OMGZ, check this out: the feminism loves you pin badge! I mean, I totally hate badges and stuff but you can get this customised with your own name so it says FEMINISM LOVES AMP or whatever and L@@K! It has a tiny little cunt and ovaries on it! That's so cute. And gross. It's that perfect mix of cute and gross that sets my pulse a-racing!
I fucking love the internet! No more waiting around for a decent women's magazine to come along, no more wondering 'what women want' from a magazine - just cobble together all the best bits of fashion, feminism, sex and politics, shove them in yr Netvibes, and bob's your bad uncle.
Speaking of which, have my FEMINISM Netvibes tab. It's got Feministing, The F-Word, DollyMix, Jezebel, Militant Female Artist, The Lipster and One D at a Time. What more d'you need?
Supposedly, this is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company Procter & Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. It's PC Magazine's 2007 Editors' Choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.
Dear Mr. Thatcher,
I have been a loyal user of your 'Always' maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I'd probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I'd certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can't tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there's a little F-16 in my pants.
Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? Ever suffered from the curse'? I'm guessing you haven't. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I'll be transformed into what my husband likes to call 'an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.' Isn't the human body amazing?
As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you've no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customers monthly visits from 'Aunt Flo'. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying, jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it's a tough time for most women. In fact, only last week, my friend Jennifer fought the violent urge to shove her boyfriend's testicles into a George Foreman Grill just because he told her he thought Grey's Anatomy was written by drunken chimps. Crazy!
The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants... Which brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these words: 'Have a Happy Period.'
Are you ****ing kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness - actual smiling, laughing happiness is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James? FYI, unless you're some kind of sick S&M freak girl, there will never be anything 'happy' about a day in which you have to jack yourself up on Motrin and Kahlua and lock yourself in your house just so you don't march down to the local Walgreen's armed with a hunting rifle and a sketchy plan to end your life in a blaze of glory. (Boy, does THAT sound familiar!)
For the love of God, pull your head out, man! If you just have to slap a moronic message on a maxi pad, wouldn't it make more sense to say something that's actually pertinent, like 'Put down the Hammer' or 'Vehicular Manslaughter is Wrong', or are you just picking on us?
Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bull sh*t. And that's a promise I will keep. Always.
Repost from Ladyfest London's Myspace. If I wasn't going to be enormously pregnant between 9-11th May, and thus stuck in Stockholm, I would totally go help, because I have decided that, for all its tweeness, Ladyfest is a Good Thing. Frances has been having all these cool interns at Plan B whose lives have been hugely changed by Ladyfest and by retrospectively discovering Riot Grrrl - girls who were into emo or whatever as consumers and then discovered riot grrrl and are now running nights, putting on gigs and being in bands - exactly what we envisaged way back when. So. Ladyfest London. 9-11th May. Get in!
Ladyfest London is on its way!!!
We are a non-profit, volunteer-run feminist music, arts and activism festival that will be held in North London 9th- 11th of May 2008, at The Camden Underworld, the Resource Centre on Holloway Road and the Islington Arts Factory.
Ladyfest celebrates the wealth and diversity of women's talents within the London independent art scenes and beyond, as well as to promote the do-it-yourself ethic and participation in feminist discussion and activism. We aim to provide creative, accessible and friendly spaces where people of all ages and backgrounds feel welcome to take part. It is a predominantly woman-organised festival, but all are welcome to participate.
Ladyfest have been happening in urban centres all over the world since it was first held in Olympia in 2000. The first Ladyfest London was held in London in 2002 at the Garage in North London.
We need you! Currently there are around 20 core members involved in organising the festival and and we really need your help! We come from a variety of different backgrounds and all have different skills and interests. Ladyfests, like other activism, is very much about learning new skills and trying things you wouldn't normally get to do in everyday life.
There is lots to do in the run up to the festival and lots of different ways you can get involved. No experience is necessary!
We currently need creative and organising types to join our publicity, fundrasing, merchandising groups, as well as people to get involved in organising performances, comedy and music.
If you are interested in helping out in any capacity please get in touch.
During the festival Even if you don't have time to get involved in the run-up to the festival, we are also going to need lots of people to help out during the actual weekend. If you can commit to at least one 4-hour shift between 9-11 May (plus ideally one afternoon or evening a couple weeks before the festival for a welcome/rota meeting) to staff information desks, steward, help with equipment etc, we can offer you a free day-pass to the festival for the rest of that day, plus a free lunch and travel expenses costs if required (within London only). If you can commit to helping out 4 hours a day for each of the three days you will have free entry to the whole festival.
Email info@ladyfestlondon.co.uk or send us a message on Myspace to get in touch. Or just show up at our next general meeting on Wed 13 Feb at LARC (London Action Resource Centre), 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 at 7pm.
Oh and, One Date at a Time - Vice writer (in a good way) Tracey Egan's slut-tastic hipster blog. You should read that too.
And yes, readers, yes, (note how I generously allow myself the plural form there, despite there being no evidence to support that. IS ANY FUCKER OUT THERE?) - I moved away from London and replaced my social life with an addiction to hitting 'refresh' on my Google Reader page. Is that so bad? Don't answer that.
Just in case you hadn't heard from one of the many online places in which I talk shit about my private life, I'm all knocked up and having a baby in June, assuming all goes well! W00T! Here is a picture of it when it was tiny:
Here is a picture of it now it is medium:
And here is a picture of me doing an impression of a preg:
That's all really! Though I guess you could have this humorous article about the increasing 'momification' of the modern dad, should you have the temerity to not actually care about ME ME ME. Enjoy!
we made a new fanzine! it's written, illustrated and designed by some of my favourite people, and it's about GAY PORN (suprise!)
email amp.minzine@gmail.com to find out how to get your copy!
'Fave Gestures in Porn' Text: Andrew Johnston Images: Raz Webster Design: Miranda Iossifidis A6 booklet / 4 pp + A4 poster
Random quote (from 'Landed-Fish Orgasm'): "His eyes are going like roulette balls. Gasps halfmoon his mouth. Four more thrusts initiate the involuntary gesture: his head jerks back as though God, fishing from a cloud, has cast a hook through his top lip and tugged."
Random quote (from 'Hand-Halo Suckoff'): "The gap represents Straightboy's intact heterosexuality: to close it, and thus to make physical hand-to-head contact, would be to seal a homosexual fate. As long as he lets it hover, he's straight, he's straight, he is, he's straight."
Well, this is pretty sweet. It's like a trip to the now-iconic Dalston Supersavers but without having to actually go anywhere. It's a blog called Dalston Oxfam Shop and it's great. The guy buys awesome cassette tapes from the 80s (stuff like Frank Chickens or 1993 New York house music compilations), then digitises the best tracks and hosts them for download. He also posts about cool upcoming East End art shows and the African music night he runs in Soho. It makes me miss London loads, but I also know I'm missing an illusion because I'm kind of over chazzing for cassette tapes or going to African music nightclubs and even if I was home I wouldn't be going, I'd be sitting in my Goldfinger apartment reading novels and eating bon-bons. But that is so not the point.
Girly indie site www.thelipster.com launched last week. Edited by Jude Rogers of Smoke and Laura Barton of The Guardian, it has a similar look and feel to Drowned in Sound (it's produced by the same company). There's an interesting thread on it on DiS here, which presents the usual gamut of responses to girl-only stuff ('I feel patronised' / 'Why not just hire the same writers to work for DiS' / 'why are they only writing about women? it seems a bit full-on feminist i.e. anti-male' etc). I'm all for anything that foregrounds women and makes men feel left out, just so that male readers can see what it feels like to be sidelined as a result of a gender bias, so good luck to 'em (though the name grates a bit - what's a lipster? A lipstick wearing hipster?) I do wish such projects would be a bit more subtle with the marketing tactics though. Why describe yourself as 'the world’s best new female editorial-led pop culture website' when it's far more subversive to simply present a website full of editorial pop culture that just happens to be by and about females? After all, DiS doesn't broadly proclaim 'TOTAL BOYS' CLUB - MESSAGE BOARD FULL OF MILDLY SEXIST INANITY - EDITORIAL STAFF ALL MALE - COVERAGE OF MALE TO FEMALE ARTISTS APPROX 70/30'. It just does it, thereby promoting the status quo without advertising itself as doing such. Why can't female-focused projects do the same thing but in reverse? I'd love to see that - to see Reading or ATP with a 99% female line-up, or the NME with all the features by and about women, but nary a word advertising this fact. Now that's subversive. Maybe one day. When the world turns on its axis. Until then: The Lipster.
Weak boys, self-loathing females and misogynistic faggots look away now, it's time for your MENSTRUAL UPDATE! Nope, we're not talking about The Keeper or The Sponge this time - we'd just like to draw your attention to this adorable menstrual calendar produced by a girl living in Mexico. Card-sized to fit in your wallet, it has 12 of the cutest illustrations we've ever seen, and a handy calendar so you can track your body's business and get to know where you are with your cycle. Tracking your periods is a good idea so you don't get caught out by bad tempers or forgotten tampons. It's also handy to know when you're ovulating so you can know just how much to panic when the condom breaks or you 'forgot' to use one like the lazy slut you are. The site's called Vive La Menstruation and it's cool. There's also a handy links section, so check it out!
"With big love for her mama and her signature punk approach to dance music, is she the modern girl next door or the most exciting thing since riot grrrl? We're convinced she's both." The MIA interview I did for Venus magazine is now online at their site - take a peek!
I miss London. Catch The Wave Pictures for one last night on 11th Dec - they're doing a free residency at The George Tavern, Commercial Road. Download 'Now You Are Pregnant', visit their Myspace, or steal a whole bunch more stuff including a great track with John Darnielle from their website.
They wear pink saris. They beat up dudes who abandon or mistreat their wives, and they beat up corrupt policemen, and they've uncovered corruption in the distribution of grain to the poor and beaten the crap out of those involved there also. They use traditional Indian fighting sticks called 'lathis' to dispense their vigilante justice, and they're led by a firebrand called Sampat Pai Devi, a former government health worker who quit because her job was 'not satisfying enough' and started her 'gang for justice' instead. Men can join too, but the main focus is on improving the status of women in Uttar Pradesh, one of India's poorest regions. "Village society in India is loaded against women", says Sampat Devi. "It refuses to educate them, marries them off too early, barters them for money. Village women need to study and become independent to sort it out themselves," she says. Looks like *insert cheesy quote about sisters doin' it for themselves, etc*.
More sophisticated than making your pet a profile on Myspace. Catbook allows you to make a mini Facebook profile for your pet! You can add photos, write on its wall, stroke it, etc... and of course, add this cute little box to your own profile so everyone can see / stroke / admire your pet. Aw. I made one for Katrina even though she's dead, because my replacement cat just ain't worth talking about (no offence MABEL, honest.)
Joanna Newsome in US Elle: "I wear a lot of high-waisted pants when I'm not performing. I like the studs on this Givenchy pair. When I'm onstage, since I play the harp, I go for mobility, mostly knee-length dresses. Right now, I have been wearing this incredible vintage piece that's silk jersey with tea-stained lace and a medallion belt. I wear it with my resin Chloe necklace."
I just had to share. If I was a boy I'd have such a crush on her.
O miracle of miracles, some updates have happened! The main site now boasts three new featurettes: an interview with author Gwendoline Riley, a Q&A with Adaadat's Gay Against You, and your guide to the top traits required to survive as a freelance writer, The 7 Slightly Less Publicised Habits of Highly Effective Freelancers. Includes naivity, gullibility, stupidity and wanking for coins down by the docks. Enjoy!
I'm whispering here, but I have to admit that I've always had a bit of trouble with the whole third-wave rediscovery of traditional baking and crafting activity. I'm down with the anti-consumerist side of things (and I love cooking as much as the next awesomely cooking-skilled person), but somehow I've always sneakily felt that 'craftivism' was little more than another way for girls to avoid getting involved in 'real' artistic creativity. Encouraging them to spend their time baking cakes and knitting baby booties, as they have done for centuries, rather than learning how to play an instrument or master a CD or write a treatise or something. Continuing women's involvement in the private, domestic sphere, rather than the more high-profile and combative public arena. BUT. Randomly surfing old blogs led me to this delighful idea, posted on a LiveJournal community called Curious Cupcakes: the Pay Equity Bakesale!
"Finally one member came up with the BRILLIANT idea of holding a "Pay Equity Bakesale." In Michigan (where we lived), women make an average of 67 cents for every dollar a man makes at the same job. So we baked our hearts out, then charged women 67 cents, and men $1 for each baked good. On the bottom of each cookie, cupcake, and brownie, we had printed facts about the gender wage gap on address labels and stuck them on. When people said "Hey! That's not fair!" We replied with, "Actually, it is fair; it's the only thing that's fair. Women make less money." So we got to raise money AND awareness at the same time!"
That's such an ace idea! (And please feel free to email me with examples of more if you feel I am being unfairly anti-crafting.) If I'm ever involved in some kind of event where a Pay Equity Bakesale would be appropriate, I am so having one. I wonder when Ladyfest Stockholm is? :)
Deep within the bowels of this book lies a joke pilfered by your humble narrator from her friend Alice, then gifted to the author. Said joke was all about the perils of going on the internet while drunk. (Please remember that this was all the way back in 2001, when the net was just kicking off in Britain, and such observations were fresh and funny.)
Anyway, here's the feature Alice and I created around the joke, for dearly departed Brit spoof site Seethru.co.uk. Check it out - it's both funny and a nostalgic wander down memory lane to a time when websites and bulletin boards and cybercommunities and MSN messenger and so on were fresh, new, exciting, scary and addictive.
(Early protoype of modem breathalyser)
And now! Somewhere in The Internet - Now In Handy Book Form a version of this joke apparently lives on. Aw! I've not seen the book yet so I can't judge, but it's written by David McCandless, editor of Seethru, so is probably very funny. The perfect gift for the netgeek in your life, &c. Check it out!
Right, thanks a lot, Barbican, for waiting until I leave the country to bring the director Catherine Breillat over to give a talk on 24th Oct. They're showing Romance, her best-known but least awesome film. I prefer Anatomy of Hell, which features the ultra-hot and well-endowded porn star Rocco Siffredi, and some sexy hairy-armpitted French chick, in a house on a clifftop ruminating in ultra-French fashion about sex and desire and bodies and revulsion and the position of women and so on an so forth and all of that. Funfunfun! He's a fag, too, which is why she procures him for the task of 'looking at her where she can't be seen'. It's aces, and features an excellent tampon-dunking / menstrual blood drinking scene that made several men leave the cinema in disgust when I saw the film at the Riverside a few years ago. HAH. Anyway, Romance isn't quite up there with that but it's still pretty interesting, particularly if you're into a bit of slap with your tickle - and who isn't?
Wow check this video made by Horton and co. It's really excellently Boney M-ish. Good to see he's still doing that Jarvis thing with his hair, too. I also like how it's about eleven thousand million minutes long.
So I finally got around to watching Amy Kellner's 'The Cute Show'. Amy Kellner is one of my favourite journalists EVER in the history of the world. I first encountered her writing for Rollerdery, (the best zine ever in the history of the world, created by one of the other best writers ever in the history of the world, Lisa Carver.)
Then Amy did a great diary column for the sadly departed Index magazine, in which she detailed things like her trips to H&M or ogling cute catholic schoolboys even though she's a lesbian or the time she bought these really expensive Anna Sui face powder tissue sheets and then dropped them down the toilet. (This was late-90s pre-internet so blogs hadn't made such personal revelations seem redundant. And even if it wasn't Amy still has a lightness of touch that makes detailing that personal shit be somehow ok).
Then Amy went to write for Vice, but don't shudder, because she was one of the true beacons of light shining out from Vice like like like I don't know, like all the other apples in the box have got mould on them and some of them have just disintegrated but right in the middle there's one where the mould didn't touch, and it's so green it almost looks lonely, like it wants to be grey like its friends but it just can't. Read The Time Bratmobile Hurt My Feelings for an example of Amy's style, in which she wrangles with her guilt about writing for Vice as a result of Bratmobile refusing to do an interview with her for them. Or the classic Vice Guide to Cute.
ANYWAY, then she did a great photoblog called Teenage Unicorn which details her last few years of partying in New York yet STILL not as obnoxious as that sounds. (She basically has an ability to not become a horrid soul destroyed mean hipster no matter how extreme her surroundings!) Here is a picture of her from her photoblog doing a sadface:
Aw, it's so good to be blogging back here on AMPnet that I think we need a little Gravy Train to celebrate, don't you? This is the sad story of a girl who went on a diet and lost her boobs: hence, 'Ghost Boobs'. It's true! It happened to my sister, folks. (My other sister.) Don't do it!
Look at this early 80s gem, by NYC all girl band Pulsallama, that I unearthed while searching for Ann Magnuson / Bongwater clips. (Ann Magnuson was a former member of this band.) I am *so* crushing on the fashion styles of the lady who lives next door but just because she has 17 cats doesn't mean she's a witch.
more activity from Savage Messiah, top zine du jour:
SAVAGE MESSIAH**$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
NIGHT DRIFT THROUGH KINGS CROSS: ££££££££££££££££££££
@HOUSMAN’S BOOKSHOP, CALEDONIAN ROAD, N1.
On Saturday 29th of September 7pm ,LAURA OLDFIELD FORD of SAVAGE MESSIAH ZINE . …………. .. ……. .. …
. ………………… will facilitate a drift through the Kings cross area. The Savage Messiah employs the tactic of psychogeography to expose the repressed desires of the city. Savage messiah welcomes participants to this walk to join a collective cognitive anti mapping of the city and hopes that stories, anecdotes, drawings, ideas generated on the route will become part of the next issue of the zine to be launched at Housman’s in November.
JOHN WILD, frequent collaborator with Savage Messiah and psychogeographical explorer of data space will be collecting the locative data calculate from mobile phone signals along the Kings X Drift. The data will be compiled into an audio broadcast that will be transmitted in the location of Housmans book shop at the November launch.
IF OUR FUTURE HAS BEEN STOLEN NOW IS THE TIME TO LOOK BACK WITH VENGEFUL INTENT.
The greasy rebranding of Kings cross is in its final stages, sycophantic bilge, faux heritage, fragments left over for the sake of authenticity. This is the cosmetic veneer that is meant to distance millennial ‘regeneration’ from the tabula rasa brutality of modernism or the high octane demolition tendencies of Haussmann . Kings Cross is in a state of confusion,it is in gripped in the foolish tyranny of the masterplan.
Clarence passage is a strange juxtaposition of old tenements with the gleaming new architecture of an international airport. All places become surfaces that can accept the neo liberal stamp. Representations of places are decontextualized. These are placeless places, liminal realms opened up for subversion. Little alleyways of boarded up windows open up in the tenement ravines. And , like the damp construction of some Stalinist penitentiary are the Costain portakabin slabs.
The Golden Lion on Brittania st, 90’s pub done up, horrible, fuck this. We’re done up for a bit of the old ultra, a Bakunist wrecking spree on every gastro pub travesty we can get our hands on. Flick knife activates at sight of swaggering prick whose class background has assured him of lording it status, the dirty jeans and scruffy t shirt only serve to reinforce it.
Laminated flooring, best brawled over Ikea settees .
All I want to see right, is the Clinique counter at Selfridges smashed up with Paul McCarthy abjection, Robert Gober mannequins trashed in a Ballardian make up counter frenzy.
Sean, have it, have it go on.
Don’t know what he’s doing, head splitting with the hysterical banalities of Saturday night tv.
That day when we went in search of the Groaner, we had to scour The Boot. We scanned the orange paintwork, bottle green tiles and Guiness trinkets. It was a Saturday afternoon booze up, brawls erupting, hilarity and shouting, but the Groaner wasn’t there.
“The labyrinth is basically the space where oppositions disintegrate and grow complicated, where diacritical couples are unbalanced and perverted etc., where the system upon which linguistic function is based disintergrates, but somehow disintegrates by itself, having jammed it’s own works.The labyrinth we discuss cannot be described. Mapping is out of the question.” Against Architecture The writings of Georges Bataille, Denis Hollier.
The Savage Messiah seeks out nomadic architecture, transient architecture, places that can slip out of sight, re emerge and reconfigure somewhere else. Savage messiah drif
