babylondonorbital: December 2015

[SUMMER SOLSTICE 2019: ex Inrock, Telerama grand reporter Emmanuel Tellier got sacked 27 May 2019 for sexual harassment at work https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/medias/harcelement-sexuel-a-telerama-deux-journalistes-licencies_2081814.html]

My feeling on my blog: “People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore. I’ve finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr

UPDATED 7/12/15 below (list of films added for Tony Garnett) #BrianRobinson #MarkCousins #SecondRun #SodaPictures #NewWaveFilms #CarmenGray #JDBeauvallet #ANosAmours #SomersetHouse

UPDATED 8/12/2015 #RoyalAcademy

UPDATED 9/12/15 #Tom Hunter #DragCity

UPDATED 14/12/15 below #ONPC #LesInrocks #ChristopheConte

UPDATED 26/12/15 below

UPDATED 17 Jan 2016 below #BFIClan #LesInrocksCensorship #DavidBowie

UPDATED FEBRUARY 2016 #JDBeauvallet #GaelleMassicotBitty #MauricePialat #Algiers

UPDATED March 2016 #NickCave2KDOE

UPDATED April 2016 #Prince etc.

UPDATED JUNE 2016 LGBTI tribute #MohammadAli

UPDATED JULY 2016 #LesInrocks #BethnalGreen

UPDATED AUGUST 2016 #JDBeauvallet #Bjork #SouxsieAndTheBanshees #XavierDolan #MarieAgnesBeau and other women for #LesInrocks

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2016 - expo V&A #YouSayYouWantARevolution

UPDATED OCTOBRE 2016 - expo Barbican #The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined

UPDATED 2 November 2016 #JuanJavierSalazar

UPDATED 21 November 2016 - expo photo Elton John @ Tate Modern - mini update

UPDATED 2 décembre 2016 - expo Anselm Kiefer @ White Cube - mini update

LAST UPDATE 2,5 December (though it’s 8) - The End for this

Dear Liz Parkinson @ BFI,

It’s been a while since I wanted to write this missive to you. Then, in July I was so depressed (your film buddies New Wave Film made a great contribution) that I left my blog. Then, Chantal Akerman died early October and I had to write something. To (re)train, I started off with ADF and burry it off two days later with some sort of celebration / tribute to Chantal.

The idea to write to you was still urgent but I got caught by the cosmopolitan genocide in the #ParisAttacks and got seriously e-tickled by your friend (they are all your friends by default, I’ve just decided) Jamie Catto! Then, as an exercise of exorcism / catharsis, I responded to newspaper Libération. I learnt that day that it was going to be Isa’s posthumous exhibition on the 2 Dec... I started my blog three days before her departure (she brain battled for 18 months) on Wapping Project! Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not playing with emotions, I’m telling you a story, a fact, and how things are woven like a coincidental concordance. I will be terribly dishonest to play on a sad note since I had time to prepare for her “next stop”. As for The Bataclan Generation, it is a bitter episode in history that affects me, and I don’t expect others to be affected, but I certainly can’t accept the rage it has counter-produced!

However, I will keep in mind the terrorism actions in the background to give a perspective and some resonance to the escalation my blog / I seem to have triggered! I have had this urge of writing to you for a long time, but it is hard to start somewhere since I don’t understand the hatred I seem to have provoked. I am only sure you play a great part in that spiralling “terror” game. I was not born innocent, but despite my anarchist tendency, I can also be docile (some will laugh here – I am myself smiling). What were your and your friends’ rules? I am naive enough to hope that somewhere we (you, your friends and I) can discuss face to face.

So, here we are two and half years since our first contact via the BFI where you acted as a press officer assistant and you are now a proper press officer at the wake of your 30^th Bday.

In 1994 or 95, I became a NFT (now BFI) member until I left London in 2005. When I became Ed Lewis Cinema Assistant @ The Riverside Studios in 96 or 97, I bugged him (and I do mean bug here) to show music related videos as part of the programmes: Ninja Tunes, Warp, MoWax, Good Looking Rec etc. There was some exciting stuff happening but very unfortunately Ed didn’t share my passion. When NFT started to show off these jewels, I became a super adept and a “tweeting follower”. When writing about the Warp season @ BFI, I discovered Stuart Brown was responsible for kicking the shows back in 98. (We exchanged emails from 2006 but still haven’t met).

Nearly ignorant about Tony Garnett, I wanted to grab as much as possible about him and his work. At the time, you and Ilona only sent me BFI press releases on seasons you wanted me to cover, so by the time I published (copy-paste) mid May about him, the season had already started. On 14/05/2013, I sent my list of films / dates I wished to see, hoping for more than one to be picked: Fri 31 May 18:20 NFT2, Tue 4 June 18:30 NFT1, Thu 6 June 20:30 NFT3, Fri 14June 20:40 NFT2, Sat 22 June 20:40 NFT2, Thu 27 June 18:20 NFT2, Sat 29 June 18:10 NFT3.
Sadly, I only managed an invite to his talk due on 4 June 2013, only because it was far from being sold-out and you did put me on hold!

Fri 31/05/2013 - Liz Parkinson @bfi.org.uk: “Hi there, Just getting in touch to see if you would still like to attend Tony Garnett in Conversation on Tuesday evening at BFI Southbank?”

Tue 04/06/2013 - Liz Parkinson @bfi.org.uk : “Hi Sybille, Further to my email yesterday I’ve actually reserved a seat for you rather than adding you to a guestlist. You’ll just need to quote the reference number at the box office in order to collect your seat: 1222312.”

For someone who is so busy in such an amazing institution, I found it hard to believe you could take some of your time off to get me off your guest list and allocate me with a number! How on hell did you come up with such intention? I re-read our Monday exchange and I apologised for not coming back to you sooner as I didn’t have internet but I would be delighted to come, to which you put me on the guest list. I would be really curious to know! Nobody has forgotten how Jewish people got a tattooed number on their forearm when in Concentration Camps. If you are unaware, I’ll strongly recommend you to watch the great DVD, BFI has released for Chronicle of a Summer. Or perhaps Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture? England alone has a history of relegating its subjects to becoming numbers and this country has given birth to prestigious film / TV writers / makers who have stood up and fought against it. Have you watched Alan Clark’s Scum? Any David Leland?

When I arrived at the box office, I was so taken aback that I didn’t contest and recited my number like a stupid abject robot! In the two years or so that have passed and asking around, I haven’t met a single person that got that treatment. I wish I could be convinced by Brian Robinson “Every booking reference has a number. It is much easier and quicker for the box office staff to access the number than to go through a list of names. I regularly give a booking reference for press tickets.” When I wrote on Warp season, Stuart Brown offered a press ticket with my name and a +1. Perhaps, BFI is more anarchic than I am?

Mania Akbari / (Mark Cousins): I could cover the BFI’s Mania Akbari season but not necessarily see the films. I couldn’t interview her because she doesn’t speak English coz it cost money to hire an interpreter and since my blog is not wide-reaching... I couldn’t! As for One Two One on Second Run, I reviewed it the day after receiving the DVD by your super friend Chris Barwick. I literally knew nothing about her and I didn’t have time to research on her. I simply wrote according to my guts’ guidance as I liked it and viewed more as an art film than a fiction film! Why didn’t Mark Cousins want me to review his forthcoming film? I did send a few emails to the film distrib’ press office! Why has Chris Barwick stopped sending me press releases and DVDs following my Mania’s DVD review? All communication got interrupted apart from him being extremely rude? If my review was that bad, it wouldn’t be in the Second Run reference, in Criterion or even in Mania Akbari’ review section? Would it? It all became like the Bermuda Triangle... film writer Carmen Gray is very friend with many of these people and a great supporter of Second Run (and so are Suzy Gillett, Damien Sanville, Shira McLeod)...

In Nov 2013, you wrote: “As a charity we are very limited as to how many press comps we can offer. Comps are allocated to press, not on the basis of friendship or relationships, but where a journalist will be providing media coverage that is significant and wide-reaching, e.g. National Newspapers.

As I have said, you are very welcome to request comp tickets to films screening at Southbank, but when they cannot be provided due to availability please do understand that this is not personal.” As far as I know BFI Michael Blythe / David Edgar’s friends Atomica girls are no journalists! They don’t even recite any numbers when invited... Then, all your friends from Somerset House, New Wave Films to Soda Pictures (AKA Thunderbird Releasing), etc. have recycled it. I have a collection of identical twin emails: I’m selling my collec’! Any takers? Liz, you are very influential, help me, I need money.

FYI, I have been friend with Ed Munger (not sure of spelling) who used to be projectionist at Riverside Studios early 90’s and met him a few time at NFT early 00’s where he was projectionist (if you don’t know him, ask Geoff Andrews or Stuart Brown). He offered to give me tickets and I never accepted. I’ve never been rich but I paid for my films: I found important to participate to the NFT salaries or else! The only time I called him @ NFT was to reach him with a sad news!

Despite my numerous emails inviting you to meet up so we could discuss as adults, you declined! After reviewing 25 DVD / seasons for BFI and numerous many mentions on my fashion, punk, photography posts, I asked your colleague Northbank to stop sending me materials. In my opinion, it doesn’t make sense to talk about the Jarman or Chinese season if I can’t attend. You wouldn’t want to understand that I couldn’t view VIMEOs online because I didn’t have internet. Now, I can use internet at home, only because my neighbour has generously given her code, but my pick up is slow!

In June 2013, your friends Sarah Harvey (your previous mentor?) and John Dunning @ Maraget stopped communicating: I guess one didn’t understand that I couldn’t even afford to buy a travelcard and yet expected me to go to Sheffield Fest; the other couldn’t pass questions for an interview because my English grammar was too bad! Soda Pictures (AKA Thunderbird Releasing)’ Piercing’s writer didn’t have an issue with my Q&A! I have worked with many foreign journalists in the past 20 years, nobody has ever being prevented from asking question on the ground of their bad grammar. Isn’t London a foreign land before being English? Check the Beeb sweetie! There used to be more tolerance...

Until early 2015, each time I posted on my blog, my Piercing post was read. I have to say I don’t believe in coincidence on that one!

Your friends @ Soda Pictures (AKA Thunderbird Releasing): Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive (film viewed in Dec 2013) was my second review for SP but first dealing directly with their press office. Gruff Rhys’s American Interior was my last one for them. In five months, I dealt with 5 different persons. Out of my four film reviews for them, I got dropped four times from their mailing list despite a promise in May 2014 that I was defo included... I continued to ask until July 2014 with long chatty emails but unsuccessfully: I am not mainstream enough anyway! They can’t afford to send finished DVDs or screeners + booklets, but they did to a north of England Youtubeur with 10 followers (as mentioned in the film writer’s twitter account), so I asked early July 2014 “I have just been sent that link below of someone who had a DVD sent by Soda pictures and "reviewed" it.

Would it be possible to know why I received a copy of DVD for Jane Bown without its booklet and why I am not receiving any Soda Pictures invites when I was told I was part of the mailing?

This is the guy who reviews 1 of your titles... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvlRQHBIm9c#t=117” (The link has been disabled since). They don’t send finished DVDs but they did on that occasion and they are sorry I’m still not on their mailing...

To be honest Liz, when I set up my blog, my focus was to present independent boutiques, whether films, music, art places. Although BFI is not a small institution, I (still) believe that there are people who are working hard to produce / unearth unknown gems. I’ll have a break here to explain the number of times I have argued with people in Hackney – pre-blog - who are showing BFI, Second Run and other small labels’ films without requiring permission (that’s the new underground) and charging for it (that’s the new capitalism): I came across a German ex-film student in Kingston, let’s call her Katarina S, who showed films borrowed from the Film Shop / Close-Up, and according to her with the BFI benediction... To view the film, you would have to order a four or five quid drink; Up the road from my palace, they charge £5 to watch independent films; starting my blog: in Hackney Down, the boss of a cafe-resto + 2 stallers were having meetings to set-up a film night with DVDs I received. When I found out, they say that if I was looking for a job I had to start here. So, basically they would charge £5 for a film night with my films and I’ll get a free drink... I bet they have all set-up an anti-Sybille committee called “the bitchy witch” in my honor! I HAVE NEVER SCREENED FILMS WITHOUT AUTHORISATION and I don’t sell/lend/give them either! Yet, recently someone told me that I’m well known for screening films in Hackney...

Your friends @ New Wave Films: 15 reviews of films or DVDs. All well til Sept 14 and then blackout. I received other films their press office looks also after though. In Jan this year, they decided to stop inviting me to film previews and stop sending me DVDs. I was only allowed Vimeo’s links... and then, they discarded me. Following my “last” post in July, NW posse got in touch and said they would be happy to have me back on board: “Dear Sybille, I have forwarded your email on to our PR's and hope that this issue can be resolved and you can again be viewing our films at our screenings. We unfortunately do not have many watermarked screeners nowadays and usually just send out vimeo or other links. Please let me know should you have any other concerns.” That was nice, but why would I review a DVD if I don’t have a copy? The link is always disabled after a few weeks and as I repeated on many occasions, I don’t have a straight forward internet: a 90 minutes film can take up to four hours... Following my argument with Lee Tesche of Algiers, NW stopped sharing my posts on social network... I wonder if their friend film writer Carmen Gray is also friend with NW?

You are a good friend of Carmen Gray and she is a supa good firend with el James Batley: someone who I defo wanted to film stalked. I wrote about his experimental short, and so did Time Out hours later. James went “Fuck Yeah” all over FB space about TO. Not convinced he liked mine “It sounds very dramatic!”. Perhaps, I should have left it there but when he and Algiers were organising a DCR party, I decided to support the gang. When el naughty James told me that The Crows were playing, he added “This is the main band that's playing: http://vimeo.com/73623978 They are on Savage's label Pop Noir and they are awesome.” The video was great, the link has been disabled since... perhaps because the band was never signed on Pop Noire. I don’t think I need to be influenced. Whether the band was signed or not on the label doesn’t make any difference. I did like their music and their video! Sadly, I don’t think I should be checking or doubting if an artist says something. On my epistolary exchange with Lee Tesche, I was curious to have his thought on Crows: “Crows = I was asked in France why I wrote they were on Pop Noire, so I sent them an email James had sent me. apparently, a guy from Crows works for the label.” Lee: “I was confused about this as well. Anthony (Faramelli) wrote Pop Noire and they recommended Crows so I think he was under the assumption that they were on that label, but apparently not? Oh well, I was under the wrong impression.” BracedYourself hasn’t been in touch since and what a shame: Crows tunes and videos I listened/watched were highly promising!

I mean... it’s hard enough to get a minimum of credibility as a blog writer / journalist, and then you have some guys who really fuck around! Strange thing is that Algiers also disabled the link they gave me for “Blood” and they disabled their Soundcloud link published a year later by Jean-Daniel Beauvallet in Les Inrocks. I don’t know why they disabled all the links they sent me to publish but that’s quite a trivial pursuit. However, mis-information seems to be their life-support way of moving on. What’s their issue? It might be fun to watch a struggling woman struggling even more! What has “feminist” film writer Carmen Gray got to say here?

A Nos Amours: I used to go a lot to the Film Shop in Stokey (until I interviewed his ex girlfriend) and I came across Joanna Hogg first two films. The owner and I totally disagreed on her. Far too posh for him. I just thought she painted to the perfection her characters without glamorising them. One day in June 2013, he told me he corresponded with the film maker as she started A Nos Amours with Adam Roberts to celebrate a film series on Chantal Akerman. It took me nearly a year to get a reply back! (However, Joanna’s press office for her film Exhibition didn’t bother to reply any of my emails.) I’m not quite sure whether the tandem Adam / Joanna can’t stand my posts on their events or if they have something personal, but they act weird: I actually struggled with their totally uninformative press release for Chantal Akerman Now. I had dealt once with Kate B and it even made me realise Liz Parkinson that she was worse than you. Chantal Akerman’s work is not easily available. It requires a huge amount of research to honour her work. The press release was pure piss take! That’s probably why Time Out got it so wrong while others focused on her life or cinema in general. Adrian Searle did a fine critic job for The Guardian. If the tandem wants to talks something through = fine!

Email just received - the upper selection -

Frieze already got its spot...

I’m sort of done with the “cinema-mafia” Liz. Oh, I have contacted dozens of film distrib’or film festivals and none replied! Are you friend with Organic people? They sure are bloody selective. Eton boys?

Talking about Eton, I realised that most press officers are über posh. Not that I have a major issue with them, everybody needs love! But, they can’t like what they do if they act as if art is reserved for posh journalists or mainstream publications / broadcasters! Let’s have a quick survey: Kallway (Georgy is defo Etonian) sent info for Tower Bridge requesting for an embargo. In fact, while I gathered info to publish on the glass bridge, all mainstreams were fooling the glass! How cool is that? Bjork’s Purple press office is a giant luxurious aquarium in Soho where you are used as a tool to publicise their art / music etc events “It really come down to how many spots we get and how much coverage we can get out of it. Unfortunately that does sometimes mean the smaller blogs miss out.” As for music links or albums, they just don’t send anything unless you are mainstream!

UPDATE 7/12/15

Gosh, I was to meet Holy Woodlawn: Holly came from Miami F.L.A.; Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.; Plucked her eyebrows on the way; Shaved her legs and then he was a she; She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side... So, I’ll keep on the wild side while There's colors on the street; Red, white and blue... Keep on rockin' in the free world. I’ll try but the path is tortuous in these putrid blue, white and red!

So, while there is a punctual war out there, what do you do with art Liz? How do all your friends in the bizz make us all valid? Let me, humbly, remind you this from David Attenborough: “The arts are not a luxury. They are as crucial to our well-being, to our very existence, as eating and breathing. Access to them should not be restricted to a privileged few. Nor are they the playground of the intelligentsia. The arts are for everyone – and failure to include everyone diminishes us all.” – The whole piece is available on the BFI.

Somerset House (7 posts in between jumping off their mailing): Did you pay for your PJ Harvey ticket, or was it an échange de bons procédés between your press officer’s friends and yourself @ BFI? Here is for you to meditate: “Hi Sybille, Good to hear from you. Here’s the lead image attached (photo credit: Seamus Murphy). I’m afraid I don’t have any press tickets available – only for national reviewers. Sorry! If you’re trying to buy tickets, you may experience some difficulty as lots of people are trying to buy! Trying to sort out now… Best, Josephine. Ps do send over the link please once the piece is up.” And then enters the upper boss who expects me to feel for him: “Dear Sybille, I’m very sorry that the very small capacity of this event makes it impossible for us to give out lots of press tickets. In general, as a charity, we have to balance carefully the need to maximise revenue and the media coverage required to sell our events. In this case the event sold out in 20 minutes so I’m sure you will appreciate our position. Best wishes, Jonathan”. TBH, I don’t give a flying fooking shiite about his position! I’m far too important to think about anything else but me, the arts and how I can promote them so everyone has access! Around Xmas time and early Jan 2015, I felt very imbalanced, Somerset spiced up their crap and on the 6 Jan, a day before Charlie Hebdo carnage, I pinned my tweet.

And then, Stephanie the PR made a big deal because I was invited to those breakfast PVs... Which ass am I supposed to kiss here? If there is a PV, I go! If there are croissants and orange juice and petits fours, I’ll eat them, but I doubt that it’s all organised for me because they have pity of my frugal petit-déjeuner? And to decorate the cake with a tail on the Q (la queue au cul! – we French people know our targets), this is me at the Guy Bourdin’s PV: as I’m minding my own business taking notes on the exhibition and what the curators say in some supposedly crowd of journalists... here enters the Head of Press’s mega friend coming up to me with her buggy “you smell nice”... “oh, thank you!”, “What is it?” Me being polite, although I’d rather take notes: “Patchouli” (please picture the 13'20" scene of Withnail And I when going to their local Camden pub minutes before the drunken Irish lad tells Marwood is a ponce). Guess what she added? “Are you a masseuse?” “Yes, I’m a whore masseuse on a tourist tour trying to take notes on an exhibition, just because I’m a lucky bitch on heat who has just devoured some croissants... clear my view you silly sausage, or I’ll feed the Thames with your sleeping baby!” Now, don’t get me wrong... I don’t mind people telling me I smell nice, but all good jokes know its limits! Talking about limits, all women should know theirs too, shouldn’t they? That’s the major issue in this world. We, women are sometimes lucky when a man / men put us in a privileged position! Now, the main issue relies on what the ranked woman is doing with her position... Is she trying to prove she can control any situation? Or is she trying to be worse than her men counterpart? To pee or not to pee, that is da standing question! And if anybody knows me, they wouldn’t mention ice-skating! So, quite naturally... Upper Josephine sent a ice-skating's press release and a nice note “your readers might like that!” when I asked info on Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie, and The Advent of Punk’ exhib! Oh the irony between ice and Debbie Harry. Les Inrocks are now reviewing Somerset... But has Carmen Gray got any opinion?

Calvert 22: the persuasive “Michel Houellebecq is the current-day badass of the French literary world” film writer Carmen Gray is holding the fort... I didn’t get an interview, but then again, their press officers are like sleeping beauties! From a fragile press list, they got me on their mailing list while Penny S (Anxiety fest + Calvert): “Hi Sybille, that is fine I have checked with the curator - you just pick up your ticket 30 mins beforehand. The curator is keen if possible to mention Pressure as they need to sell more tickets for that one.” I did and when I arrived in Clapham PH by bus from Hackney, out of the four guys on the guest list, my name was not there...

Hackney Wicked: Aug 2013 was their year back following their Olympic Games hiatus. I already had issues with you and John and Sarah And Chris... When I gave my name on the press list, the guy who ticked me in simply freaked “Ah Babylon London Orbital, let me explain how an exhibition works... you can’t touch pieces of art... do you understand?” Then I got bored with un-named pieces that one had to guess what belonged to who... Pretentious peeps, mediocrity is a mild word!

UPDATED 8/12/2015

When I re-read the stuff... I wonder how you feel Liz? Does it entertain you or you can’t take it? Heavy stuff innit? I’m telling you, I have a whole collection... You walk nearly half a century on this sinking planet, work for the art with an intense belief and end up being treated like nada or a slave as press officers make their own insistent requests! When I invested in NFT / BFI by becoming a “patron” / member, it was not to gain some profit in the long term, but benefit on cheaper tickets and participate to the well being of your institution (just as I did for Time Out)! I’m not really happy that it served to hire people like you who are shooting back at me. You know... like this war! Daesh! You get my drift here? What worries me, is that you are now in a position where you can train youngsters and teach them how to discriminate, spread the disease... my prose here will probably help the BFI gain some lines in Les Inrocks (they already did recently) or get you to invest in some charities, so the BFI would look good... or get you tickets cheaper for young people! But admitting you reduce people like me as beggars, nah! Don’t fuck around with “Oh it’s your karma!” coz I’ll go James “... you're like a disease without any cure...” This is a machination, but what’s my crime?

Royal Academy (RA): I was twice invited to their PVs: Anselm Kiefer and Allen Jones. Then, they got me off their list and got me back in on a really weird "Schindler"'s list. For six months, I sent emails requesting what sort of discriminating list it was. I would be invited to PVs weeks after an exhibition’s opening and in June 2015, I managed to get an upper Laura responding: “The blogger evenings are an alternative to our press days to allow as many writers and reviewers as possible to see the exhibitions. Thanks, Laura”. Yet, a Goldsmith student who runs an art “naught magazine” was very pleased with his invite. Ok, he has 2000 followers, but there’s never been any piece written on Ai WeiWei...

I know I have been pesting about numbers on a regular basis, but that seems to be proving that you get in according to your numbers. I have to say that RA did retweet my posts, which is a very rare action when it comes to small publications like mine! New Wave Films did it a few times and I’m still not sure why they retweeted independent film journalist Meredith and not mine as well on The Missing Picture? Is it because I dared send my questions to the film maker? Who does it hurt exactly if I don’t follow their consensus / protocol? If NWF has passed on my questions, then they could have let me know why they were no answers back!

Tate Modern/Britain: At first, I didn’t intent to write on major exhibitions, but in Aug/Sept 2013, I realised that Time Out (TO) (who had stopped writing on “obscure” events) were writing on same topics hours or days later on LAF (TO), Cranio (TO paper), James Batley (TO hours later - how many times has JB shown KTTD and how many times did he get coverage pre/post 13 Sept 13?), as well as writing on Amy Winehouse’s Brazil angle which I was supposed to do again but Jonny Ensall (with the help of Proud’s press officer?) did! So, I started to contact major venues and it was a hard won battle to be part of Tate’s press list! However, I am only on a selective list and they never retweet me or small publications, no matter how I target them. When Conflict, Time, Photography travelled to Germany, the German Museum retweeted my post. It just helped for the exposure, it gives some credibility. Now, I have dared ask questions to Alexander Calder’s Foundation, it looks like I’m off their list... I don’t know who won the Turner Prize this year! (9/12/15: I know now from Tate).

UPDATED 9/12/15

This morning, I was happy for three reasons: I saw JD Beauvallet had retweeted someone who has 10 followers; I watched last night Le PetitJournal whose guest was Raphaël Glucksmann: a great mix of political/philosophical and entertainment prog that deciphered why young French people voted FN for the régionales (a MUST-SEE if you understand French); it’s sunny on the Lee River.

Oh, and I’m very pleased last night I watched a BBC prog on Andy Warhol by passionate and transmitter art critic Alastair Sooke: it helps me to understand my “multiple personalities” on the pop artist. Warhol’s spectre is at present in disguise at Tate Modern with The World Goes Pop.

Tom Hunter: This is someone I had known for his work since the 90’s and urged my photography students to investigate for their projects. He now happens to be my neighbour and don’t I wish I didn’t have to bump into him...

On 7 Jan 2014, I received an invite from the University where he works about his talk on 12 Feb. I asked if they were interested in me covering the talk and exhibition due to start on 5 Feb. My email got forwarded to Press Officer Luke W. Despite a few emails’ exchange between him finalising the document... and the 20 Jan: “I will share later today – sorry for delay.” I never got any replies or press release! On the 24 Jan (I believe in arts, I believe in arts Rama Rama was looping in my cabeza), I wrote to Tom Hunter and he replied quickly: “press-release attached. Luke W--------, at LCC (l.w--------@lcc.arts.ac) is looking after press enquiries.” The attached press release was actually a smaller version of what had already been written on 31 Dec 13. Either Luke had no interest in rave parties, or he is jealous of Tom, or he has no time for blogs! When I came to the talk, I was very disappointed as I heard nothing... spoke briefly to Tom to make sure he was interested in a post on my blog and he reassured me. The day after (13 Feb), I posted on his exhibition Life On The Road where I decided to start with The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act that punished UK’s gathering from November 1994 and rave a bit about the rave era. I sent my post a few times to Tom hoping he would FB or Tweet it like he did for others... He ignored my Q&A, ignored my post, asked his nephew (on FB) if he could answer questions as a kid growing on the road, wrote on 27 Feb for the Guardian on his own exhibition starting with “When 1994’s Criminal Justice Act” and raved about raving... Of course, I questioned myself, my post, my blog and got all fucking insecure and remembered Saint John Dunning pointing out on my crappy English grammar! But yes, eventually... in this hurricane of negative vibes, vortex of emotions, I do think Tom Hunter is a holy fucker and a creepy sly geezer to compete that way!

On 1 March, I noticed a tweet from your colleague Stuart Brown raving on the Guardian’s rave article and decided to participate... without success! So... in November 2014, I was expecting all these men to “celebrate” the ban, but it seems I was the only woman and non British citizen to remember it!

As I’m writing this, I see over 240 views today, mostly on “our monologues” Miss Liz as well as some clicks on posts I’m not so happy... So, let me explain to you and the “clickers”: I hope I am quite critical on my writings / posts. I have written on some films (and other acts) without great convictions! Only to be able to be busy as most of my emails got ignored! Similar to a cultural blockade, as in New Wave Films Blockade (on food blockade under Hitler). It is a starving point! I wish I had had more choices to review films, so I would have focused on the essential / what I’m good at. If you take off my personal story (which was a bit part of a CV), I do like my posts on Soda, most New Wave and BFI. Mania Akbari, I also like but more as an art video/film. Strangely, I am not that keen on Mao Mao’s Here Then because I feel I could have gone further as I do like the film (I was not efficient) and yet it is the mostly clicked post (710). I know Chris Barwick went “Thank you, it’s lovely”, but reading his prose in retrospect, I wonder whether he really liked my post and shared it around or if he and / or his entourage sent it around to shame me? He did stop sending press releases back in July 2013...

But since you guys are number worshipers, here are some selected click figures: Here, Then (Ci Chu Yu Bi Chu) – 710; Michael Clark. A very rare screening. Hail The New...- 601; Egon Schiele: The Radical Nude – 502; Bjork. Vulnicura – 424; Las Kellies. Total Exposure – 421; STEPHEN O’MALLEY, OREN AMBARCHI & RANDALL DUNN: SHADE THEMES FROM K - 410; Cría cuervos (Raise Ravens). Carlos Saura – 407; Atomica Gallery & Shop. Dalston. Pop Surrealism, Lowbrow, Mid-Century, Polynesian Pop – 388; LOOKING FOR LIGHT: JANE BOWN. A film by Luke Dodd and Michael Whyte – 360; Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch – 344; Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty – 311; Aurora. Cristi Puiu. – 308; FKA twigs – 288; Laura Mulvey // Peter Wollen. Riddles of the Sphinx – 256; Blumenfeld Studio: 1941-1960. Photography exhibition – 244; Louise Maisons. A tale of B&W analogue photography - 221; A London Trilogy: The Films of Saint Etienne 2003-2007 – 216; Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy presents Matt Johnson from The The – 212; The Vacant Lots – 206; My Secret World - The Story Of Sarah Records – 197.

Now, countries that have shown love to me: United Kingdom – 18495; United States – 17233; Germany – 6703; France – 6460; Ukraine – 3187; Russia – 2916; China – 538; Poland – 420; Spain – 379; Italy – 330. It doesn’t go further.

What do I think of these numbers? I believe in Rabindranath Tagore’s One And One Is One just like Joi does.

Those rare moments when you sweat your ink off your brain and The Vacant Lots from Sonic Cathedral label show their love... you know you are alive. I nearly, so close so far, believed in God, but then again I would had to eat bacon... and I never could... I tried though. The fuckstard did manage to get Lou Reed on his wild side for hell sake! Oh, and since we are talking Bible, let’s hear what the Qur’an doesn’t say... [Dutch spoken, English subtitled, French written from CliqueTV]

Lauren Barley - Rarely Unable

Music god Stephen O’Malley gave me the honour to retweet my post on Shades Themes from Kairos; press officer Lauren Rarely Unable tweeted it which was fav by The Quietus / Drowned In Sound / The Wire music journalist. It felt like a “Fuck Yeah” kind of thing. You know, when a piece of art penetrates you, you want to respect back with correct wordings and flow, especially if you are aware of your atrophied grammar and I’m glad even Fred Somsen of Drag City managed a timid compliment. He even promised to give the LP as I was also in love with the cover’s design. But that was at his birthday, that was before! So, which mosquito stung el music god, me no sé, but el American maetro – Paris based musician got rid of the tweet and Fred got rid of me from press list. In six months and five music reviews for Drag, he gave a “sales” link to subscribe in order to know about future releases, didn’t get me on the promised guest list for New Bum because he couldn’t “remember” my surname... WTF! “Hi Sybille, We have not yet launched the video here in the UK – Lauren is still looking for partners. Yes, I’ll put you +1 on New Bums’ guestlist. See you there. All the best, Fred” And Lauren Barley was organising a big launch party for the video on the album which the artist had previously sent me as a private link and he couldn’t believe those two suckers were inventing such insanity! The artist explained the launch was online from the United States. I mean... I had a drink once with Fred, then we went to an exhib, then he invited me for his Bday and all of a sudden, complete collapse. Someone can explain? Been around long enough! And then, when Lauren learnt I had seen the video privately, she had a polite go at the artist as if she had anything to do with him. I can’t believe I’m writing a recess children game here!

But, hey if you want more pudding, have a read on Ghostpoet with P.I.A.S ladies. Pure Cream made in France!

Anne Pigalle, Algiers, Wajid Yaseen: music peeps who want publicity, coverage, change their mind and for Waj... rewrote as he freaked his own words. Did they give any press release? Did they give any CDs? Did they invite to their gigs? NO, no and no! Algiers was the most difficult as they had no music history available online back in Oct 2013 when I met them. They couldn’t even say hello at their DRC party, couldn’t thanks for the write up, couldn’t tweet or FB my post! Couldn’t say thanks either when I sent my links to music journalists or helped them with their flat’s search! Lee Tesche had promised to meet up to discuss... Probably hasn’t been in touch with his inner maturity! I really would like to understand why JD Beauvallet says on 17/10/2014 “... cette info m'est remontée par le label qui va les signer en UK cette année” [That info came from a label that’s signing them in UK this year] when I asked why he read my blog and used my info... because a few weeks ago he admitted “...J'ai découvert ce groupe par hazard...” [I have discovered the band (Algiers) by chance] on Culture Box. JD is my ex “boss” who reads blogs (from minute 4 to minute 4’20’’ on Le Transfo) and lots of my posts end up on Les Inrocks [Nelly Kaprielian, Fleur Burlet etc) and haven’t they written intensely on Peru since my return from Peru... Latin America is big though! Perhaps he is afraid that I challenge him on the harassment I got subjected to by his friend. I’m not even interested in talking about it, the story doesn’t make me puke anymore, but why this tenacity to make me pass for someone who invents stories “... tu inventes des histories...”. So I’m not good at what am doing but if I want to read my posts, I can read them in Les Inrocks... More or less!

When I discovered Algiers, I got into them precisely because it reminded me on how I felt about bands I was reading about in Les Inrocks before I worked for them. So, I’m not surprised that my post on the band attracted JD Beauvallet, Christophe Conte @ Les Inrocks or ex-Inrocks, Telerama writer Emmanuel Tellier. I just wish they were honest. They are paid to do their jobs, I’m not! Algiers has gained a huge amount of attention in the media and gig wise thanks to JD... A bunch of guys who have made a lot of money! I dare add: Thanks to me!

Does Suzy Gillett remember I came to her Sunday music-lunches in Clapham back in the 90's when she was rocking her baby? I bet she doesn't! I brought my crowd to help her gain credibility. If she needs to say something, perhaps she can talk to me directly!

UPDATED 14/12/15 - Here is a treat, a celebration of Paris metro “Un autre monde” by Téléphone shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino

After sending around my prose to some people, including you Liz and your press office and others @ BFI, I expected some vile reactions! Aren’t we living in a digital era where people can satisfy their frustration behind a screen? Oh, and accessorily, aren’t I a bit OTT? Shouldn’t I shut up and get on with my own frustration and being happy that actually I’m tolerated at some shows?

Apart from a music venue in Dalston, the reaction has been rather (“silently”) supportive... This post has been passed forward all over UK and abroad. “Why don’t you review a film or a CD or an exhibition without dealing with a PR?” There are a few reasons for that: I am both punk and old-fashion; I believe that a press-release / a press officer should be the first point of contact between a piece of art and a journalist (so, no I am not into press-officers’ abolition, but into them treating journalists equally); I need guidance (but I still take the liberty to have my own view); I can’t afford to buy tickets and I do need to be intellectually challenged (even if free, I still believe in the job of a promoter and a relationship with her/him); I’m fed up with reading “good grammar” articles of people making up their own stuff because they are students with lots of followers gaining credibility for it... who have no idea of a press document!

Anyway, after watching Téléphone’s Corine Marienneau @ #ONPC yesterday, it opened up so many windows... I’ll come back to Corine (ex female bass player for one of my fav French bands as a pre-teenager) and Laurent Ruquier, #ONPC’s presenter: it was a rare moment of honesty and feminism!

So, later in the day, I surfed on Sight & Sound (BFI)’s publication on their focus on female film writers / female film makers (I was subscribed to S&S only because a friend working for it got me in for free, and no I never asked for it). These are some interesting lines I have found: “Hannah McGill concluded her ‘Women on Film’ article about the “vanishing ladies of film criticism...”; “Like many male film critics, women cinephiles have turned to the internet as a platform...”; “Whether through online magazines or personal blogs, the web offers women writers who might struggle to find or maintain work in the media... not only a space for publication but also... a defence against the sense of isolation and alienation that women often experience in male-dominated fields.”; “Established film critics also turn to blogging as a way to express frustration with the dominant tone of careless sexism present in mainstream cinema and film criticism.” = the whole piece is here. There are plenty of women’s celebrations in S&S and BFI’s seasons / DVD’s releases... and as a female writer isn’t Carmen Gray proud of it? Isn’t she cute when she pretends to know something (on Beatrice Dalle) that perhaps escapes her? How many times, commentators have remarked that her film list celebrations are like a Wikipedia copy-paste mechanical prosthesis!

Do you think, Liz, that because so few female writers are given a voice in a still dominated male environment that some of them are working hard to discredit others? I do, I call it the “lobster-politics”!

Is it really me picking on Carmen Gray as it looks like all along that post, or is she responsible for excluding me (and surely others?)... not only in the film business but music via Algiers, art spaces via Tate and even jobs I applied? I believe that Isabel Stevens or Sophie Mayer (just to name a few) are aware of my writings and yet I have never been asked my opinion on anything?

Does it make me a male writer?

As someone told me to comfort me: “If it were about your writing style, then Brian Robinson would have asked its ladies @ BFI to stop getting in touch with you.” Then I read other female writers and it can’t be simply because they don’t like my style! Given more opportunities more often, I'm sure I'll improve drastically! The politic of exclusion, let’s call it! Protectionists and underground Tories!

Now, coming back on Corine Marienneau who made a rare appearance on French TV due to Laurent Ruquier’s urging, I was very surprised to learn that she was excluded to be part again on the band reforming 30 years after splitting up.
As an 11 or 12 years old, I was air-guitaring and singing by heart their songs (I still know the lyrics and only air-guitar when drunk), Téléphone was very influential in my political awareness and my rebellion against my parents and society. The band is due to tour again in 2016 without Corine and I believed like many French people that she was the one who didn’t want to. Instead, since 1986 she was kept quiet! It resonates to me as this is precisely what Les Inrocks have been doing to me, interfering in whatever I’m doing one way or another! [For the anecdote, once I was writing a chronique on Mac that Mishka Assayas had just sent via fax @ Les Inrocks in 91 or 92, when someone mentioned Téléphone. I didn’t expect any journalists to be fans of the band, but I was surprised to hear the editor saying that in 25 years time, nobody would even mention them as they were supposedly doomed to “tomber aux oubliettes”]

I’m off to shower and hopefully will finish this episode later today... although I have to buy some lemons, pay some bills and get to a place where it stinks of piss and sweat!

Long day... Interestingly enough, neither Les Inrocks nor Christophe Conte mentioned #ONPC this week when every Sundays, they do tartine their tweets and walls with the TV program. [To those catching up, I was the first and only full time female working for them when 22, and Emmanuel Tellier – now @ Télérama – asked repetitively for a blow job [in FR] – to them, I make up stories]. So, technically speaking, if they want to keep up with their new feminist costume, they can’t criticise Corine! And after a long e-conversation about Algiers and else with JD Beauvallet, he concluded I was aggressive, lying and misinterpreted everything. To see if he is true to himself, my closing line of this post is taken from his favourite writer and his tweet: “Kurt Vonnegut. Profession: hero”. We shall see what he does with it since he does read my blog!

So, Corine, who has been kept away from the limelight, is out telling her story. What’s moving in the prog is of course, watching her being strong and yet vulnerable, uneasy to speak out, speaking de travers or clumsily but also Ruquier who is highly determined to get her on tour while the two interviewers – Léa Salamé (who has just received a journalist award) and Yann Moix are highly respectful of the bass player. To those who are non French, it was not common in the late 70’s early 80’s to see a woman in a rock band (I can’t actually think of a rock band with a woman at the time), I mean they were the French Rolling Stones (they actually toured with them)! So, basically, she wrote a book where she mentioned how she sacrificed her féminité to make herself invisible as a woman and somehow became “a man’s image” to be accepted... the boys are simply vexed and their reaction is to reform without her as to punish her instead of trying to understand! She dared talk of her submission, her view and... She invents stories... isn’t it funny how we women have to be kept in a drawer if we speak out Liz? What’s even funnier is that Laurent Ruquier is the one who insisted on her to come to the program, he is the one who made it loud for the band to reform with her inclusion. It is rare, in France, in a male dominated world, on a show watched by millions of viewers. So, I hope the band will reflect on it and take her back on board.

As for me, I hope Les Inrocks will stop telling everyone I’m a liar and if JD Beauvallet wants to honour his hero, he should demonstrate that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way... not in distance via telepathy! Recognise what happened and its consequences. If he thinks Turkey should admit its genocide towards Armenian people, then why is it acceptable his friend Emmanuel get away with it, why is it acceptable to prevent me from doing what I do, why is acceptable to prove how difficult I am? As Corine says with some shame: “Je suis chiante” [I’m a pain in the ass] Why do we women become “chiantes”? Surely, some of us have natural tendencies... but we are pushed to explore these very tendencies! [Helping to reflect: in 2006, I contacted JD for Les Inrocks to help on a Björk project I was doing in Peru. Since then, they have written about Peru online or paper. In July, I mentioned the Shining Path, they had to do it recently! – everything is scrutinised]

As for you Liz, I can’t hope the same as you will need to mature, but feel free to surprise me!

UPDATE 26/12/15

Recently, I toured around Soho and Mayfair. I just felt out of place among these Xmas decorations, people carrying giant shopping bags and I didn’t fit either in the new trend going on: “several men [and women] who walked bowed down to the ground” walking on and on and around “beneath a broad grey sky, upon a vast and dusty plain devoid of grass, each one carried upon his back an enormous Chimera as heavy as a sack of flour or coal. But the monstrous beast was not a dead weight, rather she enveloped and oppressed the men [and women] with her powerful and elastic muscles, and clawed with her two vast talons at the breast of her mount... These grave and weary faces bore witness to no despair... they journeyed onwards with the resigned faces of men [and women] condemned to hope for ever”. Going from an art space to another, I slalomed around these new trendy people carrying their sleeping bags and duvets as if they had just stepped out of Charles Baudelaire’s XIX century Le Spleen de Paris / Petits Poèmes en Prose. They were so many of them. I guess, Liz Parkinson, that they are polluting people’s view at Wolseley? That’s why vertical places like The Shard are mushrooming in London... to prevent spoiling le bon appétit from cultural vultures whose chimera is to create a feast for the happy fews!

On Christmas day, I was invited to dine at my neighbour’s place. She wanted to show her appreciation as I take care of her cat from time to time (despite my mild cat’s phobia – a Massif Central’s tale in a 1970’s summer incident) and she invited another neighbour with her dog and cat. It was an Irish ladies’ event with a French woman who hasn’t celebrated Xmas for the past two decades or so. I accepted the invite because the few Irish people I met can tell tales like Griots do. Because they have a witchy side that’s not to displease me; they have reached menopause; and yes, they are friendly and funny. I think they were concerned about my poor state of mind.

One used to be an anti-Maggie activist often on TV in the 70’s/80’s, the other one gave me a lift back home a week before Xmas as I was bathing in blood for my mooncup was overloaded. I had been seated in a gloomy place, waiting for the workers to find me a charity where I would slave around. I was supposed to leave at 11am that day but I was detained till 1.30pm. I say “detained” because the government treats its unemployed people as criminals having to serve a community service to justify their allowances. I was sent to a part of London where it looks like Las Vegas: shopping malls and betting shops furnish the high street for a good kilometre. Then, in the meanders of its back streets, I ended up in a no man’s land industrial “oven” where a dozen other slaves waited for their fate. The place is no glamour! People faces are no glittery! When finally, they told me to go home, I reached the toilet where the back wall was smeared with dark stains and a mini puddle of piss sat by the throne. In order to avoid touching the walls and the floor near the seat, my dodgy geometrical position contributed to add some red paint as I pulled out my cup. The next stunt was to soap and wash the cup and re-insert it as quick as possible. Short of planning ahead... there was no soap but luckily water was running, cold of course. Out of choice, I washed it off and smuggled the silicon object back in. My hands were dirty, the tap was dirty, I just had to believe in the God within me.

When I contacted Ken Loach for an idea of a film, I didn’t know he was shooting I, Daniel Blake: “... Perhaps you’ve heard about Ken’s new film I, Daniel Blake which is about the dangerous effects of benefit sanctions? Ken and Paul Laverty did lots of research while writing the film and talked to many people who have gone through similar situations to yourself...” Ken’s assistant added his film will be out in Oct 2016.

Do you know, Liz, what makes me cringe? Next year, all the beautiful journalists will be invited to private views by beautiful press officers and all of you will be shocked by a situation in which we are all responsible and have triggered, they will debate about the horror of it while still excluding small publications like mine to attend press screenings. The irony of it is that the BFI is co-producing it and you, Liz Parkinson, will promote the film all smiles to a private gathering of exclusive happy fews...

So, as I was sitting in my neighbour’s car, I said I had never imagined being part of such world in a so-called progressed / progressive world! What a processed world! The worker who found me a placement is as a victim as myself. Only he is paid for what he does and has accepted his condition. It’s as violent as what Archaos once predicted in their “circus” with an obscure hint of Delicatessen, Brazil or a place where Alicia’s journey takes her from a candid world to a violent reality in Efimera!

My placement? A charity church overlooking CONEL where I used to teach NEET kids to help them feel part of a society... I’m contemplating my own engulfing as if I was part of Haruki Murakami’s Sputnik Sweetheart... observing from a distance someone I used to be...

UPDATED 17 Jan 2016

Hey Liz Parkinson... I won’t wish you a Happy New Year but I have to congratulate you on spending your day with semi-French Anna Karina (I’m saying “semi” because if she commits a crime, she’ll go to jail and won’t be able to be French anymore... I’m like Henry David Thoreau, I “... simplify, simplify”)! Your institution, BFI, even went as far as giving some sort of rehabilitation to Chris Barwick and his boss Mehelli Modi of Second Run (see Mani Akbari / Mark Cousins section above – no, I have nothing against Mania and Mark!): “26 critics and connoisseurs recommend their five best home-cinema releases of 2015”... it does raise the big question – How many women out of these 26 “critics”? I have to say I’m surprised that Carmen Gray, Joanna Hogg and Suzy Gillett are not featured.

One of the coolest women on earth is pinning it down, Sara Driver (you know that guy who is the king of cool, after David Bowie, and he makes ace films and he is her partner... Jim el Jarmusch) might be talking about women filmmakers in the US, but surely UK is no different, whether in film making or in writing about films! And since I’m at it with the couple Driver-Jarmusch, why none of his films appear in the BBC, 100 greatest American films or in the BFI’s Directors top 100 films

I was mentioning you today in a post on your (future) friends Les Inrocks, writing about the reasons I stopped my blog!

the "likes" are from Les Inrocks :)

On 30 September 2015, I exchanged with Jean-Daniel Beauvallet’s brother and plugged my link on my Q&A with Thomas Jorion on his abandoned sites’ photography as we spoke about Jeanne Moreau. Doing that interview (and its translation in English) requires a lot of energy and work but I had to rehabilitate myself as your friend John Harris Dunning did a great job to knock down my confidence. Yes, he’s a bastard and nobody should take any notice but when you look for a job, his nasty comments on him being a grammar nazi doesn’t quite boost any left-over confidence!

So, as I was building up my confidence in Q&Aing Thomas in March 2015, whose work is fantastic, I was aware that Les Inrocks read my blog and might rework the topic! This morning, they published on FB, Victor Branquart’s Exploration urbaine: entre chasseurs de ruines et photographes du temps featuring Thomas Jorion... After commenting on the thread, I got around 100 views on my posts (him and yours), four “likes” within an hour and my comment was made eventually only visible to me... A few hours after questioning the magazine on their reason to discard my comment, I still have no answers!

So, basically, the message here from Les Inrocks or BFI is that you can discriminate, being a racist, steal people’s ideas / work because you abuse of your power! You have learnt some great skills Liz Parkinson and surely when it’s time for you to reflect on your life... are you sure you will be proud? Are you sure that your silence or the one from BFI, as a matter of fact, is a response? That you guys are sorting it out with getting you on a semi-French actress duty, or publishing an article on some guys being pseudo-connoisseurs? Nasty!

Oh, and you think the world is a duller place since Bowie’s departure? Nah, the world is becoming a dull place due to people creating a class system in the culture environment! Before, the division was much more a matter of skin colour or social class, now it’s being “replaced” by... numbers: followers, likes, favs. If the number is minimal, you can grant yourself the right to treat people cheaply by giving them a number. Are you sick? Genuine Q!

What truly makes me sad about Bowie’s departure – am a late comer on him, jumped late on his bandwagon – is the fact that few artists like him are left. Perhaps as I get older, I get less affected; perhaps I have lost so many people after nearly half a century of fooling concrete soil that I have become harder... but also I guessed his way home: on the day I saw the Blackstar video, I had just come back from visiting some galleries in W1. I found some references in one of the 70’s feminist artists who bandaged her face and painfully played with her decomposing body; other references were of Anselm Kiefer’s Nothung (his lab attic) and Hirst / Mapplethorpe among other things / artists. I had a “funny” vibe when I saw the vid’. A few days later, I mistyped something on Youtube and one of the options was Kiss’ I Was Made For Loving You. I was 10 or 11 when the sound and the visual blew me. I don’t think I listened to that track ever since. This time, it blew me differently. I saw Bowie meeting up with Klaus Nomi. I understood its multiple meanings but its one conclusion. I didn’t know he was ill. I listened to Kiss’s song intensively until 9 Jan. Today, I was double checking the lead singer’s make-up. He has a blackstar on his right eye. It’s funny how I started my blog with a title such as Passage and included tracks from LCD Soundsystem (now reforming) and David Bowie (now departing). Ah, and his last following before his big move was @TheTweetOfGod. The same that got Lou Reed as I mentioned on 9/12 above (... "The fuckstard did manage to get Lou Reed")... So now, they are both again on the Transformer's side.

On Monday the 11, when I heard the news, my first thought was on an artist’s artwork I was going to interview live. The show went well and the B-boy artist was adorable, but I played the paranoid card, so am clandestine on the show. To prevent people like you from spraying their bile around. Am still not paid, but it’s good that some people have trust! Sadly, I’m aware that Jean-Daniel Beauvallet listened to it...

FEBRUARY 2016

It’s funny how you tweet as soon as I mention you. This is how some members of the haute @ BFI seem to be reacting: “let’s not solve anything; let’s take the piss; let’s be constipated bourgeois!” But I’ll come back to that. Now, I’ll tease your friend JD.

Has JD Beauvallet sought comfort of my wrong doings from Gaelle Massicot-Bitty or my mother? To prove his point? “She invents stories, I have notes from her doctors” – poor him!

I met GMB 10 years ago in the French Ministry of Culture. She then sent me some CDs in Lima in valise diplomatique to the French Institute. Not “arriving”, I dared enquire! Her next rude email was sent to French embassy Culturel Attaché, French Institute Director. Sadly for her, I had befriended them. They knew I had been brought up in French Embassies: a parcel coming in valise diplo always arrive. Her lack of investigation led her to believe that I wanted some extra CDs when in fact the teacher turned Cultural Director @ FI helped himself. We all knew it and I had to ask her if she sent them. Protocole oblige! Her and I never managed to be friends, but then again, some others found difficult to deal with her. I am difficult and don’t I wish to be otherwise? (if you do not take any notice to it, then I'm easy to deal with) At least I’m honest about it. How many cultural directors would prefer to be paid less and have more budget to get French musicians on their temporary territories? (Smooth played in Lima in 2006 and 2007... One French act per year... twice the same band... Big-piss-take-big-deal!). Once their three year contract over, cultural directors with integrity and cultural competence, living in under-privilege countries, don’t renew it!
Oh and she somehow supports Les Inrocks’s music project (financially I understand).
Six years ago, she was shocked when Frederic Elalouf wanted € 3000 for two dates abroad (when he would charge from 200 to 500 in France). As far as I know, she granted him 1000 per date / 7 dates in India/Nepal for doors I opened to him 2 years back!

And Fleur Pellerin who has been e-following Emmanuel Tellier – the guy obsessed with blow jobs and who harassed me @ Les Inrocks! Oops, Fleur is no longer in place as cultural MP for François Hollande...

[I remember once he was invited to talk about Bjork with Bernard Lenoir on France Inter (for Vespertine?). He only stopped talking about her fat “popottin” when Lenoir told him to shut it!]
[I could even bet his return to the mag thx to JD Beauvallet and Pierre Siankowski...]

... Autumn 2008, I contacted a freelance photographer I got on with @ les Inrocks when I worked there until 92. P. Messina.

We met where he lived in Montmartre. He was (still is) an important photographer. Out of the blue, he asked if I ever had problems with Tellier. For the first time, I talked about it. Other women had problems he said!

P. left the magazine as he had enough to be / feel blackmailed. He had schooled with Elsa Zylberstein who acted in 1991 in Maurice Pialat’s Van Gogh. I remember vaguely Christian Fevret being annoyed for meeting Pialat’s resistance to be interviewed in the Parisian mag. What I didn’t realise at the time was that Christian was very persistent to P. to get in touch with Elsa. The interview took place between Fevret / Kaganski and Pialat. According to that re-published interview, Pialat didn’t allow Les Inrocks to publish their interview until 1993...

P. told me about how Eric Mulet got a sack. It took seven years in court and he won. I got in touch with Eric and he confirmed.

When P. and I separated, he showed me a picture of his wife (who also worked @ Les Inrocks after I left). I thought I was looking at myself. What I don’t understand is why P. and Tellier are now friends?

Following my open letter to Frederic Bonnaud in May last year (Le diable ecoute The Smiths), I received a few emails from Telerama (where Emmanuel Tellier has been working for around 15 years) to subscribe to them. 1 Dec 2015, I received an email from Les Inrocks to invite me to subscribe to Telerama! To which, I replied to Frederic Bonnaud, Christophe Conte etc to cease the joke. I received no further emails from Telerama or Les Inrocks on behalf of Telerama. What do we call that? Psychic harassment? Subliminal bullying?

Early February last year, I contacted Charie Hebdo, offering to represent them and gave some ideas on how to explain French freedom of expression in English and Spanish. Was Christophe Conte (Billets Durs with Coco) influential in not getting me on their board? The weekly satiric paper has surely adopted some of my tips but never managed to respond to my emails! As much as I still feel strong in supporting freedom of speech or even the CH’s spirit, I still can’t understand why a “political” band such as Algiers had to post on their website such stupid “ad” the day after France was marching silently for its dead accompanied by the entire world following the Charlie Hebdo massacre!

Algiers, those same guys who must have been lobotomised for “forgetting” to be interviewed.

March 2016

So, la Liz... Still enjoying your powerful position of segregating people? No worries, you are not alone in doing so! Just discovered that Mark Cousins is defo not interested in me seeing in films; Carmen Gray (her again) is playing my twin sis and getting paid for it...

When I wrote about how cheap the 20000 Days on Earth team behave at Barbican (under the question: “Don’t you think you write like a pancake?”) or how the said film was fading (under question “Any favourite films?”), the “great film critic” is no less indulging in my analysis months later, after claiming the year before the film was a “colossal rockumentary” as a main headline!

I loved the way BFI starts with a Jules & Jim picture to illustrate “Anna Karina on Bande à part”... Spot on!

Or how your über privileged boss and archivist Brian Robinson is taking advantage on less privilege people! (When Riverside Studios ran its Derek Jarman’s season, Ed Lewis had died. Shira McLeod and I were never friends! Not that I didn’t want to, but I’m not British)

I am not happy with myself... the way I constantly publicised the BFI like I did in my Punk's posts (suggesting people to visit its mediatheque), but I'm glad Vivienne Westwood's son Corré is stepping in. It is disgraceful the way you archive people's work without displaying humble Punk's witnesses or simply how you recuperate identities! You are just glorifying something you simply can't get!
As for women in films... here is another sample of what you, Liz Parkinson is contributing!

It seems that BFI’s great programmes are no less than a smoke screen to hide its hideous racism, discrimination and bouts of fascism... giving a number in lieu of a name, what a revolution!

Perhaps, here, one can find the BFI brochette of people who have fossilised... are total constipated: Brian Robinson, Mark Cousins, Peccadillo, Stuart Brown, Joanna Hogg, Adam Roberts, Carmen Gray, Second Run etc. (over 100 voters!)

Mind you, you are melting very well into this very cynical society that you are helping to shape! Recently, as I was slaving (or as they call it “doing community service” like criminals do – my crime being unemployed) for a Manor House’s food growing / climate change programme, I learnt that all volunteers were entitled to free meals at lunch time, but I wasn’t! They asked me to cover an employment officer’s duty (who is paid by Hackney.gov.uk) on a Saturday, so she could go to a beauty saloon... and guess what? She gave a coat in exchange; got a day off in the following week... I gave the £200 coat back and asked for a job instead. I’m still waiting...

We can call this abusive, don’t you think? You are doing well in that respect! And the likes of Brian Robinson are of great support to you! And you all get a pat on the back and get paid for it!

April 2016

So… April was the new January: Victoria Wood (cancer)... Howard Marks (cancer).... Ronit Elkbaketz (cancer).... Papa Wemba (Molière syndrome)... Prince (aliens wanted him back coz they had enough of how humans are fucking around)... and so many others.

Once again, BFI / Sight & Sound got noticed for their silence. Total eclipse on actress and film director Ronit Elkabetz who died at 51. On 19 April, Sight & Sound was more concerned about licking La Cinemathèque’s backdoor, while BFI celebrated its new bank partnership for its next London Film Festival (LFF)... So, when I thought it was perhaps... just maybe that her films hadn’t been distributed in la Perfide Albion, I discovered au hazard des twits that Guy Lodge, Peter Bradshaw and Andrew Pulver se sont emu... and they could! Not only were her films programmed in UK, but she was also invited recently to LFF! I was wondering where the so called film peeps were: les Jonathan Romney, les Mark Cousins, Joanna Hogg/Adam Roberts ou that silly sausage of self-proclaimed feminist / film journo Carmen Gray? What a shame!

Just like David Bowie... back in January, Prince was also highly honoured worldwide. But some guys have to pride themselves for the most profound twit e.v.e.r // t.w.i.t.t.ed: 16 RT and 47 Likes for “Prince is KING. Fuck other royals. #offwiththeirheads” – that deserves a Belgium golden shower right onto their third eye! Mega DNA from da team!

Meanwhile, Cyril Hanouna hijacked his TV guests and audience sending his sbire to bother Joey Starr at work... that sort of abuse of power – Cyril is king of petroleum pixels on French TV – ended up with a warning and a slap from NTM rapper to the female wig wearing sport journalist Gilles Verdez as he feared and obeyed his boss Hanouna!

Visiting my extended farmers’ family in North of France (now called “the Highs of France” as philosophically explained by humorist master Thomas VDB on France Inter), I learnt to leave barking dogs on lead alone. Joey Starr is no dog, don’t get me wrong in here, but why tease a ticklish mammal when your fate is easily calculated? Don’t get me wrong again... I don’t defend violence and I am not Joey’s biggest fan. I have respect though for the human being. Joey is no angel and knows jail! As myself, a mammal born with crap intolerance, I can’t understand how some mortal mammals manage to jubilate when they provoke a situation / an action, get “surprised” by a reaction while playing innocent: mind game it’s called! When a delirious narcissist plays reverse psychology surfing on its twisted “foreplays” expecting the other to apologise as I explained on CliqueTV (see Alexis Martin), on 21 April, or why the rapper is a victim of manipulation, humiliation... a victim of his past wounds (see Christian Pedron) and why such bad TV is actually a caricature or a reflect on this world malfunction (see Anne Marie Breheret) and not simply a frivolous issue!

A few days later, Daniel Schneidermann on Liberation will also develop those issues while also accentuating on the fact that journalists are no longer the deciding elements on treating a subject! But we all are, the clickers and forwarders in this democracy of social networks.

But of course, to deviate the course of justice, some politicians whose parents sacrificed themselves for their offspring’ studies take “time off” to rename our French regions... Before, I was born in Alsace but now it sounds a lot more cowboy-like: I have to say “I was born in the Far East”... My new mission on Earth is to ski with cowboy boots on!

To conclude this paragraph on the slap, I’d like to stress and ask to the voyeurs sournois, the pervert manipulators: Do you know how hard it is for those with mental wounds to constantly having to control violent drives? Do you think that one feels good when a punch flies away? Who is sick? The one provoking or the one reacting? A bon entendeur Cyril Hanouna, JD Beauvallet, Carmen Gray, Fleur Burlet and those bloody PRs...

JUNE 2016

Early June 1999, Soho, I paid tribute with my London LGBTI friends to The Admiral Duncan’s pub in Old Compton Street. It had been the scene of a nail bomb explosion.

Just as I “celebrated” Muhammad Ali’s departure, his sense of fight and human rights with a hint of humour, a week later, a remote member of a terrorist sect decided to pulverise the gay crowd @ the Pulse’s club. Orlando, US, 12 June 2016.

Muhammad was not only a champion on the ring, but he fought also against discrimination as well as (re) embracing his peaceful Muslim faith.

At a time where the Muslim community is deeply affected and faces prejudice, it was somehow vital to remember the boxing champ.

13 June 2016, Soho, 7pm. I was part of a crowd paying tribute to the victims of Orlando... in Old Compton Street.

Let’s remember that the gay community gave its lettres de noblesse to the burgeoning club scene around the world, but defo in the states and UK (Paradise Garage, Heaven, Trade, Club 54 etc.)

We don’t blame the Buddhists, the Christians, the Rastafarians or whatever other faith one might want to believe when a sect kills (its) people in the name “of love”. Perhaps it’s time to refer to ISIS as a sect of terrorism and leave the Muslim community alone!

A few days before the Orlando’s tuerie, I played on repeat Impermanence, a track by Othon Mataragas and countertenor Ernesto Tomasini. According to Buddhism, the concept of impermanence is a continuous change, but a natural process... it shouldn’t be interrupted unexpectedly!