his arrival/her departure.

As sliding doors opened, I stumbled in with my two bags and suitcase. I fought for a space to stand , as my eyes collided into his. He was good looking and seemed friendly, but there was no warmth in the stare I gave him. It was exhausted if anything. I looked down, away. Stops later I turned, and caught him looking again. I had been lost in thought. I am wearing an outfit that may have seemed trendy but also incongruous: black Chanel oversized t-shirt, oil slick black leggings, gold hightops, a leather jacket covered in studs. I still had my massive sunglasses on. There may have been mascara stains just beneath them, the remains of tears.

When it was time to get off, I fought my way through the crush of rush hour commuters. When I looked up ahead, I felt like Sisyphus at the mountain. Why oh why did this station have to have so many fucking stairs???!! Suddenly my train voyeur was there. Did I want help with my suitcase? My yes was all shades of grateful.
“ Good holiday?” he asked. In my mental state of departure, the fact I could be arriving didn’t gel. It’s funny that isn’t it, someone coming or going, how can you ever tell? Whether we are coming or going, we look the same.

I’d paused too long, he was struggling with my suitcase, but still seemed intent on hearing an answer. I mumbled..

"uh..kinda. "
“kinda a holiday?!” he smirked
“I kind of live here part of the time, so it wasn’t really a holiday. I’m on my way back to Berlin.” There was a level of exasperation in my voice. The statement sounded strange to my ears, more glamourous than the reality. What would I think if I met my doppelganger and heard such words? I’d probably want to ask what she did for a living, and look at the gold trainers and gold bag, and think about what the cities of London and Berlin had in common. I’d then decide she was either: a dj or an artist. Maybe he thought all this, maybe he just accepted it , at any rate he nodded, and in a considered way , as if putting pieces of a puzzle together said
“ Which I guess is where you live the rest of the time.”

He told me he’d be going to Vienna soon . The mention of the city cheered me up for some reason.
“Oh its gorgeous, I’ve been twice this year.”
“ Yeah… I’m from there. But I haven’t been in ten years." His accent was completely London.

"The thing is. I’m going because… I’m going to see my dad… We haven’t seen eachother in.. well… we don’t’ get on so well. "

I nodded. This was the preamble to a conversation that could be interesting or meaningful but would have to end prematurely. I saw the barriers to my line. We stopped. He needed to go the other direction. For a moment it was almost as if he was considering walking along with me. I quickly interrupted the pause.
"Good luck . it is an amazing city". I said. He handed me back my suitcase.
"Well..." he searched for something else to say. "Have a safe journey. "
"You too." I said.

I walked off, and as I reached the barriers I looked back to see him looking my direction, before turning and walking away.

Me and Marty - the post fringe fest report...

The night before Marty and I left for Edinburgh, two of our close friends were leaving Berlin for good. These leaving drinks in typical Berlin fashion stretched much later than planned. Until Marty and I were left to scramble to our flats and finish packing before taking a cab to the airport in a sleepy panic.

Only we needn't of panicked. On arriving at the airport we realise we've arrived four hours before our flight. The lack of sleep leads us further and further into delierium. After failed attempts at conversation on the plane we pass out.

Suddenly we've arrived. After briefly meeting our wonderful host Emma in the town center, we get set off exhausted in the late afternoon in Leith, taking a nap that ends up wasting most of the day. By the time we get up its fifteen minutes until that evening's Utter spoken word programme. In our haste to get dressed and ready, we jump in a cab, only to realise en route we've left the flat with no flyers... Not a good start. But at least we could check out the venue, and collect a stack of utter flyers and free fringe programmes. Utter-Covers is good fun. Afterwards we get to meet a few other performers, and see another show before deciding we'd best get to bed early so we can start early the following day.

Day two. Its time to get flyering. We kick off by half price fringe box office, but as we have arrived at peak time, about two pm or so, the area is so clogged with people we can barely find a place to stand , let alone convince people to come to our show.

Everyone around us appears to either be flyering, or desperately fleeing those who are flyering. We decide to switch locations. Martin had never been to the fringe. I had tried to describe to him the madness of the royal mile and promoting there, but I don't think he got it until we arrived. Within seconds we were nearly knocked over by a group of people dressed up like doctors, then got out of the way to stumble over a mermaid.

We tried to find the spot on the mile where people wouldn't rush past us, and had no luck. No one wanted to pause for a moment, especially to take a flyer. And then somehow by accident we stumbled on an idea. I had my camera with me. At the very least we thought if no one was going to take our flyers, we could document the act of how hard it was to flyer on the royal mile.

As soon as I had the camera out and rolling, Marty called out "Free Fringe Festival Programme" and suddenly everyone wanted the programme, our flyer, and to know who we were and why we were filming. However from what we could tell, and we spent a good few hours up and down the royal mile. NONE of these people, came to our show....

Day three, also time to move house. We leave lovely Leith to just below the royal mile, as Emma's boyfriend George kindly rents his flat to us for the last days.

Our new "back garden" has hills as far as the eyes can see. Before setting off for more flyering and then our shows, we rehearse the show. more or less while we go about the flat and get ready and make tea and such.

And as for the shows, including our preview at Utter, They were all great fun! , and we made some new friends from our audiences. I think our favourite after show comment was

"I just wish I'd been stoned for that"

Cheers James Mckay... :-)

For our second and last show, we wrote on the back of flyers that we would buy a jaeger shot for everyone who came, with a flyer. This did mean that all the money we made from that show bought the round. But it was really nice to have a little after party with our crowd in the bar. Although the bartender did look at me like i was crazy when i ordered all those shots...

What have we learned? From speaking to other performers and hearing how their runs went compared with ours, it seems like it would be helpful to be in town for longer and to have a longer run, maybe four or five days. With everything going on and

so much to see, it can take time to see even the shows you're keen to see.

For example, we saw a comedian guest in a show we stumble upon on sunday. We thought he was hilarious and were committed to making it to his show.

When we got back to the flat we saw we had his flyer already, it was in the saturday pile.. The flyer hadn't made an impression. And Even with us both keen to check out his show, it wasn't until the last day that we did (and we were late... oops)

Audience. Why do people come to one show rather than another? We thought about the shows we were convinced to go to. Most of all the key thing is a personal connection. Either you know someone, or that stranger engages with you in a way that makes you feel like you know them, or would like to. After we left Peter Bearder wrote a really helpful email giving us advice flyering. he said the the one line sell doesn't work. You have to get into conversation with people. We agree. You have to use your charisma and energy and make friends, But those new friends may not come the first day you meet them, which is why it helps to have a longer run. Guest slots also seem to make a difference in promoting . We would have liked to do some guest slots (other than Utter) before our shows. Guest slots are really helpful in making contacts, and in turn building audiences for your own show.

Probably the last thing we learned was about flyer design. We realised our flyer made a brilliant poster, but was far too busy for an a6 format. We needed one strong image, one catchy line and maybe buzzwords like "Free" "Berlin" "Cabaret" . The problem with our flyer is visually it said too much, but verbally it wasn't direct enough. Now having seeing more flyers then we ever want to see again until next year, We've learned that our flyer was not the kind we would pick up from a pile of others, or that would be memorable after taking. Now we know.

It was a brilliant experience to take a show to edinburgh, to be part of the free fringe and to be supported by the tireless and courageous efforts of Richard Tyrone Jones. It feels very special to be part of the first dedicated spoken word venue. It definitely deserves a place in the fringe. We noticed that a lot of punters are scared of the phrase "spoken word" and we think that Utter is on its way to changing that. We're grateful to be part of the free fringe. Having to pay for our own expenses with the flights, accomodation and flyers there is no way we could afford to do the fringe in any other way. We've learned so much that it would be a waste to not come back stronger next year. We are definitely keen to come back and up our game.

P.s. to all our Berlin based performer friends. We also have been thinking it would be cool to get a collective together to hit the fringe en masse next year. Going as a group (we're looking at you comedians, slammers and burlesque artists) means cross promotion, and shared help for tech... With all the hype generated by our city at the moment, I can't think of a better place to trade off of it... I'm just saying

toto, i don't think we're getting any younger...

so i was all geared up to write a post today about my current tv series obsession, but i'll have to save it, as i have discovered that today the iconic film "the wizard of oz" is seventy one. and gosh, don't she look good for her age... the film was one of those that always seemed to be playing on one channel or another when i was growing up. Its images are forever imprinted on my brain. As for the dialogue, Its arguably one of the most quoted films of its time,. (my personal favourite has generally been variations of " toto i don't think we're in kansas anymore" which is useful in all manner of social settings that a girl about town and club kid can often find herself in).

but my own personal connection with the film deepened last year, when i was invited to perform at a vernissage of a visiting french artist, who had created an exhibition based on queering themes in the film. this invitation led to what was my first commisioned poem, and somewhat by accident. the artist in question had asked me to perform " the affair behind london's back" and somewhere between being sick of that poem by that point, and the charm and professionalism on his behalf, i thought it only right to write something particularly for the vernissage.

it was a fateful event. i ended up writing two pieces , surrender dorothy, my queer shout out to dorothy, and one coffee, a heady journey into a day out in berlin that transformed into higher levels of decadence, that felt oz like somehow. those two pieces are now the biggest crowd pleasers in my set. even when i performed in the least spoken word friendly settings, somehow audiences seem to stop and listen.

as a performer and a writer the wonderful thing about tapping into a universally recognized iconography is wherever you step into the story, whatever your take on the character, the audience is instantly with you . when you choose to twist them, the journey becomes even more enjoyable.

there are some pieces that take days and weeks of rewrites workshopping and feedback. there are some that start and then fester in notebooks for years. and then there are those i love most, that i come out in one full stream as if someone else has written the poem for me, and i am taking dictation. surrender dorothy was one of the latter. i wrote it in all of ten or fifteen minutes.

i had the theme "queer postmodernist oz" in my head, and then watched half a dozen wizard of oz clips on youtube. more than anything what struck me was how lame dorothy was. she was on this wonderful magical adventure and she wanted to escape? the dazzle and technicolour of her setting grabbed me, and she got in the way. berlin felt very much like oz at the time, it couldn't have been further away from my concept of kansas. it was clear to me, she had got it wrong.

http://vimeo.com/10467580 from paula varjack on Vimeo.

i never get bored of that poem....

maybe its time i start mining other iconic films as fuel for subversion and playfulness. any suggestions are most welcome.

Tonight 23h on Now Hear This!!!!

On Tonight's episode of Now Hear This, Paula Varjack is joined in the studio by a dynamic trio of hilarious and quirky writers: Jacinta Nandi, Sarah Bosetti and Mirabelle Jones. Expect sharp wit, all manner of subject matter, and stories with surprise endings. In between all of this punchy prose, find out what these literary femme fatales get up to when they're not writing and performing, including (but not limited to): documentary filmmaking, blogging, and running Berlin's first alternative beauty pageant.

listen tonight !!! at http://reboot.fm/ or in berlin on the radiowaves at 88.4 fm...

Jacinta NandiJacinta Nandi wurde 1980 in Ost-London als Tochter einer britischen Ex-Katholikin und eines indischen Ex-Hindu geboren. Beide Eltern tauschten ihre alten Religionen gegen eine neue: den Sozialismus. So verbrachte Jacinta fast jeden Samstag ihrer Jugend auf einer Demonstration gegen Margaret Thatcher. Ihre erste Veröffentlichung kam mit acht Jahren: Ein sehr ernsthaftes, emotionales und ziemlich sentimentales Gedicht über die Gefahr der Umweltverschmutzung wurde in einer lokalen Öko-Zeitung abgedruckt. 1998 ging sie
an die Universität Exeter, um Germanistik zu studieren. Mit 20 kam sie nach Berlin. Seit sie in Berlin wohnt, sind ihre Geschichten und Artikel bei Exberliner, Bordercrossing und Dummy erschienen. 2004 bekam sie ein Baby. Für Exberliner schreibt sie einen Blog über die Schwierigkeiten des Ausländerin-Mutterseins: den Amok-Mama Blog. Sie slammt seit 2008 und war sogar bei den Berliner Stadtmeisterschaften 2009 dabei, wo sie es bis ins Finale schaffte. Sie liebt viele Dinge an Deutschland, versucht aber integriert zu wirken, indem sie sich ständig über alles im Lande beschwert. Diese Taktik funktioniert meist prima.
www.jacinta-nandi.de
http://rakete2000.blogspot.com/
http://www.exberliner.com/topics/jacinta_nandi


Sarah Bosetti

Sarah Bosetti, geboren 1984 in Aachen, lebt als Regisseurin, Autorin und Übersetzerin in Berlin. Zuvor studierte sie an der Hogeschool Sint-Lukas in Brüssel Filmregie und Drehbuch und schloss mit dem „Master of Audiovisual Arts“ ab. Neben der Realisation eigener Filmprojekte rief sie dort die dreisprachige Kunstzeitschrift Submarine ins Leben. Nach dem vierjährigen Studium in Brüssel sowie diversen mehrmonatigen Aufenthalten im europäischen Ausland zog sie im Januar 2009 nach Berlin. Dort arbeitete sie zunächst als Übersetzerin und Produktionsassistentin für die deutsch-französische Koproduktion Die Schlafkrankheit und machte sich anschließend als freiberufliche Filmschaffende und Übersetzerin selbstständig. Seit 2009 tritt sie auf Berliner Lesebühnen und Poetry Slams auf. 2010 gründete sie mit Daniel Hoth, Karsten Lampe und Jan Papke die Lesebühne Couchpoetos.
www.couchpoetos.de
www.sarahbosetti.com


Mirabelle Jones

Mirabelle Jones is a 26 year old writer, performance, book and other artist from San Francisco who also lives in Berlin sometimes. She attends Mills College in the Bay Area where she is getting her MFA in crafting novels and perfecting her skills at building books and book-like objects. She is not going to be famous in 15 minutes, but maybe 51. You can read more about her projects at: http://flavors.me/bytuesday

and if you really enjoy the show (and why wouldn't you? with these amazing ladies on the airwaves!!!!???) podcast will but up in the next days for you to dowload and listen again and again to your heart's content. xxx miss varjack

sight-seeing

My boyfriend collects hearts...

.

Or rather, he takes photos of hearts. He's always finding hearts in random places. He says its easy to find them. He says once you start looking, you begin to see them everywhere.

After we began seeing one another, I began to notice them too. Now whenever I go to a new city, I see them. They pop up in strange places. And he's right, once you keep an eye out, they do begin to appear everywhere.

..

It makes for a very different kind of sight seeing.

Speaking of sight seeing, my parents are in town. Last summer when they were here, Mum wanted to go into the Berliner Dom

But my father and I took issue with the principle of a cathedral charging admission, so we didn't go. I like churches (even though I'm not at all religious) and I love cathedrals. My grandfather always loved them too, even though he was an atheist.

When I was growing up, every summer my parents and I would visit my family in London. When i was little we'd always go sight seeing. When I was about eight, we (my mum, dad and grandpa) went to St Pauls cathedral

.

My grandfather was about eighty then I think. Somehow we lost my parents. We were looking up at the dome. We decided we wanted to go up there. Or maybe i decided i wanted to go up there, and my grandfather was happy to go up with me. As we were climbing up the stairs, my grandfather told me about the whispering gallery.

He said if you stood on one side of the dome, and the person you were with stood at the other side, you could whisper against the wall, and the sound of your voice would travel around to them . We went up and tried it. it felt so magical. Its one of the fondest memories of my grandfather I have. We went back down. My parents were shocked we had gone up to the top. I guess they thought I was too young, and he was too old, for all those stairs.

Today began fragile. I was painfully hungover from last night. As far as the day ahead with my parents was concerned, all I wanted was for everything to go smoothly. I asked mum if she wanted to go to the Berliner Dom. I reminded her how much she wanted to go last year. My father and I did not complain about paying admission.

As we walked into the center of the cathedral, my head tilted back, and I looked up into the stained glass above in the dome

.

There was nowhere to stand up there, I guess you couldn't walk up to it.

"It reminds me of st pauls" mum said..

My dad and I walked up a level, where there was a small museum. Then there were more stairs. My dad seemed bored of the cathedral by now. I told him I'd go up and check out the next level.

I walked up but there were just more stairs, and more stairs. My head was still woozey with my hangover, but for some reason I kept going. I finally saw a window above, where passing silhouettes broke up the sunlight pouring through. and then i understood. You could go up to the top of the dome, but outside rather than inside. Now all I could think about was getting up there.

There were a lot of stairs. I mean. A LOT of stairs...and little doorways, and narrow turns. You could feel the exhaustion of everyone in front and behind of you walking. It created a bond between all these strangers . Some people would take breaks and stand to the side. Doors would be held open for you as you walked ahead. Low overhangs were pointed out. By the time I reached the top, it was as if we had all achieved something together.

I looked over this city I've grown to love so much. I took a moment and paused to take it in, slowly walked around to the other side of the dome.

I thought of my grandfather and I walking up to the top of St. Pauls.

I thought about all those summers I spent with my parents sight seeing.

I thought about showing my boyfriend around Berlin last summer.

I thought of him returning the favour, and showing me parts of London I'd almost forgotten.

I thought about sending him a text right then saying...

"On top of a cathedral in Mitte, looking over Berlin, thinking of you..." .

I took out my phone.

But just as I flipped it open to write, I looked out from where I stood, and miles down on the ground below me, I saw it....

music, video, lights, camera, action

hey hey, a bunch of audio and visual wonderfulness to post in your direction.

first off for your aural pleasure, here's a link to the last episode of my radio show Now Hear This on reboot fm , featuring Waldemaar and Raymond Antrobus
Now hear this #2 Paula Varjack: Raymond Antrobus, Waldemaar by reboot.fm

and then a little eyecandy to follow it up with. a teaser of my upcoming show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with Martin Bengtsson. We're otherwise known as "Me and Marty"

Me and Marty - Edinburgh fringe show preview... from paula varjack on Vimeo.

lets make art... the problems of mixing art with pleasure..

its so common that it's become a familiar cliche'. two artists get romantic and think, what if we used our chemistry to make art??!!! Or two artists start making art, only to find more than creative chemistry. What brings me to all this? Well to start with, a good friend of mine has just split with her band, not long after its creation, and the split was way nastier than any break up stories she's ever confessed. so i come home and i'm thinking on this, only to come across an interview. the interview is with the artist, black cracker, formerly the producer/beatmaker of what was one of my favourite bands.

Why the past tense..? well. i'll have to rewind a bit.

several years ago i was at a music video screening at london's gay and lesbian film festival, and i saw this wonderful promo with art-school aesthetics, and the track that went with it? ahhhhh it had abassline that tickled all the right places.

so within days i'd bought the album.

but it wasn't just that the beats were sick and the rhymes surreal, playful and dirty. the icing on the cake is this duo were on bianca cassady's (cocorosie's) new label, the producer: black cracker, had long been part of the legacy of new yorks slam poetry scene. AND she and the mc of this musical project... were together, as in together together. this is where i mention that they were a seriously hot hipster gay girl couple who were very open about being together romantically, who seemed so cool and relaxed in interviews

who made music that sounds like the kind of sex you want to be having in soundproofed rooms.

i. was. sold.

i'm not sure why i never got to see them live .

but in the beginning it seemed like they were only ever playing in their hometown of brooklyn, then i guess i lost track. years later, i move to berlin only to hear they were making a very special appearance at scala. unfortunately i arrived more than fashionably late, only to run into my neighbor saying i'd missed this really cool electro hip hop group from new york, who had hung out for a while and chatted with people there, but had left. gutted does not even begin to describe what i felt.

i told myself they'd be back in berlin again. but much to my disapointment, the next time they crossed my mind i went to their myspace, only to see most of the info deleted, no gig dates, and a direct to their two solo pages. it appeared the band was no more. i and other fans were left in
the dark as to why, as after all its not anyone's business but theirs.

but maybe partly because so much of the intrigue (outside of the music), had been the idea of a couple making this brilliant music together, i couldn't help be curious about their personal
narrative.

spoken word superstar turned producer , dates and then musically joins
forces with bianca cassady.

tours with cocorosie mcing and beatboxing

hooks up with a girl, who isn't that interested in making music

convinces her otherwise. and thus bunny rabbit is born.

black cracker: the producer, the beatmaker, the director, the hype girl vs.

her girlfriend bunny rabbit: the mc, the front woman, the name on the album.

the name starts as her artist name but it takes over. bianca cassady starts a label, they're signed to it. the press love them. they sound great, they're fun live,they look fierce in photographs. before it all goes wrong, they even make this track???!!!

(and hearing those lyrics feels a little odd now)

and then... ????? well thats just it. i'll never know. their old myspace music page is deleted. (and that is serious, defunct bands rarely if ever delete their pages, its generally the way old fans find their way to later projects). and only one of them is featured as a friend on
their old record label's myspace page.

typing in http://myspace.com/bunnyrabbitandblackcracker now leads to bunny's own t-shirt label and a very odd promo video???? black cracker, arguably a genius of a producer, has moved on to solo work, while bunny has a new duo project, her new bandmember is a cute boyish girl, so i can't help but wonder if they're together .

the only clues i have to the end of the story, are this video clip

( the way she says "every mc should learn to make their own beats" stings me a little,)

and these words from the black cracker interview

The terms of my split with Bunny Rabbit where so perverse and destructive that I had no choice but to examine myself.

(note from me: you really should download the mixtape at the end, you'll thank me!)

so r.i.p. the duo formerly known as bunny rabbit and black cracker . i look forward to both of your new projects, but man i wish i'd have made it to that berlin gig..........

Bunny Rabbit - Rio Grande (({in High Definition})) from War Hologram on Vimeo.

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