conspiracy afoot

last night all of our combined hard work culminated in the third ALGAE RHYTHM going down christening "the corner shop" with karina, kathleen and dermot curating turn me on, dead man flying our punk monk propaganda banner high into the sydney sky & onto adjacent alley walls.

a fascinating fusion of a wizard of oz & the dark side of the moon resulted in dorothy's surrender and a few curious neighbours viewing our spectacular from bedroom windows & the streets beneath. we climbed the walls up onto the roof, watched bemused & then began to dance like 50 foot amazon roswellian meets femme fatale women shadow puppets. charlie's angels begone.

meanwhile the JFK room had limits of its own control as peeps watched multiple synchronised computer installations from the comfort of the grassy knoll in a small dark room. in the main indoor space stanley kubrick's moon landing played and that's where the base reversion really began... jim jarmusch was with us in spirit.

another handhewn zine plus subversive manifesto were distributed throughout the night by shady operatives ensuring that the double agent mythology was kept alive. turn me on and over dead man.

amongst the murder and mayhem there were only a few sangria fuelled tragedies before the peace pipe came out. thank you everyone for braving the cold on a wintry night and participating in another of our social intermedia experiments.

AR 0:04 is slated for july 2009. clare & i will hold the fort as resident curators serving up twisted chick flicks whilst others flee to melbourne international film festival.

burlesque betty spares rib

dita von teese is the undisputed queen of burlesque but she is a late yet very worthy commercially accessible heir to the throne of a tradition which has its roots steeped in athenian history, courtesan/stuntwoman flavoured intrigue AND massive misconception swathed in lashings of luxurious colour, texture & bauble...

burlesque was commonly appropriated by blue collar workers in the european but more recently founding american tradition & turned into something bawdier than arguably originially intended. almost synonymous with striptease until the recent public re-education it is an artform under constant reinterpretation & reinvention. but still it's often reduced to: "when do ya get your gear off..."

unattainable objects of desire are so much more fun when slowly unwrapped or not even at all... playing hard to get is one of the oldest yet most pleasurable torturous games of all. *adopts mental note*

true burlesque is about the art of tease but in many ways it embraces less is more which doesn't necessarily equate to fewer layers or none. it's all about seductive mystery with a dash of vaudeville thrown in for good measure. burlesque is an art form. period. her executors are superbly talented performers which obviously like anything is modified by degrees.

sometimes a carefully revealed [and well turned] ankle is enough to induce the required hysteria & longing. those greek soldiers were mere putty in their scheming wives hands post peloponnesian war days. couple that coquettish ankle several hundred years later with sheer stockings, rigorous dance routines & bite-sized pieces of thigh flashing & the sublime decadence of moulin rouge is born.

fast track to mid 20th century to betty page & marilyn monroe who were modern female heroines who embraced the dichotomous tradition of exaggerated subtlety with measurable cult effect.

there are mathematical equations which formulate masculine desire to the proportions of womanhood & with the aid of a corset, the achieved hourglass figure becomes tangible. swooning becomes de rigeur [through lack of breath]. actually this is really a fallacy: a correctly fitted corset should do nothing of the sort.

this past weekend i strapped myself in courtesy of the excuse of my wonderful friend karina's burlesque birthday party & was almost diasppointingly able to achieve raptuous breath when presented with ample opportunity without so much as busting a rib. i have jo at sydney's house of fetish to thank for always looking after me so very well & being the professional corset lacer with inimitable but up close personal pizazz.

...and for the most part at that party [from recollection] we all retained our clothes. our dignity on the other hand is an entirely different topic.

[thanks to marianne whose photos i have slightly pilfered as my camera maintained a low profile for the night. the only in focus shot was at the hands of AB.]

we didn't start the fire...

no KINO due to fire, no power in sydney's CBD, no rooftop to play on because of the rain... what are a bunch of film orphans to do?

play how many people can we squeeze into karina's apartment & stairwell instead (with marianne's famous crepes)!