ok so maybe this is cheating but...

..i really wanted to write a blog about the last weekend in lisbon and lyons (coming back by way of paris no less) but i felt a bit guilty that i havn't once post to the smoke and mirrors blog and i also had to sift through all this video footage from the weekend and roughly cut a bit together for you to see, so forgive me my darlings, this blog is a trick, its just a link to another blog, but i wrote it and there's video there so all will be worth it if you just skip through to this lovely link...

xx miss varjack

magic portraits, warsaw smoke, lisbon mirrors, berlin femme mafia? Now Hear This...

......first off, can i just say warsaw.. i love you! what an ace gig! and then i was back in berlin kicking off the femme show, presented by the berlin femme mafia. and we sold out the lux with a queue around the block. nice. one..... meanwhile i'm sending off a couple texts to the ladies at shut up and speak, who i'm performing with in may, with get this, a sign language interpreter. kind of curious what german sign language for words like "mashed" and phrases like "page 3 girl" but i guess i'[ll just have to wait and see.

other good news this week was this wonderful write up about the last anti-slam on slammin poetry, and if you don't speak deutsche, i do believe google translate is your best friend.

but i don't have time to stop and pause because i'm now preparing for the next smoke and mirrors gig in lisbon, and the morning after we're off to lyons.
as we keep on keep on keep on moving. oh yeah, and the last eps of now hear this are now up for you to listen to and/or download to keep and play again and again to your hearts content
2010-02-24-1500-1600.NowHearThis #3 by herbstradio

2010-02-10-1500-1600.NowHearThis #1 by herbstradio

and there are all sorts of other things in store i can't tell you yet, but the last thing i can share with you are these gorgeous new press photos winta yohannes has taken of me. as much as i get my picture taken i don't think i've had portraits i've ever liked as much as these.





xxxxx p

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....