Archive for the ‘Video’ Category

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Bikesexual in East Sussex…

31/01/2015

 

 

UniOfBrighonExhiBikes

 

Who said there’s no such thing as bikesexuality?  I can attest to its alive-and-kickingness (and so does this Canadian website).  But, how well I remember those mocking last-century-Eighties: hell hath no fury like the separatist homo sapiens…

HavantTrikesexual

I have to face-and-confess it: I’m an ex-closet A-sexual with an Extra-Gel saddle still hanging on the back of my front door.  Yes, these days I’m a mere voyeur – or just another wannabe trikesexual…

 

TravelScoot

(But the way my lower half feels some days, I’m more likely to be seen in the company of a Germanic trikescooter…)

 

 

Confused? Don’t be.  Enjoy (hopefully) this introductory fotovideo capturing ‘the B word’ gloriously, proudly, out-and-about in Brighton and Hove (with an upbeat jazz-funk soundtrack too…)

 

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TransGenderQueerPerson wins Eurovision…

11/05/2014
eurovision-song-contest-conchita-wurst-als-bondgirl-41-51776740

image courtesy Salzburg Nachrichten

Any ideas for the post on my return to this blog (after ‘time out’ at HaikuCity2014) were superceded last night by the winning of the Eurovision Song Contest by Conchita ‘Wunderbar’ Wurst of Austria.

Dubbed the ‘Bearded Lady’ and drag artist, this amazingly-androgynous, gender-blending singer with a belting voice, super-trimmed facial hair and lashes-for-days was the deserved winner with her song ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’.

Just as transwoman (and first transgender) contestant, Dana International caused a stirring of the Eurovision ashes in 1998 when she won for Israel, such celebrity winnings become ‘a phoenix of hope’ for trans people.

For me as a transgenderqueer individual striving for the acknowledgement of ‘person’ as the operative identity of any&everyone – rather than a binary gender identity of male or female – the vision of gender-busting Conchita singing-to-win was intensely moving.

When the fashion furore, the curiosity controversy & the glitz glamour publicity has died down, maybe – just maybe – this Austrian individual will be recognised as the not-a-rude-word-person that they are…

conchita_wurst_orf_06_orf_by_thomas_ramstorfer

image courtesy Thomas Ramstorfer

 

Enjoy these ‘transishews’ links (again)!

Announcement of Conchita’s win by the BBC  and Austrian news:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27358560

http://www.salzburg.com/nachrichten/dossier/songcontest2014/sn/artikel/eurovision-song

YouTube video coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest winner:

http://youtu.be/t1LDkNuEHA4 

Conchita Wurst sings ‘Rise Like A Phoenix’:

http://youtu.be/e_fJQ-aOTv4

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Homage to SE & SW Coastal Travel…

26/03/2014

SaltdeanBusCafe

Now that I live in Brighton & Hove, I find myself at least once a month taking the bus out of the city to Saltdean, for some therapeutic bodywork.  The bus route follows the coast eastward from the Pier, alongside the promenade out to Brighton Marina, mooring harbour for both millionaire yachts and working fishing boats. Then onward, the sea ever in view, through Rottingdean: pebble-dashed Sussex village, once home to poet-novelist, Rudyard Kipling and Pre-Raphaelite artist, Edward Burne-Jones.  Saltdean is the next seaside town with its art deco swimming Lido and restyled Thirties apartment buildings.

Return27BusPier

Three years ago, living in Devon my coastal travel took me, once a month, on the train from Totnes to Taunton in Somerset; I was travelling to the female-towards-male support group for the South West, like other Trans persons coming up from Cornwall or down from Bristol or Wales.  This train journey ran alongside the Teign and Exe estuaries in Devon – and the sea between – on the now-famed railway line that collapsed at Dawlish during the February storms.

Seeing that the beautiful coastal stretch of that rail line may now be quite defunct, I am delighted that I spontaneously captured it on mobile camera in June 2013 (returning home to the South East) when I found myself at an open train door window whilst waiting for the loo to become vacant! Here now – for posterity – is my fotovideo of that coastal travel:

 

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TransGenderQueer Space: in homage to…

20/02/2014

This post is ‘queer art homage’  –    in the form of a fonecamera fotovideo.

TransPrdBnrJL0214By way of introduction.

The following text is very close to that which I presented (alongside the premiere viewing of the 5-minute-long fotovideo below) at the Trans* History performance event at Brighton&Hove’s Jubilee Library on Saturday, 15th February…

 

http://www.brighton-hove-rpml.org.uk/WhatsOn/Pages/LGBTHistoryMonthatJubileeLibraryFeb14.aspx

When persons gender transition, it becomes hugely significant to them that they have appropriate spaces to go & facilities to use according to their gender identity.

That means for me that it is really important, for instance, that I can go swimming at a pool where there is a unisex – or gender neutral – changing space.

Luckily I dress pretty much entirely in recycled clothes so I am very familiar with the ‘gender-free’ charity shop fitting room  (as has been homage’d in the mid-90s with a sonnet ‘Ode to the Cubicle’…)

Most significantly, as this is a daily necessity, is for me to be able to find and use gender-neutral toilet space and that means mainly using an accessible toilet. (This is also necessary for other trans persons – especially in the early days of their transition.)

I  feel Aspergically and sensorily more comfortable (and safe) in a solitary and more spacious ‘loo’. I take Aspie pleasure in their architectural features, and in the fixtures and fittings.

The fotovideo is a celebration of the accessible public convenience  as transgenderqueer space.

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The food, the fad & the fussy…

29/09/2013
GelatoGusto

gorgeous gastro ice cream parlour offerings at Gelato Gusto
in the North Laine, Brighton

Since munching on such healthy edibles as just-picked tomatoes, sun-dried apple slices, raw carrot and courgette slices and dried mulberries at the BUC allotment last Monday lunchtime, my eating habits this week took a helter=skelter trajectory…

Monday afternoon saw me heading off to be a solidarity presence at the 23rd September Bi-visibility Day celebration in an artisan ice cream parlour. The bi-folk were somewhat invisibly tucked away in the back room (their pink&purplish clothing camouflaging the ice cream tubs) as I tucked into my all-day-breakfast ice cream experience – a cone with double scoop: smokey bacon and maple syrup waffle and African berry coulis yoghurt flavours… Yum!

https://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/GelatoGusto

A Trans* Alliance meeting, teatime on Wednesday afternoon, required chocolate digestive biscuit (just-the-one) as the tea was ‘too wet without one’ – and the T* talk a tad dry…

By Friday, I was indulging the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning in aid of Macmillan cancer nursing: a cappuccino alongside my friend’s home=baked iced ginger cake was a modest-ish elevenses on that morning; but Friday evening through to Saturday tea time (prepping for and attending Queer in Brighton photography workshop) witnessed me quality-control-testing WBCM’s samples of white chocolate cheesecake, carrot and pineapple cake, pound cake, 2 varieties of chocolate brownie, coffee and walnut cake  – plus my own=baked malted sesame flapjack… Eek!

The body is now crying out for 5-a-Day fruit & vegetable nourishment. So, this Sunday morning, in preparation, I whipped-up a little ‘harvest fest’ fotovideo of non-sugar/non-fat greengrocery and allotment comestibles to wet my taste bud neurones’ appetites…

Tomorrow: celery and pepper casserole, here we come (but perhaps fewer ‘good works’ this week)…

[ Soundtrack:  ‘The G, the B & the U’ courtesy Hugo Montenegro ]