that's what i call a view!

See more about the knitted bunny on the Italian lanscape here. It took 5 years to knit and will stay in it's current location for another 15-20 years. It was created by the Gelintin collective, creators of other amazing installation creations such as this:

ladyfest edinburgh 09: what's the scoop?

Move over Edinburgh Fringe, Ladyfest is back in town. More bijou than last years month long extravaganza, but still the same great tasting feminist flavours.

The weekend events explode with the arrival of Sister Spit: The Next Generation. The tour is hitting the road again, with a whole new all-girl lineup of zinesters, fashion plates, novelists, performance artists, slam poets and fancy scribblers. Sister Spit: The Next Generation is hauling a vanload of killer underground female talent across the USA and into the bosom of Ladyfest Edinburgh. Take a peek behind The Big Red Door for this eagerly awaited pageant and fall headlong into the ramblin' roadshow.

Saturday is no day for takin' it easy either, lace up yer pussy pumps and head down to The Bowery for an afternoon of punk knitting, naked men (see Life Drawing), skill share, singing, self love dancing, stand up comedy with Sian Bevan, theatre combat, lotions, potions and commotions. To add to this heavy brew, Ladyfest have been collaborating with various young folks youth groups throughout the city in a visual arts project and some of the work will be on show for one day only before it goes on tour. The main aim of this project was to make stronger connections with our local community, debunk some of the stuffy myths of art and get young folk expressing themselves creatively through the visual arts.

Saturday leaks into night with a small pause for breath before The Bowery doors are opened again to a night of performance and music. Featuring the ultimate sticky fixative Sellotape, and the bilingual mixture of sound poetry and storytelling with megaphones of Zorras. (other acts still tbc)

"Think Kleenex or The Delta Five, with an in-built ramshackleness tempered by a vocal style betraying a smidgen of Siouxsie Sioux..." Neil Cooper, The List

"The images come so fast you sometimes feel like a Slinky falling down the stairs, yet the emotion and intention are clear, moving, and often funny" The Skinny

Our lazy Ladyfest Sunday afternoon goes for a gallery walk and coffee stop to sit with pinkies poised and napkins ready to catch spat out cake crumbs and hot liquid as all are invited to wander and talk about women in art, past present and future. The weekend finishes with a film at the brass monkey. See our website for further details.

Ladyfest has been conducting itself underground all year so a quick update on us. This will be the second Ladyfest to be organised by people living in Edinburgh, building on the heritage of over 100 Ladyfests around the world since 2000: non-profit, feminist events organised mainly by women and platforms for the talents of female artists and performers. The events are mainly focused on encouraging the talent of women and girls, but are open to everyone.

Ladyfest is an idea not an ideology. The main aim of Ladyfest Edinburgh is to create an alternative space for the celebration of female creativity. The future of Ladyfest will be built on our need to grasp this free space and continue to make women more visible in the arts, culture and society.

For further information and pictures please contact:
Fiona Watt 0131 557 5869 (Eve and weekends only) or 07891 507716 (day) or
Marylou Anderson at info@ladyfestedinburgh.com



1 Weekend listings are attached below
2 For more information see our website www.ladyfestedinburgh.com
3 There is a facebook group you can join here www.facebook.com/group.php?=7816432651
4 All profits from ladyfest edinburgh will go to local women's charities

Ladyfest Edinburgh Weekend Listings

Comedy night with Sian Bevan, Liz Ely plus guests
Thurs 24th September, Doors 7pm
Communication Union's Workers Club, Brunswick Street, Edinburgh
£4 on the door or purchase a £10 weekend ticket

Sister Spit: The Next Generation
Fri 25th September, Doors open 7pm
The Big Red Door, Lady Lawson Street, Edinburgh
£5 on door or purchase a weekend ticket for £10

Youth art project exhibition and a whorl of workshops
Saturday 26th September, Doors 11am-5pm
The Bowery, Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh
Donation or free with a weekend ticket

Sellotape, Zorras plus guests
Saturday 26th September, Doors 7.30pm - midnight
The Bowery, Roxburgh Place, Edinburgh
£3 on door or purchase a £10 weekend ticket

Gallery walk and talk about women in art past, present and future
Sunday 27th September
Meeting for 2pm @ The fruitmarket Gallery
Free/

Films @ The Brass Monkey (see website for film details), From 8pm
Sunday 27th September
The Brass Monkey, Drummond Street, Edinburgh
Free/donations accepted

jon carling loveliness

nicole george's zine challenge

From my inbox...

Nicole writes:
2009 Zine Challenge

I just found an entire box of zines i made with a 5th grader called "My Top Five Most Embarrassing Moments".

I'll trade you one for a zine about YOUR top five most embarassing moments.

Deadline: September 1st, 2009

Send $2 with your zine submissions to receive an envelope full of zines received from the challenge (this is for postage).

THIS SWAP IS OPEN TO ALL AGES
Please specify whether or not your zine will be 5th grade appropriate.
This will determine whether your zine will be swapped with 5th graders or just other adults.

Contact via: http://nicolejgeorges.blogspot.com/

We did a Spring Break Zine Challenge in 2008, with great results! Intergenerational zine trading with everyone from gay road trippers to feminist raisins, six year old artists, lesbian poets and bike messengers!

PLEASE REPOST!

sister spit in europe this september

SEPTEMBER '09

2nd - Brighton (Cowley Club)
3rd - Bristol (Secret Warehouse Location) *
4th - Sheffield (Cafe venue tbc)
5th - London (RampARTS Social Centre)
6th - Leeds - (The Adelphi)
7th - Bradford (1 in 12)

9th - ljubljana (Menza Pri Korito)
10th - vienna (???)
11th - munich (Kafe Kult)
12th - berlin (Wirr Warr)

14th stockholm (Hallongrottan)
15th stockholm (Högkvarteret)
16th hamburg (Künstlerhaus Vorwerkstift)
17th cologne (Kulturbunker)
18th paris (???)
19th bern (???)
20th milan (???)

22nd - Huddersfield (The Peacock Lounge)
23rd - Manchester (Yard Theatre)
24th - London (Chroma Journal workshop session)
25th - Ladyfest Edinburgh (The Big Red Door)

LISTINGS UPDATED AS OF 19/8/09

http://www.myspace.com/sisterspitnextgen
http://www.myspace.com/michelletea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Tea
http://www.sisterspitnextgen.com/fall07/michelletea.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/texta/sets/72157602455971563/

Details of performers hitting Europe

friend zine submissions wanted

From my inbox...

Call for submissions

Instant friends, internet friends, soulmates, gangs of mates, house mates, holiday friends, friends who are more like family, family who are more like friends, friends who are lovers, friends who were lovers, old friends, new friends, school friends, work friends, ex-friends…

This is a call out for submissions for a new collaborative zine (as yet unnamed- ideas welcomed) about friendship. I want to celebrate the important role that friendship plays in all our lives and provide a space where people can acknowledge it in all its glory and gritty reality – break-ups of friendships, the strength that friends bring, the amazing wetting-your-pants laughing fun, the collaborations and creativity that can emerge from friendship etc etc etc

Submissions can be in whatever form you want – written/visual, the more variety the better! Anonymity if you like too.

Email submissions to: friendzine@gmail.com

Post submissions to: Friendzine, 19 Stockton House, Ellsworth Street, E2 0AY UK.

Deadline: 15th October 2009

PLEASE RE-POST

gaycation tales

I got back from my gaycation in San Francisco yesterday and have had THE best time.
Here's a quick summary of my highlights...
Hanging out with the greatest people, meeting new friends, sunshine, ocean beach, writers-with-drinks dorothy allison reading, sutro baths, nomy lamm, santa cruz, strawberry farm, kareoke, dave end, pinball, almost- pink flamingos, tender forever, needles and pens, georgia o'keefe film at SFMOMA, haunted house/fright walk, tuna melts, mirah, charlie's, little otsu, backyard cinema film screening, hugs and cuddles, laughter, tara jane o'neil, modern times, alcatraz, dorothy allison cupping ass!, golden gate bridge at top speed, wax museum, lollipop generation, dolores park, erase errata, dog eared books, the brookdale inn, art xx benefit event, in search of margo-go screening, amoeba, bound together, valencia, michelle tea and daphne gottleib readings, back porch smoking, you tube giggles, christeene, giant robot, the lexington, silas howard, musee mechanique, photobooths -working or not!, younger lovers, queers galore, kirk read performance, lex-sally-maile-mary-iris-annah-pike, frida kahlo at SFMOMA, burning hot sand, windswept, couch-snoozing, graham crackers, grandmother predictions, burnt nose, the eagle - bear-bar extraordinare, hunx and his punx, brits-on-tour, femina potens, carletta sue kay, thee parkside, double dutchess, athens boy's choir, purple rhinestone eagle, mirah doing fleetwood mac, huge huge balloons, ketchup mustache, team gina's ode to the tiny degree of seperation, homo made merit badges, tater tots, the super-group of TJO, Melanie V, Jenny H and Tara J, maile's coolio, dog park, castro rainbows galore, valencia, smashed hope, giant pizza slices, soggy sea-jeans, mary's "duck hand" during fashion show, giant strawberry, running thru sprinklers, lex's english vocab lessons, art at SOMArts, santa cruz boardwalk, and then some!!!
Basically, learning to relax, enjoy, hang out, live and be.

queer music project

From my inbox...


From: Wisdom Tooth
Date: 20/08/2009 07:17:50
Subject: ATTN: QUEERWADS!


Here's the story, homoglory.

I am currently taking submissions for a new project tentatively called Queer as Folk-Pop (Vol. 1)

The plan is to assemble a delicious buffet of singalongable queerfagdykebutchfemmetranny-centric lovejams for the pansy pop-addict in all of us.

Because don't tell me you're not sick of the same old compulsive heteroboticism harshing your tunebox. Sometimes we just wanna pine along to songs about relationships that look a little less like the ones in TV commercials, am I right?

This project aims to communicate to audiences of DIY folk/pop/whatever music that we're here, we're queer, and we dig handclaps. So if you or anyone you know has a ditty that is in any way queer-love/lust themed (interpret that whichever way you like), send it over to:

queerasfolkpop@gmail.com

The album will be available for free download once compiled, and upon request I can also make hardcopies to send to contributors, who can then do whatever they want with them (gift, sell, frame, etc). It's a great way to get some headphone-play for your hot mess of a music project, and contribute to queer visibility in the nebulous DIY music scene too.

There are no guidelines regarding the form or content of submissions. It doesn't have to be a new or exclusive song; it can even be a cover, like for instance if I did a dyketastic version of "I Kissed A Girl" where I liked it because I'm a flaming sexual deviant. The options include everything under/over the rainbow, so use your imagination. I'll contact you in a few months if I've decided to use your submission for the final product.

This is going to be sublime. Tell your friends of all queer-like persuasions and let's pitch in to make something that sissies and spinsters alike can sing, snap, stomp and swoon along to for ages to come.

Queer Lovejams for the Win,
Meagan Day aka Wisdom Tooth