sex. music. dance.

sex - the erotic reading II @ labfactory on friday: i spent half of my afternoon shopping & wondering what clothes to wear, but i did find something. i got nervous, of course, but that is all part of the fun, gives you that extra edge. it was lovely to see quite a few familiar faces: my colleague & friend daniela, nathan, jean, harold, alina, ronnie, one of my students and her friend, oxana (from the lit fest), kirsten (a new addition to the kafka crowd), lilly (from the book presentation 2 weeks ago), and it was cool to finally meet gerald ganglbauer of gangway.net - my first online publisher, over ten years ago. all in all there were about 40 people, not bad.

we kicked off the evening with a poem by felix mendelssohn, threnody - and each of us poets plus musician steve gander read a stanza. and then it was already my turn: i read Meet My Breasts and then Meet Mr Johnson. straight after that, i read a text together with horst prillinger (author) and pete waugh.

the other poets were evelyn holloway, sylvia petter, victoria slavuski, janus zeitstein, hillary keel, homemade gordon banks. i particularly enjoyed hillary's poems and sylvia's very hot vichyssoise short story, and i loved what the musicians - martin schönlieb on guitar and sandro miori on sax/flute/harmonica - did.

the other poems i read were between two sips of soda, after dessert in the bathroom, cabin fever (with music by martin and sandro), another entry in the bedroom book of lies (with martin on guitar), four two-liners (reports), ain't misbehavin' (with martin on guitar).

steve gander played a few songs before and after the interval, and at the end of the programme - a nice little tune called copulate and populate, and he made us poets sing along. :)

i enjoyed it - and i think i did a good job. funny how i have come to really love reading over the past one and a half years!

ronnie took lots of photos with my camera during the reading, and i kept snapping away afterwards. here are a few of those pics, but if you want more - follow the link to flickr.


that's me reading



daniela and michaela, vienna's most wonderful english teachers



mms: martin, michi, sandro



change of perspective: michi, martin, sandro


girlpower! michi, hillary, alina

* * * * *
i had a very slow day yesterday - got a bit of work done, cleaned up a little, and then went out again at night. steve gander & his band played a gig called the end of time, at time, which is closing down very soon. ronnie, peter, harold, evelyn, oxana, bruno and bob were there, and i really enjoyed the music.

funny: when i went to the restroom, a woman was waiting there and she turned around and said "oh, hey! you are the poet!" now you see, this does not happen every day. (not yet. haha.) so i asked her how she knew that. and she replied that she had seen me the previous night. turned out that kat is a friend of oxana's, which of course explained things. :)

bruno persuaded me to go dancing with him and ruth, so off we went to ostklub - where i had never been, but wanted to go. they had live music, and wow, was i glad i decided to join r&b! a spanish band called nomhadas played, and they were fantastic. strange combination of instruments: didjeridu, bass, percussion and sitar (played by their singer, a lovely young woman). very interesting music, so do check it out. very danceable, too. but of course we did not go home when the band stopped playing, we continued to dance until 4.30-ish.

i walked towards südbahnhof (railway station) and took photographs of sleepy vienna along the way (along the belvedere) and at the station. i bought freshly baked white bread with melted cheese and a chocolate croissant ... aaaahhhhh! i got home at 5.45 ... these late nights are becoming a habit! :)

photos of last night and this morning will follow soon.


song of the day: yo las alas by nomhadas.

another late poetry night

i'm really getting good at this ... staying out way later than i intend to, that is. :)

on friday i received an invitation to some sort of "spontaneous open mic" sat evening at a placed called "time". (i like that. "a place called time".) when i got there at 9, peter waugh was there setting things up, and the musicians for the night were there, too: martin schönlieb (guitar), sandro miori (sax, flute), and steve gander (guitar, vocals). the only one i did not know was poet/singer leila thigpen. ronnie showed up, also oxana from the lit fest, harold, a few friends of martin's, and a handful of other kafka people. so, not a big crowd. but it was a lovely evening. i only regretted not bringing more of my poetry, because i was asked to read twice - 3 poems each time, half of them from my first chapbook, and a few erotic poems for practice. peter also asked me to read two sound poems with him and leila. i had never done anything like that before, but it went really well, i think.

i enjoyed the performances, the musicians were excellent. martin and sandro played a few things together, also something with steve, and they accompanied some of the poems, even one of mine! i could not believe that it was 1.15 by the time we finished, time went so quickly!

the oddest thing that happened was when this (drunk) guy at the bar stopped me on my way back from the bathroom to ask about the event, and eventually asked me whether i was a member of "that group, that club or whatever it is". and i explained that we were not a club, but that we met at literary events and read together and such. and then he asked me whether i was their groupie, and which of the guys i sleep with. i was speechless, otherwise i would have said "all of them".

we hung around a while, peter, steve, martin, sandro, christian and i, and then decided to go and eat. good thing there are places like salz & pfeffer where you get really nice food from midnight until 8 am. peter and steve were supposed to join the rest of us but never showed up. anyway, we had a good time, and i did not get home until about 4 am! :)

i look forward to working with martin and sandro at the reading on friday, and listening to more of their music. we are having rehearsals on tuesday and thursday, one with the musicians. it should all be good fun!

* * * * *
now for something completely different: if you have not seen the austrian academy award winning film die fälscher (the counterfeiters) yet, make sure you do. it is really worth seeing. after our recent visit there, it was also interesting that a part of the movie was set at mauthausen concentration camp.


song of the day: quedate luna by devendra banhart.

vienna lit fest 2008 - day 3 & after

so here's day 3: after the late nights, i had a bit of a sleep-in on saturday and so the day kind of started with rommi smith's poetry in performance workshop. it was fantastic. we did some great warming-up exercises: breathing, voice, relaxing our muscles. the tasks that rommi set us were really good. i had been a bit scared that i would not be able to come up with anything, because i have been blocked so long, but i did come up with quite a lot of lines, and i have continued to work on one poem begun at the workshop. at the end, rommi performed one of her poems (the theme was slave trade and abolition thereof) - it actually gave me goosebumps.


rommi smith showing us how to perform poetry


at night, i met up with valerio, and we went to ratpack once more. we missed the discussion lifting the veil, about the relationship of western culture with the islamic world, which i was interested in, but i simply could not make it. we were, however, perfectly on time for charles ofoedu's performance. charles is nigerian but has lived here for a long time now. he did not only read poetry, he also talked a little about his experiences in jail and the deaths of black friends of his who were mistreated by the austrian police.

next up was jackie kay. my poet friend john siddique had told me she was a must-see. and he was right, of course. it felt as if jackie were at home in her lounge room entertaining a bunch of friends. what bonding with the audience! she's so funny as well - and her poetry and prose are wonderful, too. i managed to grab one of the last books available and have it signed. :)


the lovely jackie kay


after this highlight, another one: rommi smith performing poems from her collection mornings and midnights. and i mean performing, not reading. she was supported by kenny higgins on bass, and some of her lines were whispered, others sung ... amazing what she does with her voice. the poems explore the life of a fictitious jazz diva who used to tour with several jazz legends and who has just read about her own death in some paper. rommi really had everyone's attention. wow.


rommi smith, mid-performance


of course we did not go home after the performances, but we talked to jackie and clare and rommi; clare told us some more stories as we were sitting around a table with bruno, ruth, harold, valerio and a few others, sipping beers or cocktails ... it was great, and i was pretty high on all the buzz and fun and lit vibes.


ladies swapping secrets: jackie and clare



bruno and valerio trying to squeeze my brain to a pulp



clare, nicely decorated, with johnny unger, not so nicely decorated, in the background


and it would not have been v & me if we had not walked all the way to karlsplatz afterwards. it was *really* late when i got home!


on sunday, i met up with clare and rommi in the afternoon and we spent a good hour chatting and sitting/walking in the sun. they are two exceptionally lovely women, and a lot of fun.


clare was off on monday morning, but rommi was still in town, and valerio and i went out to a cocktail bar with her, monday night. interesting conversation, laughter, and some poetry talk. very nice. very.

that was the 2008 lit fest. many, many thanks to julia novak and her team once again, for making all that happen. i hope there will be another one soon.


i still have not had time to edit many of the pics, but once i have them on flickr, i will post a link here.


song of the day: linger by the cranberries.

party girl!

as i was not feeling too great yesterday, i slept all afternoon and then did what all sensible people would have done: i went to a party. :) hillary, one of my vienna-based poet friends, was having a flat-warming party, and i really did not want to miss it. i very nearly did not go, but then decided to drop in for a while - and ended up staying until 10 past 2!

to begin with, nathan and alina and later on ronnie, too, had a priceless conversation about pink rubber garments. all because alina was in istanbul and ... ah, never mind. *g*

then hillary and her belly-dancing group entertained us for a while, which made me want to join their classes. i guess there is nothing sexier in this world than a woman who is comfortable with her body, no matter what it looks like - and these ladies seem to be. ronnie joined the dance eventually, although he looked more like a rambo-esque suicide bomber than a dancer of the seven veils ... :) and nathan promised to dance for me after class, so this lucky girl has something to look forward to - right? right. :D

in the kitchen, there was some teacher talk, we dissed birmingham (that included the brummie colin who managed to get away to lovely vienna), and not many of us said "no, thanks" to some pot.

ronnie read us greek fragments, from sappho et al, very entertaining. and of course - being ronnie and delightfully silly - he cut out the lines with juicy bits - no sugar added from an orange juice carton and stuck them on me - good thing i was wearing a low-cut top, not! *g*



much later, when the number of guests had dwindled down to about ten, there was some dancing, but i really did not feel like that last night. ronnie and i planned a new career for yusuf islam, formerly known as cat stevens - as cat islam. we pretty much have the cd covers ready for in print in our heads, and we have renamed some of his greatest hits: matthew and cat, tomcat and kitten, wild cat, if you want to meow - meow, the first scratch is the deepest, kitty d'arbanville ...

a very drunk steve gander and i recited leonard cohen's famous blue raincoat, but then it was time to go home.

i was so glad i went - i laughed so much, had a great time, and flirted with at least three men. possibly three and a half. :)



i slept in today, then watched yesterday's episodes of grey's anatomy, gilmore girls, and men in trees, and met andreas, one of my facebook acquaintances in chat. i am running a temperature, and will return to bed after i've made me something to eat. outside - storm and rain; we've had storm warning, up to 120 km/h expected.

song of the day: girls just wanna have fun by cyndi lauper.