she do da mash/she do da monster mash

I am singing this weekend in front of a festival-size crowd for the first time. I’m in the chill zone at Monster Mash – a 45 minute set ending with a strip to tiny shorts and halter, more-or-less ironic self-flagellation with blood-soaked cat, and a bit of stagediving… leading up to the finale in fuck-off big boots and khaki chocolate-soldier jacket.

Should be a hoot ;)

Jaqi by Terry Biggenden

FERNS 1 by Terry Biggenden

Originally uploaded by Illuminata

I’m just faffing around on the pooter, and one thing I was overdue to do (I think I’m overdue to do pretty much everything I do by the time I actually do it; it’s some kind of galactic time conspiracy; Douglas Adams would understand) was to update my blog address in my Flickr account details. I haven’t blogged a picture from my Flickr photo site since I moved to WordPress, and that’s far too long. So here’s a pic from my latest photo shoot.

An accomplished fine art photographer, Terry saw images of me by Peter Crowfoot on another photo-sharing site, and asked Peter to put us in touch. Terry was looking for someone to make a day trip with him to the abandoned maltworks at Mittagong, a couple of hours out of Sydney. I was up for it. We got some beautiful images that day – several different spots around the site, and enough unexplored to make another trip not out of the question. If you want to see more, the link to Flickr is in the left column, down low.

There’s a colour version of this shot too, which some viewers (howdy, James) prefer, though I like the restrained classicism of the sepia. The sunlight on the ferns does glow rather gloriously in the colour version, I have to admit. There are more images still to come from this very successful shoot, as Terry processes them. But I’ll try and ornament my blog with pictures that aren’t always of me without my clothes, if only to save my father’s feelings :)

the Original Cynics emerge (more or less) fully formed

So, it happened last night, in front of a small, eccentrically-dressed crowd, upstairs at the Friend In Hand. It was a private party, Vee Malnar’s birthday bash – an annual event on the boho calendar, at which she and all her crazy friends (yours truly included) get on the mic and/or their instruments for a few numbers. I know Vee through Justin, who plays in her band.

So we did our four numbers, and I think I can modestly say we were the buzz of the night (woohoo!), and somewhere in the middle I introduced the duo of myself and Justin as two of the Original Cynics, a loose collective of artists across many fields who together believe in, well, very little other than the importance of certain freedoms. “My name is Jaqi Loveday Pascoe and this is Mr Justin Credible…”

Thing is, I didn’t actually consult with any of my various collaborators before naming them as a collective. Hope they all still want to collaborate. Hope they like their name.

The original Cynics were a philosophical movement in ancient Greece, lasting from about the time of Socrates right into the 5th century CE and influencing the early Christians. Around 350BCE they were led by Crates of Thebes, and soon also by his wife, Hipparchia of Maroneia. (Yes, I’ve blogged about them before, when announcing the renaming of my Kombi.) These were seriously cool people, with grandly sensible beliefs. Look ‘em up in Wikipedia via the links above. And then let me know below if you are happy to consider yourself – or would like to be considered – One of Us. Bear in mind, of course, that we aren’t simply blind followers of an archaic philosophical dictum: I chose the name because a) I like the confusion of meanings around the term ‘cynic’, b) I love the pun on original sin, a primitive and dangerous doctrine that should be subverted whenever possible, and c) I share with the Cynics (and, I think, most of my friends) scepticism, honesty, a contempt for wealth and its wilful ignorances, and a good Greek respect for rational inquiry. And, it was said, “they make a cult of shamelessness, not as being beneath modesty, but as superior to it…”

rock’n'roll hipparkia

Blissed out for the new year by four days, three nights in the Kombi amid carnival tents and music, high wooded hills and cowpat-studded grassy fields, with a wholesome brown, tannin-scented creek to swim in.

The Kombi has been undergoing a slow evolution of identity since the transition of ownership from Drew to me in October the year before last. Drew was adamant on Jonah’s lack of gender, which unfortunately, in the twisted little human minds we all possess, tends to imply masculine (somehow we think gender is ultimately all about the womb – without one, gender is irrelevant and we’re all, ahem, men). Slowly though, the Kombi is becoming a discernibly feminine space – and no, I haven’t suddenly gone all chintz and frills. But there is a crocheted afghan made by my great grandmother, and a hand-sewn patchwork quilt from further back in the family. There is a pretty blue sarong to cover the doorway, the tins in the kitchen shelves are changing, you get the idea. The Kombi, in this time of transition, has gone by the name Jezebel (a favourite old tag of mine), but this name’s sticking power rather depended on a colour change – a powder-blue Jezebel doesn’t really gel for me. I’d planned a respray in wine-red, but I’ve decided against, for the moment. It’s expensive to do it well, and the present colour is the original, which counts for something valuewise among enthusiasts.

And now, after another good and happy outing – and this one so tranquil and yet so stimulating – my holiday darling has finally found her name: Hipparkia. Hip? Oh definitely. Park – well, der… and yeah. Or rather yah… :)

And yes, of course there is a legendary female role model involved – you can look her up in Wikipedia under the more conventional Latin spelling Hipparchia. She was a Cynic philosopher from the Greek golden age of philosophy, and an altogether remarkable woman.

adventures in role-playing

Phew. Christmas is finally over. My family gathers on the 27th and, since the death of my mother two years ago, I seem to have fallen into the role of matriarch (it hardly becomes me) – that is, it falls to me to cook the turkey, organise the rest of the family’s contributions and effectively host the event, though not at my place, since Granny could never get up the stairs. This year I took half my goddamn kitchen to the ‘games room’ of Granny’s nursing home. I’m tempted to reflect further on the event, but it would take time to tease it all out – the delicate dynamics of assembling a bunch of people with precious little in common except blood, frustration, and the best of intentions – and I’m busy packing.

Tomorrow I’m off to the idyllic Glenworth Valley for the Peats Ridge Festival, where I shall be Mistress of the Boudoir for Kamikaze Couture – the dress-up tent. It is my job to have an absolute ball… actually it’s my job to ensure that everyone who comes in has a ball and leaves feeling like a million dollars. My employer called it ‘essentially an interactive performance’ – I can’t see it being anything but fun. To add to the joy I managed to wangle Eug a job as a stagehand, so when NYE midnight comes around I’ll have beloved company – and of course a few thousand likeminded revellers. Jezebel the Kombi is shipshape for camping, we are well-stocked with yummy Christmas leftovers – just gotta grab a sarong for the daytime and some glitter lashes for the night, and we’re off to wonderland :)

the lost art of beachobatics

On a tangent while doing online research for the Bonachela interview, I came across this gem of art news. Have a look at a bewitching bit of Bondi history.

And before anyone comments on the excruciating neologism in my heading, I lifted it straight from the SMH story, which implied it was in use back in the day. The art of amateur beach acrobatics may be lost but we’ve retained the more dubious art of contracting two unrelated words into one etymological slashfest.

zensiren parties hard

Last night I went to a fancy-dress party, under orders to come as ZenSiren. I met the hostess a couple of weeks earlier, at another party shortly after my recent cabaret gig, and when she heard about my performance alter-ego (who didn’t actually appear at that gig but nonetheless came up for mention) she immediately told me about her upcoming gathering of non-humans and invited me as ZenSiren. I demurred that ZS didn’t really wear much more than blue body paint and a few more or less strategic bits of net and strings of beads and jewels, but that only made her insist most charmingly.

So I did. And it’s richly entertaining to find that there are quite harmless behaviours that still retain the capacity to shock, and even momentarily to scandalise. I was a hit, but absolutely everyone there looked utterly fabulous – we found cause to celebrate the discovery that there are indeed plenty of Sydneysiders who love to dress up, and do it well. The party rocked from dusk till dawn. I got to bed around 6am, and didn’t get home till after 6 this evening.

Sometime around 3am, I stepped onto the wooden ramp between levels in the garden, my foot slid from beneath me and I landed flat on my back, my head hitting the stone step hard. Being in performance mode I pretty much bounced back up again, startled but unhurt, and headed on to wherever I was going, which was into the house and through the dance space to another room. But the attentive hostess noticed as I passed her that the constitution of my body paint seemed rather more Gothic than she remembered. She came after me and drew my attention to it: I was covered in blood. It streamed down my back and front in impressive rivulets from the cut on the back of my head. The resident St Johns Ambulance trainee went into emergency mode, dealing very efficiently with the crisis despite pilling merrily – checking me for concussion, stemming the bloodflow and monitoring my state for the next couple of hours. Of course I was quickly put into the shower and spent the rest of the night in cut-off jeans and my favourite alien visitation T-shirt, but other than a good size egg there were no ill-effects and I don’t think it slowed me down for more than a minute. I can honestly say I had a top night – loved every minute of it, including cracking my head open.

and on again

I’ve just watched Appleseed and it feels like the last piece in a very big puzzle. Something just clicked. I swear I heard it – and it wasn’t a massive weapon aimed at my head.

If I’m lucky, it was my life.

Violence: can we vanquish it? That question’s as dumb as God. Violence, c/overt, is integral to survival – a divine command within the animal brain. And when survival is ensured, violence is integral to overcoming – to each overcoming – to the divine command to get bigger and better. It’s in our anger, it’s in our urgency, it’s in our programming, and Appleseed’s better-programmed ‘bioroids’ are a long way off. But ai – the sofa-biting battles between the machines and their makers, between machine humans and human machines, between those who reluctantly condone violence to preserve peace, etcetera, and those who love to hate…

I mean, that precarious balance is what it’s about, innit?

& mh-m, what style. Anyone know any manga artists in Sydney? I’m hot to get myself mangafied. Mangarised? Manganated, if it’s up to me.

This year, I’m using the windfall from a series of more-or-less commonplace domestic tragedies – capital emotional, spiritual and fiscal – to splatter a brand new trajectory in performance careers. By August I’m gonna be all over this town like a scandal – on the radio, on the web, in the postcard racks, on public walls, on people’s chests – and on a skanky cabaret floor near you.

Watch me.

et voila, on recommence

This post marks the rise of some kind of new beginning. For a while there things got… unspeakable, in the truest sense of the word: they couldn’t be said. It was not, in that way, a time for words, you could say… You can say it now, and I do, because the darkness has receded somewhat and the sky stopped cracking open over and over.

/whew)

This post is also the first in a new category: The Making of a Modest Prophet (please pronounce ‘profit’, then snort) – the name of the next big show. I am highly pleased with this bit of smartarsery and with shopping it to the Performance Space and the Australia Council. Since it is to be an unprecedentedly deep interaction between writer/singer/performer, programmer/musicians, animators, video artists, fine artists, photographers and others, and since I am applying to specialists in hybrid practice for space to develop it, and since, after all, I have been promising myself I will blog, I will blog, I will blog soon

I step to the computer and slap up a new category. This is the making of the making of.

Okay, the wrap-up

goddess_p039

Originally uploaded by Martinism.

The second Goddess Project night sold out. The damn stoner video guy didn’t make it (he shot the first night, which was somewhat rawer and to an intimate audience) but there were several cameras in the packed second-night crowd and some of the results have cornered a couple of tags on Flickr. Look here and if only 12 show up (glitch, i think) then look here as well. Financially, we (ahem) pretty much broke even. Another night would’ve been good, but that’s what we tried for originally, and the next week was already booked. Sound quality of the video, meh. But we’ve got documentation and it’ll serve up some good clips and stills.

Then, as you all no doubt saw in yer inboxes, there was the Vic on the Park open mic night, a festive occasion in the hands of the redoubtable Mike Cook. Our two nights – the two Tuesdays after the two Wednesdays of TGP, if you follow – were the Christmas party and the last open mic night for the year, so they were both rockin’. Have a look here at Redeeming Features for our first (to my knowledge, at least) online review.

And so, with modelling work tailing off in a week or so, Drew preparing for a weekend elsewhere (oh, lord, I’m so indiscreet), and Eug holding an entirely justifiable but not always easy distance, I’m off to a nunnery for a couple of weeks. Just kidding. Let’s see, I’m halfway thru 4 loads of washing, I’ve tidied the dressing room (whew), and I’m planning a scarily comprehensive new filing system. I promised myself I’d never blog about housework, but this is psychic overhaul. Now begins the time of the December/January projects – breaking the back, so to speak, of Voting For Democracy, creating the ZenSiren website with Drew, mastering the VotP live recording with Phil Snow and Eug, and by February somewhere releasing the demo EP at the website launch.

Plus I need to swim most days, stretch every day, and keep singing. Hell, I’ve gotta start thinking about Christmas. Damn, I haven’t got time for lovers.

Guess I’ll make it how I can. ;)

(Hot shot, by the way, Martinism…*smirk*)