"I like NONE of them" - Sean Price on female rappers

Women's Library Zine Fest 25.06.2011

More Crackers Please collage by Bill Savage, which served as the backdrop for the Le Tigre karaoke video Keep On Livin', which I am in for about 3 seconds, looking awkward and ginger. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0yumFIbq7U&feature=player_embedded

DIY feminist history posters of inspirational women from Shape & Situate zine, #1 and #2, curated by the super lovely Melanie Maddison.

http://remember-who-u-are.blogspot.com/2011/06/shape-situate-posters-of-inspirational.html

 Joana Vasconcelos by Michelle Mendonca, from Shape & Situate #2 http://www.facebook.com/Michelle.R.Mendonca?ref=ts 

Jennifer Maidment's cute, smudgy rendition of me, inked on the day, for Rachel House's Feminist Disco Project (see below for a selection of the in-progress display) http://www.jennifermaidment.com/

Selection from Rachel House's Feminist Disco Project

My haul, including an original 1979 copy of Spare Rib magazine! 

Shabazz Palaces - Black Up

I wrote most of this review during what was later confirmed to be an infected wisdom tooth episode. Weird blue Ibuprofen pills left over from NYC + Afrocentric, neo noir space-age hip hop. Some seriously beautiful joints on this album, and also some of the sexiest cover/sleeve art I've had the pleasure of running my fingers across (the picture does not do it justice - lush black felt and twinkling gold flake leaf).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/24/shabazz-palaces-black-up-review

The First Ever London Sex Worker Film Fest

Buzzing over The First Ever London Sex Worker Film Fest yesterday at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, which featured films by and about sex workers (female, male and trans) from around the world, panel discussions from sex workers, academics and allies, and a very sweet after-party (LL Cool J's Doin' It - the perfect striptease song).

Here are some points I found the event and its participants affirmed/expanded:

• Sex workers are not always the criminals/victims that we imagine them to be, but are often autonomous, intelligent and empowered. 
• When it comes to 'protective' legislation, sex workers are often the last people to be consulted, if at all.
• After the state, its often well-meaning, left-leaning white feminists who continue to make sex work dangerous for workers. By trying to 'protect' (force) women/workers out of sex work, it is pushed under ground, where it cannot be regulated. This creates a culture where women/workers *are* exploited and abused. 
• If we continue to vilify/pity sex workers and outlaw a profession that offers crucial, mutually rewarding services to society, we will never create safe spaces, and sex workers will continue to work under needlessly difficult and dangerous working conditions.
• According to one of the film makers, studies and statistics on victims of sex trafficking actually reveal the problem is nowhere near as large-scale as governments/states would have us believe, and that the people classed by the government as victims of trafficking are often migrant sex workers who are simply traveling to find better wages and working conditions. 
  
• The fight against sex trafficking often undermines true sex workers. Laws that are meant to protect victims of trafficking are often misused to vilify/threaten/abuse migrant sex workers, who should have the right to travel and work safely.

Resources:

Support, networking, activism for sex workers, activists and allies: www.sexworkeropenuniversity.com

English classes for migrated sex workers: http://www.xtalkproject.net/ 
FB event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=218282878199125&ref=ts

Scrub you clean/now you forget what you mean

Major double take in the 'beauty' aisle at Richmond House of Frasier this morning. Little pink tubs of fat girl hate on sale via Bliss, a spa-turned-product line based in NYC. According to their site, they also peddle fat shame products such as the fatgirlslim treatment kit.

In my fantasy, a gaggle of beautiful rad fatties storm the Bliss offices/spas and wash their little empire away in an orgy of wild, pink bubble soaked destruction.

Kate Harding, debunking the criminal sham that is the BMI index 

"Mutant and proud"

Jennifer Lawrence should get a medal for managing to make a totally cringe-worthy line of script, which she was forced to say not once but twice, sound only moderately sappy.

Things I liked:

Jennifer Lawrence and her totally rad acting skills.
Fassbender, turning out a smokin' young Magneto.
January Jones in diamond form. Hot damn.

Things I did not like

Kevin Bacon as Shaw. No cravat! Shaw is hulking, hairy, intimidating and charismatic. Bacon is far too lean/serpentine to pull this off.
January Jones as Emma Frost. JJ has that ice-blonde thing down fer sure, but Emma, for all her coolness, is also mad sexy and totally at ease in ridiculously teeny outfits. Felt like I was watching a super frigid Betty Draper play dress-up. Uncomfortable.
Moira MacTaggert. WHERE WAS THE ACCENT PLEASE?
The script. Painful in places. See above.
Travel sickness. Too many scene/location/era changes.
Pervading lack of atmosphere/true suspense. 
Too many plots spoil the broth/film etc.
You know things are bad when you find yourself willing the montages to be over. Zero fun!

 Things I am undecided on:

James McAvoy, doing Xavier's early smugness exceeding justice. I suppose I prefer to think of Charles as a wizened prof, bald and nobly transcending the ego/mistakes of his youth.