Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Londonia Part 2 July 23rd-30th 2006












(Margaritte)

We left Leeds in a flurry of goodbyes and kisses and headed for Londonia. This was the city’s original Roman name.
Oh scattered chaos of people and bundles of luggage,
Trash and aching shoulders from too much equipment,
Australian/South African friends,
Bethnal green and east London.

We found ourselves in a historic gay neighborhood. East London may not seem like the place, with all the Lezzies in Stoke Newington and Gay boys in Soho but when we discovered Jennette Winterson’s deli within two days of arrival we knew we were in the right place. Our lovely Australian friend Kate, the lesbian librarian, gave me the book tour of her neighborhood taking me to Quilter street the historic street in Sarah Waters book “Tipping the Velvet” the main character in the book is always trying to go back to Quilter street. The modern Quilter Street is lined with typical English row houses, complete with skinny trees surrounded in rot iron. The only distinguishing factors of houses like these were there doors. One was painted bright pink; we deemed it the flat (the girl in the book) was looking for.

Our first interview was planned to be with some Polish queers living in England, 2 on a farm close to London and one in London proper. This was an interesting element of interviewing Poles; most Polish people have to leave Poland to get work. There are tons of Polish people living in London and other major cities across Europe. Goisa and her two roommates lived in a squatted apartment complex. We had a yummy vegan dinner and discussed the political climate in London for squatters.

In 2010 the Olympics will be held in London. Because of this fact city councils in all the neighborhoods are currently looking at land to develop to make way for the money that will be coming into the city. The first places they are targeting are squats, the only sustainable form of low income housing in London. This is a classic battle of the rich verses the poor the only new twist is these homes are facing being torn down for luxury hotels and condos to house people for the games. This is all about sports! Goisa and her roommates are not the only ones looking at eviction; a similar experience was happening at the Clifton mansions where we stayed in Brixton the first time in London. Squatting is becoming harder and harder but people are not going down without a fight. Since squatting is legal still in England they can take there cases to court and a lot of people are choosing that. Goisa and her roommates are trying to save their homes and be a voice for the illegal immigrants that cannot speak up for their rights to housing.

After are big talk we did not feel like interviewing so we set up an interview with Goisa to talk more later in the week. The next day we got more acquainted with the city and prepared for Elliat’s first performance in England at Bar Wotever. The bar was a gay mans bar in a cute older part of town, it looked like an old brick pub. I filmed while Elliat prepared and friends we had made trickled in to watch. After a lovely show there was an open DJ booth and some hot queer dancing to good good music.

The following day we did an interview with Paisley an ex-pat Drag queen from NYC who just moved to London from Berlin. Elliat knew him from performing in Berlin and the organization he started there called the “Black Girls Coalition.” We conducted our interview in a club that he was performing at under a light that changed from blue to red throughout the interview creating a new cinema graphic shot for the film.

After this it was time for my first game of London queer football. Sometimes called “ Queer Footy.” I had forgotten how much I liked group sports with people who keep the competition light and are flex about the rules. At first I sat out and used filming as the excuse to watch the players and see how competitive they were. I gathered that with this crew I could join in even though I did not really know any of the rules. There were many gay injuries in this game, including an Italian bloody knee, an almost dead 10 year old boy with a hurt leg and head injury, and a limping lesbo named Nemo, but we were able to enjoy ourselves with tons of laughing from excessive bad moves and too much running down hill to get the ball. In the end we all “Won” and celebrated by rolling around in the grass and getting bug bites (namely Elliat getting another especially scary spider bite in almost the same spot as the week prior)… and exchanging contact info and chatting on the bus ride back to our respective homes.

On Thursday evening we had an interview with Scratch our queer footy buddy, who was djing this night called Qrush. I met up with Elliat and Scratch and we did our interview in the Qrush basement space before the evening began. Scratch told us about trans-culture in London, growing up in the city and watching it change, Djing and doing art projects with youth for his work. On Friday we went to the queer squat Dolston lane. After taking two buses we found ourselves at an old storefront that looked closed down. Luca one of the two French people living in London that we planned to interview greeted us in the doorway. He offered us French cheek kisses, everyone in London seem to kiss on the lips, and brought us up the stairs to a cozy and hot kitchen. Cueva was making breakfast in the summer heat with a cigarette and black nightie on. We helped clear the back yard table for breaky. We had potatoes, cheese, bread, juice, coffee, and veggies. The interview was done in the pink living room where Cueva dressed as a French cancan girl complete with little cardboard fan and Luca played a USA football star. The interview was long and covered all aspects of their lives, queer identity, and performance, being a femme, being a fag and healing work. We all got closer and uncomfortably hot so we made our way to the back yard again after the interview. Elliat, Cueva, a friend PG and I discussed femme and butch dynamics in London verses the US and the ever-present drama of our community until the sun had scorched us enough.


Our final day before going to Berlin had arrived. We did our interview with Gosia as planned in a park in Bethnal green. Goisa talked about growing up in Poland and being queer, moving to London and the conservative political force running her home country right now. She also gave us some good contacts for our trip to Warsaw in a few days. After the interview we walked her to work and went home to grab Kate and visit one of London’s info. shops. Kate had been at home starting the design for the comic she wants to do of us for Travel Queeries! We took the long bus journey to the borough Elephant and Castle. I love the names of the boroughs. After our outing we went home and prepared for our 7am flight to Berlin the next morning. This included us getting up at 2:30am to catch a taxi to a bus to the airport, where we caught a flight and two trains to our final destination, X-B the queer/trans/womyn housing project in East Berlin.

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