hours of coordinating, we all walked to a gay bar in Central London called the Joiners. The walk was the best part, it took us through a Bangladeshi neighborhood full of young people and restaurants then quiet side streets that made us feel like we were utterly lost, then losing half of the seven people when they turned the wrong corner and two others when they went to get bagels without telling anyone.
We finally made it to the over crowed very smoky pub and tried to sit down on some couches. A sexiest older gay man refused to move, being used to taking up SPACE and laid his body across the couch to reserve “his space.” We stood for some time, then when he went up to go to the toilet Elliat and me, the un-polite Americans, snagged the couches and told him and his friends they could share the space, which they did before leaving.

We all giggled and talked and took pictures into the wee hours when kisses were exchanged as well as numbers for when we return to London at the end of July.

Queer Festival Copenhagen- July 4-11, '06!!!!

After the hour long plane ride into Copenhagen with Mel (a person I met at the airport and recognized from around) we got a train into town. I picked up a guild to the city since it had a city map on it and for fun was looking through it on the way into to the Central Station and in the events and things to do was… Queer Festival! I was a bit shocked and was feeling unclear as to what to expect from the event, but when I got to the space I instantly recognized tons of folks from Queeruption Barcelona and felt right at home.

The fest was in a big stone building the organizers had rented with money they had gotten from a grant from the Copenhagen City Arts Council. It was a part of a whole square with other venues/spaces connected to it and there were triangular benches in the middle of the square along with a stage with kiddy pools on it and a large tent where people were lounging. On the side on the main building was a tent set up also with a kitchen space that was open and where people could go get tea and coffee and make sandwiches and help cook meals (with suggested donation). When I walked in the space there was a room on the left with a rug and couches and three huge pictures on the wall, to the right was the main performance space/stage (where later there was a huge amount of lights and sound equipment loaded in), up some stairs from the stage there was a bar and some chairs, down the hall behind the living room was bathrooms and a storage room. On the next floor up (1st/2nd floor) there was an amazing gallery space with an info booth with rad zine/program guides. I think that total there were 5 gallery rooms with pictures from tons of events and sculptures and exhibits by different trans women, documents of performance, drag queen costume patter designs, a chair made of stuffed socks, found art and graffiti, and so forth. There was also a dress up room which was a very helpful and a well used part of the festival through out the week. Lastly, in the stairway between the gallery and the attick was a computer station with free internet and the attick was where some people were sleeping, storing their bags, and later in the week was turned into a dungon. The basement was kind of a lot of rooms full of electrical boxes and amps but serves also as the ‘dress room’ and had a shower for the lovely squatting kids who needed to bathe.

The first day I hung out in the courtyard and caught up with old friends, listening to DJs and some performances. Mel and I ended up staying at a flat down the street with this woman named Sara who was really super nice. I stayed up and talked to Sara some- she is a painter and we mainly talked about the fest and Danish Culture. I think the main thing I remember about her was this dish she made for me the last night I slept there. It was a traditional Danish dish to have when it’s hot and you make it with sort of hard sweet biscuits broken up in a bowl with buttermilk and lemon juice in it poured on top. It was really nice- a kind of combination of cereal and cheese cake batter! I stayed there for two days until the other performer in Mels group came to take my place, then making my way to the squat where other folks from the fest were staying, called ‘The Youth House.’ It’s really the only squat in Copenhagen and apparently there have been fights over it for years between the punk kids and the city government. It’s a really amazing space that was about 5 miles Northwest of the main festival space. The basement had a industrial sized kitchen and the main floor had a huge hang out space and the bathrooms (which I have to say made everyone a bit sick with the smell of piss). We all were sleeping on the next floor up in a huge old ballroom that was all painted black with a large banner of a first punching through an swastika handing on the stage. There was also a banner for K Town Festival (a hardcore/punk fest that had happened a week or so before Queer Festival in that space). I slept on a gym mat next to the windows, other folks slept on the bleachers, the stage, balcony and other parts of the ballroom. I usually went to bed sometime between 3am and 8am and we were usually woken up by people moving cabels in the space or someone having band practice/playing drums around 11 or 12. There were city bikes in Copenhagen that were mainly I guess for tourists- you would put in a 20 Kroner coin and then the bike would release and you could ride it around for however long (but not be able to lock it) and then when it was returned you would get the $ back. I saw quite a few bikes out though that were missing the coins, so I guess some people had figured out how to get them out and just take the bikes (it’s a same system for shopping carts they have in germany). You could also rent a bike with a deposite or pay for the bus (20 kr. A trip) or take a taxi with 4 people (20 kr. Each).

The second day I was there, Wednesday, I ended up doing kitchen crew with a bunch of kids from Australia/London, Denmark and Sweden and the went to sit in the audience of the live broadcasting of Queer Tv-Tv, a queer tv show on Copenhagens public access station where they were interviewing people about Queer geography and queer architecture (for example talking about the genders of different spaces and buildings and non-heterosexual structures). In the evening I performed as Sr. La Muse in my shower curtain naked costume and blond wig. I went a watched the corpses bride in the movie tent and waited for Sara to go home, which ended up happening around 3am.

Thursday there was the pussycafe hosted by Pia from the Kings of Berlin outside in a tent where people ate chocolate vanilla pussy shaped cake, took candid shots of their pussies as rock stars with glasses on and made pussy art. That day there were also public performance pieces by Miss Fish from Dunst falling into a fountain in the main square and an impov Soap opera, more workshops on queer geography, and another Queer Tv-Tv show. I went with my new friends from Amsterdam, Bastiaan and Krista (User), back to the squat on bikes (with all my bags on my back!) and then we got ready and head over to the women/trans play party that was happening that night. It was at a Womens Community Center (which I found out later was specifically there because some people were pushing for the space to be more sex positive). The space had a smoking room/hang out area on the second floor, the main play space on the third floor and more bathrooms on the 4th floor. The play space had a kind of mesh that reminded me of a military boot camp hanging from the walls to make up different spaces. There were some couples/groups going for it already when we got there, others spending time behind the bar, folks leading other around on leashes and then there was a larger group of folks from the fest who I was with. We ended up playing spin the bottle since people were not really initiating anything and then we played spin the bottle with people shouting out what scene to do next like doctor nurse (which is my new favorite game ever and one of the most entertaining things I have done in a long time). Not much else really happened, people walking around topless, restling (where I kinda fucked up my knees) and lots of talking and just getting to know folks more. Some other people of course took advantage of the opportunity and space a lot more, but over all it pretty chill.

After trying to sleep some at the squat I headed over to the main space for Queer Festival again and had breakfast and showered and checked e-mail. It was then Friday and I believe that’s the day I went out on the queer bike tour of Copenhagen where they had barrowed a bunch of bikes and people were all dressed up and we went around to see the palace and different government buildings and the little mermaid statue (which apparently has been decapitated about 3 times or more). I helped out a bit more with kitchen crew and also went to the drag workshop by the kings of berlin, where Kris Ko helped me do powder shading techniques on my chest, put on a silver dress that was way too small, some clips in my hair and a pink skirt with the back open, make-up and finally a golden picture frame as a necklass. This super punky Danish girl I met while working in the kitchen was wearing a pink Barbie shirt and I ended up helping her spiff up her outfit also with a pink mini-skirt and belt, high heel mock snake skin books and we ripped open the shirt more to have it open on the side and then some make-up. She became ‘Barbie’ from that point on (with another make over the next day as well). That evening Team Plastique played (Berlin/Australia) plus others. That night I caught a cab home with some London kids at around 5am back to the squat.

Saturday night was the biggest party for the fest, happening in a venue down the street. I signed up for ‘general help’ and hung out backstage with the kings on berlin and dunst kids, telling stories about breathing out of my eye. I got some footage of the Dunst performance for Travel Queeries and saw other amazing performances by the Kings of Berlin and Ocean, which looked great, especially in that large of a space. The night lasted for a long time, there was fun to be had on the dance floor and in the bathrooms, people going back and forth between inside and outside and when all the booze was sold, the clean up crew started to do their work and the party moved to the main space where I heard it went until 1pm the next day! I got a cab home again with the London kids at around 7am, we looked for a breakfast spot with no luck and finally found our way to our beds. Sunday was the beginning of our recovery, people wondering around after too much drinking and looking for food. It was a cloudy day and we ended up inside around candles telling stories with a woman with some kind of mental illness yelling about people having too many legs and such. I ended up singing some jazz songs and talking about breathing through my eye again, feeling a bit off with angsiety by the end of the day for all the emotional confusion one can get from being around so many good lucking gays, ending it all with hugs and a nice walk back to the squat with Barbie and friends. The next day there was laundry to be done, internet to be checked, breakfast to be had with another US as we talked about making another anarchist queer gathering in the US and about our experiences as traveler and with the festival. Cleaning up the space was dominated mostly by people going through all the left overs of the dress up room and putting on as much as they could and then packing it back into bags again. The rest of the queers at the squat made a huge dinner and everyone left over from the fest came over for dinner as we got drunk on red cherry wine in the back yard while rosy played us the violin and sam yelled at me for mixing up the names for noodles and pasta. The next day, Tuesday, I hung out in town a bit with rosy and peter and caught my flight finally to London where I found my way to Sherrys house in Brixton and awaited the arrival of Margaritte and the beginnings of production for Travel Queeries Europa 2006!!!!

Vienna... (American Queer Studies Class and Pride)

I arrived in Vienna on a Tuesday and went from the airport to my friend Marikas’ place in the 10th district of town. I met Marike at X-B in Berlin while she was traveling through with her friend Tobi (from Ireland/Canada) this past winter. She is getting her PhD in American Studies and has currently been a TA for an American Queer Studies Class. We had talked about what each other did and I had mentioned that I do performance and it turned out they were looking for something to top off the class (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/astrid.fellner/queertheory.htm). It was a very special occasion that there was a guest performer at the University, especially for a Queer Studies class, since the systems work very differently in Europe compared to the US, so that was really an honor as well. They were really great to work with also and there was another show set up for me at a venue called 'Schikaneder'(http:/ www.schikaneder.at/) in the 3rd District. Both shows were well received and well attended. After both shows we went out in groups to talk and get drinks and the professor of the class was really a fabulous person who has been publishing research papers on gender construction in American culture in the 18th century. So, there was lots of acedamia but people had good ideas and Marike was also really rad about connecting politics to academics and theory. We ate lots of roles and ate Austrian vegan food, looked at old buildings in the ring center, and talked about femininity and gender and sexism and queer politics and cultural differences like US and Austrian political histories and social movements.

On the Saturday that I was there, there was the Vienna Pride where there was quite a few people in traditional Austrian garb, doing their little dances and songs on floats and then later on the main with an ABBA cover band and my absute favorite was the carage drawn by 12 people in Sm garb with bits in their mouths.

Some things in Vienna that I was surprised by were that there were more homeless people, than for example in Berlin, lots more people with tattoos and several times a week your train would be delayed or canceled because people often were trying to comit suicide by jumping in front of the underground trains. I ended up staying with my friend Anna for the last couple days in town at her parents house in the 3rd district. The apartment was really nice with a super old elivator, a shower where you could watch yourself in a full length mirror and was right above a huge market street. I went and got a ton of produce and made a huge dinner for Anna and her friends one night, which was really fun. I did get lost quite a bit in Vienna, but found my way around some how. There is really no control also on public transportation and you don’t really have to pay for it ever which was rad.

I left Vienna the following Monday for Berlin, got in late and it took about 1.5 hours to get back from the airport, did some laundry and met up with some people. In the morning I had to leave all the laundry I had done and then went to catch the train to the airport after trying to burn a film I had. It was a not quite day of craziness. Thankfully at the airport I met up with someone I recognized from the queer scene/queeruption and we sat together on the plane. Then there was queer festival Copenhagen…

Berlin Transgenialer

So.... where did I leave off? I think that besides going to the german lakes and swimming across them with my friend Lotta, there was the Transgenialer!!!! The Alternative CSD (Christopher Street Day)/Pride! Berlin moved back it's "normal" pride to July because of the VM/World Cup, but not the crazy radical queers! I have to say that I am soooo glad I was there and a part of that experience.

The day started off with going to shops and getting supplies for a breakfast with my friend Suzanne from Olympia (who also lives in Berlin) and we ate eggs and fruit and toast and tea and talking about living abroad and Olympia and the whole bit! I brought her back some B&B coffee (batdorf and bronson... capitol blend to be exact) and then we went out to the main intersection of Franfurt Tor down the street from x-b where there were hundreds of queers everywhere!!! They made some anouncements from one of the main floats (with banners about being gender queer and 'eat the state'). Most of my friends were passing out fliers for the Dyke/Trans march that is happening July 15th in Berlin and finally hunted down some sun screen to protect myself from burns in the hummid summer sun of Berlin in June!

The Parade started off around I guess 3pm or so and went down Wassaurstrasse, stopping spontaniously as citizens watched off thier balconies along the road. At Wassaur str. (where the S/U-ban run) we stopped and had another 'demo'/performance where everyone had white balloons they all popped at the same time as a mentephore for what the people on the float were talked about )gender conformity and bianaries, etc.) At one point there was some guy taking pictures at the march who was some kind of fasict activist and the made announcements about him over the intercom system while he waves with a huge smile on his face, but people made him feel pretty uncomfortable after that and I guess he finally left. At one point also I saw two people I had interviewed for the 'Travel Queeries: Queeruption, Barcelona' doc. and got thier contact info since I had not gotten it before and they still hadn't seen the film!

The march stopped again after we crossed the canal infront of a huge Nike building and people wheat pasted 'Nike Kills' posters over the Nike adds and people talked about how there was a space in that building 'for artist' but how the company was really exloiding people and that we should not support them- which I thought was personally very cool to see as a part of a Pride/CSD parade! (At this point also I went and got an ice cream with some friends). And so on and on the march goes, down into Kroezberg and the main float started to play QUEER TURKISH MUSIC!!! (Kroezberg is the Turkish/Queer neighborhood and there is not much mingling between the two). It gave me goose bumps and felt so amazing to walk along with almost 2 thousand freaky queers in the streets to queer turkish music with all the turkish men looking at us from the bars where they were sitting in awe. When we finally got to Kotbuza Tor we stopped again under the large apt. building that goes bridges the street and queer turkish people talked about arranged marrages and oppression of being queer and turkish. People also spoke in german again about allyship in not letting kroezberg get gentified and working on racism! It was so amazing I cannot even tell you! A lot of my friends were getting really emotional and there was a turkish woman on the side of the march who was crying.

THEN.... some people from the march came down into the croud a bit more and demonstrated how one could cut off the yellow part of the german flag (which is yellow, black and red) and instantly you had an anarchist flag! Amazing! (had other friends who were also talking about doing this at some point to the millions of german flags around town, on peoples cars, businesses and homes.. and even on many backs as capes... some shops in Berlin are even sold out of flags now). I think this action really made me aware of how people with more political conciousness were truely feeling about all the german flags, which of course have a different cultural context in regards to nationalism since it is so closely linked to Nazi history. In Germany it is pretty much a taboo to be patriotic, unlike for example in the US (where is is maybe taky... I think it would be more the equivalent of the confeterate flag or something). After cutting the flag though, there was one flag with a bid on it and they burned that one (while wearing ski masks).

Then there was more Turkish Queer Music (one of my new favorites!!!) and hot turish gay boys danced on each other on the float stage as we moved along to the final desination in the main square of Kroezberg on Oronianstrasse. There were booths set up all over and a huge main stage with drag performances, speakers from different social and political groups, hip hop performances, and so on. Saw tons of friends (some of which were a little too drunk) and finally had to head home and then realized that it was infact 9pm but so light out it could have been 5pm. Got some more water and headed back to the house where one of the after parties was going to be. People from x-b had cleaned up the courtyard and bar and it looked amazing. I felt totally spent though so I went upstairs and got into my pjs, but started to listen to neko case and got a kick of energy so I got dressed up like a drag queen a in gold leme gown and went downstairs to shock people. Some people from the house did a performance about fußbol/soccer and and then there was dancing and time to go to bed for me.

The next day I went swimming at a nudist beach with friend from the house and some visiting gals from Lipzec and Warsaw/Poland. Had some good talks about Poland and London and ate lots of strawberries and went swimming tons in the water, doing all kinds of wierd flips off of sholders, etc. Afterwards me and the polish gals went to swarza canal (the women.lesbian.tran wagon platz... like a caravan radical queer feminist trailor park in the middle of berlin) and found they had no more föku (food). Went back home and ate and I thought I was leaving the next morning for Vienna, but infact the calendar in my room started on mondays not fridays so as I was working on e-mail at 2am I realized my mistake and wrote notes to everyone that apparently I could not count or read a calendar so I would infact be there another day. In the morning everyone just laughed at me, but it was actually really good because then I got a chance to catch up on work, etc.

I finally did catch my flight to Vienna and am here now... am going to let this blog sit for a bit before I do my Vienna update... hope everyone is doing well and enjoy the pictures!!!
xo, elliat