LIMP WRIST AT MANACLE

Limp Wrist will be 'Gayin Up The Punx' (as they put it on their myspace profile ) at Manacle on Wednesday the 10th January. I want their Fags Hate God t-shirt!

Wilde Milk

Vera: Methinks that if I was a mother and bore a man-child I would poison my breast to him, lest he might grow to a traitor or to a king.

- Oscar Wilde
'Vera, or The Nihilists'

Sly Christmas

Had an absolutely joyous evening at the Sly last night. Highlights included:
* Present-swapping. 'Specially when Ali ran about in not much but the Battenberg-lace trimmed apron I'd given her and the cute matching bra and knickers she had receieved from a certain Gaylourde. And I was pleased that Whoretic took up my suggestion of feeding the pink-stiletto shaped shortbread biscuit I gave her to The Redhead- from her cleavage. R gifted me a fabulously kitschy 70s copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, and I am still trying to figure out in which holes to hang the extremely cute red dice earrings I found taped inside my card from Ali. At some point I ended up wearing a pair of clip-on plastic bear earrings too, though one of them had returned to the wild by the end of the evening.
* Perving at the Gentleman Caller working behind the bar.
* Boots polished and licked by Hunter. What more can I say? We all know how delirious it makes me! For the rest of the night came up and held his paw to my face so I could smell the polish... swoon...
* Ooooh, Hunter also tightened my cincher. Considerably. Think at some point a particular Princess may have given it an extra help too. Don't think I'd been that tightly laced since The Lost Boy last did it- it was pulled so far in that I actually had somebody ask me how long I had been waist-training *g*. Must confess to being a tad sore today, but it was worth it.
* Hanging out and swapping ideas and making plans with some brilliant bod-mod artists. Think the Piercing Princess will be bringing a whole pile of pointy things up to Tropical Fruits, which could be a lot of fun. When I last saw her she was scrawling a list of gauges on her arm in biro so she could remember what to pack, including 6. 6??? Geez, the thought of it makes me all melty, if a little bit scared... And the brilliant creature that A Certain Boy introduced me to the other night turned up too. This rather exciting individual has had two operations to sculpt his body (and kept some of his own bio-matter to make art out of), loves scars, has just done an MA on extreme body modification stuff, and is, it seems, enthralled with the idea of doing something with me and my lactation work. I may be getting a bit carried away, but this could be just the push I need to start producing work that is more... ummm... more... Honest? Passionate? Inspired? At this point I'm not sure where meeting this guy could lead, but it has certainly got me thinking again about the fact that I can be seriously half-arsed about my work at times, and not afford it the time and effort and discipline it needs to be really special. Sometimes I am only too willing to settle for what is 'good enough' instead of striving for the utterly amazing (hmm, think there is a New Year's Resolution in that).

All in all, it was a very pleasant evening full of lovely interactions. And now the squishy hangover fuzziness is engulfing me... yawn... spent most of the day lazing around in bed with GC, reading and snuggling and dozing on and off, but am still very sleepy and vague (explains the rambling nature of this post I guess). G'nite all.

What's good for the Gecko...

Female gecko simulates sex, breeds alone:

The survival of at least one species does not depend on men.The female Mourning Gecko has found a way to simulate sex and produce eggs, rendering her male counterpart redundant.
But the feminist revolution comes with a price.

The invading reptiles from Asia are reproducing at an alarming rate, threatening native species of geckos in the Northern Territory who do things the more traditional way.

"They have an unusual reproductive strategy which allows populations to consist only of females," said NT Environment Minister Marion Scrymgour."Males are not necessary to fertilise and initiate egg production (which) permits the Mourning Gecko to be a very successful invasive species."

As for 'the feminist revolution comes with a price'? That's not quite the way I read it!

Festive Fun

Here's a quick round-up of the Festive Fun I have been having of late:

* Ali and I went to a happening called Unsilent Night on Saturday. From SMH:

'Unsilent Night is a composition by New York composer Phil Kline designed to be performed as a street parade by whoever turns up with a boombox...The symphony is arranged in four layers and distributed on cassettes to participants, along with a map of the route through the CBD, St James, Hyde Park and Oxford Street.'

It was brilliant! After installing $32 worth of batteries in Ali's flatmate's boombox, we headed up to Town Hall to meet the other revellers. There was maybe 70-80 participants, with probably a quarter having stereos with them. After a countdown (and ensuring the volume was switched to maximum on all machines), PLAY buttons were pushed, the music began and we headed off down George St. Then on to Hyde Park, where we walked through the underground tunnels at St James station with the music echoing around us before emerging again and traipsing under the canopy of trees and fairylights. Then up Stanley St past the busy restaurants, up the huge hill of Crown St, and onto Oxford St where the music stopped a couple of blocks short of Taylor Square and we parted company. The whole experience was simply magical. Like carolling I suspect, but more subtle. Nobody was particulary dressed up (except for my silver plastic tiara with flashing lights), and so the effect was very discrete and lowkey, just a bunch of folk slowly walking the streets with this amazing music emerging from their midst.

* Was at GC's today and there was a movie called Mary Christmas *groan* on the TV. Somehow we became engrossed in it while eating our hommous and Turkish bread. Typical 'Dear Santa, I want a Mommy for Christmas' schlock, cute blond kid and widower who works too much. It did have the guy who played the Dad in Happy Days in it, which was reason enough to watch it in my opinion. Anyhow, the point of mentioning this is that in it the kid goes shopping for a present for her father. She decides on a sweater, in 'his favourite' aquamarine. The shop assistant doesn't think there is one- but 'what about HUNTER GREEN? Daddies like Hunter Green' (or words to that effect). I always knew that the folk who wrote this festive fluff were a bunch of perverts at heart.

* Found a link to this XXX-Mas Kitten clip. For some reason the PC I am on at Uni refuses to give me sound, but the visuals are fucked-up enough that I love it already.

* Did the whole Xmas shopping in the city thing with my Mum yesterday. Bought a bag of dark chocolate macadamia clusters at The Nut Shop in The Strand, hung out in DJ's food hall and wandered in and out of arcades getting all excited by the hustle and bustle of shoppers buying pressies for family and friends (not to mention the amount of tinsel and lights and decorated trees etc). Still not quite finished my shopping, but the list has shrunk considerably.

* On Sunday Night went to the Gurlesque Xmas Horror Show at the Impy. Sexy and funny as ever, with Team Princess getting just what they asked for from Buxom Wench Santa! Last night went to The Newtown with SauerKraut and Beculum to watch the staff perform their annual Xmas show. It started so late that I could only stay for the first act, which was more than enough to get me and most of the crowd all flustered as it contained A Certain Boy doing a striptease where he went from being Santa to a dirty tattooed leatherboy. Then I headed over to GC's where I gave her one of those magic trees, you know, the ones that start off as just a cardboard frame and then you add the special mixture to the tray and a few hours later they start to 'grow'? I remember them from years ago when I was a kid, and they still make me excited (surprise surprise). Especially as this one comes with a plastic gold star, a length of red trimming and multicoloured glitter with which to decorate it. When we woke up this morning it had done its thing on the mantlepiece. Yay! And tonight I am heading off with Schwee for an evening of eating fruit mince pies and driving around the suburbs checking out displays of Xmas lights in front of houses. Its one of my favourite traditions of the season... And of course, tomorrow night I will be all decked out in my festive finery at The Sly.

* Christmas Eve brings us the Metropolitan Community Church Service at The Town Hall. This is tempting somehow, as attending would mean I get to sing my favourite carols with the words changed to be completely gender-neutral. Although I'm fairly certain that I'll be givinganything Church-y a miss as Spurs For Jesus are doing their Annual Christmas Shindig at The Annandale. Reckon we ought to book online for it, which I am happy to do if folk want to just pay me back on the night. We could take our chances on the door, but I have no idea how big a deal this is in terms of selling out so would prefer to err on the side of caution. Email or call or text if you want me to grab a ticket or two for you.

This Morning

I know, I know
She's gonna go this morning
No sun will shine today
And this body's feeling strained and dispossessed
Full of fear and trembling for her
Her last words to go away
Yeeeaah

But blind faith's trying to tell me it isn't over
Tell me it do not have to be
And storm water's weeping on my bedroom window
Blow me up and throw me up and

Please, come on and please me

- Hunters and Collectors
'This Morning'

Strangers Have The Best Candy

No idea where this image originated, someone just emailed it to me. Its fabulous! (Sure there are bad puns to be made about gumballs or thereabouts, but I can't quite seem to make them work)

And it got me thinking that it is time to be thinking of costuming for Tropical Fruits. The theme of the party is Slippery When Wet, so there is always the option of some sort of PVC/plastic/cling wrap/metallic fabric affair and a bottle of Slippery Stuff lube. Actually, if its as hot as it was last year everyone will be so sweaty the lube may well be superfluous...

Wonder In The Sky

A few weeks ago I was walking along in Marrickville one morning and when I looked up into the blue I saw this. It made me deliriously happy. There is something magical about skywriting, its like receiving a message straight from the heavens. And this message did make me wonder, and fill me with it too...

Hellfire Xmas Show

Basic premise: Zoo as Christmas Tree, with baubles that audience members pull off in order to claim prizes. Cheek pull by the Modified Souls boys. Assorted other ouchies.

At the studio: The Pervert of Piercing (PoP) and I had discussed various ways to attach the baubles to my body, and had, I thought, decided upon some shallow suturing. This made me a little nervous, as I have only been sutured once before (my mouth sewn shut for a show), though I was fairly sure it would be more stingy than hugely ouchy so I wasn't too worried. But when I got to the studio I discovered that PoP had come to the conclusion that it would be better to use rings. There were twenty prizes to be given away, and we needed to include some baubles that weren't winners, so we thought we'd do 30 in total. *GULP*. Had never done temporary piercings with jewellery, and most play piercings I have done have used rather small needles (usually 21 or 23gauge, with the odd 18 or 19). So, while 30 wasn't very many piercings (I can easily do 100 if small) I was still wondering how I'd go with them being 14 gauge, and each piercing a two-part process as had to put jewellery through. Also, having been sick (kidney infection last week, headcold this week) I was a little concerned that my body would object. I needn't have worried- it was DELICIOUS! Much easier to get through than I anticipated. Strangely the 16rings in my front slipped through without any hassle, but the skin in my back was quite tough and there was a few deep breaths and some minor cussing when piercing it. After we had put the jewellery in, we attached the strings for the baubles, with the little clasp bits on, and closed the rings. Then PoP put BodModBoy(BMB)'s cheek hooks in, we gathered up our gear and headed in to the gig.

The problem: We got there in plenty of time, only to find that we had no dressing room. Meaning that we ended up putting on our costumes, throwing PoP's hooks and attatching all of my baubles in a corner of the club. Arrrgh! The show must go on, however, this put us out a bit and made us a tad flustered, so that we ended up on stage a bit after we should have- but what to do?

The show: Part One involved PoP and BMB decorating me. We had already wrapped fairy lights around me, which came with a battery pack for easy lighting. Once the music started the boys covered my arms and torso in tinsel, and then PoP put a 14gauge long spike through my forehead with a silver foil star attatched, and I switched on the lights. Awww, pretty! We had been supposed to do some cheek spears too but ran out of time. Then the music stopped and we did round one of the prize giveaways, which basically just involved selected folk coming and selecting and removing a bauble. They detached fairly easily, but a few punters still had to pull pretty hard.

Part Two was pretty easy for me, as I just had to stand at one side of the stage while the boys did a cheek pull. That is, both had hooks in their cheeks with a rope joining them, and they pulled against each other. Sweet! Then more prize giveaways.

Part Three was the grand finale. Having escaped the cheek spears in the first part, I wasn't really prepared for BMB coming my wielding an 8gauge spear and NO LUBE as the music began. Ouch! Big yummy surpising ouch! He did have to push pretty hard, and it hurt just a tad, and the shock sent me reeling so that I almost forgot the rest of the act. But I pulled myself together just enough to do what I had to do, albeit in a rather chaotic manner. And what I had to do was this: Strip myself of most of the tinsel and lights. Pulled out a blue sparkly veil I had tucked on my skirt and put in on. Remove my stunning gaffa tape and plastic Xmas table cloth ccovering to reveal The Christ Child swaddled and hanging from my labia piercings (first time I had put on any weight on them at all, and was quite glad they held it without any fuss). Danced about a bit with the Child swinging, then pulled a pair of scissors from my boot and cut him free. Cuddled him, offered him to the audience, then pulled the spear from my cheek (which was quite an effort) and stabbed it into the Child. Same with the star pinned into my forehead. Well, once the star came out of my head the blood started the flow with abandon. It was ridiculous, I couldn't see anything and had to keep mopping my brow with the Child's swaddling cloth. Somebody came over with some gauze, and as I held that to my head to try to stench the flow the remaining game players were pulling off baubles for the rest of the prizes. Messy, messy, messy.

After the show: So there I was, blood pissing out of my face, naked but for my boots and a few stray baubles and lights and jewellery. I had to get cleaned up, and take the rings out. The guy who runs the club offered us the use of his office. This was indeed a blessing. Just one thing- to get to it you either needed to walk through the ultra-straight nightclub above HF or walk around the front of the building. We chose the latter option and suddenly I was whisked out of building, down the alleyway, up the steps past bewildered revellers and then past the queue of punters and bouncers out the front. Not sure any of them knew quite what to make of us/me! Took a while to remove the rings, wash off the blood, get dressed, take the hooks out of the boys and redo my makeup, and was well and truly buzzing by the time I got back to HF and had my first alcohol in two weeks. GC and I hung around chatting and flirting and dancing and frolicking for a few more hours, before stumbling home via a quick drink at the Impy, exhausted but happy.

A nice and unexpected outcome: Seems I may have turned GC into a gorehound, as she was utterly transfixed watching the piercings, and apparently had a desire to lick the blood from my face when I pulled out the star. She is even talking of learning to do play piercings. To this end, I reckon we should hold another Ladies and Lladdies Sewing Circle in the new year. Heaven knows I can't pierce very well myself, but I am more than willing to be the demo dummy (within reason)!

Velvet 2007- Seeking Performers

ACON's queer girlie fundraiser, Velvet, is seeking performers. Friday 9th Feb 2007 at The Factory Theatre in Enmore. DJs Sveta and Beaker.

Looking for roving performances, installations, podium pieces, whatever you've got really. From what I can tell it attracts quite a mixed bag of ladies, lassies and lushes, so probably best to go with more of a quirky/kooky/burlesque/drag/circus/comedy/cheeky style of show than kinky/bloody/blasphemous/perverse/rude bits. Hmmm, this means most of my ideas are out then! Will have to try to cook up something more nice than naughty*...

If you be keen to participate, or just plain curious about the event, please contact the organiser/promoter, Jen Rudland by email at jrudland@acon.org.au.

* And don't forget to be at Hellfire by 10:30 tonight to see my Christmas show. Rumour has it that there be some pressies given away, and as usual you get to watch me squirm while ouchy things happen to me.

BarFly

The Lost Boy works as a bar star. So does A Certain Boy. And as of tonight, GC does too. Does this make me some sort of bar bitch groupie? (And if so, does this mean its my duty to give blowjobs while they mix cocktails?)

If not for the fact that I haven't had an alcoholic drink in ten days I would be beginning to worry that my life had turned into some queer and kinky pornographic version of Cheers. Actually, 'you wanna go where everybody knows your name'? Geez, maybe Norm and Cliff already have a bar stool with my name on it...

Greek Letters

For the Greeks the hidden life demanded invisible ink. They wrote an ordinary letter and in between the lines set out another letter, written in milk. The document looked innocent enough until one who knew better sprinkled coal-dust over it. What the letter had been no longer mattered; what mattered was the life flaring up underneath.

- Jeanette Winterson
'Sexing The Cherry (10)

Okie, that's the last of the Winterson quotes for the moment. I know there has been a few, but all are beautiful, and most apt.

A Kiss Is Just A Kiss

From the wooden frame above where the gunpowder waits there are also suspended a number of nets and trapezes. From here acrobats swing across the square, casting grotesque shadows on the dancers below. Now and again, one will dangle by the knees and snatch a kiss from whoever is standing below. I like such kisses. They fill the mouth and leave the body free. To kiss well one must kiss solely. No groping hands or stammering hearts. The lips and the lips alone are the pleasure. Passion is sweeter split strand by strand. Divided and re-divided like mercury then gathered up only at the last moment.

...

She lay on the rug and I lay at right angles to her so that only our lips might meet. Kissing in this way is the strangest of distractions. The greedy body that clamours for satisfaction is forced to content itself with a single sensation and, just as the blind hear more acutely or the deaf can feel the grass grow, so the mouth becomes the focus of love and all things that pass through it are re-defined. It is a sweet and precise torture.

- Jeanette Winterson
'The Passion' (59, 67)

Funny things, kisses.

I knew that I needed to leave my first great love when he no longer kissed me. This boy had been the reason I gave up wearing lipstick for years (there was no chance of keeping it on for long), and so when our lips no longer locked it was most certainly over.

Then there was a partner who would almost suck all of the breath right out of me as we fucked. These were kisses that would make your head feel that it might burst at any moment. One of my favourite forms of breath play.

And the first girl I ever kissed, who told me I kissed like a boy.

Dozens of drunken kisses with friends and strangers on dancefloors and street corners and in loungerooms and backyards and toilets.

There is a bench in a park I still walk across sometimes where I first kissed yet another boy in a moment of sweet and fumbling bliss that lead me to lose my mind and my heart totally.

My lip spikes provide plenty of opportunity for new smooches: 'So, how do you kiss with those spikes?'. Nobody has said no to a demonstration yet.

Whoretic gives the most delicious and distracting butterfly kisses.

And then the other night there was an unexpected kiss with GC that rendered me completely senseless and made the whole world stop and...

Oooh, what is it that intoxicates so? The softness of lips? The smooth sensation of glosses blending or the scratch of stubble scraping cheek? The lack of oxygen? Something about saliva that is not your own?

Conferencing Kidneys

As many of you are already aware, things did not go entirely as planned with my Big Conference Trip. Started off alright, nice day at the circus conference on the Friday. Big swanky saefood dinner, ate much octopus and oyster and other shellfish. Had weird pains in my side and felt all green afterwards, so got a lift back to my hostel with one of the organisers. Felt not-that-bad the next day, and gave my highly successful paper. It began thus, and continued in a similarly silly fashion with 15 minutes of sideshow ballyhoo about how spectacular LactoGrrl is:

By the Blistered Nipples of the Virgin I invite you to marvel at the Most Magnificent Mammary Mutation Under The Milky Way! She’s like any other Breastly Beauty you have even seen…You've been amazed by Amazonian amputations and medical mastectomies, surgical swellings of silicon and saline, breasts obliterated by binding, exercised out of existence, radically removed or wrangled or reduced, portrayed by prosthetic productions and prettied by permanent piercings. But none of this can prepare you for LactoGrrl, the Luminary Lady of Lactation! More than merely the fun of the Fair, she’s the carnality of the Carnival and the milky maiden of the Midway! So pay your money and take your chances and join this Lactation Celebration!

Was an excellent panel, with the other papers being on a) tattoed ladies and self-made freaks, b) queering the female body in circus and sideshow and c) a history of burslesque in Aus. Then headed to the art exhibition that night. Felt odd and feverish. Back to hostel. Crawl into bed. Immensely fevered- sweating and shaking and shivering in my bunk, and hallucinating the most fantastic dancing girls. They were dressed in pale blue saris and Virgin Mary veils, and some of them had dazzling pearl bindis (which I think meant they were 'special' somehow). Twelve hours later the dancing girls has disappeared and I managed to crawl out of bed and to the conference. Spent the Sunday afternoon listening to papers and scoffing cold and flu pills, being under the delusion that I was merely coming down with some sort of snotty-wheezy-coughing infliction, before attending a perfectly fabulous performace night under the Big Top. Little did I realise what would come next.

Foolishly I decided that I could handle giving my conference paper the next day in Canberra. So, come Monday morning Zoo is on the 6:55 coach to Moss Vale, followed by a 1 1/2hour wait and then another couple of hours on a train. Cab it to the conference and get there by lunch. Shiver and shake while people give a few papers. Dose up on pills, hope for the best. Half-way through giving my paper words star to swirl off the page and I think I am going to collapse. The chair finishes reading it for me while someone else takes me to the sick bay. (Apparently the paper went down a treat, with much discussion afterwards.) Get a lift to a medical centre. Wait TWO HOURS, almost delirious, nauseated, shaking, and lying on the carpet. See doctor. Diagnosis: severe kidney infection. Sent home to the Manky-One's house with a prescription for antibiotics and the advice to get myself to the hospital if I don't feel any better in 24 hours.

Tuesday and Wednesday spent with antibitoics and codeine and a hot water bottle in a blue furry dog outfit(thanks Mankles!). Mostly kind of out of it, watching Postman Pat and lying on the verandah reading Jeanette Winterson. M had a couple of friends around for dinner on the Tuesday, so yummy food and good company and quite possibly incoherent wafflings from me. Fever had subsided, but pain was still there, so went to Calvary hospital on Thursday morning to get it checked out. They kept me until Saturday morning, with three attempts to get my canula in, blood and pee tests, an ultrasound and IV antibiotics. Got myself a single room with a view of whatever that big tower is in Canberra, a TV that only recieved SBS and a picture of the Jesus on the Cross with Mary looking on (Catholic hospital). M came and visited muchly (even for breakfast, bearing fruit bread and blue cheese!) and mostly I was full of yummy Panadeine Forte and quite content to spend my hours reading the Herald (*gulp*) and watching foreign cooking shows and pottering down to the kiosk in my gown and diamantes. Somehow, despite the pain and the kind of blah of being all sickly away from home, it was kinda nice to just be able to chill and do nothing much at all while people fussed about me.

And now, I am back to the grind. Not feeling too bad, pain is mostly gone and I'm just a bit weak and lacking in energy. Will be taking it easier for a wee while though- no alcohol and plenty of water and lying about 'convalescing'. Have to get myself in some shape to do the Hellfire show on Friday night, and then its Christmas and New Years pretty soon after that. Oh, and is anyone interested in Carols in the Domain with a big picnic and a couple of bottles of champagne on Saturday night? Should be at the Sly for a bit on Wednesday, and Gurlesque on Sunday too.

The devil will find work for idle hands to do. Can't have Zoo unoccupied for too long...

Fire In My Belly

Perhaps all romance is like that; not a contract between equal parties but an explosion of dreams and desires that can have no outlet in everyday life. Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last the sky is a different colour.

- Jeannette Winterson
'The Passion'

You were the spice of life
The gin in my vermouth
And though the sparks would fly
I thought our love was fireproof
Sometimes we'd fight in public darling
With very little cause
But different kinds of sparks would fly
Behind closed doors

Indoor fireworks
Can still burn your fingers
Indoor fireworks
We swore we were safe as houses
They're not so spectacular
They don't burn up in the sky
But they can dazzle or delight
Or bring a tear
When the smoke gets in your eyes

- Elvis Costello
'Indoor Fireworks'

I love fireworks, and always have. When I was a child (and before my un-christening) I did believe that the Catherine Wheel (the pyrotechnic, not the torture device) was named in my honour. Cracker night, before some do-gooders banned it, was one of my favourite rituals of the year. The trip to ToyWorld to select our favourites. The bonfire with the potatoes wrapped in foil that never quite cooked through yet were all charred on the outside, my spoon scooping through increasingly hard flesh with big dollops of butter. My brothers and cousins and I in our parkas and beanies. Mothers keeping the kids out of harm's way while the fathers fiddled to strike matches to light the fuses. Writing my name in the dark with a sparkler. Then the moments of pure magic as the sky lit up and the whole world smelling of brimstone.

Lately I have had an urge to play with fire. Not merely metaphorically, as I seem to do much of the time, but literally too. Twirling fire is attractive, though I will need to do a LOT of practice with the pois before I set the things alight, but moreso is the idea of breathing it. Even if the Home of Poi tells me that it is The Most Dangerous of The Fire Arts. Have also recently developed a desire to keep bees. And learn clowning. I'm not sure what this all means. Smoke and stings, pyromania and playing the fool.