Wednesday 2 December 2015

Dear Liz Parkinson @ BFI

[SUMMER SOLSTICE 2019: ex InrockTelerama 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 30th 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 RobinsonEvery 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 Nude502; Bjork. Vulnicura424; Las Kellies. Total Exposure421; STEPHEN O’MALLEY, OREN AMBARCHI & RANDALL DUNN: SHADE THEMES FROM K - 410; Cría cuervos (Raise Ravens). Carlos Saura407; Atomica Gallery & Shop. Dalston. Pop Surrealism, Lowbrow, Mid-Century, Polynesian Pop388; LOOKING FOR LIGHT: JANE BOWN. A film by Luke Dodd and Michael Whyte360; Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch344; Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty311; Aurora. Cristi Puiu. – 308; FKA twigs288; Laura Mulvey // Peter Wollen. Riddles of the Sphinx256; Blumenfeld Studio: 1941-1960. Photography exhibition244; Louise Maisons. A tale of B&W analogue photography - 221; A London Trilogy: The Films of Saint Etienne 2003-2007216; Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy presents Matt Johnson from The The – 212; The Vacant Lots206; My Secret World - The Story Of Sarah Records197.
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 @ Téléramaasked 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 KissI 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 Tellierthe 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!

 13 June 2016, Soho, 7pm. Old Compton Street.
Tribute to the victims of Orlando...  
The Love Umbrella
© Sybille Castelain

Please contact sybillecastelain@yahoo.co.uk to use photo
 13 June 2016, Soho, 7pm. Old Compton Street.
Tribute to the victims of Orlando...  
"Village People"
© Sybille Castelain

Please contact sybillecastelain@yahoo.co.uk to use photo

 13 June 2016, Soho, 7pm. Old Compton Street.
Tribute to the victims of Orlando...  
Tainted Love
© Sybille Castelain

Please contact sybillecastelain@yahoo.co.uk to use photo
 13 June 2016, Soho, 7pm. Old Compton Street.
Tribute to the victims of Orlando...  
Get Up Stand Up, Stand Up For Your Rights
© Sybille Castelain

Please contact sybillecastelain@yahoo.co.uk to use photo
13 June 2016, Soho, 7pm. Old Compton Street.
Tribute to the victims of Orlando...  
Sing It Back
© Sybille Castelain

Please contact sybillecastelain@yahoo.co.uk to use photo
JULY 2016
So little Lizzy Parkinson, long time? I heard you became a reciprocity twit friend with Tony Garnet, your great discrimination on me (so, that’s how BFI resolves its issues... Brit to Brit!). You must be the happy girl with #Brexit innit?
Anyway, this morning I left early for a pre-PV on Robert Rauschenberg @ Tate Modern and I pretty much know what and how the exhibition will be from 1 Dec 2016 to April 2017: Big one indeed!


 Monogram, 1955-59, by Robert Rauschenberg: 

So, I just got back home tonight and the first thing I checked was to know whether any terrorist sect has been “prolific” today... Funnily enough, since the #NiceAttacks I have started to become frigid or guilty. Frigid because I have registered the banality. Guilty because I don’t feel the events as strong as I used to. It’s become part of life and yet... that’s the first thing I checked.
Then, I checked Jean-Luc Godard’s cousin as he is officially, today, president of Peru: Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. I thought Les Inrockuptibles would write about it but que nenni! You can go to bed little Lizzie now coz I’ll continue in French.

Instead, Les Inrocks, my ex bosses, wrote about banal things on FB including the vlogger Marina Joyce. When the NME seems to be more concerned, the French mag regards it as “much ado about nothing”! (well, what’s the point in writing about it then? Why not talk about the new Peruvian president, cousin of Jean-Luc Godard that Christophe Conte seems to be quite keen at present?
Si le magazine « culturel » avait mené une enquête, il aurait parlé du NME plutôt que du Sun au 8ème paragraphe en citant Daesh. Et de continuer «… où elle demande à ses fans de la rejoindre à 6h30 du matin dans un quartier malfamé de Londres.» 


Marie Turcan pour les Inrocks, Jul 2016

Ce quartier soit disant malfamé (un no-go zone?) de Londres n’est autre que Bethnal Green dans l’est de Londres : un quartier populaire mais pas spécialement malfamé ! Et de renchérir l’anxiogène au 9ème paragraphe : « D’autant plus que, comme l’a rappelé Rue89, Bethnal Green est un “lieu de sinistre mémoire car 173 personnes y sont mortes en 1943 lors d’un mouvement de foule (elles essayaient d’entrer dans un abri pour échapper à un bombardement)”»

Ok, Matthieu Pigasse a racheté les Inrocks et soutient (financièrement ?) Rue89, mais 1943, c’est loin non ? Les bombardements… comment dire… on a reconstruit depuis… et si je m’y mets, je vais dire que dans les 80’s, les gays y étaient tabassés à mort ! Faut-il condamner les quartiers bombardés ? Autant vivre à Barbados alors ? (c’est pour l'allitération et sa dissonance, ça me plaisait bien).
Il s’agissait simplement de reprendre le 4ème paragraphe du NME sous la question « Why was #savemarinajoyce trending? » et ça indiquait tout bêtement que le RDV à 6h30 du mat’ n’était autre que l’habituelle « rave » party avant d’aller bosser, organisée par Morning Gloryville à l’Oval Space dont les Inrocks faisaient pourtant l’éloge en février 2015 ! (ne citant pas l’endroit comme malfamé mais comme « paumé » à juste titre d’ailleurs !).

Bon, sinon, y’a pas eu d’attentat aujourd’hui, le Pérou a un nouveau président, le V&A abrite une expo très instructive sur l’ingenieur Ove Arup qui a participé à la construction d’abris pendant la seconde guerre mondiale à Londres (voir « Deep Shelter ») et plus sereinement au Centre Pompidou. Quant à Robert Rauschenberg à la Tate Modern, il faudra attendre le 1er Décembre pour admirer entre autre ses collaborations avec Merce Cunningham et John Cage… trois ans de travail curatorial nous ont dit ce matin les conservateurs et organisateurs d’art

AUGUST 2016

How comfy is your new little nest Lizzie Liz the sneaky lizard! I am not sure your English is that good (you are probably more fluent in Xcel though), so I’ll continue in French...

A few days ago, I ventured alone in Bethnal Green and according to some hidden street art piece, it looks like Les Inrocks were right in depicting le quartier as “malfamé” ! (See July) Yes, the Orange Spotted Emerald became instinct – même si la bestiole n’a probablement jamais fait son buzz dans le swinging 60’s de Londinum ! Be afraid, be very afraid… tambour et musique des Dents de la Mer !



 © Sybille Castelain
Bethnal Green, London, August 2016


Ce magazine que je vénérais tant semble aujourd’hui se vautrer dans des articles incohérents, mal informé (« Inattendu, impertinent et impeccable »… « Marilyn Manson reprend David Bowie… et bizarrement, c’est très beau ». Et oui la musicienne « journaliste » ne sait pas que toutes les reprises de MM sont sombres et n’a certes pas écouté les superbes sons gothiques qu’il a fait de Sweet Dreams ; Personal Jesus ou Tainted Love ! Fini la musique pas comme les autres donc, ou encore l’avance sur la news à venir. Ils font aujourd’hui dans la récup’ de ce qui buzz ailleurs (TimeOut, mai 2016) et « re-écrivent » ce buzz (début août) presque copie conforme avec cependant une légère différence : « … l’électro-swing pour faire danser les filles. » selon les Inrocks… et c’est bien connu, il n’y a que les filles qui dansent (les hommes et les femmes restent assis !) Ben si. Ce serait dommage de casser l’image de l’Inrock sexiste. Et puis, y étaient-ils vraiment dans ce bar ? La similitude de leur papier avec celui de Time Out est juste frappante.
Quant au renouveau de la Tate Modern vu par Be A Londonner (ayant interviewe JD Beauvallet) et vu par les Inrocks, on se rend vite compte que certaines photos crédités par BAL se retrouvent (avec une légère différence d’angle) dans Ies Inrocks. Et étrangement, aucun d’eux n’arrivent à créditer les œuvres d’art… Savent-ils que l’arbre est Ai Weiwei ?

Quand j’ai voulu bosser chez eux (on est pre-third millenium), ce n’était pas parce que j’aimais leur façon d’écrire ou que j’aimais Bowie (je suis encore en session rattrapage) ou le Velvet ou The Smiths (JD Beauvallet m’a certainement condamnée pour mes « goût de chiottes », eh oui, j’aimais Siouxsie ! – il a peut-être tous ses singles mais il ne pouvait pas l’encaisser et ce n’est pas parce qu’on interview un/e artiste qu’on l’aime ! J’ai tous les singles de Björk et je ne supporte pas d’écouter la plupart de ses albums, je la respecte pourtant pour son innovation et sa créativité).
Nein, je voulais faire partie de cette équipe de défricheurs de sons et d’auteurs pas comme les autres. A part Bernard Lenoir sur les grandes ondes, je ne crois pas qu’on pouvait s’abreuver de mélodies audacieuses… à moins de tendre son tympan côté FM ou Perfide Albion avec l’ami John Peel (d’ailleurs célébré de septembre à février 2017 à la V&A avec You Say You Want a Revolution? Records and Rebels 1966-1970). Des mecs à l’affut du truc underground ou alternatif à une époque où le Mac t’envoyait l’image d’une bombe sur ton écran si t’avais déconné mais t’avais aucune idée de ta déconne et quand ça explosait ton ordi, c’était tous les ordis de la salle qui explosaient (c’est du vécu, bouclage quasi terminé près à aller chez l’imprimeur). Il fallait tout retaper et traduire mais c’était moins dangereux que cette secte terroriste qui gangrène le monde !

Mais pourquoi lire les Inrocks et commenter sur FB ? Parce que mine de rien, j’y ai été harcelée et que comme par hasard, je n’ai pas pu, depuis mon départ en 1992, percer dans les medias et ce n’est pas juste parce que j’ai un « foutu caractère » hein !

Comme disait mon chouchou Xavier Dolan « Je pense que tout est possible à qui rêve, ose, travaille et n’abandonne jamais ». Tout est possible pour l’homme blanc peut-être, encore faut-il qu’il soit de milieu plutôt avantagé et je rejoins Osons Causer à propos de L’égalité des chances à l’école n’existe pas. En ce qui me concerne, je n’étais pas fille de prolétaire, mais l’ambiance familiale penchait du côté mauvais fixe et en plus, on me réservait un avenir de femme au foyer ou éventuellement « maitresse, voire prof ». Le reste était hors de question ! Heureusement qu’un certain Monsieur Rieffel (aujourd’hui sociologue des medias, auteur et professeur à l’université) avait été mon prof en collège et m’avait encouragée à l’écriture et à la lecture de textes réservés aux classes supérieures – non, pas du porno, juste des trucs un peu plus « difficiles » pour une gosse de 12 ans perdue dans un collège de campagne - (quelques mois après avoir quitté les Inrocks et juste avant de partir pour Londres, je le croisais sur une rame de métro alors que j’allais au spectacle de Carole Laure [She says move on ?]. Il se souvenait bien de moi et me demandait ce que je faisais. Pour être à la hauteur de la confiance qu’il m’avait accordée, je lui répondais que je travaillais aux Inrocks. Il connaissait bien et pensait que c’était bien pour moi, pour l’écriture, des gens sérieux et j’ai dit oui, ils sont sérieux). D’autres profs de lycée me poussaient également à écrire…

24 ans plus tard, je n’ai toujours pas abandonné, mais 24 ans ! Et pourtant, j’ai rêvé, osé, travaillé sans abandonner, me suis essoufflée souvent et encore…
Parce que je dis n’importe quoi ? Que j’invente des histoires ? Que je suis incohérente ? Que j’ai des goûts de chiottes ? Du coup inemployable ? Qu’ont-ils donc à cacher ces hommes, blancs, qui décident de l’avenir d’une femme ?

Jetons une paire de jumelles dans le rétroviseur : J’arrive aux Inrocks début 91 pour remplacer Emmanuel Tellier qui était au service des abonnements mais qui voulait être journaliste (forcément je suivrai le même itinéraire, non ?non, vous êtes une femme !) ; Au lieu d’intégrer la salle de rédac’ comme l’avait fait Tellier pour les abonnements, JD Beauvallet me construit un « beau » bureau près des chiottes dans le placard de l’entrée (ça fait un peu Harry Potter, mais J. K. Rowling finirait son manuscrit en 1995, donc j’étais la prems) – quelqu’un récemment me suggérait que c’était peut-être pour me garder à l’écart de Tellier vu sa réputation de charmeur/dragueur/baiseur.
Donc, Tellier est en couple (comme les sept autres mecs embauchés) et quand ça lui prenait, il me demandait une pipe très discrètement… et continuait alors que sa copine était enceinte les derniers mois avant mon départ ; jusqu'à l’embauche de Teresa Pellerito/Monfourny, j’étais la seule (et première) femme à plein temps ; Teresa était déjà secrétaire de rédaction pour les Inrocks avant mon arrivée mais en freelance puisqu’elle travaillait pour un autre magazine (de voile ?) dont elle s’est faite licencier pendant mon séjour aux Inrocks ; le jour de son arrivée, pour les in-house Inrocks, était mémorable pour sa crise et prise de bec avec Fevret le redac’ chef et fondateur du magazine (pourquoi ne lui a-t-il pas mis un coup de boule ? – un gros caca nerveux qu’elle a pondu la dame) et je comprenais que je ne pourrai m’en faire une alliée !
A part les abonnements, je répondais au téléphone et tapais les chroniques/popus des freelances (Laurence Romance, Michka Assayas, Arnaud Viviant etc…) et je m’occupais de 1000 autres petits trucs. Pour le téléphone, je passais tous les appels ! J’avais une liste de personnes que je ne devais pas passer ou de temps en temps, on me demandait « si truc appelle, je suis en déplacement ». Non, je dis ça parce que c’est arrivé que j’entende « elle ne m’a pas dit ; elle a peut-être pas voulu te passer ». Non, je filtrais si on me demandait ! Pour ceux comme Aurélien Ferenczi qui envoyaient des textes dans l’espoir d’écrire pour les Inrocks, je les déposais dans le bureau de Fevret (et comme je les lisais, je lui donnais mon avis : « tiens, c’est bien ça je trouve »). Je me souviens particulièrement d’Aurélien parce que son prénom et son nom sonnaient bien et j’aimais bien le lire. Je crois que c’est lui qui avait écrit ce papier sur les Inrocks, Plus de rythme.
Ça, c’est pour les malentendus qui circulent ! Même si mon but était d’écrire pour les Inrocks, je ne filtrais ni les faxes, ni les courriers… Je n’ai pas ce même esprit de compétition qu’ont entretenu ces journalistes !

Alors que fait-on quand on a des rêves Monsieur Xavier Dolan ? Eh bien on part, la mort dans l’âme, parce que le harcèlement, même si on ne le dénonce pas ne mène nulle part ! Donc on part avec sa boite crânienne pleine de rêves, d’espoir et on ose ailleurs et on travaille dur parce qu’on n’est pas un homme qui peut rebondir facilement. Pour les femmes (les non blancs ? les handicapés ? les LGBTI ? les milieux sociaux défavorisés ?), il faut beaucoup plus d’énergie et de motivation. Il faut même écrire ce texte qui me prend du temps, de l’énergie et des bouts de dépression parce qu’on ne peut pas abandonner ou alors l’abandon, c’est le suicide ou la rue. Qui va oser employer quelqu’un qui dit avoir été harcelée ? Qui va même en rêver et travailler dur pour réhabiliter cette personne dont on dit qu’elle invente tout ? On parle des Inrocks, un magazine qui avait toutes les crédibilités. Les autres femmes ont peut-être eu envie de passer à autre chose et oublier cet Emmanuel Tellier, et pour celles qui ont succombé à ses « charmes » à Télérama, peut-être ont-elles eu la promotion qu’elles souhaitaient, et peut-être même son couple était / est un couple libre ?

Maintenant, je vais mettre quelques observations (non, pas toutes, c’est chiant) :
Après un cours de photo à Paris fin 92, je pars à Londres et continue d’apprendre la photo. En quittant les Inrocks, Calou (le graphic designer) m’avait dit qu’un de ses amis travaillait au NME et je pouvais le contacter de sa part, ce que je faisais. J’arrive au NME avec quelques photos, le mec aime beaucoup et me file un autre RDV. A ce RDV, il me dit avoir parlé avec Renaud Monfourny (photographe Inrocks)… je ne travaillerai pas au NME. Emmanuel Tellier sera publie au NME.

Mid 90’s, je décroche un RDV avec Setanta Records. Un endroit paumé sous des arcades dans le sud de Londres. Le boss du label aime beaucoup mes photos et me parle d’un groupe qu’il a signé et je pourrai faire des photos presses. Il me dit être en contact avec les Inrocks et me demande si je les connais. Très bêtement, je réponds « oui » et après plusieurs coups de fil et messages… Rien !

Mid-late 90’s :
Je rencontre Lydie Barbarian, alors correspondante musique rock pour Libération. Elle choisit une de mes photos d’elle avec sa chienne pour imprimer 1000 cartes postales de vœux de fin d’année pour les labels de musique et attachés de presse. Elle ne me paye pas ; ne me crédite pas et coupe le négatif ! Quelques années plus tard, elle se fait virer de Libé et au lieu de travailler aux Inrocks avec qui elle est très amie, elle travaille pour Coda, petit mag electro avec lequel je pige en articles et photos. Ils arrêtent de me payer… ils me doivent 5000FF !
Je rencontre Marie Agnès Beau (MAB), fraichement arrivée à Londres pour représenter French Music Bureau. Elle aime mes photos, veut bosser avec moi, rencontre JD Beauvallet et me dit très clairement que je suis inemployable et qu’il est préférable pour son taff de se rapprocher des Inrocks et que je ne serai jamais invitée par l’Institut Français, chose encore valide à ce jour…
Je contacte Yves Bongarcon de Rock Sound et vais à Paris pour lui montrer mes photos. Il me commande des photos pour un nouveau groupe signé chez Naive. A l’époque, il était énervé car il venait de perdre une couv’ et interview exclusives de Courtney Love au profit des Inrocks. Je reconnaissais bien là l’esprit ultra compétitif de l’équipe et je lui disais. Tous mes négatifs m’ont été renvoyés totalement rayés. J’ai été payée un an plus tard… Yves est devenu l’ami de Beauvallet et Tellier !
Même chose avec Olivier Cachin pour L’Affiche sauf pour les négatifs rendus intacts.
Je rencontrais Jean-Yves Leloup à Radio FG. Je lui montrais mes photos et lui laissais mes K7 pour un prog radio. Le chien boxer de la radio s’était tapé l’incruste dans mon sac pendant la conversation. Impossible de le faire sortir. Finalement, quelqu’un a eu la bonne idée d’agiter une boite de croquettes. Je dis ça comme ça pour détendre l’atmosphère (oui le chien c’est vrai, j’ai failli rater mon train pour Londres- le chien têtu comme une mule !).

00’s :
Lors d’une soirée d’un label à The End à Londres, un/e attache/e de presse m’avait mise sur une guest-list avec un autre nom. Me disait plus tard que le label avait des consignes de Paris et il ne fallait pas me faire passer les dossiers de presse…
2006 : Je rentre d’Amérique Latine pour une semaine à Londres et une autre à Paris avant de retourner sur la côte Pacifique. Londres, je tente de rencontrer Beauvallet : il aime Björk ; je travaille sur des soirées Björk et ça peut intéresser les Inrocks (et surtout une belle occasion de régler des comptes) ? Il dit oui Les Inrocks ont de l’argent, il dit non les Inrocks n’ont pas d’argent en cinq minutes… A Paris, je rencontre Gaëlle Massicot-Bitty de l’Institut français pour faire des soirées musiques française à Lima. La rencontre s’est bien passée, même si plus tard elle enverra un email pourri aux gens de l’ambassade pour une valise diplomatique dont elle n’a pas capte que je connaissais les principes…
2008, retour en France : l’amie d’une très bonne amie a un label de musique, il veut me rencontrer, il a des connections. Je lui envois mon CV, puis après quelques emails et un coup de fil, il me dira que je suis inemployable et qu’il n’est pas le pôle emploi !!! Je regarde sa page FB : il est ami avec JD Beauvallet et Christophe Conte…
Je crois qu’on peut parler d’acharnement. Rêver, oser, travailler dur et ne pas abandonner…
Je me suis essayée à faire partir de la scène française sur l’étranger en ayant encore un RDV avec Massicot-Bitty, mais elle était branchée Inrocks ! Ce sont leurs groupes qu’elle fera partir. Et certains de mes contacts qui n’hésiteront pas à passer devant moi : Frédéric Elalouf aka Oof ou encore Kangding Ray – 7000 euros pour l’un pour l’Inde et le Népal ; 2000 euros pour l’autre pour l’Uruguay.

2013, je commence ce blog. Et oui, je continue de rêver, oser etc… Très vite, je m’aperçois que je retrouve mes idées et des papiers similaires dans les Inrocks ! Là encore, je ne vais pas tout mettre.
Nelly Kaprielian écrit (après moi) sur Alexander McQueen et après m’être plainte, voici ce qu’il reste de visible de son papier. Alors, le documentaire dont je parle est rare et date de 1997 mais des documentaires sur McQueen il y en a eu pas mal, pourquoi choisir les mêmes exemples que les miens ?
Fleur Burlet, la reine de la copie (j’en mettrai d’autres éventuellement), mais voici sur le graphisme. Puis, elle a copié la photo de Debbie Harry de mon twit pour la mettre sur sa page FB, sans même créditer la photo ! Et pour cause, photo de Chris Stein n’est pas très connue. Depuis peu, sa photo profile Twitter est elle-même avec un appareil photo et je suis photographe. Et pour pousser le hasard, elle est connectée à Colmar, ville où je suis née et au Pérou où j’ai habité. J’habite à Londres… elle aussi, non loin de chez moi. J’écris sur Nick Waplington, elle aussi etc… En la rappelant, à l’ordre, elle m’accuse de harcèlement et d’agressive ! 24 ans… sale gosse. Son prochain trip est d’interviewer David Hockney et de lui poser des questions sur la photo versus la peinture via le temps et l’espace ? Je me demande juste pourquoi mon billet est tant lu ses temps-ci alors qu’il date de novembre 2014 !
Le label PIAS : je me fais royalement envoyer bouler par la chargée de produit en ce qui concerne Ghostpoet et elle n’est pas du tout amie avec les Inrocks (sauf avec JD Beauvallet et qq autres sur FB) ; accidentellement ils ont interviewe JD and co et accidentellement, ils ont fait virer mon lien Youtube avec un artiste alors qu’aucune musique ne vient de PIAS ! [après une sévère altercation avec la radio Resonance sur FB, la radio virait mon passage à la radio, sauf que j’avais déjà créer ce lien Youtube quelques mois plus tôt et bizarrement, ça n’avait dérangé ni PIAS, ni aucun autre label. Apres cette altercation, j’ai mis le lien Youtube sur mon blog et PIAS l’a viré cinq minutes plus tard…] « Etonnamment », les Inrocks semblent s’être servi de cet échange FB du 3 avril 2016 avec Henry Scott-Irvine (un activiste de Denmark Street) pour écrire le 5 avril un papier sur le Punk et… Denmark Street !
Et pour la mauvaise foi, on pourra lire l’interview de Brain avec JD Beauvallet… le passeur. En ce qui me concerne, je préfère transmettre. Un passeur est discret et ne se déclare pas en tant que tel ! Quant aux blogs, heureusement qu’ils sont là pour qu’il gagne sa vie sur notre dos !

Un truc qui me reste de JD, c’est un matin il s’est pointé aux Inrocks complètement euphorique en annonçant que Patrick Hernandez (Born To Be Alive) était devenu coursier. Il jubilait à l’idée que le mec avait dégringolé. Ben oui, les gens qui s’appauvrissent, c’est drôle… en fait, c’est ça qui est triste chez JD, c’est que le malheur des autres le fait rire. Peut-être avait-il amplifié la news ? Il a bien fait circulé aux Inrocks que j’avais été virée de toutes les collèges et lycées… Jusqu’au jour où Arnaud Deverre m’avait demandée pourquoi on m’avait virée « Mais j’ai jamais été virée de nulle part, mon père était muté tous les deux ou trois ans »
Et du coup, je ne suis pas étonnée quand un ami de JD Beauvallet, Jarvis Platini, veuille me rappeler sur FB que j’ai laissé de sales traces aux Inrocks et me révéler en privé le surnom qu’ils m’avaient donnée (je ne vois plus l’échange mais soit il est parti de FB, soit il a retiré le comm’ ou m’a bloquée) ; ni quand les Inrocks n’assument pas leur médiocrité et de supprimer l’article de Stephane Deschamps à propos de l’artiste Obey après avoir supprimè les commentaires furieux sur FB ; et du coup, certains en bons petits soldats n’hésitent pas à se servir de la paranoïa et de s’en moquer quand il serait facile de se moquer de leur orthographe et grammaire ; ce qui me rend triste, c’est Serge Kaganski qui après m’avoir écrit un email sympathique l’année dernière semble s’être fait influencer… Lui qui écrivait si bien et avec cohérence raconte un peu n’importe quoi quant au racisme en France ! « … Il y a 27 ans, la question des tensions raciales était surtout américaine. En France, nous étions encore solidement assis sur notre système (ou notre mythe ?) républicain, laïc, intégrateur, faisant de chaque individu un citoyen égal aux autres en droits et devoirs, quelle que soit sa couleur de peau. »
Mais monsieur Kaganski, cette scène de Rabbi Jacob dans les 70’s aussi drôle soit-elle, n’est-elle pas là pour dénoncer un racisme grimpant ? Et Desproges et son Rachid et les rues de Paris pas très sûres, il inventait des trucs aussi dans les 80’s ? Et que dire des 80’s de Coluche avec son sketch contre le racisme ?


Voila Xavier Dolan… Puis-je rêver de vous interviewer ? Qui va oser louer mes services d’intervieweuse sauvage ? Il faudra travailler dur pour y arriver tous ensemble ! Quant à abandonner… je ne sais que dire… les années passent et dans une demi heure j’aurai encore une putain d’année en plus !



9 Septembre 2016 : You Say You want a Revolution ? Records and Rebels 1966 – 1970 @ V&A

... le genre de frustration d’être née à une époque qu’aucune autre époque n’a su rivaliser – dit-on... (même si les 90’s londoniennes étaient énormes)… et ne rien savoir ou plutôt tout savoir à partir des icones qui ont modelé la fin des 60’s. Et jeez sait combien de fois les artistes ont rapporté leurs faits via des interviews à la TV, magazines ou radio. Tout savoir par mediums interposés !

1966-1970, époque charnière d’une révolution occidentale en marche, même si comme le dit en 1969 le personnage de Danny dans Withnail and I de Bruce Robinson, les poumons gonflés de marijuana et s’exclamant à l’étouffée : « They’re selling hippie wigs in Woolworth man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. »

Ce voyage au parfum de patchouli et autres fruits contre-culturels qu’est You Say You Want a Revolution ? Records and Rebels 1966-1970 pose cette sempiternelle question pendant cette vertigineuse promenade : qu’a-t-on fait de cette période et où en sommes-nous aujourd’hui ?
L’exposition au V&A ouvre ses portes demain, à l’aube de l’automne après avoir passé un été sur la question « cruciale » du burkini des plages de France ! Une quinzaine de femmes ayant monopolisé l’attention médiatique et à qui on a demandé de se déshabiller…

La caverne d’Ali Baba  nous accueille avec la vidéo de Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues  et on se doute que nous sommes entre de bonnes mains puisque Victoria Broackes et Geoffrey Marsh, déjà responsables de David Bowie Is, nous guideront au travers des méandres de ces cinq années transformatives parmi les six sections révolutionnaires (les membres de la presse avions trois heures pour découvrir cette « ré-création », trois heures de plus m’auraient suffi).

Selon Stuart Hall, migrant jamaïcain venu étudier à Oxford en 1951, l’Angleterre vivait ses premières heures d’explosion culturelle à la seconde moitié des 50’s et les films sur les 10 années à venir parlaient d’une jeunesse en mouvement – soit géographiquement, soit socialement. Une jeunesse avec de nouvelles attitudes, se détachant de leur bagage social, en quête d’une identité. L’intellectuel Hall définit 1968 comme l’année cataclysmique pour les US (Black Power), la France (mai 68), l’Italie, l’Allemagne ou encore avec l’émergence de la culture underground et les protestations contre la guerre du Viêt-Nam. Il pense que les 60’s sont marquées par la libération grâce essentiellement aux musiques « étranges » et aux drogues psychédéliques.

L’exposition nous projette dans une recréation du Carnaby Street des Swinging 60’s, terme définit par le magazine Time dès 1966 (dont une copie est en vitrine) avec une illustration en couverture représentant l’austérité de Londres et son Big Ben tout en reflétant la portée sensationnelle des tendances capillaires, des mini jupes et ce bouillonnement incessant.
Cette génération issue du babyboom de l’après Seconde Guerre Mondiale explose tel un tremblement de terre et veut profiter de la mode, de la musique, de l’art et de la photographie. La culture n’est plus exclusivement réservée aux riches ou la mode aux filles, mais tous peuvent s’y chausser. Les films d’Hollywood sont « remplacés » par la musique et la mode dont le film d’Antonioni Blow-Up en 1966 en est l’essence. Film qui sera un énorme hit au box-office et mettra d’ailleurs au défi les producteurs US dues aux scènes érotiques : en 1968 naitra un système de classement par âge…

Parmi les attractions immanquables, on y trouve une robe en papier, des vêtements Biba, Mary Quant ou encore Granny Takes a Trip. Des costumes faits sur mesure pour Mick Jagger ou Sandie Shaw, des photos de Twiggy, Michael Caine, des frères gangsters Kray par David Bailey, Terry O’Neil ou Cecil Beaton.

En continuant ce périple, on y découvre non seulement que les clubs et les galeries deviennent des lieux hype, mais aussi que les boutiques ferment tard et on peut y écouter de la musique et danser. Ces boutiques offrent de nouvelles matières de prêt-à-porter tels le PVC et le Perpex et plus tard, les motifs ethniques feront fureur.
La galerie Indica y accueillera toute une scène avant-garde et encouragera ses artistes à faire du cross-over et à collaborer avec d’autres artistes. Yoko Ono y sera exposée pour la première fois en 1966 et y rencontrera John Lennon.

A suivre…

UPDATE October 2016

Elegance is the only beauty that never fadesAudrey Hepburn

The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined (Barbican Centre: 13 October 2016 – 5 February 2017)

The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
Walter Van Beirendonck
Hat: Stephen Jones
Autumn/Winter 2010 – 2011
© Ronald Stoops

A une époque où on peut tout porter, dans une ville comme Londres où plus rien ne peut vraiment choquer, je suis constamment étonnée (depuis quelques années) du peu de style de cette foule en perpétuel mouvement… Cette impression de se retrouver autour d’une fondue savoyarde, dans un bain de salive et de fromage, où l’élégance s’est blottie contre le paillasson du pas de la porte ! (nb sous ma signature sur la Savoie)

Le 12 octobre, j’étais invitée à me promener au Barbican pour l’exposition The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined. Zandra Rhodes et moi étions les seules à nous démarquer de cette foule privilégiée. Elle par l’extravagance de ses couleurs et ses habits ‘hors du commun’, moi par le bouffant de ma jupe en velours côtelé et le ‘poil’ de mon top, sobre, en noir quasi absolu, puritaine…
Toutes deux aux antipodes du vulgaire, ce double agent équilibriste surfant sur une ligne fine entre ce qui s’expose à l’outrance et la sobriété feignant l’absence de plaisir !

Ce défilé du vulgaire / sermo uulgaris remet les pendules à l’heure et la queue au cul quand à notre préconception de langages véhiculaires ou vernaculaires. Peut-être cette exposition de 120 articles de mode au travers de cinq siècles ne fait ni le moine, ni la couture ? Cette balade nous permet en tous les cas un cheminement psychanalytique sur nos craintes, nos envies, nos goûts… ceux des autres.
Un parcours du vulgaire où le verbe est précieux et sans relâche dans un décor, somme toute, minimaliste et ‘austère’. « Il faut se méfier des mots » comme l’inscrivait Ben Place Fréhel à Paris, mais ici le mot a son importance et l’habit chère Félicie… aussi !

En sortant de l’exposition, plongée dans la douce vulgarité qui venait de tambouriner mes tempes, je tombe sur l’exposition d’un texte que les Inrocks avaient écrit à propos d’un texto twité. Tout semble vulgaire : le texto sur les sans-dents, sa publication en twit, la prose des Inrocks et la rage des commentateurs sur FB.
De quoi a peur le peuple ? D’une femme meurtrie qui exhibe son droit au vulgaire ? Se reflète-t-il en elle ? Christophe Conte passera quand même la journée du 12 octobre à s'acharner twittesquement (ca va exister, patience) sur ce non-événement !
Mais alors, peut-on considérer que Sophie Calle l’est tout autant (vulgaire) alors qu’elle remplissait le pavillon français à la biennale d’art de Venise sur sa rupture ? Non, parce qu’elle ne nomme pas l’homme, direz-vous ?
Mais que penser de la tente Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 de Tracy Emin ? Et que dire de Björk et de son album-rupture-avec-Matthew-Barney Vulnicura et de l’expo et de l’expo tournante à l’international Björk Digital dans la continuité de l’album ? Oui, mais c’est de l’art ? Bon,  ok ! Donc, seuls les artistes peuvent exorciser leurs démons… le reste du commun des mortels ne souffre pas…
En même temps, vu les réactions acides et nombreuses, une partie de la population semble se réfugier dans des craintes souterraines pour être aussi véhémentes !

The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
Yves Saint Laurent
Mondrian Dress (re-issue), 1980s.
Courtesy Manchester City Galleries

Bref, la noire brebis que je suis s’égare, revenons à notre laine et autres tissus de luxe. Plus particulièrement à la laine puisque la Robe Mondrian d’Yves Saint Laurent (collection A/W 1965) y est représentée en quatre modèles. Cette collection a fait partie d’une exposition majeure en 1983 au Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) à New York célébrant pour la première fois un grand couturier vivant… non sans esclandre comme l’indique son explication en vitrine !  

Non loin d’YSL, Vivienne Westwood découvre le corps avec son Eve Bodysuit et Boucher Corset. Il s’agit ici de redécouvrir la Renaissance et de recycler les mythes classiques tout en mettant l’accent sur les parties du corps que l’on doit traditionnellement laisser cacher.
Nous sommes dans la partie « Translating the Vulgar » évoquant le copié-collé : « … la mode comme le vulgaire copie. Elle nous invite à imaginer l’original et expose ce qui s’est perdu dans la traduction… et donc, la seule chose qui nous intéresse dans le vulgaire est ce qui ne va pas… une certaine prétention… »

The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
Eighteenth Century Court Mantua, 1748–1750.
Courtesy Fashion Museum Bath

Autour de ‘l’aquarium’ « Showing Off », le mémo nous rappelle que « l’Europe de l’Ouest du XVIIIème était un âge de grand luxe pour une petite catégorie de personnes : la colonisation, l’esclavage et les échanges internationaux permettent l’arrivée de produits de luxe tels le sucre, les épices, le café ou encore les artefacts de mode. Cette époque de l’excès est définie par Samuel Johnson comme ‘l’esclavage du plaisir’. Les gens de bonne société s’habillent avec une extrême extravagance. »
Cette terreur du siècle où s’affichait la vulgarité du luxe allait bientôt faire face à une autre terreur, celle de la Révolution française ! Parmi les robes d’époque sont exposés (entre autre) des vêtements de John Galliano pour Dior et Nicolas Ghesquière pour Vuitton.

The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
Karl Lagerfeld for CHANEL
Autumn/Winter 2014 – 2015, Ready-to-wear.
CHANEL Patriomine Collection, Paris © CHANEL 

Peut-on faire ses courses tout en portant de la haute couture ou du prêt-à-porter de luxe ? Peut-on s’inspirer de costumes traditionnels et leur redonner vie ? Karl Lagerfeld et Christian Lacroix nous mettent au défi dans ces deux clous du spectacle par leur humour et leur vulgarité qui à la fois menacent et promettent !
Pour sa collection Chanel A/W 2014-2015, Lagerfeld a fait défiler ses modèles dans un supermarché recrée au Grand Palais à Paris (photos géantes sur les murs). Il s’agit ici non seulement de ‘noyer’ l’objet unique (et donc vulgaire puisqu'on y expose son goût pour la différence) qu’est (par exemple) le manteau (exposé) porté par Cara Delevingne dans un endroit où tout se multiplie, mais aussi de le sublimer parmi cette extravagance de reproductions de produits et de choix à l’infini dans un lieu au final si ennuyeux… et vulgaire.
En ce qui concerne Lacroix, on y retrouve ici sa source d’inspiration qu’est sa ville de naissance, Arles, et ses costumes traditionnels. Une ville elle-même influencée par l’Espagne et ses amphithéâtres romains. On y admire en vitrine quelques mannequins vêtus en Arlésiennes faisant face à d’autres mannequins revus et corrigés sous les aiguilles du maitre. Ce petit couloir s’appelle d’ailleurs « The Vulgar Tongue ». La langue vulgaire nous amuse « parce qu’elle nous met mal à l’aise et révèle un embarras qu’on voudrait éviter à cause de sa grossièreté, son kitsch, sa dureté… On nait tous avec une langue vulgaire qui nécessite le raffinement. Le vulgaire ne trouve ni style, ni voix » Et pourtant, cette juxtaposition de l’ancien et du remodelé sont si riches en terme de création.

L’exposition accueille d’autres ‘boudoirs’ de vêtements extrêmes pour corps extrêmes et sexualisés (Malcom McLaren, Agent Provocateur, Pam Hogg) ou encore de ‘fringues’ sur-colorées (Takashi Murakami pour Vuitton) ou hyper communes avec le jean (Manolo Blahnik pour les bottes « 9 to 5 » de Rihanna) tout en se frottant avec le déni du plaisir au détour du puritanisme (Galliano vs McQueen).

On peut regretter l’absence du vulgaire politico-social avec le manteau ‘homeless’ de Galliano ou avec la mode ‘changement climatique’ vue et haute-couturée par Westwood ou Mcqueen… ou encore tout ce qui s’apparente au fétichisme ou au gothique.

The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
Pam Hogg, Future Past/ War and Peace collection,
Spring/Summer 2014, Ready-to-wear
Image by kind permission of SimonArmstrong.com

On ne ressort pas indemne de The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined ! On en sort certes, mais comme un film qui peut vous hanter pendant plusieurs jours. Le projet de la curatrice Judith Clark et de son ‘partner in crime’, le psychanalyste Adam Phillips nous habille les neurones et nous force à nous repositionner sur nos réactions, nos goûts et notre rapport à l’autre… Qu’est-ce qui nous fait tant peur chez l’autre pour que ça fasse écho en nous ?
Qu’est-ce que le monde de la mode reflète socialement pour qu’elle puisse parfois nous dégouter… de nous-mêmes ! Pourquoi la foule se fond-elle dans un mode standard, sans chercher à s’extraire visuellement du banal ?

L’habit ne fait peut-être pas le moine mais il y contribue… La beauté finalement comme la vulgarité se trouvent dans l’œil de celui ou celle qui les voit.
Quant à l’élégance, on peut la trouver partout, mais elle reste rare !

The Vulgar: Fashion Redefined
Cotton Crochet Lace Collar,1880s
Courtesy Fashion Museum Bath

The Vulgar : Fashion Redefined
A Bevy of Cherubs, c.1860s
Courtesy of The Fan Museum

« She told me that her Dad was loaded; I said "In that case I'll have a rum and coca-cola"... I took her to a supermarket; I don't know why; But I had to start it somewhere; So it started there... You'll never live like common people; You'll never do whatever common people do; You'll never fail like common people; You'll never watch your life slide out of view; And dance and drink and screw; Because there's nothing else to do... » Pulp.


Sybille Castelain – sybillecastelain@yahoo.co.uk
NB : Je viens de localiser la Savoie. No insult intended to anyone ! Je faisais référence à mes angoisses de gosses… à la « vulgarité » de la bonne franquette, en rapport avec le sujet. J’aurais pu écrire « fondue bourguignonne » ou « raclette ». My bad, My ongoing snobism. Sorry ! Quant à la choucroute… je n’en ai plus mangé depuis 16 ans… Je suis aussi proche de ma région qu’un/e Français/e d’origine d’ailleurs n’ayant jamais ou peu mis les pieds dans le pays de ses ancêtres ! 
Pour m’insulter, faîtes de la surenchère Inrocks pendant deux semaines et c’est pari gagné… So welldone you ! You have obvs no idea what’s to be harassed ! (I can’t watch you anymore, just in case I get ODed on your newly found subject matter that is that vulgar mag.) 
Si tienes curiosidad sobre mi acoso sexual (o otro), come and say hi at the Elton John’s modernist photo collection morning PV ! Don’t you just observe me as if in a rat laboratory .


[15 minutes après avoir publié mon NB, une visite du Portugal (coucou Christophe Conte) ; un twit subliminal (en lien avec mon NB subliminal Pierre Siankowski ?) et six autres visites de France]

pour le copyright, voir avec @christopheconte

[Le jour et le lendemain après avoir publié mon texte sur l’expo au Barbican, Christophe Conte pointe son doigté de luxe en image de profile sur son Twitter (si, c’est un hasard of course) ; une « féministe » Inrock parle de Chanel ; une autre « féministe » Inrock salue les goûts de rap du stagiaire pendant que les femmes d’Amérique Latine défilent en masse contre le viol barbare que l’adolescente Lucía Perez a subi et en a succombé.]
Au fait, les Inrocks ont-ils déjà célébré les goûts musicaux d’une stagiaire ? Non, mais c’est pas grave parce que Christophe Conte et Jean-Daniel Beauvallet se la pètent à l’instant en twit un peu macho sur le féminisme et dévirilisation, et on y croit à leur sincérité ! Quant à leur armée testostéronée, David Doucet et Pierre Siankowski entrent dans leur jeu et font des adeptes au Quotidien… David me prend pour une idiote, peut-être veut-il que je le suce pour bien s’intégrer dans l’ADN Inrock ? Ok alors, ceci est une pipe = 15 mentions Inrocks twitées en sept semaines (entre la fin du Petit Journal et la veille de mon anniv’) pour le jeune adulte (contre 10 mentions d’autres sites d’info sur la même période) !

[Comme mon papier sur les attaques du 13 novembre 2015 est beaucoup lu en France ces derniers temps, merci de ne pas le reproduire ou le réécrire sans mon autorisation ! Ce serait tellement vulgaire !]

2 November 2016

Juan Javier Salazar (Lima, 1955 - Lima, 1 de noviembre del 2016)
 Perú, país del mañana, 2005, serigrafía sobre tela

Jour des morts… et je viens d’apprendre qu’hier un grand travailleur culturel (aka artiste) péruvien s’en est allé faire le con… ailleurs. Juan Javier Salazar, 61 ans.
Il passait me voir dans ma casita de Barranco, un mec d’une autre planète, doux, drôle, piquant, féministe et humaniste qui vendait le Péru (avec la queue du Chili) dans les combi de Lima avec son Peruche (mélange de Péru et peluche). Il m’avait donnée une de ses Peruche et un jour qu’il passait devant ma fenêtre, il avait vu son œuvre textile pendue à la mezzanine Perú, pais del mañana. Il était entré, l’avait signée et nous avons bu et parlé de longues heures… mon bel ami s’en est allé… j’espère qu’il vendra notre planète aux anges loufoques qui doivent déjà se régaler de sa compagnie. Juste un mec bien.
Ce matin, j’ai regardé cette œuvre qui trône sur mon mur claptonnien (de Clapton/Hackney/Londres) et j’ai souri… J’ai eu beaucoup de chance d’avoir croisé son chemin. Suerte en tu nuevo viaje amigo Salazar. Hasta Siempre!
Notice nécrologique parue dans El Comercio.

J’avais prévu d’écrire autre chose, alors je vais juste mentionner (as requested) ces quelques événements :

L’album de XAM Duo – aka Matthew Benn from Hookworms and Christopher Duffin from Deadwallsort le 4 novembre chez Sonic Cathedral. En concert le 5 à Total Refreshment Centre (album launch party with a very special guest and Moon Gangs)

L’album de Kathryn Williams et Anthony Kerr, Resonator sort le 18 novembre sur One Little Indian (le label qui suit Björk depuis sa carrière solo) et ils seront au Lexington le 20 novembre avec en première partie Michele Stodart.

Update 21 November
Margaret Bourke-White
George Washington Bridge
1933
Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
343 x 225 mm
The Sir Elton John Photography Collection
Photo © Estate of Margaret Bourke-White/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

Quand le très élégant collectionneur d’art Jay Jopling ouvrait sa galerie White Cube à Hoxton Square, un des plus vieux squares de Londres situé dans une ancienne zone industrielle de Shoreditch, en 2000, nous allions à presque toutes ses invitations : sa femme Sam Taylor-Wood (50 Shades Of Grey) et ses potes du mouvement YBA, Sarah Morris etc. La bière y coulait à flot et il n’était pas rare d’y croiser Kate Moss… ou encore Elton John.
Un soir particulier d’abus de substances et de bonne humeur intense (j’arrivais rarement saine d’esprit), je me suis retrouvée à frotter mon épaule contre celle de Sir Elton… sans m’en rendre compte. La foule obligeant. Il semblerait que nous ayons échangé quelques mots et ri ensemble… je n’en ai gardé aucun souvenir. Je me souviens en revanche que monsieur John était respecté comme étant un grand collectionneur d’art contemporain.

En début d’année 2016, je recevais le document presse de la Tate : « Tate Modern to exhibit unparalleled modernist photography from the collection of Sir Elton John ».
Lors de la rétrospective sur Horst à la V&A en 2014, j’étais surprise de découvrir sa collection d’hommes nus (1950’s) qu’il partage avec son mari David Furnish. Le chanteur de I’m Still Standing, de Nikita et autres tubes pops interplanétaires avait donc aussi un intérêt pour la photographie d’avant-garde. Epoque où le médium vivait son évolution de la nouvelle vision privilégiant le « comment voir » sur le « que voir »… alors que la dépression économique ou encore la guerre provoquaient des changements sociaux marquants de cette période 1920-1950.

C’est précisément à cette période que les commissaires d’art Shoair Mavlian and Simon Baker de la Tate et Newell Harbin, directeur de la Sir Elton John Photography Collection ont choisi de débuter leur collaboration. Une collection de quelques milliers d’images dont 200 sont exposées jusqu’au 7 mai 2017. Un travail titanesque non seulement pour la sélection des photos mais aussi pour obtenir le droit de les exposer pour chacune d’elles puisque ces photographes et leurs tirages originaux y sont convoqués : Irving Penn ; František Drtikol ; Tina Modotti ; Paul Outerbridge ; André Kertész ; Man Ray ; Imogen Cunnigham ; Jaromir Funke ; László Moholy-Nagy ; Edward Weston ; Dorothy Norman ; Manuel Álvarez Bravo ; Henri Cartier-Bresson ; Berenice Abbott ; Dora Maar ; Brassaï ; Ilse Bing ; Alexey Brodovitch ; Dorothea Lange ; Walker Evans ; Margareth Bourke-White ; Alexandr Rodchenko ; Yamawaki ; Paul Strand et bien d’autres encore.
André Kertész 
Underwater Swimmer, Esztergom, Hungary, 30 June 1917

L’œil radical – Avant même de voir Noire et Blanche de Man Ray (Positive / Négative) de 1926, ce sont les cadres emmitouflant les images qui volent la vedette aux clichés. On se rappelle très vite des goûts flamboyants  du chanteur pour les lunettes ou les fleurs et puis, on oubliera assez vite ces prothèses extravagantes. Ce visage de femme blanche et ce masque africain en ébène reprennent leur importance initiale de cette association culturelle entre deux mondes aux antipodes qui aujourd’hui s’affichent au dessus du lit du couple.
Le bureau d’Elton contient neuf images dont la plus vieille de l’expo (et de sa collection ?) datant de 1917. Il s’agit d’Underwater Swimmer du Hongrois André Kertész qui fait écho aux peintures de David Hockney pour ses veines d’ombres et de lumières des piscines californiennes, et plus particulièrement à Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) de 1972 – expo prévue pour 2017 à la Tate Britain.

Portraits – la pièce nous renvoie à cette interaction entre les artistes du début du XXème siècle et intersections de leurs forces créatives. Ce carrefour d’innovation et d’expérimentation où la photographie est en plein éveil au milieu de l’art établi depuis des siècles s’impose comme une révolution bienvenue dans un monde en explosion. Qu’ils soient au Mexique ou vivant la vie de bohème parisienne, les musiciens (Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky), les peintres (Picasso, Matisse), les écrivains ou sculpteurs (Isabel Villaseñor, André Breton) se prêtent au jeu de poseurs s’essayant à retranscrire par leur mood leurs activités artistiques. Irving Penn cloisonnent les Dali et autre Duke Ellington dans un coin de pièce si exigu que les artistes semblent se jouer de ce non lieu pour poser.
Irving Penn 1917-2009
Salvador Dali, New York
1947
Gelatin silver print. Vintage.
235 x 184 mm
The Sir Elton John Photography Collection
Copyright © The Irving Penn Foundation

Irving Penn, ainsi que Horst et Herb Ritts (non exposés cette fois) fait justement partie de ces photographes qui ont rendu Elton John addicted à la photo alors qu’il sortait de rehab’ en 1990. Le collectionneur accro à l’image depuis plus de 25 ans explique dans un mini docu de l’expo qu’il n’avait jamais envisagé la photo comme une forme d’art. Le medium lui a ouvert d’autres portes, celle de l’imaginaire dont il ignorait l’existence. Il prend d’ailleurs pour exemple la porte blanche, exposée dans la salle Objects, Perspectives, Abstractions sous le nom de Church Door, Hornitos d’Edward Weston (1940), où il explique qu’une mécanique de la curiosité s’impose en lui. Alors qu’il se demande ce qu’il s’y passait vraiment à cette époque derrière cette porte, je regarde sa lumière, ses ombres, ses contrastes, l’angle de la prise de vue, les lignes qui la divisent et les formes que cette porte projette…

Et c’est bien évidemment cela, la beauté de cette expo. Il n’y a pas une lecture mais plusieurs. Comme un livre qu’on lit, on est seul/e face à un récit, une image, le voyage est libre.
L’homme qui chantait en duo avec France Gall Donner pour donner en 1980 possède la plus importante collection de photographie moderne du monde et nous livre ici un aperçu de ses murs. Il nous offre de découvrir, ou de redécouvrir, en ce qui me concerne, mes rêves d’ado, plantée devant des cartes postales de ces mêmes photographes en pensant que la photo et ses expérimentations étaient inventées au moment même où j’y posais un regard, mon regard. Je les ai, là, devant mes yeux en grandeur nature, de façon généreuse, je fais face à nouveau à mes émotions… ravivées et intactes.

Edward Weston 1886-1958
Nude
1936
Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
241 x 191 mm
The Sir Elton John Photography Collection
© 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

Le temps de quelques mois, Elton John nous informe du fondement de son inspiration de ces dernières décennies et nous propose de nous projeter dans le rétroviseur de Brassaï  avec A Costume For Two relatant la fraternité de la communauté gay des cabarets parisiens. On y croise du nu, du mouvement, du flou et également du documentaire. 
En 1925, Leica a permis de révolutionner le temps d’exposition grâce à sa vitesse plus rapide pour figer un moment et donc de perfectionner la photographie de rue.
Lorsque les US vivaient la Grande Dépression après le Krash de 1929, des photographes comme Dorothea Lange et Walker Evans (dans la pièce Documents) ont pu documenter la pauvreté rurale grâce à leurs appareils photo plus performants et dont le Farm Security Admin (FSA) allait louer leurs services afin de comprendre et d’alléger le problème de ces populations laissées pour compte.
Elton John, lui-même fondateur en 1992 d’Elton John AIDS Foundation (dont Macleen by Carol Allen-Storey est actuellement exposée au National Portrait Gallery : The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2016), dit de Damaged Child de Dorothea Lange qu’on y voit toute l’anxiété et le désespoir dans le regard de l’enfant. Un portrait tragique dont il avait pris conscience plus jeune de cette souffrance en lisant Des souris et des hommes de Steinbeck.

The Radical Eye : Modernist Photography from Sir Elton John Collection est une banque de l’image rare et vintage et dont nous aurons le privilège de nous abreuver pour quelques mois avant une autre collaboration… pas avant 2018 ! On espère y voir plus de paysages, ici peu représentés, avec Ansel Adams toutefois. N’oublions pas le caractère humoristique de certaines photographies à l’image de l’homme… of course.

Plus d’info = http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/radical-eye-modernist-photography-sir-elton-john-collection


UPDATE 2 décembre 2016
Until The Color Of A Man's Skin; Is No More Significant; Than The Colour Of His Eyes; I Got To Say There'll Be a WarSepultura, War

Pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, Bermondsey, au sud-est de Londres, a souffert des lourds bombardements. Cette zone industrielle s’est retrouvée quasi à l’abandon dans les 60’s, dangereuse dans les 70’s, pour refaire surface petit à petit à partir des 80’s. Bermondsey Street n’était pas une rue très fréquentée il y a encore une petite dizaine d’années et c’est pourtant là que Jay Jopling ouvrait son autre White Cube en 2011.
La Seconde Guerre Mondiale est justement le thème récurrent et cauchemardesque de l’artiste Anselm Kiefer et c’est dans le ventre de ce cube blanc que son exposition Walhalla se déroule apocalyptique-ment now.

En 2014, nous revisitions les mythes aux travers d’une rétrospective qui lui était consacrée. Aujourd’hui, le mythe du paradis nordique en hommage aux morts au combat nous explose en pleine figure dans un labyrinthe sombre et « illuminé » où convergent peintures, installations et sculptures.

Anselm Kiefer
2016
Walhalla
Dimensions variable
Lead, photograph on lead and mixed media
Photo: White Cube (Ben Westoby)

Le couloir de la galerie est transformé pour l’occasion en tombeau métallique où des lits et couvertures en plomb s’improvisent en urgence. Au bout de ce couloir maladroitement éclairé à l’ampoule jaune, une photo géante, en noir et blanc : un homme, de dos semble s’éloigner. Où va-t-il ? Un soldat en état de choc à la Don McCullin ? Vers quel futur ?
Le son du glas a sonné, la bienvenue, glaciale ! Il faut pourtant bien continuer le chemin de ce paradis provisoire. En se retournant timidement, on y lit sur chaque barreau de lit un prénom… comme dans une morgue où est attaché au doigt de pied un nom.
A gauche du couloir, des chambres crachant la lumière, à droite, des chambres sombres.

L’habituelle librairie de la galerie s’offre ici comme un cabinet des curiosités oubliées où manuscrits et livres métalliques se mélangent à de la ferraille rouillée, de la pellicule photographique dégoulinant du plafond, des tiroirs ouverts… de la poussière ! Une mémoire brulée, une histoire tue ! Une chambre méditative où on voudrait se recroqueviller dans un coin pour pleurer et rendre hommage à ces soldats… à ce grand-père.

Anselm Kiefer
San Loreto
2016
Lead and mixed media
Dimensions variable
© Anselm Kiefer. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)

L’âme en peine, le parcours du combattant continu pour une chambre tout aussi sombre, un aigle noir immense écrasé sur un lit, un fond baptismal abandonné.
La lumière sur l’autre rive du couloir nous invite à nous ressourcer. La chambre est grande truffée de vitrines et de peintures explosées au plomb.
Anselm Kiefer n’est qu’une excuse pour nous confronter à l’horreur de la guerre, il est absent malgré ses œuvres colossales et ce monstre spectral que fut le nazisme d’Hitler et sa folie. Kiefer n’est pas… c’est nous qui revivons ou qui mourons la vie des autres, ceux qui ont combattu… pour notre liberté. Une prise d’otage qui ne propose aucun espoir mais nous fait prendre conscience de l’autre, la vie de l’autre, la nôtre, la guerre ailleurs. A quoi servent donc ces livres d’histoire ? Ce végétal séché continue-t-il de pousser dans sa prison de verre ? Ces habits souillés d’enfants et de femmes suspendus au dessus de ces lourds manteaux écrasés au sol, sont-ils la preuve restaurée de leur existence ? Ces bicyclettes et ces lits désossés… sous verre comme on empaille nos animaux pour qu’ils continuent de vivre sous cloche… Cet escalier qui monte au ciel, ce paradis artificiel…
Installation views:
Anselm Kiefer
'Walhalla', White Cube Bermondsey, London
23 November 2016 - 12 February 2017
© Anselm Kiefer. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)

Victor, il s’appelait. Il ne m’a pas manquée, je ne l’ai pas connu. J’aurais voulu le connaitre. Un homme gentil, doux, silencieux. Le père de mon père. Ils m’ont dit qu’il s’était pris un éclat d’obus, du plomb dans les poumons… pour défendre la France, s’opposer au nazisme et au génocide des Juifs. Il a dû lui aussi se reposer sur un de ces lits en métal, puis il est retourné dans sa ferme du Nord, là où plus tard naissait le fameux cristal, mi-guerre, inapte à poursuivre. Après avoir eu neuf enfants, il est mort de ce poumon mal soigné. A 11 ans, mon père reprenait la ferme et sa grande sœur de 13 ans devenait la deuxième maman des sept autres petits. Après 59 ans de séparation, sa femme l’a rejoint il y a un an.

La guerre était tabou, alors quand j’allais dans sa ferme, je m’asseyais sur les charrues rouillées au bois vermoulu, je trainais dans les étables, au grenier, à la cave pour me rapprocher. J’ai lu des livres, vu des documentaires et des films, écouté des chansons, visité des expos sur ce même thème, mais jamais je ne me suis sentie aussi proche de ce fantôme si silencieux, de cette guerre si cruelle.

Installation views:
Anselm Kiefer
'Walhalla', White Cube Bermondsey, London
23 November 2016 - 12 February 2017
© Anselm Kiefer. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell)


J’ai retraversé ce couloir de cette guerre assoupie et regardé cette photo imposante. Dans quelques secondes, je serai dos à dos avec ce soldat inconnu et je continuerai de parcourir un futur incertain. Dehors, la lumière était éblouissante en cette fin d’automne et j’ai eu cette pensée pour Ismail Alabdullah, « prisonnier » à Alep en Syrie… encore combien de temps avant que ses twits ne se taisent devant le silence vulgaire de la communauté internationale ?


Il était 15h. J’ai pris deux bus pour aller à Soho. Les énormes anges qui survolaient la Regent Street étaient déjà allumés quand je suis arrivée, les boules de Noël aussi à Oxford Street ainsi que les lumières blings de la New Bond Street. Pour la première fois, je décidais de enjoy Christmas, sans pour autant célébrer. Juste voir la foule, les enfants s’émerveiller devant les vitrines et les éclairages.

« … Car un enfant qui pleure, Qu'il soit de n'importe où, Est un enfant qui pleure, Car un enfant qui meurt Au bout de vos fusils Est un enfant qui meurt… Vivre, Vivre Avec tendresse, Vivre Et donner Avec ivresse ! » Barbara, Perlimpinpin.



UPDATE 2,5 December (though it’s 8)
One year I have started that “Dear Liz” stuff, drifting to Les Inrockuptibles and some write-ups on whatever I fancied.
Many (like many people in the media in Europe, and not in the media and outside Europe) have read this ongoing missive. I have sent on many occasions emails to the ones mentioned, more specifically those @ BFI & @ Les Inrocks. Nobody bothered to reply.

So yeah, there is a war, a few even and people complain and moan about it... and yet, no one can bother to sort out anything as simple. Instead, JD Beauvallet @ Les Inrocks and his male team have hired the service of feminists to plaster their credibility, to cover their sexism and misogyny. From some music advice, I even contacted a solicitor firm Howard Kennedy for their regular similarities with my posts as well as PIAS for having deleted my radio show on Youtube in April this year when nothing belongs to them. Strangely enough, Jean-Daniel Beauvallet’s son Ben works for PIAS. Very unfortunately, it will cost me a few hundred pounds in the first meeting and I can’t afford it!





As from Liz and co @ BFI, I have been blocked, and those like Mark Cousins don’t seem interested in mixing up... as for Carmen Gray... here is my archive on films I’m happy on my reviews = http://sybillecastelain.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/all-about-films.html


My blog will continue! I’ll probably even go to BFI and pay for what I want to see. I know I’ll feed some racists there but they can always prove me wrong! Shame some in the culture bizz feel they have to discriminate!

Did you keep that perspective of terrorism Liz? They attack but you are not quite sure why? Anyway, when I lived in Peru, I changed my mind about counterfeiting. I was very strict and against copying artists material. But in the third developing world, what chance does one get to be informed, cultured, and emancipated? I behaved like anybody else did in search of intellectual stimulation, I went to Polvos Azules. I was thirsty! Back in the rich and “civilised” and intellectual Europe, I can’t even get counterfeited stuff and even if I could, I wouldn’t because there are other possibilities / solutions that you and your friends are blocking, preventing the struggling population from getting a tiny bit of crusts and make sure you keep your "aristocratic" advantages! This is not about you having pity or doing charity, this is about sharing fairly and not behaving like blood thirsty terrorists.
What’s the point in me continuing writing on this blog if it’s only for a few art places? Do you really feel like a winner?

I hope some people will have the courage to want to meet me! This is an ongoing prose until I finish reviewing the crass that has invaded my brain. I’ll vomit it here, back to you, up to you to ignore or deal with it! I’m no angel but I blow my nose neatly!

“I still believe that peace and plenty and happiness can be worked out some way. I am a fool.” Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Sybille Castelain – babylondonorbital@gmail.com