Pump Up The Milk

Hired myself a very pricy but very BIG and scary-looking electric breast pump, hospital grade. Will save me from RSI at least- and pumping so often for Curdle would be much more tedious without it. A bit hesitant to starte her up though *g*...

Does Anyone Have An Easel I Could Borrow?

Or a lectern-type creation? Just for Curdle, so only a fortnight or so. Cheers!

Fire With Fire

Why is it the sometimes creating pain is the best/most efficient/only feasible way to deal with existing pain? Is it that pain that you can control and anticipate puts you in a stronger position for negotiating pain that you have no power over?

MuMeson Make Me Happy Too

Mumeson have some fun stuff coming up in April. For extensive and detailed information please visit Mu-Meson Archives web site. But let me hint that there are nights on DIY punk movement, how to make a horror film, paranoid politics, Miss Death's knitting group and a sex in space double. It all ROCKS.

Phoenix To The Flames

It is probably fitting that something that began in the back room of Phoenix should end there too. Of course, maybe it will rise again...

Curdle Made Simple

Some people have found it tricky to findmy blurb about Curdle, the installation. See my post of that title Tuesday March 11 for the details. Yay!

Oh, and I still need more artists to play with. Come along! Contact me!

Gurlesque

I'll be at this, and hopefully will remember to buy a tshirt this time. Last time I got awfully distracted by a very hot creature from afar...

LAST SHOW FOR THE SEASON!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday 6th April @ Hermans Bar

Crnr Butlin and City Roads,Sydney Uni.

With Sex Intents,Glita Supernova,Mia Mortal,Suzi Q,Wife,Fancy Piece Productions,I Kandi,Lillian Star&Sindy Ray,and staring Vivianna.....

Music by Dj Gemma..6pm -12 showtime 7.15pm no pre sales. for women and trans.

Gone Daddy Gone

Sometimes, in order to be all subtle, I will not blog specific incidents but the song lyrics they call to mind. Its like a riddle. Here's Gone Daddy Gone, by the Violent Femmes (how appropriate could it get?)

Tell by the way that you switch your walk
I can see by the way that you baby talk
I can know by the way that you treat your man
I can love you baby 'til it's a crime

Cuz it's gone daddy gone
Love is gone
Yeah, it's gone daddy gone
Love is gone
Yeah, it's gone daddy gone
Love is gone
Gone daddy gone
The love is gone away

Beautiful girl, lovely dress
15 smiles, oh yes
Beautiful girl, lovely dress
where she is now I can only guess

Mary Coble Makes Me Happy

Its entirely possible that somehow I didn't blog the amazing work of Mary Coble, whose Binding Ritual, Daily Routine 2 ('a performance, which deals with the idea of being a female to male (F2M) transgender individual. The artist tapes and untapes her breast repeatedly with duct tape for over an hour'.) piece I saw at the Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Feminist Art Center. She is also responsible for Note To Self, 'a twelve hour performance where the names of 438 gay, lesbian, bi and transgender individuals who were murdered due to hate crimes, were tattooed onto the artist's body using no ink.' Find more of her work, and that of many other amazing 'female' artists, at the Feminist Art Base.

At The Vanishing Point- Human Art Parade

I would like to go to this as one of Hans Bellmer's Dolls, or more likely something by Rudolf Schwarzkogler(see photo)

At The Vanishing Point – Contemporary Art presents …

More Than Meets The Eye:
art and the unseen or the more-than-visual
ATVP’s Autumn ’08 Show of the Season
3 - 20 April 2008
(Opening Celebration Saturday 5^th April 6.00-10.00pm)

At The Vanishing Point – Contemporary Art
565 King Street Newtown NSW 2042
Free Entry, All Welcome
Gallery Hours: Thurs 10am-8pm, Fri 10am-6pm, Sat-Sun10am-5pm

The ATVP 1^stBirthday Bash! After 20 exhibition periods featuring 38 contemporary art exhibitions and representing over 300 individual exhibiting opportunities for artists nearand far, ATVP has reached its 1^st birthday. On Saturday 5^thApril the birthday cake comes out with the celebration of the year featuringthe opening launch of More Than Meets The Eye, launch of the catalogue Re:View –Reflections of ATVP (April 2007 – March 2008) and ATVP’s first Human-Art Parade. More Than Meets The Eye: art and the unseen or the more-than-visual features 23 artists who have responded creatively to the exhibition title. The exhibition has artworks from various mediums including;video, photography, sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, and sound. ATVP launches its retrospective catalogue, Re:View –Reflections of ATVP (April 2007 – March 2008). The 72 page book is a comprehensive overview of the exhibitions and events at ATVP in its first 12months of operation and includes every artist who has exhibited in ATVP exhibitions.

The night will also feature a Human-Art Parade. Guests are invited to come dressed as a representation of one of their favourite artworks.Prizes for best dressed and a guessing competition will ensue.

World Without And S.C.A.R. *Call For Submissions*

World Without and S.C.A.R. are organizing a series of workshops throughout April in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane teaching and providing access to tools for linocutting. These workshops are organized to bring together surivivors, supporters of survivors, and folks who are part of community response against assault and abuse. We are hoping to create an environment that will be healing and to provide a space where people can express their voice creatively. All workshops will be free / by gold coin donation. Artwork created in the workshops will be exhibited and auctioned off to raise funds to reprint the CONSENT newspaper.
WAYS TO BE PART OF THIS PROJECT!
Add us : http://www. myspace. com/scarprintproject

Help out with the workshops or perform at the exhibition! get in contact with jacksonisforcutting@gmail.com for brisbane and sydney and bitterandthensome@hotmail.com for melbourne

Help us out with resources! We need access to cheap or free art supplies and photocopying. Come to the workshops and opening exhibitions!Dates of the events will be posted on the myspace

MilkBrained

Today is the day my brain turns to milk. Or so it seems, scatty and vague and overwhelmed by simple tasks...not unpleasant if one just accepts and goes with the flows...

Curdle- My Boundaries

Now, as I have had some inquiries about what exactly Curdle will entail for the general public, I figured I should post some more specific parameters. Essentially, I am hoping to have a menu of small interactions that people can choose from, will space for people to request specific items they have conceived or record their reactions and observations and stories.

I am not interested in breast feeding people I do not know. Sorry. Outside of the fact that I find suckling to be a very intense physical, mental and emotional process that I choose to engage in within very discrete circumstances, there is also the fact that it is transferring body fluids and this always carries some potential risk (slight as it is in this case). And therefore it is something I am not prepared to engage in. End of story.

Lost In Translation

Volunteer translators wanted for refugee film festival

Triumphant! International is an expanding group of inspired refugees and their friends committed to making a difference in the community. We are currently organising a Refugee Film Festival and are looking for volunteer translators to help us translate film scripts into community languages. You do not need to be a qualified translator to volunteer, but you need to have good language skills in both English and a community language. We are looking for people from cultures that speak the following languages to translate film scripts from English into these languages: Spanish - Central/South American Arabic - Iraq/Lebanon/Sudan Vietnamese - Vietnam Burmese - Burma Somali - Somalia Mandarin - China If you are interested, please contact Jose Argueta at joseargueta@triumphant.org.au

Jet Boy Jet Girl

I need access to one of those ink-jet printers what you can use to print up t-shirt transfers and when I tried to sneak one through on the printer at work it all melted and... well, does anyone have one? Other option is screenprinting I suppose, but as most of these are one-off designs I don't really want to go to the hassle of getting screens made up!

One Month And Counting

Actually, just less than a month. Yay!

Here Comes The Rain Again

I feel matronly somehow, my chest is tingling, my tits are getting bigger and harder and soon I willno doubt be able to rest entire jugs of beer (stout of course) on them. As I wrote to my supervisor:

oh, and my milk is coming in again already! not just the odd white drop from my nipple, but that fine sticky substance that seems to ooze from the whole breast, and the pains are getting stronger, and the release at pumping getting more urgently desired, woke up and pumped in the wee small hours of the morning because i just HAD to and crying every time i do it, sort of... it is AMAZING!

How Does It Feel To Be A Pregnant Man?

'Sterilization is not a requirement for sex reassignment, so I decided to have chest reconstruction and testosterone therapy but kept my reproductive rights. Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire' says Thomas Beattie in this article in The Advocate (that I also nicked from Nix). He continues ' How does it feel to be a pregnant man? Incredible. Despite the fact that my belly is growing with a new life inside me, I am stable and confident being the man that I am. In a technical sense I see myself as my own surrogate, though my gender identity as male is constant. To Nancy, I am her husband carrying our child—I am so lucky to have such a loving, supportive wife. I will be my daughter’s father, and Nancy will be her mother. We will be a family.'

Meet Crip Chick

This is another stunning link I have nicked from Nix's blog. Check out Crip Chick! Especially this post from March 18, entitled 'Is this what they call pissing on pity?':

Just. Like. Everyone. Else. Except that particular statement never works. When people hear disabled people say that, they assume that we want to be able-bodied or that we want to somehow separate ourselves from disability. I am proud to be who I am and am not sure how this is message is confused with the wish to be treated equally, or just like everyone else. You will not hear me claim that disability does not define me, in fact, it is an integral part of who I am. Is identity not inherently connected to one’s experiences or how one is perceived?

This is not to say life is not a struggle when one does not fit into dominant culture. My life is one of resisting assimilation [being absorbed into another culture]and struggling to find pride in who I am. Assimilation comes in many forms. Sometimes it is subtle, like temporarily wishing I could take off the disabled/queer/Corean hat and just be a college student. Sometimes it’s more explicit, like the year I spent immersed in only country music and cowboy boots or whenever I choose advocacy over activism because I am buying into the messages that says it is the only way to do something.

Real Men

Bugger surgery, hormones, binding, packing, pronouns and name changes... the true test of a Real Man is whether he leaves the toilet seat up. And another one just passed today. Which reminds me, I heard this the other day at the Show and almost cried- both at remembering some glimpse of my youth and realising that I really do like Joe Jackson a LOT. Here's his Real Men lyrics:

Take your mind back
I don't know when
Sometime when it always seemed
To be just us and them
Girls that wore pink
Boys that wore blue
Boys that always grew up better men
Than me and you

What's a man now
What's a man mean
Is he rough or is he rugged
Cultural and clean?
Now it's all changed
It's got to change more
We think it's getting better
But nobody's really sure

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

See the nice boys
Dancing in pairs
Golden earring, golden tan
Blow-wave in the hair
Sure they're all straight
Straight as a line
All the guys are macho
See their leather shine

You don't want to sound dumb
Don't want to offend
So don't call me a faggot
Not unless you are a friend
Then if you're tall, handsome and strong
You can wear the uniform and I could play along

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

Time to get scared
Time to change plan
Don't know how to treat a lady
Don't know how to be a man
Time to admit
What you call defeat
'cause there's women running past you now
And you just drag your feet

Man makes a gun
Man goes to war
Man can kill and man can drink
And man can take a whore
Kill all the blacks
Kill all the reds
If there's war between the sexes
Then there will be no people left

And so it goes, go round again
But now and then we wonder who the real men are

ENTZAUBERT Film Fest (Berlin) *CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*

ENTZAUBERT is a radical queer d.i.y. film festival which will take place from 15-18 May 2008 in Berlin on a squatted all-queer caravan site. for the second time we will create a space for queer films, their directors and their audience. for 4 days the open air belongs to films which question heteronormativity and capitalism, promote diversity, and deconstruction of socially accepted constructions. we are looking for movies within or beyond these categories: d.i.y., queer, non-commercial, documentaries, no-borders, arty, punky, anarchic, porn, trash, feminist, funny, serious, low-budget, no-budget, music, international, socialist, homosexualist, revolutionary, poly-amourous, lazy, tranny-dyky, faggy, old, brand-new, provocative, difficult, hot ………deadline: 15 April 2008 contact: entzaubertfest@yahoo.fr

http://entzaubert.blogsport.de/

about us: entzaubert is noncommercial, entry to all screenings is free. we support the idea of copyleft and creative commons [share-remix-reuse]. entzaubert wants to be a platform for movies, films, documentaries that don't have a place in big commercial festivals. It doesn't matter what language your film is in. we will announce this in the programme and might be able to find translation. AND This is a radical queer festival. we interpret queer in a radical-left way: Fucking with gender normativity, borders and fighting for workers' rights are all part of one movement. queer is not a lifestyle. it means the radical questioning of oppressive structures and the interconnecting of different struggles. no borders!no nations! gender fucking!

Pervy Men In Hot Ropework

Perve on this- rope and serious tattoos make one hot and sweaty Zoo. Male Bondage, a new book by 'bondage master' Van Darkholme.

Green Fingers

hibiscus head-in a flower bed
a finger hewn-planted and sewn

oh magic in her hands-she could make anything grow
magic in her hands - she had green fingers

it's curious
where animals don't go
mandrake-rooted deep into the soil
where the sun won't fall but it flourishes
see the pretty maids all in a row

it's reaching
and groping a clammy handshake
clawing the ivy
crawling the tightrope along the lattice work
with this hand i thee wed
with this hand i thee bed
with this hand i . . .

- siouxsie and the banshees
'green fingers'

Girl Interrupted

Reply from mate when I revealed that there is one person in my life who gets away with calling me girl, and I enjoy it, and how this messes with my head even if it is basically in a play sort of sense:

I guess there are quite a few men for whom being called girl messes with their heads

Did I ever mention just how much my friends ROCK?

Office Works

Office supplies get me very excited. Especially when one takes a quick trip to Officeworks, and half the shop seems to be on sale, and so for UNDER $70 (!!!) one scores 100 plastic sleeves (for filing articles ands uch in folders), 7 new folders (one for each thesis chapter), three plastic drawers (for keeping bits and pieces tidy on desk), two new highlighters (yellow and green this time) and A FIVE SHELF METAL BOOKCASE (that needs to be picked up somehow). Oh... was so excited I had to grab a coffee and head straight back to Uni to print off more articles to highlight, put in sleeves, file in folders, and put on the bookshelf, all the while admiring my pretty new blue drawers. Bliss can be found in the most commonplace of places! Now I just need the cosmos to deliver me an appropriate desk...

Curdle My Milk *CALL FOR ARTISTS AND OTHER CREATIVE TYPES*

(Please do pass this on to anyone else you think may be interested too)

By now most of you will be aware of Curdle, the 10 day installation piece that I am creating at Don't Look Gallery in Dulwich Hill, 9th- 19th April 2008. You will also know that this work is centred around my induced lactation project, that is, I'm going to make myself milky (again). And you are all invited to come along and use my means for our mutual ends, to collaborate and work beside me to discover, uncover and recover the many meanings of milk- and quite possibly create some new ones.

Sing lullabies to my tits, use my milk as invisible ink or glaze or paint or ice or skin or soap or coffee whitener, cast my breasts, use my pump to make music, take prints from my nipples, create sculptures from my nursing pads, sketch me or paint me at work, ask my tits questions or dress them up in drag, take measurements or film or photographs… I'm game if you are

Although the gallery will only be open 11am-5pm each day, I will be available outside of these hours by request or whimsy. If you have a particularly long piece, or one that involves a lot of input from me outside of me doing what I would already be doing, please do contact me beforehand- it would be useful for me to have some idea of who would like to do what and when.Of course, impromptu and spontaneous acts of milky mayhem and magic are much appreciated too…

Where: Don't Look Gallery
419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, NSW, Australia (a block back from the corner of New Canterbury Rd and Marrickville Rd)
http://www. myspace. com/dontlookgallery
Opening hours: 11am-5pm, every day for the duration of the exhibition
Opening night: Wednesday 9th April 2008 6-9pm. Small informal launch.

BIG CLOSING NIGHT: Saturday April 19th, from 6pm. This is where you will be able to see some of the work produced during the installation, have a dance and a drink and a bit of a schmooze.

Contact me:www. galactablogue. blogspot. com or freelanceprovocateur@gmail.com

Super-Pervy Cowness At The Show

As the Show was largely sponsored by Dairy Farmers, it was not lacking on cow motifs (as you have seen in my earlier posts). As part of the fireworks there was also a strange laser animation show, featuring a country bloke in an Akubra hat and cows frolicking across the field. As part of this, they played a strangely mixed/remade (?) version of Land Down Under, and when it got the the part 'I met a strange lady/she made me nervous' there was one such cow, being kinda seductive if my memory serves me, followed by 'she took me in/and gave me breakfast' and a switch to a man drinking a glass of milk. It was all rather perverse if you ask me, and almost too much to cope with after a Physical Culture display, the precision driving team doing the same routine I have seen for the last twenty years or so, the imaginatively named Danger Man and Danger Woman doing a very dangerous but ultimately tedious highwire bike act, blokes bouncing on bulls, a whole parade of utes, and some VERY hot freestyle motorX bike boys. Delirious puddle of Zoo... After the earlier near-swoon at the woodchop, thinking about a certain person's biceps, an axe and rolling around in the hay, well, who said the Show was THAT wholesome? Saw several kinksters and queers of my acuqantaince throughout the day, and rumour has it theer were more lurking. All the fun of the fair indeed!

Milky Media

As today is all about self-loving and repair (dyed my hair, had a mud mask, indulging myself by buying new office supplies and spending time writing), I decided to post this piece Katrina Fox wrote about me in SX, instead of just giving you a link:

'While some abstract and performance art can be painful to endure, other pieces eschew brilliance. Penny Arcade and Lydia Lunch spring to mind, and on the local front Sydney has some amazing artists, such as Zoo, a visually stimulating, highly intelligent, passionate genderqueer ‘freelance provocateur’ who will stop at little to entertain or provoke you.

Whether dangling from a steel hook by her shoulders or thrashing around on stage to Nina Hagen, Zoo never ceases to gain your attention and make you think. Hir latest creation is Curdle, an “an endurance-based installation piece, where the main activity performed is inducing lactation”. Yes folks, Zoo will be producing milk from hir titties!

The main point of the installation is to explore altering the form and functionality of the body and how bodies are gendered. “The first part of the piece will concentrate on the process of inducing, documenting the changes to my body and what milk I produce,” Zoo tells SX.

“The second part of the piece, once lactation has been achieved, will involve myself and other artists creating a series of milk-based pieces, by using the lactation process and the actual milk itself as inspiration, as material, or both.” It sounds like fascinating stuff so check it out between April 9-19 at the Don’t Look Now Gallery, 419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill (www.myspace.com/dontlookgallery).'

Heehee! I love my life again already!

Show Bears

For an agricultural fair, there was a lot of Bears at the Show. I even got a hug from one of them...

More Milky Showbiz

Okay, well, I thought there were some more Show cow pix in her somewhere... and here they are!

Cheese On A Stick

I like eating cheese on a stick- this I knew already. But I also like BEING cheese on a stick- learn something new everyday huh?

Zoo Goes Moo (Yes, Again)

On Good Friday I went to the Easter Show with Madame and Dr P. Naturally, I was drawn to the bovine, of which there was plenty...

Beer, Bust

In the wee small hours of Sunday morning, after too much beer and too much stimulation, overtired and overwhelmed, with hormones haywire and oh so many ghosts in the one place at the one time I lost the plot a little...

Just when I thought I was out of the woods, that I could handle the odd panicky moment or pinprick of insecurity and uncertainty without getting blind drunk and making an idiot of myself, well, just goes to show I still have work to do. Of course I knew that, but perhaps I needed a big reminder not to become complacent. I am mighty sure my friends didn't need it though, or deserve it, and yet again I am sending sorry texts and feeling painfully grateful that my mates put up with me at all.

So, back off the beer for a bit, come into the office and do some work, download some pix and look for some inspiration, go for a big walk by the sea tomorrow and try to make amends and new contigencies whilst not being too hard on myself. Ouch.

Blood Makes Noise

I am waiting for her message pretending I am not waiting for her message. Not anxious, just impatient... and horny. The blood has come in again and I am close to the water, a little dizzy and uncertain, a little neither here nor there nor anywhere in particular... message after message coming through this afternoon but none with the signature I am craving...hormones are haywire from pumping and tides, sickly sweet scent between my thighs nauseates and it excites...will take my bleeding bits to the Hellfire crucifixion tonight for a wee while, need to hunt or be hunted...

I think that you might want to know
The details and the facts
But there's something in my blood
Denies the memory of the acts
So forget it Doc I think its really
Cool that you're concerned
But we'll have to try again
After the silence has returned

Cause blood makes noise
Its a ringing in my ear
Blood makes noise
And I can't really hear you in the thickening of fear

Blood makes noise

-Suzanne Vega
'Blood Makes Noise'

Pulsating Bugs

You crawled into my bed like some sort of giant insect
And I found myself spellbound that night at the sight of you there,
Beautiful and grotesque and all the rest of that bug stuff
Fluttering your way into my mouth,
Behind my teeth, reaching for my scars.
That night we got kicked out of two bars and laughed our way home.
That night you leaned over and threw up into your hair.
And I held you there thinking I would offer you my pulse
If I thought it would be useful...

I would give you my breath.
I would offer you my pulse.

- Ani Di Franco
'Pulse'

Because I Am In A Silly Mood

Future Is Now

My little elfin friend from Aelion Sharp sent through the following, and I thought it worth repeating:

Thought I'd send this out to all - as a tribute to the Late Greate Arthur C Clark who died today-
Arthur C. Clarke formulated the following three "laws" of prediction:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

When You're Happy And You Know It...

Recognise it and be grateful for it.

A pervy pal from far away mentioned the other night that it was nice to see me again at Mardi Gras as I seemed much happier and more relaxed than before. And a few weeks agao a strange little Economics boy, obsessed with making money, asked me what I wanted to be doing in ten years time. I couldn't think of an answer other than- 'more of the same.' I like my lifestyle, I like being able to travel and to write about things that interest me, to work on small quirky projects alongside the serious stuff, to dance at Phoenix as well as my bedroom, to live with mates who understand me, to buy organic cheese at my local market and greek mountain tea up the road from my house, to make photo shoots, to see lots of amazing performance and art and films and somehow earn enough money to keep forging ahead with my ideas and keep myself in food and lodgings.

Its not a bad life at all really.

Media Slut

Yes, well, what can I say? I'm interviewed in the UnderGround Tribes feature of the latest Time Out, and have a solo interview and pervy butcher-shop photo and page all for myself (re Curdle/my lacto work mostly) in the issue coming out April 9th. I've also have a piece written by me in the Local Lovelies section of the new Cherrie, and I think Curdle is mentioned there as well and in tomorrow's SX too!

Daddy LongLegs

According to MythBusters, the rumour that Daddy LongLegs are supremely poisonous is not true. This does not, however, mean that their fangs cannot penetrate the skin or their venom does not carry a certain sting...

WaffleHead

MooZoo smells like maple syrup again.

The Pursuit Of Happiness

For a friend who wanted to be a clown, or in an all-girl cock rock band when she grew up but somehow got a mortgage and a job that requires a suit not made of spandex or sequins. Hey, it happens:

I'm An Adult Now

Well, I don't hate my parents
I don't get drunk just to spite them
I've got my own reasons to drink now
Think I'll call my dad up and invite him
I can sleep in till noon anytime I want
Though there's not many days that I do
Gotta get up and take on that world
When your an adult it's no cliche it's the truth

'Cause I'm an adult now
I'm an adult now
I've got the problems of an adult
On my head and on my shoulders
I'm an adult now

I can't even look at young girls anymore
People will think I'm some kind of pervert
Adult sex is either boring or dirty
Young people they can get away with murder
I don't write songs about girls anymore
I have to write songs about women
No more boy meets girl boy loses girl
More like man tries to figure out what the hell went wrong
I can't take any more illicit drugs
I can't afford any artificial joy
I'd sure look like a fool dead in a ditch somewhere
With a mind full of chemicals
Like some cheese-eating high school boy

Sometimes my head hurts and sometimes my stomach hurts
And I guess it won't be long
Till I'm sitting in a room with a bunch
of people whose necks and backs are aching
Whose sight and hearing's failing
Who just can't seem to get it up
Speaking of hearing, I can't take too much loud music
I mean I like to play it, but I sure don't like the racket
Noise, but I can't hear anything
Just guitars screaming, screaming, screaming
Some guy screaming in a leather jacket
Wooah!

Pumped Again

Started pumping again a few days ago, part of the slow build-upf or Curdle. Ouch, but in a good way. My breasts remember, and I think they are happy about doing it all once more? Now, to start the herbs...

Image Problems/Zie's Got The Look

Scene One: Some silly uni society for alumni and current students in Arts or whatever. Zoo in usual working-at- uni-drag, camos and tshirt or some such, not even sure my tatts were on show. Wander in late as straight from work, ask conservative-looking mature lady whether I am in the right place for the blahdyblah gathering as I received an email inviting me and wanted to make sure. She says yes, then proceeds to eye my off suspciously whilst I grab a glass of chardonnay and some bread and dip. Eventually she wanders over and asks if I know this is for MEMBERS, and ALUMNI. Hmm. 'I'm writing a PhD' I say. 'Oh', she answers, all suspicious still 'in what department?'. 'Look, I have an Honours degree from this uni, I work for the postgrad association, I work for three differentuni departments, am currently writing a doctorate and am also a life member of the union. 'Well, perhaps you better find someone and check whether you should be here'. SHE WAS SERIOUS. Perhaps I should have apologised for not having obtained my English Lit degree in 1975 and spent the last 30odd years crapping on about the fact that I was once at university and writing pretentious poetry but I kept my mouth shut and just poured myself more wine. Idiot.

Scene Two: Interviewed for magazine article (pending). Recieve copy to look over before it goes to print, thank heavens. Was okay enough, 'cept for the numerous outbursts of 'well, she may look like a total freak and we wouldn't blame you if you thought she was a brainless junkie who survived by doing some type of illicit activity in laneways or trying the windows of parked cars but hey, guess what? She's actually kinda bright and does this academic stuff! Who'd have thought you could have facial piercings AND an IQ that reached double figures?' line of illumination of the masses. I called the dude, and pointed out that I could also smoke cigars and ride a bicycle, possibly at once, and maybe this was also worth mentioning. Well-intentioned, but patronising and offensive (both to me and the readership) all the same. Please, save me from the 'freaks are just normal people like US'. No, I'm not like most of them, I'm brighter and funnier and infinately more attractive and creative and that's why they want to read about me *tongue in cheek, really*.

Scene Three: Mixed fetish play-party deal yesterday. Strange man wearing mesh shirt and ball-tickler design of goatee comes up and asks me if he can embrace me publicly. Umm, okay, sure, he must be pinging off his tits and well, its only a hug. 'Bet that's the first time you've done that in a long time' he says to me. 'Done what exactly?'. 'Touched a man'. 'Umm, you mean except for the one I played with over Mardi Gras, and that one from Wednesday night?'. 'But you look like...'. 'What do I look like?'. 'You should work on your marketing campaign' he insists. 'Pray tell, why? I get leather fags and bears, and lots of dirty dykes to boot' 'Well if that's what you want then'. 'EXACTLY'. But it didn't end there. 'People tell me they think I'm gay' he continues, 'and I don't know why 'cos I'm straight'. And ITS ME who needs to revise my image to get what I want? 'Well,' I suggest, 'maybe if you did not wear a shirt most often seen on pretty boys at ARC and sport facial hair that seemed designed to please the nether regions of other men you might not have that problem.' WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ALL ABOUT? I mean, I'm sorry. He wants to hug the lesbian so that she can experience man-love or something? Then when the lezzo turns out to do boys too he gets offended that 'she' looks like a dyke? And then it turns out that while we both get hit on my gayboys its only me that wants to be still he insists that its me who should change my look. WHERE DO THESE IDIOTS COME FROM????

Good heavens, its been quite a week of it really.

Zoo Needs A Playmate

This Sunday, from 2pm or so, private pervy party in Newtown... Anyone want to beat me, spank me, put holes in me, stitch me or otherwise get naughty?

UPDATE: ZOO GOT ONE. Was a pretty hetty weirdo party as expected (see Image Problem post, Scene Three, and imagine girls drinking pink champagne and discussing hens parties), but managed to hide in a room and be a little bit rude with a cute creature. Phew!

I Have Such PRETTY PRETTY Marks

This is what I got up to on Saturday night, before I got all dirty at Dirty... Thankyou freeqy one! Swooooonnnnn...

MY BODY MY BUSINESS *CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS*

MY BODY, MY BUSINESS: body as subject, body as medium
8 - 18 May
Curator: Grace Kingston (Under the ATVP Mentorship for Emerging Curator Program)

The inaugural exhibition in ATVPs new Mentorship for Emerging Curator Program. Curator Grace Kingston, a recent graduate from CoFA UNSW, seeks expressions of interest from artists who explore the body, particularly one's own, as either a subject or medium for their art making.

Proposals close Thursday 4th April
For an entry form email atthevanishingpoint@hotmail.com

CURDLE- 9th to 19th April 2008

Curdle

You are who you eat. Milk-fed and fattened up for the kill, I could gobble you all up! Swapping saliva and mammalian milk, cross-incorporation, sharing cells and selves. Spit or swallow. Dregs of mamma's special blend dribble down your chin, glazed cheeks, crackling crusts form on your suckling lips. Lap me up, swallow me in small doses. Seethe in my milk, marbled and marinated with my fat. I am eaten alive, drunk and digested. Flesh of my flesh. Nipple to mouth to skin to heart to brain to every pound of sweet juicy young meat.

Curdle is a 10 day installation piece by the artist Zoo, in which zie will induce lactation through a combination of pumping, herbs and diet. During this time the public is invited to observe, record their impressions, ask questions and participate in the work in other respectful ways. Artists are invited to collaborate, using Zoo’s lactating figure and the breast milk itself as inspiration, material- or both. Those wishing to do larger pieces, or work outside of gallery hours, are requested to organise this before the exhibition is underway (though late applications will be considered of course), and anyone is welcome to pop along when during the listed times and sketch, paint, make music, write or otherwise express themselves in milky ways…

Where: Don't Look Gallery
419 New Canterbury Rd, Dulwich Hill, NSW, Australia (a block back from the corner of New Canterbury Rd and Marrickville Rd)
http://www.myspace.com/dontlookgallery
Opening hours: 11am-5pm, every day for the duration of the exhibition
Opening night: Wednesday 9th April 2008 6-9pm. Small informal launch, statement of project intentions, few beers.
Closing night: Saturday April 19th, from 6pm. This is the big one- art created during the installation will be on display, and I will have much more to say about it!

For more details or to contact me about participating please go to www.galactablogue.blogspot.com (my lactation blog).

POST-JETS MATCH/HOUSEWARMING BBQ

At Zoo's Zoo, Saturday 22nd MARCH (although its possible I was telling folk April by mistake, its actually in MARCH)... contact me for more details if you wanna come along for some snags and tinnies!

Random Things That Make Me Happy

* Snail Trails
* The term 'Front Bum'
* Breeze through venetian blinds
* Watching the clouds from my bed
* Hippy incense
* My new big fluffy pillows
* Visitors from out-of-town

SymbioticA

Big WOW! When I go to Perth in July I want to play with THESE people! Don't know what I would do, or even where I would begin with questions, but rather inspiring...

SymbioticA is an artistic laboratory dedicated to the research, learning and critique of life sciences. SymbioticA is the first research laboratory of its kind, in that it enables artists to engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department.

SymbioticA sets out to provide a situation where interdisciplinary research and other knowledge and concept generating activities can take place. It provides an opportunity for researchers to pursue curiosity-based explorations free of the demands and constraints associated with the current culture of scientific research while still complying with regulations. SymbioticA also offers a new means of artistic inquiry, one in which artists actively use the tools and technologies of science, not just to comment about them, but also to explore their possibilities.

Mermaids and Dolphins

Okie, so I am quite a fan of mermaids but all the same... From tshirthell.com.

'That's So Gay' Conference

NSW Anti-Homophobia Interagency Conference That's So Gay: Addressing Homophobia and Celebrating Diversity in Educational Settings

Who: teachers, students, education lecturers, student welfare workers,
counsellors, parents,health workers, youth workers and other interested parties.
Date: Wednesday 16th April 2008 Time: 9am to 4.30pm Where: NSW Teachers Federation Conference Centre, 23-33 Mary Street Surry HillsCost: $10 to $100 (refer to registration form).
Registration form available online at www.acon.org.au

Fun With Rubber And Latex

Unfortunately I already have plans for Thursday, but if you don't then maybe check out this:

the Fun with Rubber and Latex workshop is happening again, for all those who
missed them last year.
it's this thursday, march 13
7pm at NewQ, 22 Enmore Rd Newtown
please RSVP by wednesday
$10 donation if you can.

This is a hands on workshop. Come and get your hands dirty, learn some
skills and go home with new toys. Latex dipping will provide a smooth, flexible, washable surface to any shape you can construct, while recycled bike inner tubes, studs and eyelets can make belts and cuffs, and harnesses for your new latex goodies. Tools and materials are provided, but bring along anything that just looks like it needs some latex...

Daisy Chains

For reasons some of you may well be able to guess, I had a sudden urge to find these lyrics by Deborah Conway this afternoon:

It's only the beginning
But I've already gone and lost my mind
I feel like making daisy chains
And playing hide'n' seek
When it's only the beginning
The fairy dust is still in flight
And this could be the love of a lifetime even if it lasts a week
Or maybe just a daydream...

International Women's Day

International Women's Day – 100 years on and still strong!IWD is historically significant for its origins in the struggle forwomen's full social, political and economic participation. In 2008 wecelebrate the 100th world anniversary and the 80th Australiananniversary of IWD.In 1908, 15 000 female textile workers went on strike in New YorkCity. These women agitated for voting rights, better workingconditions and shorter working hours. Many of them were migrants. This strike eventually led to socialist women organising the first IWD.Some 20 years later on March the 25th 1928, the Militant Women'sMovement initiated the first IWD march in Sydney. The women's demandsincluded gender pay equity, reduced hours in retail work and theabolition of piece work. http://www.isis.aust.com/iwd/stevens/IWD 2008 is a celebration of what women can achieve collectivelywithin government, civil society, the workplace and our families. Yetthe current three demands (see overleaf) reflect that we still have afair way to go to achieve gender equity.AFTER MARCH RALLY -- HYDE PARK NORTH 12:30-4:00pm30+ stalls with information, food, products for saleMemory Tent: Look at items from yesteryear and spark oral herstories& intergenerational story telling AND 3-4pm LIVING LIBRARY, NSWNetwork of Women with DisabilityMCs Cleone Quayle & Mel DaSilvaSpeakers include: MP Linda Burney, Senator Kerry Nettle, MinisterVerity FirthRepresentatives from: Abortion Rights Campaign, Asian Women @Work,Domestic Violence Support Workers, Immigrant Women's Speakout, StopThe War Coalition, The Unions, Women With Disabilities, etcEntertainers throughout the afternoon include: Camille & Shirley, JaneSeymour, Older Women's Network Singers, "Ramona & Julz" play , Snez,and other surprise performers.

Buy A Wife (Product) At The Markets This Sunday

From the lovely Wife:

Come on down to the Addison Rd Community Centre this Sunday from 9am- 3pm for the weekly organic food and farmers' market. why?I will be selling some of my wife. products...

and the Palestine Relief Fund is running a stall selling fair tradegoods, food, art + crafts from Palestine as well as other items toraise much needed funds for relief in Gaza. All money will be sentto Gaza via APHEDA http://www.apheda.org.au/

I will also be donating 30% of all wife. market sales in March to the fund!

Dirty Talk In Melbourne

*please forward to any melbournites you think might be interested*

my great mate kath albury is doing THIS next week, and she rocks, and it will be funny, and its about naughty things, and is good to hang out in bookstores, and YOU WILL ENJOY!

'Kath Albury in conversation with Sophie Cunningham on The Porn Report'(Alan McKee, Katherine Albury, Catharine Lumby, MUP) Thursday 13 March at6.00pm?Readings Books and Music, 309 Lygon St Carlton ?For bookings and moreinformation call Readings on 03 9347 6633 or visithttp://www.readings.com.au <http://www.readings.com.au/>

Grunting And Growling

This next piece is brought to you by Zoo's bits, who not only have a mind of their own but seem to take over the keyboard sometiems as well:

As fond as I am of moans and whimpers of one to whom something nice is being done, to me nothing can quite compare to someone who grunts and growls as something nice is being done to them and they are doing something back. I'm a very large fan of active participation, and people who need to be restrained, gagged or sat upon in order to get done what needs doing. Woof.

BathHouse Belles And Blues

What the %^$* have they done to our Korean Ginseng Bathhouse??? From the SMH, Nicole Low and Julia Carlisle, March 3, 2008:

'Korean saunas had originally been public baths, but with the onset of widespread plumbing, bathing at home became more common and their popularity declined. To ensure its survival, bathhouses were transformed into resorts.But late last year Sydney's bathhouse devotees - said to be more than five million - were in shock when they heard their one was closing. None of the smart, expensive, la-de-da spa treatments that have become the latest craze could ever replace it.But like most of Kings Cross and the old Crest Hotel, the batthouse has been given as the new management, Body Inc, describes it a "little TLC".Now part of the new Chifley Potts Point Hotel, the Body Inc Bathhouse - as it's to be known - is to open in April and will maintain an Asian theme.And in what no doubt will be a relief to many and a disappointment to others, there's no need to leave your inhibitions and your clothes at the door.'

However...

'Votana says the revamped bathhouse will be low tech and will not be "glitz and glamour". And naturalists need not despair. They will still be catered for, with the possible introduction of co-ed naked baths.'

Hmm. Me not quite sure I trust this. Nice to know it has re-opened though, all the same.

International Women's Day

Is this Saturday, the 8th March. So I am presuming everyone will be marching from Town Hall again... Who is up for a nice walk?

ByeBye Bits

Another random paper idea, which I may or may not have mentioned:

Have been thinking about how you say goodbye (or don't) to former selves and body parts, and was wondering if there were any good stories of ' the day before my tits got the chop I took one last dip in the women's pool at Coogee' or 'before I started T I made a recording of my voice' or anyone who wrote their 'girl self/boy self' an epitaph or thankyou note, or made some other sort of farewell gesture as part of a transitition... Seems to me like their ought to be rites of passage, and I am sure that they occur. I mean, I can't be the only one who needs ritual and recognition in their journey, can I?

Boundaries and Breasts

Did an interview with a dear friend today, and he was asking me all sorts of questions about how I perceived my chest, my gender, my nipples, as he writes upon such matters...

Sure he presumed I was just being vague 'cos I was a bit trashy, but it wasn't that at all, just DAMN that stuff is hard to articulate, even after having written so much and discussed so much about it all... Geez... It actually hurt to discuss it, and made me very uncomfortable, as I realised just how much of the 'bad stuff' one internalises, the 'boys don't have jiggly tits and girls don't have dangly bits' etc, despite the theorising and sitting about crapping on endlessly about it and the logical conscious 'knowing' how to deconstruct it all and being all queer and trans and whatnot... at the end of the day, its still HARD WORK to actually reconfigure the way you think of yourself, your body, your bits... Even now I am still reeling, can't quite put it into words. Just feeling unsettled, but happy that I did the interview all the same. Thanks to all those who enable me to push my boundaries, breastly and otherwise!

Easter, Show

Leatherwork, calligraphy, pancakes, woodchopping, fireworks, cheese on a stick, poultry, fruit and veg displays, flowers, showbags, bees, wool, rides, toffee apples and all the fun of the fair! Its showtime again! From march 20th 'til April 2nd, at Homebush.

See the Sydney Royal Easter Show site for details, and if you want to hang out like total nerds with me and the Madame then do get in touch and lets work out a date to go.

Coco Rosie Has SOLD OUT

An it seems some of my mates are going, and I'm really annoyed that I didn't get myself together enough to get tix earlier. BUGGER. If anyone hears of any spare tix, you know where to find me!

Electronic Tatoo Display Runs On Blood

And another amazing link I just found in my inbox, this time from the deliciously geeky Harp Elf:

'Jim Mielke's wireless blood-fueled display is a true merging of technology and body art. At the recent Greener Gadgets Design Competition, the engineer demonstrated a subcutaneously implanted touch-screen that operates as a cell phone display, with the potential for 3G video calls that are visible just underneath the skin'

As you do. Wow.

The Seam Of Skin And Scales

Ali finds amazing things on the web, and she sends them to me, and I am incredibly grateful! I mean, just look at this post on Little Light's blog:

the seam of skin and scales

I am not a woman trapped in a man's body. This body is no man's; it is mine, it is me, and there is no man in that equation. And I am not trapped in it. There are a million and one ways out of this body, and I have clung to it, tooth and claw, despite an endless line of people and institutions who would rather I vacate the premises, and have sometimes been willing to make me bleed to convince me they're right.

This body is mine, and I claim it and its bruises, and it is not a man's, and I am not trapped here. I have looked leaving my body in the eye and I have said, in the end, hell no. There is too much to do, too much to love, too many who need one more of us to say hell no and help them say the same.
You might not like it. It might be a wrongness to you.

I am done with traps. I am done with the philosophy of traps, and I am done with the feminism of who owns my body for what cause.
It is time for something that tells you that I am here for blood--my blood, the blood of my loved ones, the blood of the people who have battered themselves against my life and found me still here.

Click here for the rest of it.

DIRTY SATURDAY

Anyone up for being rude at Dirty this Saturday? I need dark action in dark corners, the smell of leather and a touch of pain... Oh, and a mighty good dance.

Wringing Wet

Well, what a weekend that was then! The type of weekend that ends with a delicious plaything leaving your house on a Tuesday morning, your sheets soaked and certain parts of your anatomy still clenched, muscles aching in odd places and and the dog wondering what on earth all THAT was about...

Weekend in a nutshell: Dumplings in Chinatown and then Wet Spots at the Studio on Friday night. Gad about Paddy's Markets and Oxford St for outfit bits and new boots on Saturday, home for quick costume change and then walked with Sydney Leather Pride for the parade. Gay Bash was dismal, but Home Sideshow was full of lovely pervy people (but bollocks music- what WAS that about boys?) and so I danced and schmoozed and rolled about on top of a coffee table with RoboBear and drank lots of vodka and ate middle-of-the-night-pizza and then finally went home with a mate of mine from out of town for drunken fumblings and a recovery day of rudeness. Then Gurlesque, which was AMAZING as ever (thankyou ever so much to all the performers and cage dancers etc, with special mention to Mighty Hermaphrodite for hacking hir hair off to a Medusa tale and then making a cake with breastmilk, shit and bloody hymen!), and through some mutual seduction ended up with a long-time perve from afar in my bed, which lasted on and off until this morning (bloody work- how inconvenient)... Hmm, playmates have gone back to their respective cities, and now it is time for me to get back to my art and my work and tidying my room and getting some proper sleep and lots of vegies. Feeling remarkably chipper and lively, but figure that won't last if I don't rest up a bit!

Yo!

New Scietntist brings you the following article...

''Yo' is the word when 'he' or 'she' won't do

* 05 January 2008
* Mark Peters
* Magazine issue 2637

ADRIAN QUINTERO is a transgender person with strong feelings about pronouns. "Our language really needs words to acknowledge folks who do not feel included in the gender binary," says Quintero, who uses the pronouns "ze" (or "zie") and "hir", because "they have the freedom to mean something other than, or in addition to, male and female".

Quintero's mother, Elaine Stotko, shares this interest. A linguistics expert at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, she was fascinated when in 2004 a teacher in her Linguistics for Teachers class asked, "Have you ever heard kids using 'yo' when they mean he or she?"

About half the teachers taking the course had also heard "yo" used in this way, leading Stotko and Margaret Troyer (one of the teachers) to research this development, which they have now documented in the linguistics journal American Speech, DOI: 10.1215/00031283-2007-012).

They found that from at least ...'