accepting the mystery...

'twas the night before the night before xmas, and hidden away in her parent's house, paula varjack was writing this blog, quieter than a mouse.... i've been doing my best these last weeks to keep a low profile and do as little as possible (except drinking great ammounts of hot toddies and mulled wine that is) but amidst my inactivity, things i got up to just before the holiday season have all spilled out into fruition...like this little track i made for *you* to download.

http://paulavarjack.bandcamp.com/ and gosh how i'd love for you to forward it on. its really good to have something i can give away to whoever i please and whoever they please..and then there is the latest issue of paraphilia, the doppelganger issue. i've penned one of the stories, but i can't tell you which, you'll have to read it to find out... http://www.paraphiliamagazine.com/doppelganger.html

and last but most definitely not least, the video for waldemar's ^the bohemian^ featuring a little cameo from yours truly. enjoy, i'm going away now to light the fire and tuck some pressies under the tree. not sure when i next post here again, but i may have som stories after my italy trip visiting the marvelous maria maddalena aus cattolica for sylvester. season's greetings my darlings!!

hello, goodbye and an early xmas present

i've managed to cram a lot into my last few weeks in berlin for a while. soon i'll be able to post a link to the video for Waldemar's "the bohemian" and to my new website, but until then, i thought that i couldn't just leave berlin without giving you all something. so check this link out, where you can download a little uplifting track i've created to take you through the holiday season... and i guess its fair to say its an early gift for those i'm returning to in london too...
http://paulavarjack.bandcamp.com/

black jim gallery... rest in peace

Dear black jim,

It’s over

Its over…

Its’s over and I don’t even know why

Is it because I left?

Is it because I didn’t tell you I was gonna come back?

Is it because I took for granted

That you wouldn’t leave

Is it because…

Is it because...

Is it because...?

I know

I know

The door was always swinging open

For me to stumble in whenever I felt like

And stumble out

When I didn’t want

to stay

But you never took it personally

You always invited me back again

You always

Invited me back again

With open doors

And walls that smiled

Armchairs and sofas

That pulled me into their laps

Everything about you was

Tactile, warm, familiar

But you attracted me

Because you always made it new

Unconditional

My endless friend

My one time lover

Your walls that smiled

Everything about you felt

Tactile, warm, familiar

With images that always changed

faces and pictures

Your hand made stage

Of songs and words

You were my

Favourite after hour

My salon of a select few

You always knew

You always knew

You always knew

That This

wasn’t forever

But not easily forgotten

You leave

Listening

Whispering

Your space

Surrounds

These

Words

So I ask you

Is it over?

what does one wear to a funeral party?

i've had all manner of fashion dilemmas in my life, but this one has sort of stumped me. as i write this, my iron four poster bed is thick with layers of:
black dresses, black skirts, black tights.
velvets and spandex and satins all clamouring for attention. and why? well.. tomorrow night is the closing party of the black jim gallery, so named "the funeral" . and i'm as distraught about it closing its doors, as i am to say goodbye to a good friend. because that space in its short lived life was in deed a great friend. a meeting of ideas and minds and creativity, a place anyone could walk into have a coffee and simply take the space in and talk art and make music and wonderwhat is it about this city that draws us in and keeps us here.

a year later from when i first mused about my city schizoprhenia, i'm now at peace with it. one hand in london, one hand in berlin, and a year ahead of leaving both cities behind to tour with a small crew of international poets to see places i've wondered about but never seen, brussels, lisbon, warsaw to name a few.

friday night and i'm in, with no plans to leave (although if i was steppiong out into the cold, i woudl be at bang bang club in the next hours to see waldemar, and then back to kreuzberg as my mate dara launches a new club night practically stumbing distance away ) but no, this infamous party going hedonist as plans for one thing alone this week/end, the closing party tomorrow. which by the way will be my last gig in berlin for months at least. and the line up is not only astonishing but exhausting, things kick off four thirtyish and keep going until ten, with new performers up every twenty minutes, so really you shoudl come down and pay your respects. i'm on at ten past seven, i'll be reading a couple stories, sat down in a chair and everything, and i've written a poem especially to say goodbye, which i'll only post here after the night. and i may even do a little.. singing. it will be far from my regular set. because when a place this special is ending, i've got to pull out all the stops to commemorate it. so my darlings, drag out all that is black, don a veil and such and come down tomorrow night to Waldemarstrasse 21 in the heart of Kreuzberg, Berlin.

xxx miss varjack


p.s. and yes i did mean to tell you some stories of the shoot for the music video for Waldemar's "the bohemian" but perhaps i'll let you more about that next week when the video is up out in the outside world.

bunny and the bull

I have a weakness for journey films. They are a tried and tested narrative formula, stretching far back to fairy tales, fables and myths. Something about watching a character’s emotional journey, mirrored by a physical one, has always worked for me. Towards the end of my own recent journey back to the U.K., I was invited to a preview screening of the film bunny and the bull. It is a road movie in a way, but also not at all, as the main character, Stephen (Ed Hogg) spends the majority of the film, unable to leave his house. The magical mystery tour that led to this self imprisonment, is revealed in a series of hallucinatory flashbacks, bringing us closer to understanding why he cannot leave, and if he will ever find the courage to face the outside world again.

Stephen is quiet, reserved, kind and afraid of... just about everything, He lives in an enormous flat, crammed with boxes and boxes and boxes of carefully catalogued collections of mundane objects most would discard: straws, plastic bags, aging ready made meals. But it wasn’t always this way. A year ago, Stephen went on a cross european trip with his best mate Bunny (Simon Farnaby) . The two are a likeable pair of polar opposites, all of Stephen’s awkwardness matched by Bunny’s charismatic careless ways. And nothing about this european trip is ordnary in a touristic sense, as Stephens’s incredibly strange guide book takes them through places most tourists would never take any interest in going. for example, poland’s museum of cobblery, where one can eat in the cafe after and have the “authentic meal of an 18th century cobbler*” ("why would anyone want to do that?" questions Bunny. Stephen isn’t given much of a chance to reply as Bunny drags them off elsewhere)

but not only is this a road movie that never leaves the flat. its a movie with scenes all over europe, that is shot almost entirely... in Yorkshire. this is achieved by wondrous production design, mixing everything from stop motion animation, to studio sets that look so charmingly hand made, they are unlike any you’ll soon see again. this a low budget film that works its budget well , not by trying to seem bigger than it is, but rather by exploiting its apparent limits. and like the best british indie films, its idiosyncratic and sure of itself. the characters are real and likeable and human and different. they are so well drawn , that they are easily warmed to (especiallly Eloisa (Veronica Echuegui) an adorably eccentric spanish girl, who accidentaly creates a love triangle by crossing their path)and anyone who is a fan of the mighty boosh, I.t. crowd, nathan barley will be delighted with the casting, and well down with the humour.



so whats wrong with it then?

It does feel ever so slightly long. After a pacey start , there becomes a point just past the midway mark, where it begins to feel like there are one too many obstacles, and zany characters that they must come across, before they reach the strange and painful climax. its almost as if the writers and cast had so much fun going throuh strange scenarios, that they kept adding to them, unsure of when to say when. i found the climax of the story wayyyy over the top. Then again somehow that kind of suits the mad journey that is the film.

So in short, see it. maybe even make an effort to see it while its out in the cinema, it does look and sound very pretty. (the soundtrack is as easy on the ears as it is haunting) and will keep you entertained and amused for the ride. bunny and the bull hits cinemas in the uk november 27th, and with any luck after not too long, it may come and hit other places, like germany hopefully....

tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow

what a weird day. i'm a promoter without a phone which is both challenging and oddly cathartic. i've had all kinds of strange pre antislam errands to run, like aquiring a megaphone, buying wierd prizes from McPaper. *i'm not saying anything other than there may be a kitten theme involved* and as i stopped into kaisers on my way home to celebrate getting everything but my nails *did*... i noticed this rather striking punk rocker boy in the bio section, looking at whole grain pasta or something, and then my eyes trail down his black t-shirt and faded jeans, only to notice his... bare feet? which looked suprisingly clean for someone walking around a grocery store and the streets without shoes on. did i miss the memo on it being really punk to walk bare foot?

i walk away from punk jesus and see this b-boy perusing various kinds of sparkling water. looking really serious, putting one down and reading the label of another, maybe kreuzberg is gentrifying in a whole new way, where punk rockers walk around bare foot in the bio section, and b-boys are really careful about which bottled water they buy.. hmmm. did i mention i bought a megaphone? i spray painted it gold, because well, i still have a can of gold and a can of pink paint from when i painted the bikes. i may paint the inside pink, i'm not sure yet.

anywayzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz i'm rambling. i'm thinking about going over to ping pong bar to promote a little, but damn these emails keep coming with more names for the fanlist. so darlilngs, if you want a hope of seeing any of the action tomorrow, defo come at 8pm. i don't want to jinx it but it is lookiong rather like we'll pack out. and who are you packing out to see? what is the definitely final final final line up? well i'm about to tell you dolls...

tomorrow night at PingPong Bar
Glogauer str 21, Kreuzberg Berlin 10999
doors 20.30, show 21h

THE ANTI SLAM PART ZWEI

..FEATURING...

the anti-slam jury
Tom Mars
B*
Sarah Brockhausen
Jacinta Nandi

Timekeeper/Scorekeeper
Michael Haeflinger

Sacrficial Poet
Carlos X

The Anti-Slammers auf Deutsche

Tilmann Birr
Wolfgang Hogekamp
Sergio Gerau
Benjamin During
Till Reiners
possible surprise guest...


The Anti-slammers auf Englische (don't call them *expats*)
Moon
Niti
Dara O'neill
Ditto
Mirabelle Jones
Lady GAby

and as ever... moderating over the messy proceedings..

Paula Varjack

p.s why pay a fiver on the door when you can be on the three euro fan list? you have until five thirty pm tomorrow to email any and all the names you like to antislam@live.com

delayed summer, random tuesdays, at least its not sunrise

uh oh, i think summer kicked in late...i'm liking minimal again. on friday night at watergate, a club i swore i'd never go back to, on a night i swore i wouldn't go out. I'm taking chemical cocktails that keep me up until the sun forces sunglasses on and everyone around me is losing it
the dj hands me a jug of jager and the promoter is cutting up lines with eyes with that glint that suggest he's ready to seduce the young boy cub kids who may not be that straight after
they knock, back the vial of the thing that some party with and others use as a date rape drug. but they're taking advantage of him too. and they are a colourful crew. eighteen to twenty six.

one called himself a g-sexual. i can hear accents cut through beats. the tourists from london keep coming but that was friday, and now its tuesday, i was going to stay in but thought i'd check out a jam session until i ran into a friend who was having drinks in the back of that all night place called baghdad where we enter worlds smallest smoking room
unless you count the one they"re building at luzhia

but anyways, i'm doing my best to focus. comprehending as much as i can of this group conversation in german, when this drunk skater boy with an open shirt
something retro calafornian about him or a seventies porn star maybe its the mustache ?
but its not him i'm intrigued by, he's got this super hot tiny asian chick wiht him
wearing the greenest shortest dress ever which she lifts up to reveal even shorter cut off shorts
and then around the table i hear thatit was birthday barbecue earlier in gorlitzer park
only for some reason someone broke out pepper spray

i can't process this. so i question are we going to the jam session?
no?
the blonde drunk skater who is wearing a flashing light necklace that says
hot
*no really i'm not making this up*
takes us tall to his flat aroudn the corner, by now there are like fifteen of us and as we walk out i see this irish boy i met at bar 25 or kept meeting at bar 25 every time i went there
my running joke being he never ever left
now i say to him
congratulations, they closed, you got out
and he says he's so glad its over, and i can tell he wants to find out where we're going. it looks like a party in the making, but i don't really know him so i don't invite him and feel like he must have the impression i'm part of this big crew, when actually i only know like three people with me, and we this new born tuesday party massive walk and tease our friend who runs an illegal bar that we love. about creating this choas by daring to closeon our favourite night to go

we get to skater boys' flat, its on the fourth floor because isn't it always
the flatmate is friendly but maybe not excited to have us all stumble in but its early and
we're not that drunk and anyway there are already like twenty people there. but the vibe is more after dinner party and our vibe is more.. party and then the drunk boy, he puts on music
some luxus hi-fi set up, then he puts on that track sunshine
which has been a bit of a minimal anthem all summer and cranks up the volume

and people are already ashing on the floor. and i listen to the beat and the repeating vocal
and think about how here, here in berlin, tracks that talk about being awake until morning
tracks about daylight coming are always goign to be anthems
they make you celebrate your party endurance, your commitment
the smiles you share with those you've never exchanged names or hello;s with. but kept running into thursday, friday, sunday, weekend after weekend, dancefloor to dancefloor
this the city where partying past sunrise isnt' hardcore,
its just normal

but the party we're at now is not really a party the music is turned down
and then we leave walk down the stairs en masse. and the guy who invited us come along. we get stuck on the corner by that place baghdad again. and i'm kind of wishing i'd left with that irish boy instead. he had said he was going ot an open air bar my friend works at. but now i'm just on a corner with people i mostly don't know, getting quickly irritated by group dynamics where everyone is always responsible for at least one person. so when you try to leave someone says,

i just need to get
who just needs to get
who just needs to get
who just needs to get
until you're a group again

we go to the jam but its too early so there's a terrible band. self absorbed musicans wiht no soul
and an audience of onlookers who look too polite to walk out and seem scared of the stage. all standing as far back as possible

we
are now only four
we lost the others on the way. we stay a little . i have a good chat with one of my friends. then we all leave. but i don'tl go home because i run into another friend, who i pluck from the sidewalk bar he's at, and wander somewhat aimlessly trying to agree on the best bar to have nightcap in but everywhere['s too empty, too boring, too\
tuesday?

we end up in a bar that was once a kind of divey kneipe. but is now frequented by hipsters
and we talk abotu love and sex and relationships and closure, and i drink my double whiskey far too quickly. so we walk out , go through pitch dark gorlitzer park, that i was warned to never cross at night, when i first moved here/ and when we get to the street, where he must go one way
and i must go another, my love advice has degraded to that of a frat boy.
i cycle off saying only .

ultimately we're all rubbish (meaning women)
but then you all are too (meaning men)
and with those sage words i ride home, feeling civilised because at least its not

sunrise

its making me krazr...

so i got this phone that is like exactly like my old phone which is special because you cant get it anymore it was this limited edition motorola thing which mattered before iphones and blackberries made all other phones redundant. anyways so i buy it,

because its like gold and is the only kind of phone i've used for years and years *the motorola krazr if you care. which i love because it has a memory card for lots of pics and a voice recorder and the front panel is a mirror which makes good for checking make up but rubbish for dropping on hard wood floors which i've done with my last 3 krazr's repeatedly.

its all shiny and new even though i bought it secondhand. and i'm all excited about it when i get it back to the flat and then i put in teh charger and my sim and charge it up but the thing about these phones is they save the messages on the handset and there are all these messages in german and they're all dead girly

then i think about all the phones i've had stolen from me, and had lost. and i'm thinking if this girl sold this phone wouldn't she have deleted the messages? and it does seem so recent and then i start to feel really bad and think its begging to be stolen and think maybe i should
drop it
on the floor so its cracked and then it will look more like my old one and less desirable to steal but either way i can't give it back to the german girl who lost it
and now i feel kinda bad using it.

and then later i meet my friend for a drink and i explain how all the messages are all really really really girly like,
LOL do you think he's flirting with me

and then he's like
so you read all the messages??
and then i feel even worse.


maybe i should just take it back...

falling from the frenzy that was the fringe...

gosh, where do i even begin, so i've just settled back in the wonderland that is berlin and it feels a little like stepping from one world to the next. to those that have never had the pleasure of taking part in edinburgh's fringe festival, for the four days i got to sample the pleasure i can only say its a little like the madness i'm used to in berlin, only with way more performances and people from everywhere. its a theatre/comedy festival on acid, where all your time is spent performing, promoting, trading contacts and taking in some brilliant entertainment and art from all over the world. Thanks to the wonder that is london's spoken word programme UTTER, spearheaded by the ginger haired king richard tyrone jones, i journied to this magical scottish place of hills and temperamental weather and even a castle, a big pretty straight out of a fairybook castle. and though i met no prince or princesses, there were poets and poetesses and comics and performance artists and breakdancers and street performers, all doing all they could to convince the other performers, theater goers and locals that ours was the show they must see.

funnily enough the most fun i had was probably the last day we did promoting/flyering. myself, richard and dzifa benson (my new sister in crime) to0k to the royal mile and jumped up on bollards, bellowing oru prose to the passing public. you'd think it would be humiliating, but it was like taking my performance skills straight down, stripped down to grass roots guerilla level. if you can get a crowd to form around when you're not protected by the safe confines of a stage, well you've got to be doing something right. *video of that coming soon.. oh dear. at one point we were bellowing beside this street performer, a silent ancient asian woman in blue face paint and a million piercings, i ran into her later at this venue and she very quietly and sweetly said she adored my poetry and to keep at it. ah the street performers and other promoters, like the really really hot girl with the whore sign who was out of flyers and just getting people to write the details of her show down.

i'm already thinking about going back next year, and what that will involve, but until then i'm having fond memories of meeting so many marvelous people. and i'm crushing on the city and its local spoken word scene hard. (it helps that all versions of scottish accents i heard sound so damn sexy to my cosmopolitan easyjetset ears :-)

but you probably want some gossip don't you? as i am the girl that likes to kiss and tell... well i'll excercise some ladylike discretion and name no names or particulars. but i can tell you that much to my amusement on one night i saw a fantastic solo show by nyc comedienne desiree burch, that involved audience participation, and at one point left me with a rather large orange dildo in my hand... drinking and chatting after with my edinburgh hosts emma and wallace, i encountered several very hot boys. one of which wrote his name on my arm so i could stay in touch, only i washed it off by accident, anotehr of which didn't write his name on my arm, but gosh i wish he had (although i do remember him taking my glasses off at once point and telling me i how beautiful i was, which made me all shy in a not very varjack way) and then emma and i snuck into this rockabilly club where i was plucked by the promoter/dj and swing danced all around the place. oh and then the following night there was attention from two gentlemen cant mention, but suffice to say the latter of the two resulted in a lot of very sexy flirtation.

and then it was soo late that me and emma had to go back to her place, where i could barely keep my eyes open, and in an hour she was shaking me awake and i was sleep walking into a cab, and now here i am in berlin again. nice one. xxx p

zayna and paula got soul....

5oo days of summer...

Last week I saw a premiere of the film The 500 days of summer. It is a charming little film. It feels very much like a first film, or film school film, in all its breathless desires to pack as many quirky effects and styles as it can into ninety some minutes. This was the kind of film that me and all of my film school friends wanted to make in college. *(those of us that weren’t hell bent on being the next tarantino that is) and what makes it the kind of film we wanted to make? Well…
It has (in no particular order)

• An anonymous narrator unconnected to the plot
• Split screens
• Rotoscoping
• Disney-esque animation mixed with live action
• Black and white silent film sequences
• Choreographed dance sequences
• Flashbacks and flashforwards
• Gorgeous animated titles
• a moody brit pop soundtrack (which for American audiences gives it yet more indie cred. Cue the smiths, belle and sebastien which in the plot are given supreme character relevance)
• very now hipster styling which makes all the characters dress in a kind of modern day version of retro (a neutral classy mash up of forties, fifties, sixties)

For me, and anyone like me, who has this crazy idea that we are totally completely individual in all of our quirky ironic indie interests, after about twenty minutes one is glumly forced to face the fact that yes, i/we belong to a demographic. And that did get in the way of the film for me sometimes. It was like the film was in the corner of a house party, giving me drink after drink, while saying like me like me like me, I’m cool too! we have soooo much in common. But some of those people at parties irritate, and then there are others that you clock and think, yes, you’re a bit young and keen and overexcited, but you are cool. So you let them ramble on and give you more drinks and as soon as they stop trying to prove themselves, the real coolness shines through. So while I can’t say I loved the film, i liked it enough to give it a chance. And this is the coolness I saw shining through.

It does very well to tell a different kind of love story, that isn’t so much about love necessarily but postmodern relationships in general. It plays with gender roles very nicely as well. other than films/tv about polyamoury, this is the first time I have EVER seen a film that deals with the matter of a “non=conventional” relationship. Especially, where it is the female character who is uninterested in commitment or labels. The writers definitely speak with experience, the story and characters involved are presented with sensitivity and bittersweet poignance.

The best part of the film however, is the casting of the two leads. Indie film it girl Zooey Deschanel and the impossibly adorable Joseph Gordon-Levitt are an utter joy to watch. the film is worth seeing for them alone. the way they relate and fail to relate to one another is genuine and real. There are many head noddingly accurate truths that are said and portrayed about relationships. (personal favourite sequence: after the morning they first have sex, and a split screen sequence about date expectation versus how events really play out) annnnd The art direction is fantastic. One of the cleverest ideas of the script, is making the pair work colleagues, in a greeting card company. This allows for some great visual jokes in shots, and a cheeky juxtoposition of the commercial representation of love and sentiment, versus the actual one.

So cast aside all the over the top style stuff, the heavy handedness about them LOVING british pop music (maybe this would bother me less if I was more American) and that matter of all of the characters bar the main two, being fairly two dimensional. (the best being the little sister of the male main character, she only exists to give her older brother advice, but it’s an adorable idea to have this totally together thirteen year old, coaching her moody heartbreak junkie brother). There are a few films that I love to see every time I come out of a relationship, or think about entering one. This could well be a film I add to the list. And though it may not be a date movie, date movies are kind of of over for our times aren’t they? when the concept of dating itself is overrated, maybe its time for more films like this where the equation is far more complicated than boy + girl = love.

3000 ways to commit suicide but… and doppelgangers

i just finished watching one of my favourite films of all time, humoresque. there are films i love that i watch so many times that when i pick up the dvd box and can hear it and see it in my head from beginning to end, and then there are films like this one that hit me so hard, as much as i love them i can only bare to watch once in a while when i’m in a very certain mood. what an astonishing film this is though. its probably one of the best studies i’ve seen of the character of the artist/and/or musician ever, its also a brilliant breakdown of an affair, of the older woman younger man dynamic and for a film shot in the forties is right on point with the issues of fame and artisitic criticism.

i don’t even know what drove me to watch it tonight, other than i knew i had to stay in and i knew it was teh kind of film to keep me grounded and thinking in such a way i couldn’t just float out of the flat after for a drink (she says typing wiht a volumninous glass of rose’ by the mouse…) this theme of involvement with artists is suprisingly a new one for me. see i never really dated many artists before, creatives etc. but now in berlin my life is a dense tapestry of performers of all descriptions. singers, performance artists, musicians, performance poets, actors and actresses, comics. its rarely a day that goes by when i’m out and i’m not with someone who performs in some way

and we’re a funny lot. really. we crave attention to sometimes superhuman proportions, we’re as vulnerable as we’re brash and outgoing. and fueled by our vices of choice, destruction is often just out of reach. i cheated a bit when i went wrote my why you should never date a kunstler piece. i cheated in that i hadn’t dated all those artists. ok an affair and a relationship with two conceptual artists (not at the same time, that woudl have been insanity) and i’ve defo had too many affairs with poets, but the musician section was mostly abstracted from the experiences friends of mine have had. and oddly that felt the most true

humoresque like many brilliant films of the forties, is rife with cracking dialogue, but the line that stuck out and made me laugh out loud in my living room was “a french philosopher once cited three thousand ways to commit suicide, but he left one out, falling in love with an artist” how terribly true. the line is said as the joan crawford character walks out drunkenly from a bar. excited to pass a note to her lover with news that will change their relationship, she goes to his rehearsal. and when he comes ot a pause and reads her urgent note, he crumples it up and asks the conductor to go back to the beginning of the concerto. he doesn’t even look up to see her in the auditorium. its brutal. and she tells him later she doesn’t want to be second to his music. and thats the problem. one falls in love with the artist partly because of the art, and the passion for the art, and not long after one becomes jealous of that very thing. i’ve even been guilty of the same. and yet, now that it comes to me i have this joke i often make with my friends

given the choice of meeting someone tomorrow who i loved and loved me, or a personal assistant who would work for free. i’d take the P.a. no doubt. no question. and its a joke kinda. but the frightening thing is , i also know its true. i used ot be the girl who’s relationship was my life, and it made me very happy, and i’d given up on my career really progressing anyway. i find myself in reverse now.

and why do i think about all these matters? because i’ve been commisioned to write a piece authored by my doppelganger. and as i try to connect with that old self, before the madness of performing, before a kunstlername and alterego utterly eclipsed me and the life before, i’m left thinking, how could anyone really handle me now seriously as a partner, and for that matter, how coudl i seriously entertain the matter of involving anyone else…

july 1st... THE ANTI SLAM...

Ok so, you may know what a poetry slam is.. A group of poets present their self written texts, round after round. And then the few winners of those rounds compete in a final round. The poet with the highest score, or loudest applause, or largest number of hands raised wins. Its fun, its competitive, its entertaining for the audience. But what if the format of the slam was turned on its head? What if the point wasn’t performing the best piece.. but the worst. I don’t just mean bad, I mean terrible, embarrassing, cringe worthy. So bad that its good. And inevitably, this also means… funny.

I bring you… The Anti Slam ??!!!!

Twelve performers “compete” in three rounds performing self written texts of up to three minutes. Six of the performers from the English spoken word and comedy scene, and six from the German poetry slam scene. Each performance is judged by a panel of judges giving scores from 1-10, decimal points used to prevent ties.

The three poets with the lowest scores from each round, have fifteen minutes to write a poem for the final round. The poet with the lowest score, wins. In the first round you can perform in your native tongue, but in the final, you will have to perform a poem in your second language.

When??? Wednesday 1st July.. 21 Uhr
Where?? S.I.N Shönleinstrasse 6 , Kreuzköln Berlin
How do I find out more? Send an email to Paulavarjack@Googlemail.com

--------------------------------German text follows-------------------

O.K., du weißt vielleicht, was ein Poetry Slam ist… Eine Gruppe von Poeten trägt selbst geschriebene Texte vor. Runde für Runde. Und die Gewinner dieser Runden treffen dann in einer Finalrunde aufeinander. Der Poet mit der höchsten Punktzahl oder dem lautesten Applaus gewinnt. Es ist lustig, es ist ein Wettbewerb, es ist unterhaltsam. Aber was ist, wenn das Format des Slams auf den Kopf gestellt wird? Was ist, wenn es nicht darum geht, den besten Text vorzutragen, sondern den schlechtesten? Und nicht einfach nur schlecht, sondern fürchterlich, peinlich, erbärmlich. So schlecht, dass es schon wieder gut ist. Und unvermeidbar lustig.

Bühne frei für… The Anti Slam ??!!!!

Zwölf Performer werden in drei Gruppen aufgeteilt und “wetteifern” mit selbst verfassten Texten von jeweils bis zu drei Minuten Länge. Sechs Performer aus der englischsprachigen Spoken Word und Comedy Szene und weitere sechs aus der deutschsprachigen Poetry Slam Szene. Jede Darbietung wird von einer Jury mit Punkten von 1-10 bewertet.

Die drei Poeten, die den Vorrunden jeweils den niedrigsten Punktestand erreicht haben, bekommen fünfzehn Minuten Zeit, einen Text für die Finalrunde zu schreiben. Und wieder gewinnt derjenige Poet mit den wenigsten Punkten. In der Vorrunde kann jeder in seiner angestammten Sprache performen, doch im Finale muss der Text in der Zweitsprache verfasst sein.

Wann??? Mittwoch, 1. Juli, um 21 Uhr
Wo?? S.I.N Schönleinstrasse 6 , Kreuzkölln Berlin
Für weitere Infos: Paulavarjack@Googlemail.com

coming soon...

the best way you could possibly spend the next 8 minutes of your time...

no seriously. last year a friend of mine made this short film called mitte. i screened it at the first cinema rivalry night and everyone there was pretty impressed by it . its funny, its on point, and its a fun take on the performance art scene, the new wave of auslanders/kunstlers coming to berlin, and self indulgent hipsters in general. watch it now

and then VOTE FOR IT http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/category/vote/

mitte- the movie... vote baby vote..

bastardslam, shut up and speak, new word order and making tracks...

so as much as i almost fell into a park vortex at gorli, i dragged my ass back to the flat to get out this blog. i woke up this morning amazed at feeling fresh, considering the ammount of wine i knocked back last night at comedy in sin. its a night you should seriously check out if you havn't already. its run by the boys of the comedy olympics. as much as i love my spoken word, it was great to be at an english language event that had nothing to do with poetry for a change. and everyone was hilarious. paula salamone's brooklyn character cracked me up, ray melara was brilliant, and the thing that really blew my mind about jacinta, is how she is so skilled at her craft, that she make me laugh so hard even with material i'm familiar with. its great to have such talented friends.

but anywaysss, as there is no rest for the wicked, my night off from performing was just a warm up for the busy night i have ahead tomorrow. First i'll be cycling down to wirrwarr at seven to catch ShUt up and Speak, a bilingual spoken word event of scintillating female poets. if i'm lucky i may have time to get on the open mic at 8, but then i have to jump back on the bike right after, to get to festaal xberg for the bastardslam. jacinta is the reigning title holder so i'm really keen to hear what she's got in store, and there's a feature poet called Blair, who i've heard great things about, hailing to that birthplace of techno, detroit. i have no idea what i'm performing yet, but with any luck i'll figure it out before my name is called.

then ich machen eine pause from the stage. just a teeny kleine one. as next thursday i'm hosting new word order. and for all my performing friends whether you be musicans, comics, poets, storytellers or just fancy having five minutes to get up and talk about something. get down to mano cafe' on the corner of skalitzer str and lausitzer str by 8 and get your name on the list. but beware, where your name goes down on the list may or may not determine when i call you up to perform. :-)

only other thing i should add is that i'm cracking on on the music front. there are two new tracks on the player, eye contract and commodity, and if you want to hear more of the skills of producers domenica and jonas mccloud. check them out in my top friends. and there is more to come. clouds and i have an ep in the making after working very hard for the last months. that evil genius of electric guitar maurice
(from band ena wild) is going to be joining me more often to lend some atmospheric chords to my verse. and its starting to look like more of my gigs are going to at least feature backing tracks, if not live musicians, or when i'm very lucky a full band. kind of like this one...

eye contract

I didn’t take you seriously
You barely registered on my radar
I just thought
No, actually I didn’t
think anything about you
But then the contract was set
With this one glance

I hadn’t been eyed up in
That way in some time
that curious intrigued way
that squaring up and
challenging way
that you’d decided
for both of us way
that makes my whole
body start responding

Like some kind of reflex
Like a series of
buttons were pressed
Like I’ve been
biologically programmed
Like I’m responding to
Unspoken commands
when the signals are set
I submit
without even realising

Our eyes were having
A very different conversation
From the one our
mouths were
You read my book
Without revealing one chapter
You played dumb
Just To make me feel clever

And I thought I was coy
But my bluff was blown
When you stopped playing
Didn’t’ wait to see my hand
Just Pinned me with it
Against that wall
In one smooth maneouvre

My dress raising over my legs
I stopped thinking altogether
Maybe I’m a follower
Who only pretends to be a leader
All mouth until told to
Shut up and listen
I was in a position
I didn’t know how to get out of
And didn’t really want to
either

The last time
I was in a situation like this
the contract was set
with one glance
but I didn’t know then that
the terms were four years
and sometimes I think
I probably should have
checked
The fine print

but this time is totally different
the toilet cubicle
is replaced by a dressing room
the town of brighton
is played by berlin
the bartender from brazil
is now a musician from london
and as for terms and conditions
well
once again they were not being
set by me

I said
How are you so sure
That you’re stronger
And you laughed and said
Because I am
And I didn’t consider
Any of the others who could walk in
Completely forgot about
Someone I’d been Flirting with
Only ten minutes before

And there I was
pinned
a butterfly preserved
Not knowing
how I’d been categorised
In my caption and
Just as suddenly as we
started
Without any explanation You

stopped,
let go of me
And you were
walking off
I said
Am I ever gonna see you again?
And you..
you just Laughed…

die frie hand und life is a cabaret....

suddenly i go from endless chilling out at the park to being kinda busy, i think the change in weather kicked me into gear or. maybe the rain gets my london head on and tells me i can't just hang out.

but i'm feeling all inspired after hooking up with poetry diva katinka kraft, even though, or especially though, our conversation dropped us down some kind of cafe' vortex (in a very good way). its just one of those days.... its just one of those weeks actually.. suddenly its already tuesday and i'm gearing up for gigs on friday and saturday, and actually using my diary to make sense of what i'm getting up to in the next two weeks. which will hopefully consist of hooking up with fleur from plateau repas, as we just got our collective heads scheming. annnd i'm starting to holler at london because I'm thinking about the Fall. so this is the point in the blog and say

ADD SKINT BUT SEXY AS YOUR FRIEND...

who? who? you may ask. well drop down to my top friends and note that rather fetching doll couple all decked out in their prophylactic best. there's a little content up there now, but v.soon there will be more video, and maybe even some more tracks. add them now while supplies last. all will be explained in good time.

now, back to the weekend. not just one but two gigs for the ladies and gents of berlin, where I journey to where i have never performed before... MehringDamm and NEU KÖLLN.... i'm getting all tingly just thinking about gracing new territory. and to make it all the more exciting, both sets will feature special surprise guests...

so first, friday i've got a fifteen minute set at Kollage which will be filmed so it would be super lovely to have some familiar faces to perform to, especially if you're the type that applaud warmly and loudly. and performers its a good night for you to check out as these guys film all their nights all professional like and then upload them to youtube, and stream them all over the world wide web. so its a great place to perform and walk away with more online presence than you had when you walked in. and now finer to the details..
-----------Die Freie Hand KultuRRevue
am Freitag, den 08.Mai.09

diesmal mit Mai, Valentin & the true believers,
Sven Panne, Naëma Faika, Nikolaus Buchholz, Paula Varjack
Wann: 20Uhr (Einlass)
Und weiter: Yorckstrasse 22, Kreuzberg, Berlin 10965

Und Wie hin?: U Bahn MehringDamm/Möckernbrücke/ S Yorckstr.
Ach ja: 3€
+ 1€ GEMA

--die Links------------------------------
Mai (www.myspace.com/maikommt)
Sven Panne (www.myspace.com/svenpanne)
Paula Varjack (www.myspace.com/paulavarjack)
Nikolaus Buchholz (www.myspace.com/nikobuchholz)
Fedja (www.myspace.com/fedjaband)
Valentine & The True Belivers (www.myspace.com/valentinethetruebelievers)
www.myspace.com/diefreiehand
www.kulturrevue.de


and so onto saturday,9th May 20.00hrs the launch of a new bi-monthly night in Neukolln,Ubahn Boddinstr U8, another new platform for performers and musicans alike the one and only...
Phoneyisland Cabaret....
(here's what they've got to say about the show)

The economy is doomed, earthquakes hit southern Germany and a Swine flu pandemic threatens Civilisation - it must be spring.
And what better way to celebrate than with a cosy evening of free variety entertainment in the leafy streets of Neukölln.

Phoneyisland present a Cabaret with Deutsch and British artistes performing tunes, songs, comedy and poetry in a small, but perfectly formed, venue.A mixed up session with a house band, the Phoneyisland Wurlitzer – and a little Betty Boop thrown in.

Performances from,


Dom Bouffard
London born Singer, Musician and Composer. Former member of Cult London Rock'n'Roll bands SONA FARIQ and QUEEN ADREENA as well as NYC electro outfit THE GLASS.
Recently at The Berliner Ensemble

Hans-Joern Brandenburg
Composer/Arranger/Musician.Music for Theatre, Movies and Concert.Worked with Tom Waits, Greg Cohen, Bob Wilson, Tiger Lillies, Kronos Quartet, Rufus Wainwright, Frank Gratkowski, Herrmann Kretzschmar, Sirone, Thomas Wydler, 10FootBallerina, Recently at The Berliner Ensemble

Dharmander Singh
Is an actor/ musician and comedian from the sunny city of Birmingham, England. He has been entertaining audiences with his energetic rants about the world and life in general since 2006. Relocating to Berlin in December 2008, Dharmander has been a regular performer at "The Scheinbar" and " Kookaburra Comedy Club". Dharmander has performed at the Edinburgh Festival with the show " Asian Invasion for the last 3 years. Dharmander likes cheese, especially hallumi.

and last but not least...
Paula Varjack
Paula's the girl that leaves you at loss for words, maybe because she took yours before you could say them. She ran away from London last year to become a documentary filmmaker, and ended up as a performance poet. She's still not quite sure how that happened. (maybe it was the blue pill??). In any case, as far as her performances are concerned, fasten your seatbelts and get ready to get varjacked

back back back back

i go away for a few weeks and what does berlin do? she goes all golden and grinning in my absence. gooood work! i'm looking at the sun flirting through my window and keen to get outside. its a good week for all things arty and performance poetry oriented. first off you will the first i tell that the next call for submissions for cinema rivalry has been chosen. The event will happen at kreuzberg's one andonly ping pong bar in june, and this events theme is (drumrolll plllllease)

Trash vs. Style

so i'm on the look out for short films with slick aesthetics, or those who make trashiness an aesthetic, and when i say trashy, i don't mean bad, i mean trashy in the realm of messy intentional over-the top ness. maybe you're the next russ meyer? email me about it at paulavarjack (at) googlemail.com

but back to this week... kicking off with thursday, where i'll be doing a feature set at lady gaby's moving along with verses.


this is a kind of premiere of a new collective i'm a part of called:
skint but sexy. we being three berlin based performance poets and a musician from various parts of america and england. at the moment we're plotting our uk tour/takeover but more on that to come, for now we're just working out the finer details of our promotion (printed condoms? matchbooks? or maybe our own brand of ciggarettes?.. knowing the budget and tagline i'm thinking its gonna be matchbooks, but i'm hoping we can rock the condoms) annnnnnyways

friday i'm going to put my film-hat back on to document some performances i;m very much looking forward to. As beatstreet promises sets from that wonderful san franciscan ryan nash, and that scribe from the dirty fableland, Jonas Mccloud (aka Cloudfist Conceptz). But i can't have tooooo crazy a late night after the show because because because... on SATURDAY
an event i'm very much looking forward to

A tribute night to that diva of dynasty ALEXIS COLBY.




















i've got a vintage snake print jumpsuit i've been desperate for occasion to wear to, and the poem i've written for my performances is squarely in the sexual crush category. meanwhile I also love the poem Tom has written and i'm very curious to hear what Niti and Jonas McCLoud are stepping up with. But its not just about the poetry kids, there's gonna be dj sets and drag, and performance art from Lady Gaby and its all going down in that arty illegal bar wonderbar, with those dangerous orange cocktails Gaby makes. ...

i'll see you there