Berlin continues!

We had a great weekend at Ladyfest, where we met loads of amazing people and heard some awesome bands. (More details to follow!) We're co-organizing another event with Lady Gaby (who contributed to Adventures in Menstruating #4) tomorrow night - details are below - please forward and repost to anyone you know in Berlin! :) I had the great pleasure of meeting Brittany Shoot yesterday, and I'm really psyched that there will actually be four contributors reading at the same event!

Cheers,
Cx


Vintage Women – Reclaiming Time!
Wednesday 22 July 2009
14:00 until late
20:00 Doors open for evening performances
Lady Gaby presents @
Wonderbar Wienerstr 45. Berlin XBERG
Entry: Suggested donation 2 euro

Daytime Workshops:
Adventures in Menstruating on 50s adverts – deconstructing the media and creating your own spoof ads; Gender stereotypes – subverting oppression through comedy exploration of representation.

24 Hour Zine Thing – Create your own zine response with ad collages and captions using materials provided or vintage ads/images/text you bring. The completed zine will be available to trade or buy on the night as part of July’s International Zine Month!

Coffee, cakes, brownies, cookies and treats at 1950s prices!
Swap shop: bring vintage clothing and accessories to trade and share! Fabric pens available for quick modifications – bring your own sewing supplies/ribbon if you’ve got some!

Knitters and crocheters welcome!

DJing by Mary from The Baby Cheeses

Evening - Doors open 8 pm – Comedy sketches, poetry and spoken word from Lady Gaby, Adventures in Menstruating’s Chella Quint and Sarah Thomasin, Brittany Shoot and more!
Live Music from The Hairy Marys!
Retro set by DJ Girl Detective

Skids Pads, Viral Ads...and AWESOME comments sections.

I have a minor addiction to the Guardian G2 Shortcuts section and quick crossword. Yes, they're available online, but as a zine writer, I need it in print form. Today's dose included Kira Cochrane's account of a viral ad campaign about masculine hygiene products by, um, one of my competitors. It's getting a bit freaky how closely feminine hygiene product advertising seems to be echoing our comedy sketches lately. Have we tapped into the zeitgeist? Or are their marketing departments just very thorough? If it's the latter, "Hi there, marketing department researchers. Thanks for stopping by. I think." (Waves nervously.)


I did these ads for the launch of issue 3 of Adventures in Menstruating, and they've been around ever since at our live comedy shows, which feature various riffs on 'pads for men' ads.



You may enjoy my own contribution to the viral internet canon, which, like the other Skids stuff, went live in August 2007. Thanks to Cakebread Illustrations for offering to make the website after seeing our show in Berlin. Stay tuned for further additions.


In the meantime, please enjoy the fantastically hilarious comments on today's G2 article. Now Mooncup really know how to do viral.




Time flies. Issue 4 is due another reprint, and we're back in Berlin on 18 July.


-Chella

Berlin!

We're going to Berlin! 17 - 27 July! We'll be there for Ladyfest and will probably do some more readings and stuff there the following week. Stay tuned. (And get in touch if you will be in Berlin and want to collaborate.)

Chella

Zine-tastic.

The London Zine Symposium was fantastic. Met great people, saw some beautiful work, and loved loved loved reading with a cadre of funny and intelligent fellow zinesters. I'd tour with those guys. It rocked!

At the moment I'm working on Robyn's Egg: A child's Introduction to Menstruation (which I think I've mentioned before), and two companion children's books, which is taking some honing of my rusty illustration skills. The other two books are 'Rocket to the Moon' (tampons as improvised toys and craft supplies) and 'How Does Your Friend Make You Feel' (a colouring and activity book based on menstrual euphemisms that I think might also make a good creative writing/comic workshop - stay tuned).

I'm also in the middle of developing my guide to sanitary disposal units: The SDU and YOU: Public Inconveniences. Stay tuned for the results of interviews with industry insiders!

We're looking at summer plans and should have a couple of events lined up soon.

Chella

Licentious? Nah...

No joke - in the UK you have to have a tv license to pay for public television. When I first moved here, I was amazed to learn that if you had a television, you had to get a license for it, for about £130 a year. If you don't have a license for your television, you can be fined. Well geez, I used to panic about this. Up until a few months ago, I actually thought people would demand to see the license if they knocked on your door, and I'd have to prove I had one by having it at the ready, like they were my identification papers during the war. So I used to keep this very official bit of paper under the tv in safe place so I'd have it to hand when that knock came. There was a VERY convincing television ad that gave me this impression several years ago, I swear. But it turns out they have the info on a database and you don't actually need to show anyone a bit of paper. If they see that you're not paid up, and you've got a satellite dish or cable wire going into the brick, or an antenna on the roof, someone from the tv license people may knock on your door and demand you pay for a tv license, but that's it. No terrifying knock, no frantic scrabbling around for passports...

But despite this odd practice, the BBC are good people. A couple of weeks ago, a programme called QI jumped into the top mainstream comedy slot at 9 pm on BBC 1 (the one occupied by Friends in the 90s, if that gives you an idea). QI is a 'Quite Interesting' comedy panel game where if you guess the most obvious-seeming yet wrong answer, you lose loads of points and quite a lot of self-respect. Scores are regularly in the negative numbers at the end of each episode, and its facts are so esoteric and forgettable that my friends and I can even watch this in reruns and feel clever and stupid by turns. It's hosted by one of my favourite gay, Jewish panel game hosts, Stephen Fry (the other one is Simon Amstell).

QI used to be on BBC2, which covers the 'clever and quirky' demographic quite nicely. When it was moved to BBC1 for its most recent season, I was worried it'd dumb down and go mainstream. How delighted I was last week in the Flora and Fauna episode when the very first question name-checked menstruation in a big way. The episode is still available on iplayer in the UK, and I seriously hope it arrives on BBC America and elsewhere soon enough. The question was about the significance of the camellia flower in a book called La Dame au Camellia (and in the film and opera based on it). All the guests, including this week's token woman, Jo Brand (who has never shied away from huge amounts of sexually themed and menstrual comedy in her stand up act) joined in with the discussion of wearing a white camellia flower 25 days a month and wearing a red camellia for the other 5. (Now THAT's regular!) Women were not the butt of the jokes! Menstruation wasn't considered disgusting! Best bit: Stephen Fry in role saying 'Sorry, I can't, I've got a period on,' and Jo Brand guffawing as she gently corrected him: 'Stephen, it's EITHER/OR! Either 'I've got my period' or 'I'm on!'' A good third of the show was devoted to menstrual comedy. It's quite sad that I'm so shocked and pleased by this, but wanted to log the praise where it's due. It also taught this menstrual maven a thing or two about the history behind Germany's arm of Kotex branding its pads Camellia. (Actually I wish the US arm (wing?) would depart from their 50s medicinal moniker and head the same way - it'd mean the To Bleed Or Not To Bleed sketch I do in our live show (it's about menstrual suppression) would be able to end with 'the fair Camellia' in both countries. "The fair Camellia! Pad, in thy soft layers/Be all my blood collect'd!")

I sat down to write about this all last night but got engrossed in a BBC Radio 4 programme called Am I Normal doing an entire episode deconstructing stereotypes around menopause (recommended reading from one of the interviewees was Mrs. Dalloway - so now that's two books, an opera and a film to add to my reading list), directly followed by Call Yourself a Feminist, which turned out to be the first of three documentaries tracking different waves of feminism. (Which one are we on now? Third, right? Do we all graduate to fourth at some point? I've been in third so long I'm starting to feel like I got left back.) I was fascinated by comments from an oldskool feminist called Sonia adamantly insisting that feminists weren't humourless, and that it was irresponsible of the media to only show the drier side of feminism. Right on, sister!

So yeah, the BBC is on message. They are ready to acknowledge that feminists can be funny, and comedians can talk menstruation. Perhaps I should send in a sitcom idea about women who work in a tampon factory. Actually, I think I will. You heard it here first, folks - it'll be called Up Yours (with its own comedy tampon packaging to get my design!brain going). Look for it at 9 pm on BBC1 in a couple of years...

Chella

Adventures in Menstruating: Bigger and Redder

The stirrings of spring mean our hiatus is over and a new issue of Adventures in Menstruating is on the way at last – a ‘true confessions’ style bumper edition. Thank you to everyone who's waited patiently this year while we got gaymarried, worked on the Obama campaign and supported an ill friend.

The year hasn’t been totally devoid of things menstrual or zine, though –

We had an excellent review from Brittany Shoot at Feminist Review and she felt moved to write a piece for our next issue. Brittany's writing is fantastic and we're really pleased to have made friends with this radical woman. Chella will be contributing to Brittany’s upcoming zine about expats - stay tuned for an article called 'Adventures in Emigrating’ and more details about that zine later this month.

We did a mini tour called 'Honeymoon Period' which included a comedy sketch performance, menstrual craft workshop and poetry reading at Ladyfest Berlin and concluded with Malav's gallant hospitality once again at Bluestockings in NYC.

Sarah won a poetry competition at this year’s Off the Shelf Festival – one of the poems she read, ‘A Celebration of Menstruation’ (which you may have read in the zine or seen on tour) united the crowd and the judges, and a trophy cup has joined her mooncup on the bathroom shelf.

An extract from AiM #3 was included in Zine Yearbook 9 put out by Microcosm. Details available here.

Chella is getting involved with Red Chidgey and Elke Zobl's fantastic book - working title: DIY Activism! Dispatches from the Transnational Feminist Zine Movement - and is keen to promote their website.

And finally, Chella's recently (like literally just today, actually) been asked to contribute work to a book coming out next year by Christine Bobel tentatively called New Blood: Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation from Rutgers University Press. More details on that as they come in.

So that’s been the zine highlights of the year for us – we’re excited to be back, uh… bigger and redder?

All the best from
Chella and Sarah

PS Chella will be in New York from the 6^th – 12^th April – if you’ve got a hankering for putting something zine or menstrual together, get in touch.

dumplings

We're on the road in about 20 minutes, which is just enough time to say a quick thank you to our awesome hosts at la-diy-fest Berlin and to the other performers for sharing their stuff with us. More later!

(Edited to add that the title is dumplings in honour of the dumpling cafe just north of neukoln in Berlin. Their all-day, all-you-can-eat brunch was an amazing way to spend Sunday, and although I only managed four dumplings, they were awesome. Sarah read some poetry, I coveted the 1950s chairs and coffee tables, and it was awesome. I'll post a link when I get hold of it, because, seriously, guys, dumplings.)

Show time.

This is what it's supposed to look like. Although, you know, you tell me - do you prefer the one font or the two? I like the bewitched-esque font for the newlywed-ness, but the century gothic has been the zine cover default for a while now, although London Between is the inside default.

Anyway, logo aside, the gigs are as follows:

Friday 8th August, 7:30 pm
Studiobuhne, Kreuzberg, Berlin

Friday 22nd August, 7 pm
Bluestockings Bookstore,
Lower East Side, NYC

If we have time for more, I'll fill you in, but you've got two continents to choose from so far.

Chella

...and we're back.

From MAN to ORK

And to think we were nearly turned away and diverted to Shannon because of the fog. We've been here since 10 pm Friday night and it's been awesome. Off to bed now, to dream of trance cello, amazing bands, and late night jam sessions with instruments provided by toys r us. Thanks and well done Ladyfest Cork! Full update after we return and recover from three all-nighters in a row.

Chella

Cork: city of dreams and menstrual comedy.

Should you happen to be in Cork, Ireland this weekend, here are our Ladyfest gig and workshop details:

Funny Period - random comedy bits from us: Friday at midnight at Cyprus Avenue above the Old Oak on Caroline St. Queen Kong are on just after us, and I promise not to be the catalyst for an international incident involving ski pants again. (Sorry, Dave.)

Saturday we are doing 2 workshops in the Lee Room of the Victoria hotel:
1 - 3 pm is Bloody Brilliant - menstrual musings, comedy and activities
5:30 - 7:30 is the impro(v) comedy workshop - we wanted to call it Whose Cunt is it Anyway? but it's just listed as an impro(v) workshop.

If I can swing it, I'm hoping to screen my short film, The Fuck You Story, sometime Saturday evening.

And Saturday night, also at the Cyprus, we're following Party Weirdo who are on at 9 pm. We're doing 9:35 til 10:05 and it's gonna be our usual shtick plus some new bits and any impro we try out with some new impro peeps, we hope.

Then after that it's our Hag night! If you're in Cork, please join us!

If you're in Sheffield, I can recommend the Fem08 conference, afterparty hosted by Lola and the Cartwheels.

If you're in Stratford, please attend Shakespeare's birthday party for me.

If you're in London, be our proxies at the London Zine Symposium. This is my first time missing it and I'm gutted. Big up to Nat and Edd for organising this every year, and cheers to Eran for making all the previous ones tons of fun.

If you're anywhere else, I hope you, too, have a lovely weekend. In fact, I'd like to know what you get up to!

Chella

Writing lines...

I will not adhere to a self-imposed media blackout.
I will not adhere to a self-imposed media blackout.
I will not adhere to a self-imposed media blackout.
I will not adhere to a self-imposed media blackout.
I will not adhere to a self-imposed media blackout.

You'd think I'd be good enough at multi-tasking to maintain a blog, check my myspace, return emails and lead a fairly ordinary life, right?

Luckily, I managed to remember various user names and passwords, looked at the old myspace, and discovered Party Weirdo were playing about 2 miles away from us tonight, about ten minutes before the doors opened. So we scarfed down spaghetti, got dressed, and dashed out of the house. We got there about five minutes before the first band, which was a hilarious guy who did covers using a music program on an old nintendo gameboy. It was one up from circuit bending and we were totally hooked. He'll be on our myspace soon.

The Weirdos rocked the house as usual, to a pretty hefty crowd, and Em did mad things with her pointy-fingered dancing. It was the first time we actually saw Chart Your Cycle the song, as we'd been backstage last time waiting for our cue. Hopefully they'll post some photos somewhere soon (I was stunt photographer). And I would have missed the whole thing if I'd kept avoiding the internet.

I'm in New York next week, I should mention, which is one of the perks of having not quit my day job. If you're around, give me a shout.

Chella

Ladyfesting...

Just a heads up that we've been invited to perform and do a workshop at Ladyfest Cork at the end of April.

So...get your Cork on.

Hope to see ya there.

Chella

Come to NYC for a reading!

We're heading to New York tomorrow morning for a couple of weeks, and I've booked a reading from Adventures in Menstruating #3 at Bluestockings on January 2nd at 7 pm.

Please pass the message on to your NYC pals, or come along yourself - we'd love the support!
Here's some more info from the listing:

Menstrual Taboos are so 2007...

Bluestockings Zine Reading: Adventures in Menstruating #3 – Funny. Period.

Wednesday, 2 January, 2008. 7 pm. FREE.

Start the year with some menstrual mayhem as Chella Quint and Sarah Thomasin launch the third issue of this popular UK comedy zine. Readings will include comic poetry, product testing, and deconstructions of vintage feminine hygiene ads. As always, Adventures in Menstruating welcomes menstruators and non-menstruators alike.

Bluestockings is located at 172 Allen Street between Rivington and Stanton, one block south of Houston and 1st Avenue. (Trains F: 2nd Avenue, JMZ: Essex/Delancey Street.) For more information call Bluestockings on (212) 777-6028.

Drop us an email if you think you can make it, or come introduce yourself if you stop by.

Chella

Ladyfest Leicester Workshop.

So here's the scoop on Ladyfest Leicester, from Amy, one of the awesome organisers:

Saturday 6th October
Basement Bar, The Looking Glass, 68-70 Braunstone Gate, Leicester, LE3 5LG

12.30pm - 3.15pm (with one 15 minute break in the middle, approx 2pm.): Zine workshop (as it's so long, people can bring in food if they want) - workshop leaders Alexis and Neely Bat
3.30pm - 4.30pm: DIY Menstrual Products - workshop leader Jenny
4.45pm - 5.30pm: Chart Your Cycle Roadshow! (those who want to stay on from the previous workshop can do, if they want...they will have to pay extra tho!) - workshop leaders Sarah and Chella

All workshops will be £1.50 - if anyone wants to do both of the last two, they'll pay £2.50....we're nice like that! Or obviously free to weekend/day ticket holders.

And then all the fabulous music, spoken word, etc. at Sumo, 54 Braunstone Gate Leicester Leicestershire LE3 5LG.

Sunday 7th October
Upstairs Bar, Firebug, Millstone Lane, Leicester, Leicestershire, LE1 5JN

12.30pm - 2pm: Comic Workshop - workshop leader Selina
2.15pm - 3.45pm: Stitch N' Bitch session - workshop leaders Karen and Jen
4pm - 5.30pm: TBC v. soon

Again, all workshops £1.50 each, weekend/day ticket holders free.

And then more fabulous music, spoken word, etc. at Sumo. Hurrah!

More details at: http://www.ladyfest-leicester.moonfruit.com

So as you can see, we'll be there Saturday with quite a bit of new stuff we've been working on and a few old favourites. Since it's more of a workshop format, the show will be a little more interactive. We'll also be bringing along the Mobile Menstrual Zine Library. Adventures in Menstruating #3 will be available as well, for purchase or trade.

We're really psyched to be sharing the bill with Jenny's pad workshop, and Alexis and Neely's zine-making workshop (which should be amazing, from all indications).

Hope to see ya there.

Adventures in Menstruating #3 Launch At Ladies Rock!

Getcher zines here, folks. Adventures in Menstruating #3 is here with full colour covers, because I finally got my ass to the photocopy shop. The zines will be available all weekend for those who are attending Ladies Rock, with a reading at 1 pm Saturday, and will be on sale at the Windmill, Brixton this Sunday (doors open at 5 and it should be a kick-ass gig).

It's in a limited run but is available to UK distros - if this is you, get in touch!

Please forward to ladies in London.

More info at Ladies Rock.

Hope to see you there!

Chart Your Cycle-The Song...Release Party!

Well. It was the best of times, it was etc.

Due to both slow passport processing and a demanding day job, I couldn't even think about getting to Dublin tonight, but loads of others did and I'm so psyched! The song written for us by Party Weirdo has been released by Stitchy Press and tonight was the launch.

Please support Party Weirdo and get your hands on a copy in 7 inch vinyl or cdr.

And stay tuned - we are going to make it over to Dublin next month and hope to pick up some to distribute with the zine.

So - well done and thanks to Party Weirdo for the props! Good on ya to Siobhan at Magical Girl and Willie and Natalia of Stitchy Press.

Nothing like reading zines on the train home.

We're getting used to this funny old commute down to that London. Zinefest was awesome. We showed some new material to a bunch of decent people who gave us feedback we could use.

I got to have a brief look at the exhibition in the Women's Library, and had a chat to some of the staff there - they were totally welcoming and I had a good chat to them. I bought a Women's library pen. Ok, I acutally bought two because if I ever buy one thing like that, I never use it. I've only just started using some of the Lisa Frank stickers I had as a kid in the 80s. I'm a stationery freak.

Crazy star-crossed moment of the day: Nearly didn't get to meet Daria of Revenge of the Nerds Distro who'd come to London from Poland. Through the magic of a hastily scrawled postcard and messengers from the 56a Library's distro, we were able to finally chat in person.

Crazy star-struck moment of the day: A really nice guy came up to Sarah and said he'd seen us mentioned in Timeout.

Cheers to Naz who taught us bookbinding. Sarah's decided her next zine is going to be a limited edition hardback run of like...5.

I'm going to go back to watching Spaced and go to bed.

Cheers to Red for organising stuff, and all the Women's library staff for letting me use the copier.

Chella

Holy Mackanoly! We're in the Independent!

According to Luiza Sauma in Talk of the Town (the first page of the ABC section), "There's a zine for everything, it seems; from the traditional comics, radical politics and punk music, to self defence and menstruation. (Indeed, I spent a good 15 minutes flicking through the genuinely excellent Adventures in Menstruating.)"

I've corrected two typos in the quote above.

Maybe my future lies in editing.

If anyone could save us a cutting, I have some American fridge space my relatives will want to fill back in New York.

The article was about the London Zine Symposium, and it was awesome. We had the best vegan cheesecake in the world, spent some quality time with old friends from around the country, met some awesome new peeps from around the world, and traded serious zine.

The venue wasn't suitable for readings, which is a shame cos there were some people there who were also hoping to read and we wanted to hear their stuff! Next year, though.

Thanks to Edd, Natalie, Chris, Eran and everyone else who helped get it together!