Poor Sexy East
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Fragments, snippets, bits and bobs related to the forthcoming book on Ostalgia, Westalgia, cold war modern "dreamlands", called Poor but Sexy by Agata Pyzik, for Zer0 Books, also at http://nuitssansnuit.blogspot.com/
Slavoj Zizek & Alex Tsipras discuss the role of European Left during the Zagreb Subversive Festival 2013.
Famous performance of “Song of the Brick” in Opole 1981, where IT openly mocked the legacy of Socialist Realism (look at the painted geezers, pretending the neoclassical, sotsrealist sculptures). She wore an oversize cravat of a youth organisation, which caused a scandal.
Iza Trojanowska entered Polish music scene like a supernova in 1980, and revolutionised the female rock performer. it was the end of a pop singer as a pretty but insipid, naive feminine girl - she had short hair, wore men’s clothes and was self assured as hell. In her lyrics she hedonistically demanded fulfillment of her needs, not only carnal, but also strictly material ones! But she was no ‘Material Girl’, especially in the reality of the 80s Poland - she sung about luxury but was cynical and disillusioned about it. She mocked the remnants of the system, which ended up in banning one of her albums. Her persona was an ironic commentary to the reality of scarcity of late socialism, just before and after the Martial Law…
Iza Trojanowska, from a banned LP Farewell Circus 1982
In the latest issue of The Wire magazine, devoted to the status of words in experimental music/ words as experiment, I have, among others, an essay on the importance of simple, or even crap lyrics in such bands as Depeche Mode, New Order or Human League for their mass appeal in the Eastern Erope during the cold war, where fans barely understood what was being sung, but appreciated the well-pitched agit-prop mockery of their pop. In my book I expand this topic of misunderstanding/ second hand knowledge on the side of the former Soviet Bloc, which turned out frequently to be culturally very fruitful.
I felt growing ambivalence since the publication of the NS Femen article, so I gathered some of my thoughts re the problems within their practice and their potential political meaning on my blog.
Soviet nostalgia counterattacks, and in a bad way: Russia relaunches the Soviet “Heroes of Labour” award. among the previous recipients: Stalin, Kruschev and physicist Sakharov.
I wrote on Anna Skladmann’s disturbing photos of the new elite’s children in Russia for Calvert Journal, using it as an occassion to highlight the oligarchy and lack of democracy in the post-Soviet times.
Cosmarxpolitan, Issue 4
Supporting third world guerillas? How to keep the spark in a long distance relationship
YAY BULGARIA!!!!!! leader of hard right, anti-immigration UK party UKIP gets smashed by Bulgarian presenter on TV. “Is that true your country got rich by stealing the wealth and resources of others? it’s called colonisation”
I wrote a piece for the New Statesman on the complications within the “white” and colonialism that went unnoticed in the recent scrap between FEMEN - Ukrainian feminist organisation and the Muslim/intersectional feminists, who criticised them for racism. why the postcommunist reality matters.
Incroyable levels of perfidiousness and cruelty in a politics-art scandal in Russia, involving high rank Kremlin officers and the recently mysteriously deceased artist Mamyshev-Monroe….
Sex Pistols, Holidays in the Sun
A cheep holiday in other peoples misery
I don’t wanna holiday in the sun
I wanna go to the new belsen
I wanna see some history
‘cause now i got a reasonable economy
Now i got a reason, now i got a reason,
Now i got a reason and i’m still waiting
Now i got a reason, now i got a reason to be waiting
The berlin wall
Sensurround sound in a two inch wall
Well i was waiting for the communst call
I didn’t ask for sunshine and i got
World war three i’m looking over the wall
And they’re looking at me
Now i got a reason, now i got a reason
Now i got a reason and i’m still waiting
Now i got a reason, now i got a reason to be waiting
The berlin wall
Well they’re staring all night and
They’re staring all day
I had no reason to be here at all
But now i gotta reason it’s no real reason
And i’m waiting at the berlin wall
Gotta go over the berlin wall
I don,t understand it…
I gotta go over the wall
I don’t understand this bit at all…
Claustropfobia there’s too much paranoia
There’s to many closets i went in before and
Now i gotta reason, it’s no real reason to be waiting
The berlin wall
Gotta go over the berlin wall
I don’t understand it…
I gotta go over the wall
I don’t understand this bit at all…
Please don’t be waiting for me
