MEN: what we can do about sexual abuse. The personal is politica, Change is possible l

Sexual abuse of women is universal. It is rooted in patriarchy and institutional religion which seeds misogyny, sexism, and objectification. The first step for men is admitting to their role in practicing it and detoxing publicly. This infectious male virus can be killed if all of us be truthful about the role we play or the silence we kept about our witnessing this abuse. If we all take this action, the world for our children and the women and men in the future will be a better place. Please stop thinking it is one or two or three men in Hollywood who are is alone in these practices, We all have a role we have played.

And let e add that we all have a right to feel sexy and sexual .. the question is what is an appropriate expression not based in abuse or non-consensual power games, Humor and art will help ..but it is individual practice that makes change 

REVIEW: Sadie Saturday Night ... Jean Caffeine looks back to her teenage years in the SF punk music world and all girl bands

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Well, I must tell you last night at the Slipper Room, normally a showcase for the "New Burlesque,"  was the most insightful self-examination of what it was like to be a teenage heterosexual girl in San Francisco in the late 70's that I have heard or read. A time when punk and hard-core music exploded. in the Bay area,  Sadie shared a reflection on how she had heard the call from the feminist moment that she controls her body and does when she can do whatever she wants with it ...particularly in the area of sex (Note: she used no politically correct language but simply told how she lived her life). Popping up every so often was her dad struggling to be a supportive father at the same time being concerned for her safety.  She and her girlfriends had a lot of sex mostly with boys in bands some of whose names I recognized and a lot I did not. She remembers that she had a real good,  fun time in coming of age in that world and learning about the contradictions between boys and girls. She also talks about her experiences of being in a band,  particularly one all all-girl band called the URGE as a drummer. She told of a trip to LA to play the Hong Cong Cafe ( a punk/new wave in the back room of a Chinese Restaurant booked by LA's version of NYC 's Anya "terror" Phillips, tough, smart and punk-glamorous Asian woman who I believe was Allison Humamura. This Asian booker who had booed the URGE for two night after hearing the substance intoxicated band play night 1 canceled the second night and told Sadie the URGE was" the worse band she had ever heard." I got a real sense of community and of the friendship of the girls in punk and the rivalry over boys, mostly musicians in punk from Jean's memory performance. A real reality check is her simply, jargon-free explanation of how getting pregnant, asking the boy responsible for half the $100 fee and going to Kaiser Hospital alone, for an abortion, She spent the night  (imagine that today!) then called her Dad to pick her up. The performance was done with an acoustic and plugged-in guitars and three very dramatic t-shirt changes with slogans reflecting a woman's symbol, an anonymous hashtag and finally reflecting on when Sadie left to the City by the Bay to come to the Emerald City an I LOVE NY t-shirt.  Hearing her made me remember a narrative film from a couple of years back that I really liked : "Diary of a Teen Age Girl" whose central character was a teenage girl around the same time as Sadie's reflection growing up in SF and developing not only a creative life but learning about sex, love, and rejection. I hope Jean Caffeine finishes her "being worked on NYC years",. That is when I first met her and then she moved to Austin Tx where I always make sure when I am at SXSW to check in with her.

NOTE TO ACADEMICS: her hour-long presentation is perfect for Gender and Women studies programs as well as women in music courses ... Book her 

What is Media Burn Archive? and why it should matter to you

How to preserve culture in the 21st century in a political world hell-bent on erasing and re-writing history ... here is one intervention to make history authentic that new technology has made possible

thinking about all the people in my class with Lee Strasberg in the early '60's one was Benedetta Barzini’s who went from VOGUE cover to Marxist feminist professor

The Boldly Heroic Benedetta Barzini: Marxist, Model, and Muse

— August 23, 2017 —

Benedetta Barzini’s modeling career is fascinating, and it may be the least interesting thing about the 73-year-old catwalk star

 Photography by Peter Lindbergh

• TextSophie Bew

Heiress, feminist, actress, Marxist, teacher and iconic model Benedetta Barzini has enjoyed a phenomenal career. From her big break posing for Irving Penn in the 60s, to starring in Simone Rocha’s A/W17 show just this year, her professional life has maintained fascinating and multifarious momentum. In fact, Barzini’s professional longevity may offer a perfect metaphor for her personal endurance and strength of character: the 73-year-old has talked openly about her numerous treacherous relationships, from that with her family, to anorexia, her father’s right-wing politics, love affairs and being left to raise newborn twins as a single mother. As her beauty has matured she has unfurled into an inspiring, strong and resilient woman, while her attitude to beauty and mental health reveal her steely constitution – as the following twists and turns of her life attest.




Photography by Henry Clarke for Vogue 

Features Barzini, with her piles of brunette hair, huge dark eyes and distinctive mole in the center of her right cheek, caught the eye of Italian Vogue editor Consuelo O’Connell Crespi in 1963. Her first shoot was soon spotted by US Vogue’s then-managing editor Diana Vreeland,, who sent a note to Barzini inviting her out to New York for a few days to shoot with Irving Penn for the magazine. Barzini stayed for five years. Working relentlessly with Penn and other photographers like Richard Avedon and Henry Clarke, by 1966 Harper’s Bazaar named her one of the “100 Great Beauties of the World”.


Her personal style was far more low-key than the overblown glamour of her pictures. She opted for clean lines: crew-neck knits, woolen shifts, plain jumpsuits, her hair drawn back into a low ponytail, a bare face. Her aesthetic eschewed the gloss of her Manhattan-ite counterparts and her aristocratic upbringing, and such a penchant for simplicity belied the first signs of her Marxist leanings. “Nobody’s life is better simply because one is ‘beautiful,'” Barzini once exclaimed. “Beauty is not visible. It is written in charm, humor, authenticity. Nobody is responsible for their looks. We are all responsible for what we do with our body and mind. I never cared about looks. I never walked around looking like a model. On go-sees they would look at my book and say ‘Is that you?!’ I didn’t look like those pictures.” It was no doubt her refreshing originality of thought that drew her into Andy Warhol’s fold and garnered her a great friend in the artists Salvador Dalí and Jasper Johns. Even when in a zebra print evening dress at a party at The Factory (she described Warhol as wanting “to see the children of the High-Class Bourgeoisie of New York roll around like cockroaches inside the abyss”), her hair and make-up were purposefully pared back.

Today, her look is just as spare and nonchalantly chic. The model is frequently papped on her bicycle outside venues at show season, her bare brown arms exposed bar piles of silver jewelry, her tresses of streaked silver hair loose and flowing, a cigarette always clamped between her teeth. There are a freshness and confidence to her look that defies all preconceived notions of age and beauty.


Photography by Paolo VivianoSeminal Moments

Born in Grosseto in 1943 to political journalist Luigi Barzini, Jr, and Giannalisa Feltrinelli, heiress to the Feltrinelli family fortune, Barzini was sent alone to New York to study at just seven years old, where she stayed for five years. It was here that her ongoing struggle with an eating disorder began before she returned to Europe and oscillated between Swiss private schools and mental institutions – one of which she eventually escaped. “My sickness came from the fact that everyone that I had ever loved could not last,” Barzini has explained. “All my governesses (once I counted 17 of them) were constantly fired. The people who belonged to my so-called family did not exist. I was a very unwanted child. I consider my anorexia as the beginning of coming to sanity because it’s insane not to be sick if you have a really broken-up life. […] there is a very ancient link between anorexia and family dynamics. Refusing to eat is one of the very few things that women in the past could do to go against the will of their families.” And so began her concerns with patriarchy and power.

It was back in New York while training at the Actor’s Studio that Barzini met the post-Beat poet, filmmaker, and Warhol apostle Gerard Malanga, to whom she would become engaged (though never married). Malanga dedicated numerous works of poetry to his muse Barzini: 3 Poems for Benedetta Barzini and The Last Benedetta Poems. By 1969, Barzini had moved back to Italy to act, and though she only appeared in a few, fairly unknown films, it was here that she fell in love with film director Roberto Faenza and married him. On the night she gave birth to their twins, Faenza walked out on Barzini, leaving her to raise her children communally with two female students and a male professor. Now she teaches a course in feminism at the University of Milan, is a member of the militant feminist group Unione Donne Italiane, and has helped raise awareness of the problems facing working-class women in Italy, much to her father (a leading figure in the right-of-center Liberal party)’s chagrin. She also spends two days a week volunteering at the local hospital, helping expectant mothers.

She’s an AnOther Woman Because…At 73 years old Barzini’s style and attitude continue to inspire to this day – bringing a joyful diversity to the ad campaigns of GAP and Burberry as well as the catwalks of Simone Rocha, Daniela Gregis, and her friend Antonio Marras. All of which she offsets with a healthy dose of suspicion of the profession: “I never really thought about being beautiful: I considered myself a sort of coathanger on which others (the ordeal in the fashion business) could place their own talents. Now I am more inclined to see beauty as a cop-out, a way of ignoring substance and commitment, a game to play with or against others.” Her enduring style, character, and charisma are a poignant reminder of the gifts of age and maturity. As Barzani, herself extols: “Life takes us far away from youth and running after one’s looks when young is ridiculous. Maturity is much more fascinating.”

A MORNING RAGE (WESTERN Style) -William Basinski’s “Cascade” – Annals of Sound – The New Yorker

Beauty is.....

AMORNING RAGE WESTERN-William Basinski’s “Cascade” – Annals of Sound – The New Yorker

Beauty is

WOW! Pylon Reenactment Society perform "Beep" in Chicago 02-11-17

when Randy died of a sudden heart attack years ago, PYLON ceased to be....years passed. Then last year Vanessa went to Curtis and Michael and said she wanted to sing Pylon songs again. She wanted to put together a Pylon Reenactment band. Both Curtis and Michael said "go for it." so she found players in Athens and then under the watchful eye of Curtis and Michael.....PRS was born. I saw them at MAXWELL's ..about six months ago...the songs were almost recreated perfectly..and Vanessa, well Venessa is a rara avis twirling and singing on stage as a packed room cheered and caught the dance bug, i was in 7th heaven ..as was Richard Barone he jumped on stage and joined them for a song... now I have learned PRS  is releasing an ep from the tour. WOW1

Peter Gordon and Love of Life Orchestra / Justine And The Victorian Punk...

Just one of the reason we LOVE Peter Gordon .. and LOLO...
Peter and Kit will be in London on Sat 21st at Cafe Oto w/special guest David Cunningham ...


https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/peter-gordon





https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/peter-gordon

The National @ Centquatre | Full Set | Pitchfork Live

Is this the best America indie band in the US today ?? WHat is is the water in Brooklyn????

HISTORY LESSON (authentic) NYC Nightlife Jim Fouratt at Hurrah where my nightclub creations began

This is a picture taken by Trix Rosen in 1979 of Jackie Rudin and me at Hurrah. Hot, no? Jackie was the person who introduced me to Robert Boykin and Barbara Lackey who were running HURRAH. The club had been a "beautiful people's" insider nightspot and the most important one in NYC until the day Studio 54 opened. (background: Arthur Weinstein employed by Robert B. to bring new "beautiful people" into HURRAH. "Fresh Meat" those who were not given access would say. Arthur had access to HURRAH's private membership list. In the days before cell phones, facebook, etc. one of the most valuable assets of any successful club was its membership list. Arthur had met these two guys who said they were going to open a club on 54th street. He sold, for a nice sum, Hurrah's deeply protected membership list. Arthur just happened to have it in his back pocket.  Od all those creatures of the night I knew back then,  Weinstein and his beautiful, creative wife Collen deserve the Hollywood narrative biofilm as seen through the art of say, Scorsese. Casting would be a hoot.) Almost overnight HURRAH was a dead zone, R/B tried to reinvent HURRAH putting in a live theatrical show in the early evening. (Tom Eyen's "Way Hannah's Skirt WON'T STAY DOWN !" with Helen Hanft, WOMEN Behiubd BARS with Divine, etc. People came but left when the performance was over to go to Studio.54. Next, R/B brought red-hot publicist/artist manager Jane Friedman (Woodstock, Patti Smith, et.c) and her pal Henry Schiller to do another makeover.  Jane and Henry's concept was to have a "Classic Rock Disco" with WNEW's superstar radio personality MEG GRIFFEN spinning the radio records. Along with disco DJ Jeffery Brown. Meg was adventurous at WNEW.She would not only play the radio "rock chart Hits" of the day but would also work Ramones, etc. into her playlist. But it did not catch on in the way RB hopped. Hurrah was in trouble. One night Jackie asked me to come dancing with her at Hurrah.She said she wanted to intro me to R/B. She knew I needed a job having come back from LA, not a movie star. We met, and Jackie's intro was "here is Jimmie .. he will know how to turn this club around!" Note: I had never been in the nightclub business. But I was intrigued with the pop culture politics of doing nightlife club. Cultural work I thought. We set up a meeting .. I came prepared and worked out a deal that made me creative director of the club in charge of everything, including staffing, but not the bar nor the cash register. Th biggest fight was over their disco DJ (Jeff Brown) they wanted to keep (he was a very good DJ and very good looking ..but his style of disco was more the Saint and Studio and i heard a different dance beat), I brought in Sean Cassette and Mark Kamins. But that is another story for another time. My concept of art, live music/performance, fashion and great beats worked, and they made dance floor history. (It was the beginning of the template that became Danceteria, Peppermint Lounge, et.c) . HURRAH once again became the hot spot of not the "beautiful people" but of the creative community that was a part of the Mudd Social Club, and the remains of Max's Kansas City art crowd Fashion and art were in .. the motto was Dress up/come up. Later Jackie lost her job selling ads to the music industry for the Village Voice. AIDS Crack and MTV took its toll on the adventure of nightlife etc .. And my world turned, as did Jackie's\. We remained friends up until recently when she reinvented her history and life and became downtown's version of a paparazzi picking up many of the rude habits of Ron Galella and the DIY punk attitude of just click and post the picture as fast as you can. Unlike say Patrick McMullen or Dustin Pittman who both had chronicled nightlife and fashion and society up and downtown for years.Each took the time to edit their work to capture the self-image fantasy beauty the participants had of themselves. I remember thinking: We all have the right to reinvent ourselves. But the Jackie I had to know for 40 years became someone I did not know or particularly like. Nor could I continue to collaborate when confronted by others to confirm her self-confabulated history. We parted company. Jackie found a whole new generation of people to click away at, and they love her documentation of themselves. C'est la vie. We had at one point promised each other we would grow old and find ourselves sitting in big rocking chairs on some porch somewhere rocking away and remembering "those fabulous days." Life is complex and friendship has its ups and downs. But I still believe if either one of us was in trouble I trust we would be there for each other. I would.