Presentation of 'In Other Wor(l)ds' in Pristina

Presentation of In Other Wor(l)ds workshop series

Is there such a thing as luminous wonder?
Depends on the light.

In Other Wor(l)ds was a series of workshops in collaborative writing of feminist-queer science fiction, satire and erotica, that ran from 2008 to 2013. At the end of my “Pristina has no river” writing residency at Qendra Multimedia, I am going to talk about exquisite corpse, the most frequently used technique and booki.cc, the open-source software for collaborative writing. The event is going to close with a reading of some monster-pieces from the workshops and a short collaborative writing game you are welcome to join. 

Qendra Multimedia, Pristina, Friday, November 29th at 18:00

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Press clippings:
Jeton Llapashtica: "Shkrimtarja sllovene prezantohet në Prishtinë", kultplus.com, 29.11.2013
Vullnet Krasniqi: "Loja me fjalë prek limitet e realitetit", Koha Ditore, 30.11.2013
Jehona Hulaj: "Autorja nga Sllovenia prezantohet në Prishtinë", zeri.info, 1.12.2013

Collectively written erotic stories from Queeristan

All photos by YY

On June 1st, the 4th Queeristan festival in Amsterdam hosted my workshop in collective writing of porn, co-organized and co-facilitated by Bibliotheque Erotique's very own Lilly Miao. At the workshop, attended by twenty wonderfully relaxed people, we started by introducing ourselves with our porn name (invented at the spot), accompanied by a gesture and a sound that goes along with it. 

Olive, do you want to grease me? 
Yes, please. Blind-folded, on a trampoline with tarantulas crawling on my back and you biting my neck.

We continued by playing Definitions (or Question and Answer), a Surrealist game played in pairs, in which a question is written down and the paper is folded to conceal it from the next player who writes an answer. 

Do you think politics are sexy? 

Yes, nearly every day.

When will you be ready for the sexual riot against the government?
With full moon on a hot summer night, feeling turned upside down.

That is how we prepared for the climax: the collective writing of gender- and genre-fucking stories of our own. Again, we relied on Surrealist writing exercises; this time on Exquisite Corpse, a game for groups of four or five people in which each participant begins by writing her own story. Ten minutes later, he passes the piece to the next person. After reading it (or not), ze continues where the other person has stopped. The workshop is finished when everyone has written a part of every story.

Which place would you use for an erotic story to get an atmosphere that arouses you?
The experience was more intellectual-political than sexual, but it made me question sexuality in a different way.

The workshop ended with a reading and lots of hugs! Below, you can read some of our mistress-pieces. Check Bibliotheque Erotique's FB album for more photos, taken by YY. More stories are going to be published here and on Bibliotheque Erotique's webpage once we transcribe them. So, this is how we did it together ...

Question and Answer

How was it yesterday night?
Yes! I was drunk!

Tell me a fantasy that makes you feel guilty.
Spank me. Harder now.

If we were lovers, would you join me and my friends in a sexual private exploration?
Yes, definitely yes, would love to.

Do you remember how the first porn you watched made you feel?
For me, it’s arousing to sense the smell and sounds and touch of a person (in a situation with an erotic tension).

Describe the appearance of a person or object you fantasize about.
A woman making eyes at me across the room, we arrange to meet at midnight on a canal. I fuck her with my hand, we finish, we both walk away without speaking.

Did you ever have an erotic fantasy with your mother?
If I ever have a penis, I will explore all kinds of territories that I can’t explore now.

How would you like to have a sexy dinner with me?
With my tongue.

If I were an orange, how would you like to eat me?
Standing in front of a church, clearly using protection to make it safe.

What kind of food would you be for your lover or someone who you would like to eat?
Yes, of course. Several times, especially on public holidays and my birthday.

What has been your most surprising sexual experience?
I’d like to play with them while they play cello in an empty auditorium.

Which colour do your latest lovers tend to wear most?
I would like to try them all.

What was the best sex you ever had?
I would go for mellow mostly, aggressive occasionally.

What is your secret fantasy, if you know it?
Yes, please, take me to your secret garden and show me your flowers of passion.

Would you get naked on the street in front of everyone? What would you tell the people around you?
It was on the train, we both got naked and just stared at each other for an hour without touching while all other passengers were masturbating.

Do you belong to any religion? Do your sexual and spiritual practices intersect?
Because I like to sell myself.

Why did you become interested in spirituality and sex?
Because I want to push it further.

Where would you like to be touched?
In a mountain shelter, during a cold night.

Would you like to come with me to a waterfall to become wet in two seconds?
Yes, slowly, slowly, like a lazy snake on a hot summer day.

Where do you want me to start touching you?
In an old theatre, we are naked, reading for each other.

What kind of role playing games would you like to play?
Long black smooth hair, elf ears, and lips thirsty for kisses.

Exquisite Corpse

At the market - I
You were strolling around in your boots – it was midday and the sun was bright – and you stepped in front of me. I was standing behind my market stand with fruits and I was getting nervous. You looked right into my eyes and asked for a pound of strawberries.

“Why always strawberries,” I asked, “don't you wanna try mango?”

“Oh, mango, yeah, I like mango! My boyfriend actually named me Mango.”

Yellow skinned, sweet sometimes, stingy on the tongue, the taste hard core deep … Mango!

At this point, I thought: How should I eat the mango? By peeling off the skin of the fruit or by cutting through the flesh, to the cone, bit by bit?

“Hmmm, mango – yes please, a mango," I cried out loud and joined him behind the stand. I was holding that juicy fruit firmly in my hand.

“Can you cut it for me? I need to taste it badly.”

He took a knife, made a slit all around the mango, handling the fruit with the utmost care. Then his fingers pressed the two halves in their tight grip, stretching the slit open to uncover the hard pit. He discarded it. As he was handing me the cut fruit, his fingers were drenched in fresh sticky mango juice.

For a brief moment, our hands touched. We looked at each others eyes deeply – and kissed.

Fuck the mango!

That kiss was like dope. I couldn't think anymore. We were both hard and turned on. We were both lost in our intimacy, there was nothing else anymore around. He pulled my pants off and started touching me. With my boot, I pushed him to the market stand, took his pants off and fucked him.

It was intense, people were shocked and stunned, and they stopped moving. The atmosphere was super-sexual; it was like we had spread a sexual magic powder in the air. After a few minutes, the whole market turned into an orgy market!

























At the market - II
It is a rainy day in 2030, and I mean a rainy day. There is an open street market in the center of Amsterdam. The fish seller will usually stand at one of the river banks, with his collection of fish – especially on a rainy day. He will walk with his smelly fishy boots to welcome his customers.

All the fish are naked. I mean skin open naked, stretched on a 2030’s display table. They are in plates that look like Italian fish beds.

I ask for a pinkrosebudfish.

“Look how fresh it is, it just came out of the gen-tech facilities,” he says.

He takes his sharp knife and makes a quick incision along the fish belly which blossoms, revealing its fuchsia interiors.

I am wet.

He offers me a piece of that raw flesh and I immediately grab it and put it in my mouth. I close my eyes while chewing, and visualise the perfect dinner that fish could make; the herbs, the temperature, the wine. I open my eyes and glaze him so hard that even the dead fish feel the tension.

Was it a dream? I saw the fish jumping onto each other. Or were they dancing?

Suddenly, I saw myself lying under the fish, wearing nothing but my body skin, and the market person moving the fish up and down, from head to toe, over my body again and again.

This time, it felt so intense that I shouted out loud: “WAAAAW!”

Or was it just a dream?

At the market - III
It was the afternoon of May 2nd, a warm day at the street market. I wanted to make Gemsta: stuffed tomatoes and peppers with rice, baked in the oven. I was looking for big green peppers and juicy red tomatoes. The smell of the spices and the fruits in combination with the sweat of the people made the atmosphere at the market very attractive.

I felt myself almost fainting, and my knees got weak. I almost fell.

Two hands held me tight but very gently from behind to break my fall and I heard your voice saying: “Hoppla, are you okay?”

I turned around and saw you looking at me; and actually, then I really wanted to faint. Your lips were smiling and I wanted to get kissed all over; I wanted to get sucked into your mouth. I forgot all about my cooking plans.

Your mouth today, with hot-red lipstick, not my favorite color, but it is watery as usual. I want to suck those full-fat meat lips like I sucked your other two lips a while ago. What did they taste like? I forgot. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I will explore them again.

A fresh taste, today, here, at the market, in front of strangers passing by. Let me get wild with these lips; forget about the peppers, these hot-red peppers are never going to be on my plate again. I will put you on my main course tonight.

My daydreaming was making me lose control. I felt my body was shape-shifting right there in the middle of the market. My limbs now exposed were curling into new textures, and acquiring a taste of their own. They now were standing there as plump juicy tomatoes and heaps of fragrant red peppers.

Passers-by got all curious and excited by my transformation. Hands were touching my vegetable skin. Noses smelt my tangy perfume. Fingers were pressing my juices.

Good money was spent to buy me, piece by piece.

Once dropped off, I will end up carefully heated, smothered and greased, and tasted by the lusty velvet of your lips.


At the bike shop - I
Masha, the former bike race champion from Ostblok, entered the bike repair shop on Queeristan Street. It was to be her first day at work there, and it didn’t look good: the shop seemed abandoned and dusty. Moreover, there were pictures of current bike champions on the walls.

She heard noises in the back of the shop. She followed them and found what she was always looking for: Boris’s dog! Since she always wanted to be in one of Boris’s sexual fantasies, she decided to return at midnight wearing nothing but what she was born in! And she did.

When she came back at night, she noticed that she was not alone. Boris was at the shop as well. He did not notice Masha because he was too busy. Not for nothing he has a dog with such a big cock. He was obviously using it intensely in his everyday practice. They were intensely busy with a blow job in a 69 pose.

Masha was upset. There was no place for her in this setting.

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” a harsh voice interrupted her observations.

“I, i, i ... I’m sorry, I returned to fuck Boris’s dog but I see they are busy.”

“Oh, I see, maybe I can help you,” the person grabbed Masha’s hand. “Will you follow me?”

“Ok.”

They entered a room that was totally dark and smelled of animals.

“Let me introduce you to ... FickFackFuck – my horse. Do you like him?”

Masha did not answer. She immediately went to the wooden construction and bent over.


At the bike shop - II
I open the doors of FickFackFucks Bike Repair Shop and I am already trembling with excitement. The thought of FFF biting my neck makes me wet in three seconds. I let my finger slip in my slit to feel my wetness.

“Hello Masha, what are you doing? How are you? Great to see you,” FFF says, unzipping her greasy jacket.

“Huh!”

“So it is!” says FFF and slides her dirty black fingers into Masha’s pants.

Masha leans back on the front tire of a bike in repair, standing upside down. That is, the bike is upside down. She grabs the handles and starts to grind against the bike wheel that sinks in her butt crack while FFF’s fingers’ reach her from the front, creating an alchemic mix of grease and juice.

In the meantime, Boris was jaggin’ wildly around the corner. Not just jaggin’, but what is called French Jagging. The wet nose of his dog with a big cock was just next to his dick, which was about to explode. Moreover, the dog obviously came there by bike, which was broken and still had to be fixed.

But more about that in Part II.

Please, get back to us soon. We love U.


At the bike shop - III
It was a cold winter night in Slovakia. Masha was reaching her highest point of dissatisfaction and desperation in her sexuality while Fick Fack Fook was fickfackfooking Chache wildly, untimely.

As Boris was filming the beautiful mass, he found a way to help Masha.

“Do you want a glass of water?” Boris asked Masha.

“So sweet. What do you want back for it?”

“Help me to get satisfaction,” Boris said.

“Can I help you?”Masha asked and turned red.

“No, I totally don’t want you,” answered Boris.

“You know,” said Masha, “I have a solution. In our writing group, there is someone called Arabic Boy. He would definitely be happy to help you. I will go and get him.”

In a minute, Arabic Boy appeared and did his classic hip movement. This time, Boris turned red but there was no way back.

“Are you looking for satisfaction, Boris?” said Arabic Boy.

He came closer without touching Boris. Then, he sat down behind him and whispered in his ear:

“What does satisfaction mean to you?”

As Arabic Boy breathed in his neck, Boris felt goose bumps spread all over his body.

Masha was filming them. She didn’t have a microphone, so FFF provided the soundtrack with his “Ooohs” and “Aaaahs”.

Arabic Boy and Boris got tangled and tangled more, and when they screamed in satisfaction, Masha knew that – at least for them – the cold winter was over.

The film screening at Queeristan Film Festival 2050 was a success. The audience was hot, wet and loud.


At the bike shop - IV
It is the first wonderful summer day, and there are lots of visitors at the bike shop. It is Saturday and everyone wants to go cycling. A long line forms in front of the shop while Mozart’s music is heard from the inside.

It is very hot and people are getting irritated.

The guy who works at the shop goes to the toilet and doesn’t come back.

Someone claims s*he has to skip the line. S*he has to bring some new tubes and chains to the shop owner.

“All right, all right, go on.”

“Thank you,” says s*he and enters a room at the back of the store.

“Hey Boris, I got you some new tubes and chains.”

“Hey Chachi, that’s great, just leave them there, I’m busy now.”

But s*he does not leave the room.

“Uhm, what are you waiting for?” says Boris.

“I wanted to get your attention for a minute. Look at me.”

Boris puts down his tools and his eyes meet Chachi’s. Only then, he notices the metallic sparkles in her_his eyes, flying in his direction with the speed of a 3-gear bike. He is pulled towards the visitor and finds himself on his knees, licking the wet tubes in Chachi’s strong hands.

He is entranced. When he opens his eyes, he notices the customers. They have entered the shop and formed a circle around them. They touch themselves and moan loudly while Mozart’s music disappears in the background.

You might think this is the end of the story – but not yet!

Everyone was very patient. It was going in the direction nobody would expect. Fireworks everywhere, everyone was taking part in this Shortbus! A drop of Eternity!

The end (that would always continue)!

Futurist Writing School - Stories from Utrecht 2032

Following on the rich history of feminist utopian and speculative fiction practices that conjured new relationships, languages and agencies for transgressing structural and invisible forces of subjugation, Utrecht's Casco Gallery organised The Futurist Writing School, a week-long workshop in collective writing that ran within and alongside the closing events of the Grand Domestic Revolution. 

I ran the introductory workshop on February 21st 2012. We played Exquisite Corpse and some other Surrealist writing games.The games were applied also to some of the following writing sessions. The final collectively written and edited monster-piece is going to be included in the GDR project catalogue, scheduled for release later this year.

 

The Exquisite Corpses below were written on February 21st by Marina Vishmidt, Abäke (Patrick Lacey), Binna Choi, Maiko Tanaka, Katayoun, Aileen Burns, Allison Guy, Serena Lee, Johan Lundh, Silvia Simoncelli, Tea Hvala, Freyja van den Boom, Yolande van der Heide and Marielle Verdijk.

 

Miffy I

Where is Miffy? On the shore of a cold and unfamiliar sea that day by day is reaching further into The Netherlands. Today the icy water is lapping at the door of the house that Miffy has always called home. She knew this day was coming and that her plans for starting a new life, in a new community, would be put into action but it was surreal nonetheless.

Miffy finally manages to step away from the window to finish packing all of the food and seeds that she has promised to bring with her. For the past two years she has been collecting and storing the life-giving cores of everything she has anticipated she would need for this journey. She had heard of a land far away where she was worshipped as an anthropomorphic talisman, an island where she would be welcome. What could be expected from such a place that celebrated her simple life and ways?

There were no two ways about it; now was the time to embark on the journey to the new Atlantis. Here, Miffies were not only revered as gods, but were actually endowed of divine powers owing to the special climate which made everything easy and enchanting. Besides, the gravity was very minimal at that sea level and had gotten even weaker due to centuries underwater. The very advanced Mermaid scientific researchers were about to make a breakthrough in eliminating this nefarious force altogether. This much Miffy had learned when booking her trip to the new Atlantis through Wikipedia.

Miffy arrived there one balmy afternoon, stepping delicately off a single-propeller aircraft operated by her wealthy older boyfriend, Tex. She was dumbstruck to find the whole seafront full of giant images of her, as if the simple natives had not waited for her arrival in order to set-up their cult. She wondered if they might be afraid of her and Tex? Should they be? She hesitated to answer her own question.

Atlantis, finally. But didn’t it look a bit like Utrecht back in 2032? No, it couldn’t be. She shook the feeling away. Miffy hated Utrecht.


Miffy II
With the flooding of Utrecht in 2019, Dick Bruna (kept alive through being cryogenically frozen – his hands and brain transplanted to a cloned version of himself in 2016) now works from the UFO embedded in the church building. Miffy, for his (its?) whole life had been two dimensional but with developments in bioengineering has now been rendered as a living mascot of the city, the museum has expanded and is now the main reason for anyone to visit this floating city. An ambassador of vegetarianism, Miffy is also an advocate of meat, grown in labs for human consumption. Though extremely expensive because of its high maintenance during its development, it provides nutrients to an underfed population.

His/her dual status as a human and as a bio-form grown unnaturally might suggest that his firm position on animal rights would extend to the biological material and clones that make his life possible but Miffy has yet to find a way to deal with this “internal” conflict. Now the time has come for Miffy to make a decision: to clone or not to clone him/herself.

Miffy was old and growing weaker every day. By cloning him/herself, Miffy could live to see the 2048 mission to the Andromeda galaxy as the first post-gender astronaut. But by not cloning him/herself, Miffy would be able to retire, and live a nice relaxed life, until he/she died ... So Miffy was faced with not just a biological or rather, biomorphic dilemma, but a genuine moral dilemma. Prolonging her life would mean giving hope to thousands of other half-real half-imaginary creatures to perform the same somersault into reality that she once did, but she could not really justify it to herself, as she was really very tired and longed to have time to think in 2-dimensions. One day, while consuming a variety of versions of herself in the Dick Bruna Museum gift shop, Miffy suddenly felt dizzy.

Her broker called: “Miffy?”
“Oh ...”
“Miffy, this is Stephan from Axis.”
“Oh, I don't feel well ... Can I help you? Oh ...”
“Sorry.”



Where did the blue seeds migrate?

I. Sara’s Migrane
After the toxins evaporated form the dandelions, the almost extinct Utrecht honeybees grabbed and bundled as much of the discoloured seeds as they could and took off! We haven’t seen them for days and poor people in the city forgot about the blue seed phenomenon and went on with their everyday activities. Deep in the canal at the bottom of the Oudegracht a seaweed was gloving, also a similar blue tone.

The Oudegracht seaweed shone through the water, sending out messages in different shades of blue, but nobody seemed to hear her calls – until one day, a very depressed, deeply troubled and blue precarious cultural worker stopped by. Sara, the cultural worker, leaned on the rail and started rolling a cigarette when, for a second only, she was blinded by the light coming from the water. She covered her fourth eye, the so-called post-toxic eye, to protect herself. But the seaweed shone through her palm!

“What do you want?” she shouted into the canal.

But the seaweed only illuminated the water source more! Her interrogations only seemed to perpetuate the rapid spread in the canal. Could it be that Utrecht’s hydrology plan was hanging desperately at its wits end? That mere yelling or spoken word would become the energy source for the seaweed? Dumbfound, with eyebrows arched up high, she recalled the architectural plan than was proposed twenty years back in the height of what Utrecht’s citizens then deemed a “Grand Domestic Revolution”.

There was a plan for a floating boathouse which would be fuelled in its levitation by the photosynthetic processes inspired by mind-tropical coastal vegetation. Sara started wistfully into her poly-plastithene cup of blue-goo, the anti-anti-oxidant beverage her homoeopath had recommended for the fourth-eye migraines.

Before they’d divorced, Sara had had to endure endless rehearsed product design pitches by Melissa, in her singular re-brand campaign to use blue dye, that cerulean-teal pigment unique to the combination of Randstad algae and melted Micronesian cell-transistor chips. Melissa was convinced that the blue dye, which never caught on would cure Sara’s fourth eyes migraine. But it only intensified, worsened the pain. Despite the vision and knowledge, she could not finish her plan for a floating boathouse. It was almost perfect. The plan was based on the existing living habit of boat people …


II. Vigration
“Where did the blue seeds migrate?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I think she means ‘vibrate’”.
“What is a ‘migrate’?”
“I don't know. I've never heard that word before. I guess it's a verb.”
“… no, I’ve heard it before. It’s almost like the verb ‘vigrate’, I think that’s why you’re confused.”
“Vigrate; that’s already quite archaic, no? What is that – to shift solid states in order to be transported, to commute through state-shifting, via unofficial channels, or highways …?”
“Highways … those were like roads, really long roads, right? Were they high up? Is that why they're called – ?”
“I don't get it, when did they use ‘vigrate’? Where did people go? Why would you want to shift states, officially or unofficially? I mean, I’ve read about transportation, like the Tube, or whatever, but I still don’t understand why …”

Igor and Isabel were confused, confronting the word they never heard of: “vibrate”. You, readers who’ve settled here through vibration may not remember that Igor, Isabel, Sara, Chulsoo and Mohammed were the very you. Since ‘vibration’ means a total transformation through the increasingly trembling day and days …

What does it mean to be “settled”, you readers may ask? In a time when transportation is no longer how you knew it. Igor and Isabel are also new to this. But Sara and Mohammed are eager to get going on the state-shifting channels and maybe even get a little rowdy! Chulsoo is well aware of the difference between the pairs and decides to make an intervention. You see, “vibration” and “vigration” both came out of the word “migration” and that is something only Chulsoo knows. When migrant labourers in The Netherlands started building the new state-shifting channels for the island city of Utrecht, Chulsoo also worked at one of the vibration intersections, so he knew what he was talking about.

The total transformation of transportation did not only see human beings as a mesh of electromagnetic flesh waves, it perceived both legal aliens and those without papers in the same way, through the same sensory apparatus. And so, distinctions between migrant or non-migrant, between aliens or domestic became irrelevant.

The mechanism was a conclusive paradox in its own right, that is for a long time it was understood that aliens could never be legal, as implied in the term. A population of non-minorities, non-marginalized would create a super-race, one that shared labour equality and honoured domestic chores ensuring that within a working day, time was put aside for domestic work and child rearing.



III. Oracle Danikal
Given the refrigeration development of the last twenty years, the Utrecht-Amsterdam-Rotterdam conurbation was in pretty bad shape. Not only did the piles of trash, gathering in the canals stink of rotten organic vegetables, the fresh vegetables that grew locally from barely fertile ground stank as well. Something had to be done, especially since the climate changes did not bring the promised level of cold.

Barbara Vlees rolled up her sleeves and exclaimed: “Damned right, something has to be done! A floating garden, networking balconies like in the times of The Grand Domestic Revolution is surely the resolution!”

Hot-headed with excitement she meandered her bicycle to Utrecht City, blocking her nose the whole time to protect herself from the city’s stench. Upstairs she climbed, rummaging through tons of paper in search of the floating garden blueprint, a proposal that was once rejected by the municipality on the grounds that it did not follow the code for its use: the abundant but not explicitly obscene use of the colour orange.

Since the cuts, visual and chromatic pollution had been under considerable fire. It might have had something to do with the fact that nutrition-obsessed pet owners were uniformly buying into the beta-carotene craze, feeding terriers and hedgehogs alike, steaming piles of orange mush which would in turn end up on the pavements and lawns as digested steaming orange piles.

Barbara scowled and checked the soles of her shoes as a force of habit, heading into the cold zone, fingers gripping the handlebars of her bike, protesting the sudden artificial shift in temperature. Property taxes in the upper-upper-upper class Wijken have been funnelled towards the Buurt Koelen movement: a neighbourhood refrigeration to freeze the stench of rotting trash until disposal collection started again.

Well, we forgot about – or is it kind of a subconscious repression – that we ate all our lovely dogs and cats and then went to watch them die. Yeah, we chose to eat them. What was great about that was that we created a giant camp-fire as we also had to maximize our ability to generate fire. All of us threw our pets into the fire at once. Hundreds of dogs and cats were in and around the fire. You might say it’s barbarian, gross, cruel, repulsive but for us, it was also a state of exhalation. Despite such cold temperature outside, people started tearing off their clothes. We all got naked but magically nobody saw it.

This new social ritual became all the rage but the Animal Rights Party of the Netherlands was fuming with the total selfishness of humans, disregarding their interrelationship with animals. However, within the new party there was the recently elected secretary who was – little did they know – an oracle of ecology. It was within this party that Oracle Danikal infiltrated their decision by using her magical ability to make people change their minds by the minute by feeding them a special concoction of Nutella.

The Nutella would be the answer to the cold temperatures but it would have to brew for another twenty years before it had any effect. In the mean time, she happily kept feeding her party and observed the schizophrenic changes in society, waiting for the time to come when the ecological answer would be fully fermented.


IV. Empathy Soup
In 2032 in the city of Utrecht, finally a new coalition government is created, consisting of seventy-four parties. These parties include the Banana Trees Delicious, Sea Marina Fish Shell, Fahion Bastard, Damn Old Green Links, DogFoxDolphin, Casco, NoGender Party, Vienamesenoodle Soup, Many Money Monkey, Rainbow Kangaroo, and so on, and so on. All these parties are formed according to a shared rhythm of living which is changing in an improvised yet organized manner, so shifts and adjustments are a natural part of their operations.

Three years ago, all the currencies were destroyed and the Temporary Army of Fantastic Life was created. The president cleaner of the Rainbow Kangaroo Party thought this would be a prime moment to throw a convivial event, a party for parties but where could such an event take place so that all the members would feel relaxed and open? At the same time, the Vietnamese Noodle soup party and The Fashion Bastard party were already looking up a recipe for a collective soup inspired by the recent alliances; an unique recipe for stimulating empathy but spicy enough to instigate.

While the Empathy Soup was holding and sending its delicious smell all over town like seductive tentacles, the supporters of the Casco party were already cleaning an abandoned front yard and decorating it for the party to which all the seventy-four coalition parties were invited. The main decoration element were the empathic and self-sacrificing Banana Tree Delicious Party members. The Fashion Bastard party members accepted the role of the host. They were supervised by the Rainbow Kangarros since, as we all know, their fashion taste is far better than that of the Fashion Bastards.

The celebratory moment was not the conventional kind. Indeed the Fashion Bastard in glamorous pink would be sap to realize that he wasn’t aptly dressed for the occasion. The Casco Party was taking this occasion to introduce a new referendum to the city architecture design. We raised our glasses to toast the occasion (it was important because the parties could seldom gather without breaking into violence) and the Casco Party proposed that we transform our yards into vegetable gardens.

A white SUV rolled up and there was a unanimously shared gasp of indignant shock. SUVs in the parade were so last year. The front doors open simultaneously and two veiled goons emerged, opening the back doors for their veiled occupants to step out. They threw jewelled fingers in the air simultaneously and the front door popped open revealing a rolled-out barbecue, powered by a midget on a station bike.

The party members staggered. This was accompanied by the sound of bass and synthesized drums which seemed to emanate from the SUV’s while leather interior. The Fashion Bastards co-leader leaned on his colleague who muttered a secular prayer under her breath. Could this be the nature of the large, already forgotten PVVVVCV party? The shadow administration behind free eggs and dairy which had revealed itself to be a hoax and actually a massive protein conspiracy ...


V. Where the Children Go to Play
If you took the time to play on the banks of the canal they used to call the Oudegracht (a canal that cut the city of the Utrecht in half; creating halves of those that believed in a Grand Domestic Revolution and those who repelled it) my nostalgia will resonate with you. You will remember a “miffie” plain where girls with blond plaits skipped around its statue and the Ekko dance bar whose noise level would elevate on Thursday student nights. But then, when the noise laws came into effect after the sustainability act took hold, “resonance” took on a whole different meaning.

The first dam that broke was the most lethal; it was widely accepted that most of the victims never heard it coming. Since then, we have seen a major shift in daily surveillance mounting to accommodate this need for “sonic disclosure”. Listening for the flood has become a national obsession! Indeed, it has been the reason that Kanaleneisland was instituted after the former Netherlands was either submerged with the remaining provinces receding them from the European Union, effectively becoming an island with minimum economic or geographic ties to the rest.

Well, we cannot but talk about our almost sublime awe of the transformed Kanaleneisland. All these slab prefab houses were then pillars for the new giant housing complex. Those prefab houses are there for all kinds of fish-monster friends who emerged in the last decades after children started to be eaten by the fish monsters. But mothers and fathers developed the sense to live with and even enjoy this occasional cannibalism!

The interesting thing was that most parents and residents of Kanaleneisland did not know whereas the children and monster fish knew very well what was inside the bellies of the fish: there, a new architecture was being formed! All of a sudden, the children started building constructions from the bones of the fish to make their own playhouses, sandboxes, bicycles and rooms for taking naps as the internally transforming fish started swimming up the canal.

The surviving humans who still lived on land thought they were witnessing a scene from The Bible! (a canonical Catholic text, last seen stuck between a giant eel’s gills). They thought the large fish were whales who swallowed Jonah’s clones! Of course, our readers know better: the fish were the most elaborate, playful and magical architecture ever seen. It was organic, it was self-sustainable, it was slick, waterproof and aerodynamic. At the same time, it meant that Holland did not have to bother building new artificial islands as the fish houses populated the watery areas only. The kids loved it – at least until the fish became hungry ... The parents loved it too: the new fish-cannibalistic ecosystem allowed them to procreate without limits, without responsibility as they could simply reload their newborns into the fish.



What will happen once we are finished writing our sentences?

I. Maureen
Maureen was a bit nervous because it was the first time she was taking part in a group interview for renting a room in a collective apartment building. It was the first time that people would have to touch each others’ hair-implants and other physical abnormalities, but that’s the way it goes with collective apartment buildings based on physical features. She also could have chosen a collective based on hobbies like painting or growing edible fruit trees. Hopefully there would be enough middle aged divorced men with boring jobs to keep her from having sex all the time.

Maureen preferred the indigo tattoos of the girls down at the demolition disco, not this sorry heap of washed-up humanity. Not that Maureen was such a gorgeous example herself. A botched surgery five years ago left her with a few extra fingers and one eye which played only a Spanish sport channel. She sighed. No way her insurance would cover that mistake. The superintendent of the building called her name: “Maureen de Leeuw”.

She decided to go to the porn disco, where everyone is less interested in appearance but more so in having sex on nice melodies. What a way out of this collective visibility into anonymous collectivity. Life is better. People are less judgemental at the porn disco. They believe in a classless society and don’t feel the urge to mispronounce each others names. What a relief to have this corner in society. It could also become a part of the squat culture as it was in the old days. But squatters went nuts.

She could have lived in a squat forever, that’s what she thought when she was younger. But the decision to become vegetarian had made her an outsider in the group immediately. Meat smugglers – that’s what the squatter have become in the last twenty years, at least since the cold era had started and all of Europe had become frozen landscape.


II. The Duchess of Cabbage
What happens after we finish writing these sentences? There, we find a funny figure with a nerve coming out of its right arm. It's not a woman nor a man. Do we fit in there? There is not enough space. The figure is upset but remains funny, like a bunny. It's a way of being. We have to keep writing, otherwise we are lost. We decide to leave the trench to find a nice steak to eat. But all of Europe is covered in ice.

And all cows are rapidly extinguishing. It happened to mammoths hundred thousands of years ago. We are fed up with eating musk and lichens anyway. When I wake up at night my mouth retains the flavor of my dreams, roasted fish or pork. So funny, I can define it so well even though I haven't eaten such food for at least ten years now.

Cooking root vegetables became my speciality, making sculptures of pigs heads or chicken out of mashed Jerusalem artichokes and turnips. Becoming the queen of silver onions, the duchess of cabbage, the crown princess of mushrooms that tasted slightly of meat.

Mealtimes in New Utrecht – Newtrecht in short – were short, cold and rotten. The priests prayed for the return of the reindeer, at least, but everyone knew that they had gone the way of the cows and mammoths. Newtrecht was lucky to have a few men remaining, unlike Rottingdam or Scramsterdam, where people only eat stuff that upset their stomach.

Banana-eating people were dying slowly. We should have better health insurance and security system for banana-eating people.

The lady in red came down the stairs. The masochists feared for their life. They only had a management education and knew nothing about the subtleties of a queen bee. They were hiding behind each chair to protect their own lifeless souls.

The funny figure developed a nerve out of its right arm.


III. Big Green One
What will happen once we are finished writing our sentences? When we finish our sentences we might as well take our clothes off and go outside. The wind will put goosebumps on our legs and we will have to hurry to find a good Turkish sauna. Fortunately, bugs will save us from freezing if we are not able to find one, by covering our arms and legs with a soft, downy coat of warm antennae and vibrating wings. We are certainly grateful that the city government decided to genetically engineer the bees, mosquitoes and butterflies to be such charming creatures.

We are accompanied to the sauna in a gauzy haze of transparent insect bodies. Once we slip into the water, I watch my partner flush red with pleasure. A finger-sized fish swims up to his elbow and begins to pick off flakes of dead skin. After a day of such high emotion, it is a pleasure for all involved to be able retreat in a Turkish sauna.

We decided to go and eat steak, where there is one. This town had run out of steaks. No meat allowed! The only marginal spaces where one can eat meat nowadays is in a squat. What is going on with this world today? How do we define space between life and work? What is Europa without an ice sheet? No more than a melodramatic guerilla enclave with narcissistic ideas about concepts such as autonomy.

The confusion in my mind was mounting. I desperately needed that steak. I couldn’t make up a proper sentence any longer. Just questions I wasn’t able to find answers for. I checked my pill-box. Maybe there were still some animal protein pills in there which could cover for 10-15 minutes of my brain activity so I could reach the closest squat without going completely crazy.

There was the last Big Green One who would last me another three hours at least, so I could even spend some time in the paper library, this special place, almost impossible to enter because of harsh anti-insect rules, and let my brain work for a while on the Big Green One.


IV. The Goons
The goons were coming. We didn’t have much time for school work. The teacher urged us to complete our sentences, but I didn’t feel up to it. My barge was waiting outside our guerilla educational enclave, and I was more than eager to get the engine humming and get my ass outside. If the bombs started falling …

They never fall straight out of the sky. They are strategically falling around you. They creep up on your town, and like cancer cells they multiply. It’s a strange tactic. It’s a faceless ideology to throw bombs. But my ass was going to be saved. I knew it. This system is corrupt!

My guerilla education enclave saved me in the end. The goons are in now way supportive, but miserable. We have to be honest about the situation, we have to face the goons. Sooner or latter it was going to be the time. I know I am not alone.

I have my classmates. I can rely on them. Our guerilla education has made us into a tight and at the same time independent community. We have developed some special skills. After long training, we can now communicate with our minds alone. Even being very far away the one another we know what we are at, what we are thinking. We even started tuning into plants and trees so we could translate what they were seeing around them and transforming it into images projected on walls that we would paint as little screen all around the city. Mini-cinemas to see where the goons were and if we could still beat them at tennis. We pair up, put up the net and prepare our rackets.

My ass was grass. There was no escape barge now. Reluctantly I removed my trans-cyber-reifying racket from its case. Those goons were about to get a dose of feminist theory, served up on the wings of a little fussy green ball. I saw the goons marching through the nibble of the galactagarian church. Sweat ran down my cheeks. We were prepared.

Fuad Sanad.

In Other Wor(l)ds stories from Berlin

The In Other Wor(l)ds workshop took place at the f.a.q. Laden in Neukölln on February 19th on the occasion of Lad.i.y.fest Berlin. We played several Surrealist writing games in Sci-Fi settings with feminist-queer aspirations: Definitions (Question and Answer), Conditionals and two versions of Exquisite Corpse. In the first version, we collectively (de)constructed sentences like “The sexy robot slapped a strong community”, in the second we wrote short stories, based on our favourite Exquisite Corpse sentences.

The following mistress-pieces were written by Nina, Laura, Tanja, Dare, Sybille, Katha, Raoul, Cy, Tina, Audrey, Sabine, Skyler, Tea and another (for now) anonymous participant. The list of stories will expand as soon as we manage to decode our exquisite handwritings. Until then – enjoy the ones below …

Many thanks to Lad.i.y.fest organisers for hosting the workshop and the Slovenian Embassy in Berlin for donating the wine! (The Surrealists were right: “The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine!”)

Definitions (Question and Answer)

What is your idea of queer science fiction?
Biting the dog again and again.

What does a star look like?
Like the cow that went up the mountain.

Why is it cold?
Because the night belongs to the creatures.

Is there such a thing as luminous wonder?
Depends on the light.

Must there be light at the end of the tunnel?
Look, the teddy bear is acting like a cat!

What is the best place for a secret?
That would be just too complicated to answer.

Which pizza do you like? Peperoni?
No, the one with the book from last year.

When is it the time to fall in love?
I don’t care. Let’s just do it now.

Why are sad people so complicated?
Because blue robot ponies don’t have a sex.

Why did the Snowqueer slip on the pavement?
Because the stars are pink and there is a huge teddy bear jumping on the top of the mountain.

What’s your favourite way of making sure you’re really awake for class in the morning?
I look for a fly that flew millions of years ago in a tropic forest and got trapped in amber.

Where did you find this book?
That’s misleading the truth written in the book.

Why did you sell that pink car?
Because the nuns told me so.

How can you travel from London to Siberia?
Look for a white rabbit with your answer in her mouth.

What would you do if you noticed you peed in your pants after laughing too hard?
It’s quite simple: you would want to try to cover it with a large carpet.


Conditional

If you walk into a queer party and you can’t find anyone who looks like you, then you can fit two green jellies inside your trifle spacesuit.


Exquisite Corpse
Follow the links to reach the stories based on the first three sentences.

An ambitious thought is swimming with the multiple cyborg.

A beautiful facility manager is insisting on a heart-breaking glass window.

A wild teddy bear cried over a deconstructed baby.

The yelling princess hurt an apple-shaped glitz business.

A stupid bicycle basket fell onto a terrible caterpillar.

The beautiful bowling ball is spitting a slow cigarette.

A blue ant sculpted the queeriest crocodiles!

An amazing power is playing with spicy gloves.

A rather curious box will devour an exhausted mirror.

The wonderful Amazons danced with a very used box.

The phenomenal train met a furious birthday cake.

The sexy robot slapped a strong community.

A precious cupboard secretly fell on Cinderella.