Et Alors? Magazine 4

ET ALORS?
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editorial 04
Darlings!
Let me tell you, making Et Alors? Magazine is one of the best things to
do in the world. In times when headlines about crisis, bankruptcy and
the slow but irreversible death of print media scare the hell out of most
people, we decided to stay positive. Why? Because as long as there are
reasons to celebrate, we’ll keep on popping the bottles. And what’s not
to celebrate when we created a brand new issue?
2012 continued to unfold as a year in which everybody had to take a
good look at themselves. Countless shifts in our economical landscape
made us check out the Where, What and How factor of our- what turned
out to be so called - careers. Nevertheless, it also looks like a time when
creativity is everywhere, transformations are swiftly made and there is
no time whatsoever to counterfeit your ambitions.
Consequently this issue is about change and opportunities. Femaleto-male
transsexual Buck Angel who’s an advocate, educator, lecturer
and writer. Pierre Garroudi who chose for flash mobs instead of runway
shows. Female director Erika Lust who changes the face of porn. And
ultimate proof of our tenacious addiction to all things upbeat and
optimistic: Paul Hartfleet, the artist who’s planting pansies on spots
where he’s been assaulted for being gay, turning the whole experience
into pure positivity.
Yet there is one thing that hasn’t changed over the last year. And that’s
our basic principle to feature topics that contribute to raise awareness
about the wonderful diversity of life. Hope instead of negativity. Open
heartedness instead of alienation. A place where there is no room for
cynicism but with enough space for sheer beauty.
So let’s feast, celebrate and toast to issue 4, now online so available to
all of you around the globe. Because that’s the change we wanted to
make.
Wishing you tons of luck, creativity, beauty and happiness in 2013.
It’s going to be great. Let me tell you.
Keep Safe, Stay Gorgeous
Love,
Fleur & Julian
ET ALORS? 003

EDITOR IN CHIEF FLEUR PIERETS
ART DIRECTOR JULIAN P. BOOM
COVER
Concept & DESIGN LMDP MEDIA GROUP
PHOTO & RETOUCHE ELLIE VDB AT IC-UC MODEL judith van dongen
make up judith van dongen for ELLIS FAAS hair dyan van
staveren for kevin murphy
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
AKIM A.J. WILLEMS FIONA J. ROBERTSON FLEUR PIERETS LEONOOR
ZWARTEVOOGHEL nikki heartache SUSAN MACDONALD YOANN QU
E VEN-LAMAND E
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
CAMILLA STORGAARD DARREN BRADE jULIAN P. BOOM MALC STONE
PAUL HARFLEET STEPHANE ROY
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004 ET ALORS?

table of contents
EDITORIAL 003
the pansy project 009
erika lust 014
crochet dark and decadent 018
the shop around the corner 027
the dreamscapes of edward d. wood jr. 037
short story - the victim 045
paul buijs 051
column by nikki heartache 058
buck angel 061
pierre garroudi 066
stephane roy 087
camilla storgaard 099
kobi levi 106
dr.a.g. 107
cabinet curieux 108
short story - as passionate as eventually 108
Websites 118
SPECIAL THANKS TO
MARIEKE OSSENDRIJVER FOR ETERNAL POSITIVE THOUGHTS AND B&B ARRANGEMENTS IN THE MANSION RENATE
BREUER GREAT TALKS, GREAT WRITING, LOTS OF FUN, BIG TIME GIRLFRIEND INGRID VAN DEN BOSSCHE FOR BELIEVING
AND CREATING THE OPPORTUNITY TO HAVE BIG DREAMS BART VANDERBIESEN GEOFFREY DE BEER OUR WELL DRESSED,
GORGEOUS MIAMI, BILBAO AND ANTWERP CORRESPONDENTS. BIG LOVE martine coene love, friendship and don’t
forget: you can beat gravity! JUDITH VAN DONGEN SO HAPPY SHE SAID YES WHEN WE ASKED HER TO BE ON THE
COVER AKIM A.J. WILLEMS FOURTH COLLABORATION IN A ROW AND VERY HAPPY ABOUT THAT. LOVE YOUR STYLE ELLIE
VDB LOOKING FORWARD TO THE COVER EXPO! FIONA J. ROBERTSON HOPE THE TRANSLATION OF AKIM’S STORY DIDN’T
COST YOU YOUR NIGHT’S SLEEP. THANKS GIRL ALL THOSE WONDERFUL PEOPLE OUT THERE – YES WE ARE TALKING TO
YOU! – WHO ARE ON THE VERGE OF READING THIS ISSUE. LAST BUT NOT LEAST A BILLION KISSES TOWARDS THE GREAT
WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, STYLISTS, MAKE UP ARTISTS, MODELS AND FRIENDS WHO MADE OUR 4TH POSSIBLE!
ET ALORS? 005

The Pansy Project
PHOTO MALC STONE PANSY PHOTOS PAUL HARFLEET

‘The Pansy Project’ is an on-going initiative
and artwork devised by Paul Harfleet in 2005.
He revisits locations where homophobia
was experienced and plants self seeding
pansies to mark the spot. They act as a
living memorial to the abuse and operate as
an antidote to it. After they are individually
planted, the pansy’s location is photographed
and named after the abuse received.
The Pansy Project has had many incarnations; from small
scale unmarked individual plantings to free pansy ‘Hand
Outs’ where the artist speaks to passers-by about the project.
Additionally, installations of thousands of plants at the site
of homophobia and exhibitions of the photographs the artist
has made over the last seven years. The Pansy Project has
garnered a worldwide following and has featured in various
festivals and exhibitions internationally from New York to
London.
How it all began.
A string of homophobic abuse on a warm summer’s day
was the catalyst for this project. Two builders shouting “It’s
about time we went gay bashing again, isn’t it?” is how that
day began. It continued with a gang of guys throwing abuse
and stones at the artist and his then boyfriend, to end with a
bizarre and unsettling confrontation with a man who called
them ‘ladies’ under his breath.
Over the years Harfleet became accustomed to this kind
of behavior, but later realised it was a shocking concept to
most of his friends and colleagues. It was in this context that
Harfleet began to ponder the nature of these verbal attacks
and their influence on his life. Realizing that he felt differently
about these experiences depending on his mental state, he
decided to explore the way he was made to feel at the location
where these incidents occurred. What interested Harfleet
was the way that the locations later acted as a prompt for
exploration of the memories associated with that place.
In order to feel differently about the location and the
memories it summoned, the artist wanted to manipulate
these associations somehow. Planting unmarked pansies
as close as possible to where the verbal homophobic abuse
had occurred became his strategy. He would entitle the
photograph after the abuse and post an image of the pansy
alongside the quoted abuse online.
A positive action versus a negative incident.
Harfleet did not feel it would be appropriate to equate his
own personal experience of verbal homophobic abuse with a
death or fatal accident; he felt that planting a small unmarked
living plant at the site would correspond with the nature of the
abuse. A plant continues to grow through experience, as the
protagonist does. Sowing a live plant felt like a positive action,
it was a comment on the abuse and a potential ‘remedy’. He
was interested in the public nature of these incidents and the
way one was forced into reacting publicly to a crime that often
occurred during the day and in full view of passers-by. He had
observed that the tendency to place flowers at the scene
of a crime or accident had become an accepted ritual and
considered a similar response. Floral tributes subtly augment
the reading of a space that encourages a passer-by to ponder
past events generally understood as a crime or accident. The
ET ALORS? 009

artist’s particular intervention could encourage a passer-by to
query the reason for his own ritualistic action.
Very quiet yet extremely visible.
Without civic permission to plant one unmarked pansy to
mark his own and latterly other’s experiences of homophobia,
Harfleet continued as The Pansy Project developed.
As growing numbers of pansies were planted with titles
such as “Let’s kill the Batty-Man!” and “Fucking Faggot!” a
particular view of gay experience which often goes unreported
to authorities became apparent. When verbal homophobic
abuse is experienced the assailant forces the unwilling
participant to assimilate and respond to this public verbal
attack; ignore or retaliate? The Pansy Project acts as a formula
which prevents the ‘victim’ from internalizing the incident.
The strategy becomes a conceptual shield; a behavior that
enables the experience to be processed via the public domain,
in this case the location where the incident occurred and,
latterly, the website which collates and presents the incidents
and operates as a virtual location of quiet resistance.
Pansy.
Which plant to use was of course vitally important and the
pansy instantly seemed perfect. The name of the flower
originates from the French verb Penser (to think), as the
bowing head of the flower was seen to visually echo a
person in deep thought, hence its Victorian association with
effeminate or gay men. The subtle and elegiac quality of the
flower was ideal for The Pansy Project’s requirements. The
action of planting reinforced these qualities, as kneeling in
the street and digging in the often neglected hedgerows felt
like a sorrowful act. The bowing heads of the flowers became
mournful symbols of indignant acceptance.
How it evolved.
What was originally an autobiographical work has become
a project that has been somewhat embraced by the gay
community who see the project as a strategy that explores a
shared experience. Many statistics reveal that large numbers
of the LGBT community have at some time experienced
varying levels of homophobic abuse.
In association with festivals, Harfleet also regularly hosts
events where pansies are often handed out to the general
public. At these events the pansies are donated to the public
in exchange for hearing about the project. This subtle ‘gift’
presents itself as ‘Free Pansies’ with no catch.
However the people receiving the flower take the story of The
Pansy Project with them, enabling it to be communicated to a
much wider, non-specific, audience.
The various on-line presences of The Pansy Project, such as
blog, website, Twitter and Facebook profiles, enable the
images of these - mostly ephemeral - acts to be bundled and
presented to a wide on-line audience who are then vicariously
able to explore and engage with the nature of this artwork and
the incidents it documents. The juxtaposition of the images
of delicate flowers placed in urban settings with offensive
and hurtful abuse creates a complex yet anecdotal anthology
of homophobic abuse as experienced by a gay population.
The humbly planted pansy becomes a record; a trace of this
public occurrence which is deeply personal and concurrently
accessible to the public on the street and on-line.
After seven years of The Pansy Project Paul Harfleet has
planted over ten thousand pansies: Sometimes sowing two
thousand at a time as he did for ‘Memorial to the Un-Named’
at the Homotopia Festival in Liverpool, 2008.
Four thousand were planted in the Gold Medal winning
‘Conceptual Garden’ at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower
Show, 2010, and he continues to seek out locations and plant
individual flowers such as the one he recently placed at the
British Embassy in Istanbul. Often unsanctioned - though
frequently in association with festivals, organizations and even
police forces - Harfleet continues to intuit his way through
The Pansy Project. In 2011 he collaborated with London
based jewelry making company Tatty Devine; together they
created a small wooden pin. A hand painted pansy, adorned
with “Fucking Faggot”, is a subtle embodiment of The Pansy
Project so far.
In September 2012 The Pansy Project featured at the
Steirischer Herbst festival in Graz; ‘Truth is Concrete’ was a
24/7 marathon camp attended by over a hundred international
artists where Paul planted pansies of historical significance
around Graz and spoke about his work alongside Richard
Reynolds of ‘On Guerrilla Gardening’; a publication that charts
the evolution of guerrilla gardening and features The Pansy
Project.
The image exclusively included here is taken by Malc Stone
and will be the cover image of The Pansy Project publication
Paul Harfleet is currently working on. For more information
and background visit:
www.thepansyproject.com
ET ALORS? 011

In conversation with
ERIKA LUST
ET ALORS? 013

Someone once told her that she must be the cutest porn
director he ever met. She thought that was a good thing,
because most people still think you have to be a freak to
make this kind of movies. We’re in Barcelona, in a huge loft.
During lunchtime we talk to the woman on top of Lust –
productions. “I’m so normal it almost becomes controversial.”
In conversation with Erika Lust.
INTERVIEW FLEUR PIERETS PHOTOS JULIAN P. BOOM
We’re sitting amongst camera’s, a bed and a woman
performing with all kinds of toys. What are you doing?
It’s quite a premiere you’re witnessing here. We are selling
all different kinds of sex toys on our website but no one
ever thought about the idea of showing all the different
ways to use them. It’s strange when you start to think of it;
all those toys, all those producers and not a single explicit
educational movie on what you can do with it.
How did a sweet looking girl like you…?
It’s a long story so let’s try to make it a little short. I studied
political science at the university in Sweden and during
the summer I came to Barcelona to study Spanish. In 2000
I met my husband Pablo and decided to stay.
It was almost impossible to get a job in political science
because of the Catalan politics in Barcelona so I was
looking for extra jobs. I had a friend who worked in the
audiovisual sector; movies, television and advertising and I
started doing the most basic jobs. I was driving actors from
the airport, making coffee, you know the drill. Little by
little I got better opportunities so I started as a production
assistant, then a location manager and afterwards as a
production manager. During this process I learned how
to make movies. Film has always been my passion so it
was quite natural that I started to take evening courses in
directing actors, film technics and camerawork.
And then….then I had the chance to make a short movie.
During that process I came back to the idea I had many
years ago in university. Ideas about pornography with
the main question being: “Would it be possible to make a
movie that was exciting but still had all my values?”. When
I looked at porn I always found it physically intriguing
because my body responded but my brain didn’t like it.
I was quite mixed up because of this huge discrepancy
between my body and my brain so I wanted to find a way
to make this kind of movie but without losing my esthetics.
So what’s the big difference between male and female
porn?
Male producers and directors are all alike. They’re
mostly middle-aged straight white guys with a taste
in big-breasted blonde airheads. It stands to reason
that a homogeneous group is going to create a
homogeneous product and that makes those movies
very indistinguishable. Women care more about the story
014 ET ALORS?

that is being told. And also “who” is telling the story? In
this case it’s me as a woman, as a feminist, as a mother,
as an entrepreneur. For decades men had a monopoly on
defining what porn is and in this world of ours, whatever is
male-oriented becomes the standard. So it’s time to stand
up because it’s not healthy that the only people making
pornography are men. Well, at least 99% of it.
And why is that?
It has to do with many things. Men had an easier time to
take pleasure in sexuality. Ours has always been closely
tied to reproduction. And not only that, mind you that
even today there are cultures that are still using barbaric
practices like clitoridectomy to nip female sexual desire
in the bud. There’s also the structure of society; men go
to work, make money, they explore different things. They
got into audiovisuals long before women did. When you
look at our female history, it’s not so many years ago since
we got the right to vote or started to earn our own money.
And isn’t that initially the base of independence? If you
don’t earn your own money you can’t take a decision,
that’s the way it is. There’s been a huge development
regarding female sexuality since we started caring for our
own pleasure and not only for anybody else’s. And also –
and that’s a very important evolution - we are starting to
become consumers of things that have to do with sex.
And when did all this change?
It started in the 60’s and the 70’s with the sexual revolution
and the liberty to take the pill. But when we are talking
about pornography, it’s quite recent. The first woman who
started to make this kind of films is Candida Royalle and
she started in ‘83 – ‘84. After her there came more and
more female directors but still very very little. Maybe we
can count 10 at the most. Yet we live in a world where there
are thousands and thousands of male pornographers.
Why? Are women afraid to do so?
I think we are a little afraid in one way because it is difficult
to stand in society and say: “Hey! I make porn.” You have
to stand up against people attacking you from different
corners; from feminists to pornographers to Catholics.
So many different groups who don’t want us, women, to
get involved in that kind of business. But this is where I
“Male directors
are all alike. They’re mostly
middle-aged white guys with
a taste in big-breasted
airheads.”
stand up and say that it’s really important. You have
to look at pornography as a discourse. It’s a discourse
about sexuality, femininity, masculinity and women don’t
participate in that debate because we don’t have anything
to say. It’s like we don’t have a voice. So I want us - not
only me - but women in general to get into this industry,
taking power and starting to make our own movies.
Telling the stories we want to be told. We have to express
our own sexuality and the only way of doing this, is that
a lot of women get into the pool. We have to become a
critical mass to be able to change things. In politics we are
talking about the 30% rule, meaning that when women
are starting to take part of the governments and the
parliaments, we have to be 30% of the group. That is when
you’re starting to have some power, when your voices will
be heard. So let’s work on that quota because otherwise,
nothing is going to happen.
But you are pretty busy trying to change things.
I have to. Because I believe we can benefit from watching
sexually explicit films. We’re very liberated these days and
porn can help us spice up our fantasies and discover tastes
we never even knew we had. Porn in and of itself is not
a bad thing and believe me if I say that our tastes are as
varied as men’s are. So hold the flowers and fireplaces, the
candles and novels by Danielle Steele. We want sexually
explicit images, but we want to call the shots when it
comes to how they’re made.
ET ALORS? 017

In your book ‘A woman’s guide to good porn’ you have
a chapter called ‘Indephony, predictable porn made by
men’. I really laughed out loud reading Nr. 7: Beautiful
young women just love to have good sex with fat ugly
middle-aged men. Nr. 13: Asian men do not exist and
Nr. 22: When a woman is sucking a man’s cock, it’s
important for him to give her constant reminders about
what to do: “Oh, yeah-suck it!”. Isn’t that too much of
a cliché?
I don’t think it is. Young people learn about sexuality from
porn. And there we have a problem. I don’t want Rocco
Siffredi telling my girls how to have sex. I don’t want him
involved in this. I want to have the chance to tell my vision
on sexuality. And that doesn’t happen when we don’t
participate. Then we will end up with all these porn studs,
these macho porn guys, telling our children how to have
sex. I want them to take away positive messages about
sexuality. With feminist values and discourses. But don’t
get me wrong, it’s not that I want to impose some kind
of censorship, I just want diversity and the freedom to
choose what suits you.
The problem regarding young children is that the school
education on sexuality is very bad or non-existent. In
some countries it’s even called family planning. And what
happens when education doesn’t take their responsibility
and when still too many parents are afraid to speak to
their kids about it? Then kids look at free porn on the
internet. And what do they learn? An Italian macho fucks
10 Bulgarian girls in the butt and that’s normal. When
you, as an adult, watch this movie, you will have some
references. So if you want to see this kind of porn, please
do and I hope you enjoy it. But children at that age are not
so developed that they can think critically. I think it’s very
important to inform and to teach young people how to be
critical because it’s not only about porn, it’s also about the
models, being really really slim, it’s about television series
where we most of the time see men as main characters.
We have to be critical towards fashion, photography,
because all of it is fake. My point of view might sound
quite heavy but it’s true and it’s important that we start to
speak about this.
Your message is very clear, but why use porn as your
outlet?
Because I love film and I have a base to stand on.
018 ET ALORS?

I’m not only doing this because the fun or for the money
but because I want to see good movie. And that’s another
part of it, the esthetics. I find most porn very ugly. And
because I like film and I like beautiful things, I want to
see a beautiful movie that is well developed, a story that
is interesting, characters I can identify with. I don’t want
them to be stereotypes like the nightclub singer and the
stripper, the babysitters and the desperate housewife.
I’m not interested in seeing that kind of women. Neither
am I interested in the mafia guy or the pizza delivery boy.
Those stereotypes really set my nerves on edge.
You’re not working with actors?
I want normal people to be in my movies so I try to use
the less “pornified” looks that I can find. Making an adult
movie is not very different than making regular cinema.
The main thing with the actors, when they are professional
adult performers, is to erase their porn attitude, and make
them act and feel naturally. It’s not an impossible mission,
it can be done if you treat them with respect and you
teach them to relax and forget those strange positions
and the athletic sex they do for a living. Nevertheless, I
keep looking for the non-transformed bodies. For people
who look good and feel fresh and natural.
Lately I’ve been very lucky because as my name is kind
of growing, people are coming to me. I don’t have to find
them, they find me. All those people who were never
involved in the adult filmmaking suddenly want to be in my
movies. And that’s wonderful, but I also realize this comes
with big responsibilities because those people are really
having sex and they show every inch of their body in front
of the camera. For me it’s very important to get to know
the actors. Who are they, what do they like, why do they
do this? I don’t want someone doing a scene just because
they are in an economic crisis and they don’t have any
other way to earn money. Nor do I work with 18 year olds
because they cannot fully understand the consequences
of what they are doing. I want people to enjoy being in
front of a camera. Who are sex positive because believe
me, there are a lot of people out there who like doing this.
020 ET ALORS?

Do you know your customers?
Yes I do because we have the Lust cinema and the Lust
store online. Therefor we can see who’s buying and I can
tell you it’s more or less 50/50. 50% men and 50% women.
I’m very happy I don’t exclude men from our audience
because that was never my intention.
Would you describe it as female porn, or femfriendly porn?
It’s really difficult to find a good word. Sometimes I call
it porn, sometimes I call it erotic movies but also Adult
independent film. It depends a little on the circumstances.
The problem with the word porn is that it’s very ugly. When
you say it and you close your eyes, you see something.
Something very specific because the norm on what
pornography is, is rooted into our minds. Therefor you see
something that has nothing to do with my movies. When I
use the term porn, you probably see something ugly, most
of the time aggressive and violent male dominant. When
I’m watching the scenes I shot, I see passion, intimacy.
Sometimes I wish I could wash the word pornography.
Putting it in the washing machine and take it out all fresh
and removed from any negativity because I want to use
that word. What else should I call it? Contemporary porn
maybe, yet I don’t really think I belong in Tate modern. So
yes, I must admit I’m a little lost when it comes to put a
word on what I’m doing.
Are you a feminist?
Yes I am, but all too often I realize that a lot of people don’t
know what feminism is.
We live in a world where men and women don’t have the
same possibilities, rights and opportunities. A world in
which women as a group have less power than a group of
men. Being a feminist means acknowledging this situation
and believing it should change. And the only way we can
change something is when we can be specific about what
the differences actually are.
We are modern women in a modern society and yet we
are not represented in the mainstream pornography, we
are not there. So let’s start making our own porn movies
because if we do, we can start choosing what we like most.
How did you get so liberated?
Well, I’m not. I’m still struggling but I think all of us are.
I’m a very normal person and I don’t have this super strong
sexuality going. I’m quite down to earth and vanilla. But
it helps that I’m Swedish. I had the opportunity to grow
up in a country that is very liberated when you compare it
to others. Sweden was also one of the first countries who
started school sex education in 1952. When I talk to people
I realize I am very privileged on the subject matter.
When I was 12 we had sexologists coming to our school
and talking about not only the technical stuff but they
also spoke about feelings and butterflies. The good part of
sexuality was explained to us as a part of your health and
happiness. This kind of approach changes things, it opens
up your mind.
Do you feel excepted?
It goes in two different directions. The male porn industry
has a very difficult time right now, accepting that
suddenly there are young women deciding that they want
something else. Bottom-line is that I think a lot of men are
afraid of losing their jobs.
Regarding my own kind I can feel that the feminist
movement starts to accept the idea of women getting
into this. In the beginning they were quite chocked but
now it’s getting better. They are clever enough to see why
this is important.
And in your personal habitat?
Yes I do feel accepted. And that’s because I’m not ashamed
of what I’m doing. If you’re ashamed you will have a
problem explaining it. People should be ashamed when
they are doing bad things, stealing money or dealing
drugs. Not because they are making adult movies. For
example my mother is 70 but she accepts it, understands
it. We’ve been speaking a lot about the message behind it.
But of course she would have been a lot happier if I would
have become a lawyer or a teacher. Because yes, this is a
little more complicated to tell your friends. Nevertheless,
everybody responds really well to what I am doing. I can
see that people feel the same way, that there is a need
for this new niche. Also the parents at my girls’ school
are great about it, they love what I do and they certainly
don’t say that there kids can’t come to my house because
I’m a pornographer. Acceptance lies with you. People
understand what you communicate.
www.erikalust.com
ET ALORS? 021

Crochet
Dark & Decadent
They say only grannies crochet but Diane Goldie gives it a whole new
swing. Crochet Dark and Decadent is a place where she can indulge her
passion for making all things delightfully creepy and darkly, deliciously
decadent and beautiful. Being a painter but using her newly learned skill
of crochet and injecting a good dose of healthy humor, she started to
make her Diva Dollies after meeting performance artist extraordinaire
Marnie Scarlett. Pushing boundaries of body image and performance
art, Marnie was a real source of inspiration and instantly became
Diane’s muse for the dollies. The very first Marnie doll was quite a hit
in Marnie’s circle of many fans so she decided to create others as there
were so many inspirational outfits and moods to recreate in dolly form:
“I take special joy in making pretty raspberry nipples even if they won’t
be seen immediately and I particularly enjoy making a pair or two of
sparkly high heels should they be part of the creation. I find the joy is in
detail, so my dollies have expressive hands and stand in jaunty poses.”
Every dolly is unique, being handmade. The ‘dollies’ are all around 14
inches ( 36cm) tall and feature carefully considered details. Amsterdam
based toyshop ‘Heelgoed Speelgoed’ has a very limited range of 5 dolls
that are currently available for purchase.
www.facebook.com/CrochetDarkAndDecadent
dianespuppetsproducts.wordpress.com
ET ALORS? 023

The shop around
the corner
starring Margaret Sullavan & James Stewart - 1940
The Editor’s Choice
Dazzling presents to see you smoothly and
sizzling through the Christmas holidays in four
movie themes.

Affair in Trinidad
starring Rita Hayworth & Glenn Ford
1952
The Suitcase Chair
South African designer Katie Thompson aims to
make the ordinary rather extraordinary.
www.recreate.za.net
026 ET ALORS?

Wall Montréal
Orgy Scarf Grey
French Letter
Brick wall photo print on cushion. Made in
Belgium. www.nottooarty.be
Wearable luxury scarves, with a playful punk
twist. www.age-of-reason-studios.com
The first FairDeal condoms for courageous
creatures who care about FairPlay.
www.frenchlettercondoms.co.uk
Leather Covered Binoculars
La Femme Amoureuse
The Love/Hate Model
A stylish pair of binoculars for the gentleman or
gentlewoman. www.hermes.com
Embroidered canvas book-clutch, by Olympia
Le-Tan. www.olympialetan.com
Handmade gloves by Dutch artist Silvia B.
www.skinover.biz

All that heaven
allows
starring Jane Wyman & Rock Hudson
1955
Mormon Missionary Positions
Photographer Neil DaCosta’s sexual field guide for
the Latter Day Saints.
mormonmissionarypositions.com
028 ET ALORS?

Afterglow
Bombshell
Champagne Marquis de Sade
He or she will absolutely love this dark vanilla
massage candle. www.jimmyjane.com
Pin Ups Bombshell Orgasm Balm Mint.
www.coco-de-mer.com
Ideal for parties that start slowly and where you
never know when they will finish.
www.champagne-marquis-de-sade.com
Designer Handcuffs
Playful Mask
Ina 2
Classy leather handcuffs as bracelets by Louis
Vuitton.
www.louisvuitton.com
Harnesses and masks in the sexually playful
signature collection ‘Restraint’ by Fleet Ilya.
www.fleetilya.com
The new and improved version of LELO’s
bestselling dual-action vibrator.
www.lelo.com

La cage aux
folles
starring Ugo Tognazzi & Michel Serrault
1978
Furry Cheetah
Furry Cheetah Designer Nail Wrap.
www.nailrock.com
030 ET ALORS?

Drag Queen Barbie
That Bad Eartha
Ponytail Wig
Made to resemble her cross-dressing designer,
Phillipe Blond. www.matel.com
An 1954 studio album by Eartha Kitt, her debut
12” vinyl album issued on the RCA Victor label.
tuneuprecords.blogspot.be
Paper wigs by Nikki Salk and Amy Flurry.
www.paper-cut-project.com
White Diamonds
Under The Sea
Viva Glam
White Diamonds Perfume by Elizabeth Taylor for
Women. www.elizabetharden.com
London-based design firm Paperself has taken
faux lashes to a whole new level.
www.paperself.com
M.A.C Cosmetics makes an effort for HIV/AIDS.
www.maccosmetics.com

All the King’s
men
starring Broderick Crawford & John Ireland
1949
Mustache Cufflinks
”Movember” is a moustache growing charity event
that raises funds and awareness for mens health.
www.movember.com
032 ET ALORS?

Aravinda Rodenburg
aussieBum
Mount Gay Rum
Suits created according to the client’s
measurements & choices. Made in Belgium.
www.acesoir.be/aravindarodenburg
Australian men’s swimwear and underwear
manufacturer. www.aussiebum.com
The finest, oldest brand of rum in existence, has
been produced in Barbados since 1703.
www.mountgayrum.com
Hiking Staff
Tuscan Leather
A Rebours – Huysmans
Custom made hiking staff by Boris Palatnik.
www.borispalatnik.com
Highly refined and beautifully packaged Tuscan
Leather Holiday Set. www.tomford.com
Novel about Jean Des Esseintes, an aesthete who
tries to retreat into his own creation.
www.amazon.com

www.nonon.de

The
Dreamscapes
of Edward D. Wood Jr.
TEXT SUSAN MACDONALD

Since the biopic ‘Ed Wood’
starring Johnny Depp, the
for nearly two decades
forgotten eccentric of the
1950s, Edward D. Wood Jr.
enjoyed a success that quite
escaped him in life. His
technically inept, but oddly
fascinating films are shown
at midnight screenings in offbeat
picture theatres around
the world.
This revival is largely due to his being presented to a new
audience by Michael Medved’s 1981 book The Golden
Turkey Awards, a volume which attempted to satirise the
Academy awards by presenting nominations and awards
for lack of quality. In a Ben Hur-like performance, Ed Wood
won both the award for the worst director of all time and
the award for the worst film of all time, which was given to
his magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Ed Wood had his own troupe of players: a bizarre entourage
of friends which included the flamboyant newspaper and
television seer Criswell, blond cowlick spit-stuck to his
forehead, whose dramatic future predictions were nearly
always wrong. (“I predict that in 1980 public executions
will be shown on television, sponsored by your local gas
company!”)
Criswell (his full name was Jerome King Criswell ) lived his
childhood at the rear of his father’s mortuary business,
and for the rest of his life he preferred sleeping in satinlined
coffins, because he found them so comfortable (as
one Ed Wood acquaintance commented, “Where does Ed
find them?”)
Another famous member was the Gothic spider-woman
Vampira (Maila Nurmi), whose raven-black hair, dark
make-up, and bloodless pallor marked her as the heiress
to a tradition going back to the early Victorian age,
through the female vampires in Dracula, the silent film
temptress Theda Bara, Morticia Addams of the New
Yorker’s cartoons, and the villainesses of a thousand
forgotten radio and Saturday matinee serials. Even
Natasha, from the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon series, is
a parody of this interesting genre and bears an especially
striking resemblance to Vampira.
In the early 1950s she was a late night horror film
hostess in Los Angeles, with an enormous cult following
throughout America, and her own sub-retinue of flunkies
and minders. Just before his untimely death James Dean
036 ET ALORS?

had been having a love affair with her. With the popularity
of the Goth look in more recent times, Vampira was forty
years ahead of her time.
John Breckenridge (“Bunny”) was the scion of a wealthy
European family. He was transsexual and dreamed of
having a ‘Christine Jorgensen’ procedure to change his
gender. For several years he was an acquaintance of Ed
Wood’s but made one film appearance only, as the alien
Ruler in Plan 9 from Outer Space. It is a performance of
such outrageous and hilarious world-weary camp that one
regrets he did not appear in more movies.
There were others: Loretta King, who could not drink any
liquids because she was “allergic to water”, the growling
Swedish professional wrestler Tor Johnson, hack actors
Paul Marco and Conrad Brooks (the latter is nicknamed by
enthusiasts “the John Geilgud of bad movies”), and Bela
Lugosi, who had starred in Dracula in 1931, but who was
now forgotten, depressed, and a narcotics addict.
Ed Wood gave Bela Lugosi something to live for again. The
two became friends, and Bela was overjoyed to be making
films once more, and with a much more interesting crew
than he had ever known at the major studios.
And there was another interesting sidelight to Ed Wood’s
film career. He was a very public cross-dresser. This
would be unusual today, but in the 1950s it was unique.
There were female impersonators of course, but Ed was a
genuine transvestite. He found women’s clothes and their
soft fabrics sexually enticing, and extremely relaxing. If
there was stress on the film set – and there often is – he
would disappear, and return wearing a wig, a skirt, nylon
stockings, and a fluffy sweater and beret knitted from
angora, his favourite fibre.
Of course the members of his outlandish menagerie were
not put off by this at all. In order to raise money for his
pictures however, Ed had to deal with the wider world
too. He confronted a great deal of misunderstanding and
ET ALORS? 037

prejudice, and one of his films, Glen or Glenda (1953), is
partly a documentary explained by a psychiatrist and
overseen by a kind of Science God played by Bela Lugosi.
It’s also partly a fictional story of courtship, with the
purpose to help people understand and empathise with
the phenomenon of cross-dressing.
Ed Wood even played the lead role himself. He wanted
there to be no doubt in the minds of the audience that the
difficulties the hero encountered were based on personal
experience. It was probably the most courageous film of
the 1950s, and still remains the only main stream movie
about genuine transvestism from any English-speaking
country. As Ed Wood himself explained, “If you want to
know me, see Glen or Glenda, that’s me, that’s my story.
No question. But Plan 9 from Outer Space is my pride and
joy.”
But, for the business that hired Ed, Glen or Glenda was
meant to be a sensationalist work of mild pornography.
When the producer saw it, he was furious.
Three years later Ed Wood made the movie which
discriminating film scholars regard as the pinnacle of his
career: Plan 9 from Outer Space (shot in 1956, it was not
released until 1959). The film was financed by the Baptist
Church of Beverley Hills. Ed had convinced them that they
should finance a film with the teenage appeal of the time,
and that this film would then generate the money needed
to make twelve films about the apostles of Christ - which
were the movies that the Baptist Church of Beverley Hills
really wanted to make.
The cast included the best collection of Wood regulars
that he ever assembled. The credits music, which develops
into a theme as the film progresses, was Alexandr
Mossolov’s Iron Foundry, a brilliant choice, full of menace
and foreboding. The web site listed below states, “Iron
Foundry enjoys an oddity reputation, and is rarely heard.
Recordings have been few and far between.” Ed Wood
was a classical music enthusiast, and any aficionado of
Plan 9 would recognise the music at once.
It might be of interest to compare the real Ed Wood ‘stock
company’ with the modern actors who portrayed them.
Documentaries were made about Ed Wood’s life and
ET ALORS? 039

career: Look Back in Angora, Flying Saucers over
Hollywood, and one biography, Nightmare of Ecstasy.
There has even been a rock video in the Ed Wood manner.
But the zenith of the renewed interest in Ed Wood’s films
was the superb biopic released in 1994, Ed Wood, directed
by Tim Burton.
It is an affectionate homage of notable accuracy, and was
probably the best film made in the 1990s. At the time of
writing, it is certainly the last great film made in gleaming
black and white – a decision which Tim Burton fought hard
for, but which was exactly right.
Unfortunately, the use of black and white harmed the film
at the box office. It made little money, because these days
young filmgoers especially do not understand that black
and white cinema has its own special beauty. But film
critics and film magazines gave it the highest praise. It is
a bitter-sweet fact that, even accounting for inflation, any
fifteen minutes of Tim Burton’s film cost more to make
than all the films Ed Wood made over a period of 25 years.
The casting of the film is exemplary. Lisa Marie is
amazingly good as Vampira, and Jeffrey Jones is wonderful
as Criswell. He brings a skein of warm comedy to the role
which the real Criswell lacked. Johnny Depp in the title role
projects Wood’s infectious enthusiasm and joi-de-vivre,
and Bill Murray has fun as Bunny Breckenridge, although
no mere actor could adequately display the real Bunny’s
jaded, droll, contrived ennui.
Martin Landau, such a wooden actor in so many films,
won a well-deserved Oscar for his brilliant portrayal of
Bela Lugosi in his final years.
Edward D. Wood was unique. Is there any explanation
for his strange life? Tim Burton, the director of the 1994
film, concluded that Ed had wanted to be a film producer
and director ever since he was given a movie camera as a
boy, and was bewitched from that moment on. When he
040 ET ALORS?

was 17 years old, probably the most impressionable age
in a person’s life, he saw Citizen Kane, when it was first
released. (Ed was born October 10, 1924.)
The youthful Ed Wood wanted to make films. But his
idea of a film director was a cartoon idea. In cartoons the
director habitually wears jodhpurs, shiny black boots, and
carries a horsewhip. He sits in a simple canvas-backed
chair, and shouts directions from an old-fashioned
megaphone. He is frequently portrayed with a pencil-thin
moustache, and sporting a beret.
it is today. The major studios have lost their iron grip on
Hollywood. Amazing sets and technical effects are just
a software package away, and just about everybody
in cinema boastfully announces themselves as an
“independent”.
One can glimpse behind those films a special mind of
dark, surreal mysteries and obsessions. After all, there
were other ultra-cheap directors in the 1950s and 1960s,
but their films are about as interesting as the people next
door’s home movies.
While making his films Ed always used the megaphone,
even though directors at the major studios had long
abandoned its use. He never went for the jodhpurs or
boots, or the horsewhip, but such affectations predated
his memory: they had vanished at the end of the silent
era (the earliest directors dressed this way as a protection
against snakes and scorpions – in the silent days, films
were usually shot on outdoor locations, and often in the
desert).
Tim Burton believes that this is the key to understanding
Ed Wood’s style. Ed was in love with the idea of directing
films…the romance, the persona of the admired but
unpredictable martinet, and the artistic adventure. He
enjoyed sitting in the canvas-backed chair, and shouting
“Cut!” He wanted nothing to do with the tedious side of
film directing: the careful attention to continuity (in his
own films characters can drive away from a house in broad
daylight and, after a trip of a mile or so, arrive in pitchblack,
foggy night), the re-shooting of scenes in which bits
of set protruded, or even fell over, the repetitive rehearsal
of important scenes with the actors. In Ed’s films it was
one take, or two at the most. He couldn’t wait to get on to
the next scene, and play director again.
The best answer to those who have nothing to offer the
Ed Wood renaissance except derisive laughter, is the films
themselves. Ed did try to get a job with the major studios,
but none of them were interested. Anybody else would
have gone home and taken a clerical job, but Ed went
ahead and made his own films . . . shoestring budgets,
fantastically strange actors, and technically inept . . . but
they were made, and released.
In death, Ed Wood found the intellectual acclaim which
had so painfully eluded him while he was alive and
working. All of the chief members of his repertory are
now dead, with the exception of Vampira. Maila Nurmi
used to run a business preparing signed gravestone
rubbings of Hollywood stars, but today she has time for
little else except attending Ed Wood film festivals and
special screenings. She speaks with heartfelt admiration
of Ed’s kindness, and his brightening the last years of Bela
Lugosi’s life, when the rest of Hollywood had turned their
backs on him.
Ed Wood died on December 10, 1978.
He was not only kind; he was one of a kind.
MAIN FILMS
Glen or Glenda 1953
Jailbait 1954
Bride of the Monster 1955 (Bela Lugosi’s last film)
Plan 9 from Outer Space 1956
Final Curtain 1957
Night of the Ghouls 1958
This film was lost until 1983, because Ed Wood never
had the money to pay the film developer’s bill. Finally
recovered and released when the Ed Wood renaissance
was well under way, it was immediately acclaimed an ‘Ed
Wood masterpiece.’
The Sinister Urge 1960
Orgy of the Dead 1965
Take it out in Trade 1970
And that was much harder to achieve fifty years ago than
WWW.PETTICOATED.COM
ET ALORS? 041

short story
the
victim
WRITTEN BY AKIM A.J. WILLEMS
Rape me
Rape me, my friend
Rape me
Rape me again
[Nirvana]
“Goodness… gracious…me! What happened? You look terrible!”
He had been waiting up all night waiting for her to come home.
She had been going out on the town alone quite often these
past few weeks. Feelings of jealousy and anxious suspicion
would dominate his evening. Tonight had been no different.
Agitatedly he had been reading Anke Bernau’s ‘Virgins.
A Cultural History’ and Edith Maude Hull’s ‘The Sheik’. But
his agitation instantly makes way for panic as he answers
the front door. His wife leans against the doorpost, panting.
Tousled hair rests on a grazed right arm. Her lipstick is smeared
in greasy streaks around her mouth. Eyeliner runs in jagged
streaks to her cheek bones. She’s missing one of her diamond
’special occasion’ earrings, he notices. Under her open coat
she is practically naked, her breasts heaving up and down
ET ALORS? 043

short story
rhythmically. Bruises on her belly, legs and buttocks. A crack of
dried blood caked on her bottom lip.
The victim looked quite plain. It didn’t turn heads in the streets
anymore, but you wouldn’t shriek and kick it out of bed either,
were you to wake up next to it after a drunken night. It had no
passions to speak of, or special hobbies. It had, besides a job
in human resources, a run of the mill family with two children
( products of the passion in the first three years of marriage),
the accompanying station wagon and a semi detached house
in a pleasant suburb. And also: a terminal sex life. At most,
once a week the marital duty was fulfilled, and had been for 12
years, swiftly and without much ado, usually on Saturdays. The
husband was then tender. And passion- and inspiration-free.
“What happened?” he repeats himself as he leads in the mother
of his children. He lays an arm around her waist, and straightens
her hair and coat with his free hand.
I will tell you what happened: exactly ninety one days earlier the
victim had first approached me. A friend had ‘recommended’
me. Via e-mail I had grudgingly been told a story of dark
sides and sinister longings. Of shame, too. And the soothing
knowledge that it is not that unusual apparently, because
had the friend not done it? And did literature not describe
countless similar cases? I couldn’t deny it. I knew them too: the
publications that, in the name of scientific research, described
such fantasies in juicy detail, but categorized them as ‘perverse’.
The pseudo-psychological and populist ‘journalistic’ articles
that touched upon the theme. But most of all the countless
women that had passed before the victim and contacted me to
bring to life their most secret fantasy. The modus operandi was
the usual: the victim would reveal its identity to me – I myself
remained anonymous of course – and received a spreadsheet
with times, dates and places for the victim to report to. A total
of fifty two. One for every week. Within the year – Guaranteed.
Not satisfied? Money back. Its dream would come true. When
exactly: only I would know.
In the background, the eighteenth century Hochdeutsch
044 ET ALORS?

short story
version of Johan Gottfried Herder of ‘Anke van Tharaw’ by Fritz
Wunderlich. ‘Meine Seele, mein Fleisch und mein Blut’. “Who
did this to you?” With trembling hands he plunges into his
pockets to retrieve his cell phone. “I’m calling the police.” His
wife lays her hand on his phone to stop him. ‘No!’ she shakes
her head. “Darling…!” She pauses.
Short skirt, lace undies, snug top and boots halfway up the calf.
This is the outfit the victim is wearing when it arrives at the
stroke of midnight at the location set for this date: a parking
spot in the woods, next to a large fishing pond where many
paths cross. ‘Follow the red route’ the instructions had read.
The day had been hot and sunny, but it had turned quite cold
by now. The nipples point the way. A cold shiver runs down its
spine. But that could also be nerves. Every time the victim had
left the house with a pounding heart: would it happen this time?
At a pick-nick bench, halfway down the path, a cigarette break is
taken. The nicotine brings calm to the body. The victim notices
that the lace unmentionables are wet. The idea becomes
more delicious week after week. Even during office hours,
almost every day, fifteen minutes are spent in the bathroom to
masturbate in the knowledge that it will finally happen soon.
The ashes are tapped off. The cigarette is brought back to the
mouth. But she will not touch lips again. The assailant comes up
behind the victim and lays his hand over the frightened mouth,
flashes the blade of his knife in the light of the full moon and
forces his prey down into a lying position. The back of its head
bangs into the pick-nick table. All sound leaves the ears of the
victim. There is only the sound of the heart beating that echoes
through the chest like a drum roll. The lips of the assailant are
moving: ‘Not a sound or I’ll finish you!’ With his free hand he
lifts up the miniskirt. The blade feels ice cold as he slips it under
the panties. In two fluent moves it is cut away. The hand comes
off the mouth. The victim screams like there’s no tomorrow and
is immediately punished by two hard smacks in the face. The
sliver of textile is mashed into a ball and shoved into the mouth
of the victim to muffle the sound. With a knee on either side
of the victim – to control the protesting arms – he positions
himself on the table. The eyes of the victim are closed stiff, the
ET ALORS? 045

short story
nipples are protruding at him.
He pinches them incredibly hard between his thumb and index
finger before ripping the top to shreds with both hands. With
the left hand he kneads the C-cup which, despite two rounds
of breastfeeding, still feels firm. With the right hand he gropes
around behind him to the freshly shaven pussy and shoves three
fingers in. A muffled groan writhes its way past the panties in
the mouth. In the victim’s mind thoughts are jumping to and
fro. Panic is at the foreground. Even though this is staged, it is
pretty fucking overwhelming and frightening. Was this a good
idea after all? Instinct takes over, the victim pushes the 80 kilos
off itself and tries to run off. The assailant jumps up, grabs the
long locks, drags the fugitive to the ground, throws himself on
it again and wrestles both arms behind the back. The skirt goes
up, the buttocks exposed. He spits in the ‘rosebud’. ‘Citizen
Kane’, he thinks and pushes his cock in the back entrance. The
exclamations of pain follow his pounding rhythm. Legs kick
wildly behind his back. The molested arse writhes about like an
eel, defenceless. When the times comes, he flips his victim over,
holds it down by the throat, squirts his semen in its face and hair
and leaves.
It takes fifteen minutes for the victim to get up. As good as
naked – only the skirt and the boots survived the fantasy – it
jogs back to the car. On the back seat lies an overcoat. That
goes on. A second cigarette is lit. The pain in the anus is still
waning and there is semen in the hair, but that doesn’t matter.
A wish has been granted.
“Honey...!”
She pauses, looks at her husband with big, wild eyes. “I’ve been
raped!”
Ecstasy shrieks through her voice.
“And... it... was...abso-fucking-lutely fan-tàs-tic!!!”
The next morning I find an e-mail in my inbox. Thanking me.
I am flabbergasted. The victim doesn’t appear in my planning
for another three weeks.
TRANSLATION FIONA J. ROBERTSON
046 ET ALORS?

make-up artist
www.judithvandongen.com

WWW.IC-UC.BE
CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

PAUL
BUIJS
TEXT FLEUR PIERETS

Young, reckless and fresh from the
Arnhem art academy. In order to find
a suitable subject for his graduation
project, Paul Buijs went where no
other student would follow; the shady
underworld of gay darkrooms and sex
parties. Hovering unsettlingly between
fiction and reality, documentary style
and art photography, Buijs’ work is of
an unedited realism. What normally
stays in the shades is now brightly lit
up in an uncomfortable, confronting
way. It reveals a curious and previously
unexamined aspect of the gay scene, and
provides a window into the collision of
the club life, kinky sex and dark cellars
that color the streets of Amsterdam.
Paul just returned from his exhibition and lecture at
the Berlin Porn Film Festival when we meet. He’s once
again flabbergasted by the way people react when
confronted with his pictures. “It’s weird to experience
that people are still to be shocked since it was never
my intention to provoke. When searching for ideas that
would suit my graduation project, I was a frequent visitor
of the Warmoesstraat and the Regulierdwarsstraat in
Amsterdam. The gay areas, so to speak. I started to take
pictures and soon my teachers pointed out that I was on
to something.”
During that time, Paul got very much intrigued by an
article called ‘Life When The party is over’. Written by a
psychologist who had made a study on gay men in their
mid 30’s - 40’s and published in Wink magazine. He stated
that a lot of gay men weren’t able to enjoy their teenage
years because of their family for whom they only came
out of the closet when they were already in their 20’s.
Due to the social impact of such oppression, they started
their outgoing life when most straight people in society
started to settle. A phenomenon that in a lot a cases leads
to heavy party life and the drug use that often goes along
ET ALORS? 051

“I always wonder
what
lies behind the surface
of a fashionable
appearance. ”

with it. Not to speak of a low career expectation. “This
article explained what I questioned: what lies behind
the surface of that fashionable, sexual and glamourous
appearance. What was behind the mask of the people
involved in this scene?”
Still in the stream of perfectioning his art school
assignment, his teachers advised him to focus on his
signature. Being a huge fan of the Disney and populair
culture he swiftly found a symbiosis between the
personages that populate his work and the alienation of
mainstream entertainment. “All Disney characters are
drawn in a certain, monotonic way. They all have the same
glance, facial expression and are very similar in style. It
stroke me that a lot of my fellow party people wore the
same Fred Perry shirt, the same Bikkemberg shoes and
had the same hair-do. By asking to wear a mask I wanted
to underline the oneness of a certain scene, by making it
half a mask, I made a pairing between the monotony of
the public statement and their own private personality. “
With the best will in the world you can’t say that Buijs’
work is approachable or reassuring, hence the numerous
galleries who rejected his work for being too shocking and
the multiple reactions of viewers who found his images
to confronting, to surreal, to raw and to bright. “I had
no idea my work would have such an impact. I have the
upmost respect for my models and I always show them
their picture before I make it public because they still
can be recognized despite of the mask and I shoot them
while we both experience an autobiographical moment of
obsession and dependency. The images are viewed like a
private journal made public and it works out to be a little
too much to handle for a lot of spectators. For example I
got fired as a teacher because they thought my work to be
too dangerous for the children and their parents. I don’t
quite get it, but let me tell you that I’m too passionate
and too engaged to just give up. I invariably believe that
somewhere, sometime my work will be acknowledged so
I keep on going”.
www.experiencedbypaul.com
054 ET ALORS?

COLUMN
NIKKI
HEARTACHE
Nikki Heartache (aka Cornelia van Lierop, Jade 4u, Darling Nikkie) has
toured the globe with bands such as Lords Of Acid and Praga Khan.
Leaving the dance scene behind as a thing of the past, this singer/
producer is back in the studio working on new material. A few years
ago she decided to collect and share her memoirs with the world.
Draped over a chaise longue she dictates her wild adventures to her
blushing secretary whilst nipping on a trendy cocktail. This is one of
her stories.
‘THE devil’s child’
When I was eleven years young I spent my weekdays in a
boarding school that was run by nuns. The building was
a convent and could be quite daunting at times. It was a
dark place and the nuns had loose hands, to say the least.
I can’t even count the number of times I got smacked for
no apparent reason at all. They probably believed I was the
devil’s child born from a whore’s womb, not in the least
because of my being left handed (which was a sure sign
of said devil!). Nothing I did helped to change their views
and every time my mother brought me there I could see
the disdain they were trying to hide. True, my mom didn’t
really do anything to make them feel better as she was
usually made up and dressed to kill. I think they actually
feared her and were always happy to see her walk out the
gate and hear the clicking of her stiletto heels disappear
from the curb. Needless to say that the first day of my
week was also my worst… .
It’s probably a good thing they never met my aunt Sylvie.
She was a transvestite and didn’t have what one might call
a conventional job. She, her sister and my mom worked
at cabarets, you see. I once saw them in action and it left
me star struck. Not only were they the most glamorous
women ever, but the things they could do with their body
parts amazed me! The three of them never went anywhere
unnoticed as you can imagine. They were loud, as were
their clothes and every man in the street would look at
them with lust in his eyes. Several times I saw jealous wives
swing their purses at their lusty, untrustworthy husbands.
Aunt Sylvie was a true sex bomb! They never knew she was
actually uncle Jerry, that’s how good she was at being a
woman. She was - dare I say it – wittier than Mae West and
could easily wrap any guy around her little finger.
She often told me not to let the nuns get to me, so I tried
to keep myself to myself but they sadistically sought me
out time after time. That is, until the day the sexton started
coming around every week on Tuesday evenings. The nuns
would get all flustered on those days. Hot cocoa would be
prepared and the smell of pancakes baking would fill the
halls and rooms in the entire convent, making our mouths
water. Of course us girls didn’t get any of that. The man
played the church organ and decided the school needed
a choir in the hopes of more people coming to mass. The
nuns were thrilled at the idea. In fact, they were thrilled at
anything the man said. I’m pretty sure some of the sisters
had a crush on him and some possibly had wet dreams
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about him when they were alone in their beds. After all,
deep down inside, they were human. I think.
Anyway, one day we were all summoned to sing for him
so he could put his choir together. When my turn was over
he told the nuns I should do the solos. Boy, was I a happy
puppy but my joy didn’t last very long because the nuns
didn’t want me in the choir and told him I was too young.
Lucky for me the sexton seemed to be the boss and from
that day on my life became somewhat easier. I got to stay
up longer than the other girls on Tuesdays so he and I could
practise. Believe me when I say I did the best I could. The
hymns were boring as hell but I couldn’t care less. Singing
always set me free, even if for a short while.
When the day finally came that I got to sing in church the
weirdest thing happened. There I stood, high above the
crowd - well, ten nuns and a few old people make a crowd,
don’t they? - right next to the sexton who was hammering
his organ. The choir started to sing and I was so nervous I
wanted to scream. But then a ray of sunlight shone through
the colourful windows. It was as if someone had put a huge
spot light on me! The moment that light touched my face
I became a star! For a short while I was Shirley Bassey, no,
I was aunt Sylvie in a glittery dress, ready to perform and I
knew right then that I would never ever become a sales girl,
a secretary or a bank clerk. No, I would become something
way more glamorous than that! I sang my heart out on that
stupid hymn, I sang as though there were thousands of
people there just to listen to me! Yes, me, the devil’s child,
born from a whore’s womb!
When I was done there was no ecstatic applause. No flowers
were thrown onto my stage. Gone was my glitzy dress. The
light that shone so bright before had disappeared behind
the clouds. Instead there was an eerie silence. One could
have dropped a needle and it would’ve made everyone
jump up from their slumber. Someone coughed. My heart
beat so loud I thought everyone could hear it. The priest
continued his long, seemingly endless sermon about hell
and damnation.
That weekend my aunt Sylvie showed me how to put on
make up and how to walk in high heels. “If you’re going to
be a star”, she said, “you’ll have to start looking like one”.
Education comes in many forms.
ET ALORS? 057

ANGEL
BUCK
INTERVIEW FLEUR PIERETS

Buck Angel is a female-to-male transsexual and founder of Buck
Angel Entertainment. As an adult actor, he was able to create a
unique niche, calling himself “The Man With a Pussy”, as he had
not had any genital surgery and still possessed a vulva. In 2007
he received the AVN Award as Transsexual Performer of the Year
and in April 2008 he was presented with a “Feminist Porn Award”
for “Boundary Breaker of the Year”. Today, he travels the world
as an inspiring advocate, educator, lecturer and writer.
A tête a tête with an inspiring personality.
In an interview I read that you always wanted to be a
man. Nowadays, your individual self is your brand. How
does it feel to be looked at as something special when
for you it was inevitable?
I always felt like a man, so of course I wanted to be looked
at as a man. I felt this way my whole life, but so many
people did not see me that way when I was younger. As
I got older it made me feel horrible about myself. When I
was able to change my physical appearance to match how
I felt on the inside, it made me the happiest person in the
world!
I am so happy that now people see me for the man I am
and it makes people realize that you can become whoever
you want to be. Society should not put limitations on you
just because they do not understand. So I like that the
world views me as something special; I think this is a good
thing.
Transwomen are more visible than transmen. Why do
you think that is?
Well I cannot speak for transwomen or transmen, really.
I think we are all different in how we want to be visible in
the world. Though I do think the visibility of transwomen
has been more widespread because they have been
around longer as a community. Transmen have just
started to become more visible because the community is
now becoming larger and more active.
You are - amongst many other things - a pornstar, an
educator and a writer. Yet, there’s a very fragile glance
in your eyes.
I am indeed all the above, though I’d like to think of myself
more as someone who motivates people to think outside
the box and to become themselves, like I have.
My eyes…well I have lived through some rough times
060 ET ALORS?

efore my change. I was homeless and suicidal, and I was
a drug addict. My past was sad in many ways, but I like to
think that I have overcome it. Maybe my eyes still show
the hurt that was in my soul for so many years? I know that
this pain has helped me to have compassion for others.
I feel very blessed and grateful for the happy life I have
now, and I hope that I have the ability to inspire others to
overcome the pain.
You just started a dating site for transmen. “Buck
Angel Dating. A safe environment for those seeking out
relationships or just fun with transmen and the people
who love them”. What if it turns out to be a site for
fetishists? Would that bother you?
Interesting question. Why do people think that fetishizing
something is bad? I am not saying that this site was
intended to do that—I just opened the site for people to
have a place to meet because there was clearly a lot of
demand. It isn’t just for people looking to have a partner
but to also for those who want to meet to have sex without
having to explain their transgender status. On my dating
site that is not an issue, so you can just get on with having
a good time. Some people enjoy being fetishized; I do. So
maybe some people will go there with that intention?
You know there are some in the trans community who
call themselves “activist” and they hate that I am a
pornographer. They think it hurts the trans community.
I think that is so sad, because my whole life changed for
the better when I finally learned to love my body and
have sex without feeling guilty. Many trans people feel
that someone will never want have sex with them or they
don’t feel sexy because their bodies are different than
what society tells us is sexy and normal. My work helps to
change that and show that if you love yourself (and yes,
that includes sex) then others will too!
ET ALORS? 061

“I hope that I have
the ability to inspire
others to overcome their
pain.”
I think you are right about that. Maybe I should rephrase
it for the mainstream and say something more like,
“Showing you that becoming yourself and loving yourself
can make you happier.” This is really the message I want
to project. Since I have learned to love myself and create
the body that I always wanted to have, I am so happy
and comfortable with myself. It can be quite tiresome to
always worry what people think of you and it can make life
miserable—not just for trans people but anyone.
I have all kinds of friends and fans who ask me all the time,
“How can I live life like you do, without a care of what
other people think?” I would always say that “Just learn to
love yourself and become yourself.”
You are a pioneer and an educator. I think that comes
with large responsibilities? When did you decide to talk
to people about your experiences?
You are right—it came with a bigger responsibility than
I thought. I have learned so much by putting myself out
there. I have had some in the trans community tell me
that I am a bad person for saying things that I felt were
important. But you know I think that by talking about my
experiences some people (or maybe many people) can
relate to me and feel less alone. I had a tough time in the
beginning of my change as I had no community and no
one to talk to or identify with. I think by me talking about
this I can show how far I have come just because I had
determination to be myself.
The other reason I feel passionate to talk and educate is
because some people in the trans community say there is
only one specific way to be a trans person. This makes me
even more passionate and I want to help the people who
are individuals and who want become their true selves,
and not have to fit how the community wants them to be.
Your website reads that you are “re- defining gender
and educating an entire generation on the fluidity of
sexuality and identity politics.” I guess that sounds very
complicated to someone who’s not into the subject
matter. How would you rephrase your message to the
mainstream public?
The overriding theme of your work is about self-love
and acceptance. Are you a positive & optimistic person?
For sure I am! This is truly one of the keys to being happy.
It took me many years to learn this but with determination
and the desire not to have hate in my life, I have done it.
The odd thing is that I notice the more “popular” I become,
the more of a target of hate and envy I become for some
in the trans community. Their hateful words kind of shock
me sometimes, but I learned to not take these comments
personally. I know that these people have not learned
to love themselves like I have. They experience these
reactions towards a person like myself who is free of that.
“A day in the life of Buck Angel”. What to expect?
Ok, you will be shocked! I think people think I have some
crazy lifestyle but really I am pretty mellow. My days are
spent at my awesome home in Mexico (if I am not on the
road working). I am married and have 7 rescue dogs and
spend my time with them. I love to read and also workout
everyday. I am also very much into health and fitness.
I think this is a very important part of loving yourself.
It was great talking to you. Thank you very much and I
wish you lots and lots of success.
Thank you so much for the interview and I hope that my
work can help to inspire some of your readers.
www.buckangel.com
062 ET ALORS?

IN 20 QUESTIONS
PIERRE
GARROUDI
QUESTIONS FLEUR PIERETS PHOTOS DARREN BRADE
His intricate designs merge the lines between art & fashion
and have been worn by some of the world’s biggest
style icons from Naomi Campbell to Kate Moss, Scarlet
Johansson and Sarah Jessica Parker. He walks the streets
of London with his flashmobs and has the tendency to
approach his fabrics with the eye of a scientist.
Your résumé reads like a travel trip.
I was born in Iran, lived in Paris for 5 years, 2 years in Lyon,
then Shanghai. In Manhattan I ran a Garroudi shop/gallery
and stayed there for 14 years. After inhabiting Boca Raton for
another year I made my way to London.
How does such a journey influence a person?
I’m a sponge. I try to absorb everything. Having a multicultural
background gives me wisdom and inspiration. Knowledge is
like light, it opens your eyes to the world.
Why did you end up in London?
London is magical. You should see how the people dress up
when they go out. It’s a vessel of inspiration.
When did your carreer start?
I studied in Paris, while working as a hairdresser in my spare
time. I moved to New York in 1986. There I joined the Fashion
Institute of Technology after working at various retail and
design houses. I started my own label in 1993.
Why fashion?
I think fashion is a way of expressing yourself and showing
your beliefs and identity because clothes can tell you a lot
about a person.
What’s your message?
It’s about being passionate, I believe whatever you put out
you get back. My collections are expressions of my own
experiences. It’s like looking into a mirror.
Let’s talk technical; you manipulate all your fabric?
Yes. You can’t buy any of my fabric because it doesn’t exist.
I love to look at it with the eye of a scientist. The multi-layered
matte and sheen silks become second skin to the wearer.
Some call it pioneering fabric-folding work.
It’s all done by hand, which creates an origami effect. I guess
it’s quite unique, yes. I believe fabric manipulation it the next
evolution in fashion.
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And very time consuming.
It is. And you have to be extremely patient to do so. Sometimes
it takes me a month to make one dress, but then you create an
entirely piece unique. They are one of a kind.
You are known for using interesting and diverse models,
which is a breath of fresh air in the fashion industry.
I think it’s generally better to have a diverse selection of
models. We live in a world that’s mixed, I mean half of the
world is Asian, and only, maybe twenty percent of the world
is white.
Where do you get your inspiration?
I’m inspired by talented and creative people and by the sheer
beauty of humanity. I try to learn from every person I meet.
For example, my life won’t be the same after I talked to you
and vise versa.
What kind of women wears your designs?
Naturally the types of women who wear these types of clothes
have to be self-secure and strong, have confidence.
Why?
Because you can’t go out there and wear something creative
and be shy at the same time. The women who like my clothes
use them as a tool to express themselves.
Can I call it wearable art?
I leave it up to you how to call it. I try to make things that are
wearable. Expensive, but wearable.
Everybody is talking about the bad economy. Does it
influence you?
It does, yes, but I think that everything happens for a reason.
Anything good or bad, it teaches you a lesson. Once you
learned the lesson you can move forward.
How?
I’m doing a lot of research. Reading up about the business and
the marketing side of fashion. These days you need to be on
all of the social networks, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In. I’m
looking for different ways to present my designs.
The fashion industry is changing nowadays.
The new generation want things much faster, right away,
they don’t want to wait, they’re just looking for something
they want, they get it, they move on. We don’t have time. Do
you have time to read all the blogs, do you have time to read
all the fashion magazines? This is going to reflect on fashion
shows, on the fashion industry.
You already took your clothes from the runway into the
streets?
And called it flash-mobs. With my cast of models and dancers,
I took my collection ‘Red-Stopping’ to some of London’s most
distinguished avenues and tubes.
And it became a big success.
I loved it so much I did it again with the ‘Turquoise Collection’/
Beauty of the Sea’ conveying an aesthetically pleasing
experience of creatures born of a mystical island, lost at sea. It
was raining that day. That was nice.
The future looks bright?
I’m sure it does. The more creative the better so feel free to
write that I’m interested in any kind of collaboration. I try to
learn from everybody!
www.pierregarroudi.com
ET ALORS? 065

BEAUTY
FLASHMOB
OF THE SEA

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FLASHMOB
RED-STOPPING

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FASHION SHOW
PURPLE

stephane
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
roy
www.stephaneroyphotographie.unblog.fR

the
don
juan
paradox
This image represents my beginning in photography, with my first
series consisting only of portraits (each with different ideas, themes
and issues).
In the end all my work was like a study of the human species, of
its construction and destruction of identity and behaviour, of its
madness and decadence, but also of all its strength, beauty and
power. This study continues with its relation to others and the
world.
The mask is recurrent in my work, especially in terms of male
identity.
I like that this kind of symbolism provokes fascination; there is so
much to say on this subject.
Whenever possible, my goal is to establish a correspondence
between the choice of the model and the character he or she plays
(by my personal view of course). Here, he’s a person who became a
close friend, we met at various fetish events. Always dressed in a
black suit and white tie, his personal story touched me, as is often
the case with most of my models.
The will of this project of course, by the choice of title, was to lead
the eye to reach a reflection on how we understand the games of
love and seduction.
Beyond a metaphorical figure I’d rather turn my eyes to the
complexity of the human heart, the way it works, sometimes
without a logical reason that leads us to our own destruction.
I see so many people burning for a real love, for the fairer sex, but
still dissolve in their own hatred and disgust for themselves. This
imbalance, caused by this duality of opposite masks, often leads us
to our own destruction.
The reason escapes and a black madness takes place, making us
lose our vision.
Finally, there is the paradox of this kind of Don Juan: a big child,
whose overpoweringly strong love for women often brings him a
significant amount of problems, a general hatred, as a reflection in
his own mirror… .
A child alone and lost, seeking refuge in the warm heart of a
woman, not realizing that his real quest is first of all to find himself.
It’s when we are finding our own balance and unity that we can
appreciate the benefits that life has to offer.
MODEL RAFIK - PARIS 2010
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playground love
This photo is part of the “Schizophrenic Dreams” series. Each
project in this series depicts a universe almost cinematographic,
ranging from dreams, phantasms, strangeness and madness.
For each of the photographs I try to build a narrative, while keeping
it as open as possible so viewers can build their own version, to
appropriate them, to define their ideas, reflections, et cetera.
Here, the initial idea was born with the intention to mix the
childhood and adult worlds. Sometimes it’s difficult to see where
the boundary between these two worlds lies. Each contains a large
instinctual activity that can sometimes turn violent. The risk of the
game is when the overflowing passion becomes uncontrollable…
Each photograph is carefully considered, generally requiring a
staged work (I make most of my sets).
Everything is real. At a time when we have all these tools like Photoshop,
it seems important to me to keep things real. And mostly,
it’s easier for the model to embody a character when she evolves in
a setting that is consistent with the project.
Every detail is calculated, but sometimes fate takes its course and
brings more to the picture. Here, as in each session, my cat prowled
around, very curious about what’s going on. And there he was,
slightly raising himself to get a better view. A little story that brings
more to the final result.
MODEL CHLOE DISARTICULATED DOLL - PARIS 2010
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ikb dress
This photograph is part of a more focussed approach to a fashion
style, while trying to keep the desire to create a special world,
adding my personal touch.
Since over two hundred balloons were inflated and assembled in
order to create a structure, this shoot was certainly one of the
most chaotic ones I did. Not to mention the numerous logistic
problems that came with it. I’m lucky to have a team always ready
to follow me in my madness!
The title refers to Yves Klein, an artist who worked on infinite
and transcendental beauty. This project was built as a tribute to
the beauty of women, and the sublimation process she uses to
transcend this beauty.
Slaying crowds with a simple blink of an eye they are mysteries,
untouchable and unreachable. By a mere glance they can generate
the emergence of a perfect storm in the strongest heart of man.
Being the origin of the world she conceals in her the secrets of
desire and surpasses the standards, causing dreams, creations and
misfortunes.
Protecting that special aura, strong in her excess of passion and
heightened sensitivity, her curves are like a musical score from
which a universal melody of beauty emerges when they are
caressed, yet will forever remain incomprehensible. She is also a
fragile beauty, made with scars and compromises. The way she
looks at herself is always very different from how others perceive
her.
This project also gave me the opportunity to approach the fetish
theme in my work. It’s about the manifestation of a hypersensitivity
by sublimation of the female body and the exacerbation of her
seductive power.
The constitution of the human is a real adventure. We have to find
this balance, the unity between desires, phantasms, impulses,
dreams, nightmares and trauma. The list is long and the universe of
fetish & BDSM continues to be a great inspiration in my work.
As a lover of women, my words can never match the esteem and
admiration I feel for them. That’s why I give my trust to those who
inspire me so much and help me transcribe the words and ideas
that are formed inside my mind until they turn into actual images.
Kay Morgan, the model of this project, is a perfect example.
MODEL KAY MORGAN STYLIST MADEMOISELLE ILO HAIR BÉRÉNICE V ASSISTANT CHLOE - PARIS 2010
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lady yaya
One day the manager of a cultural area in Paris contacted me to be
part of a group show, for the tenth anniversary of the place.
The problem was the need to resume the effigy of the place (a kind
of pin-up) and it pissed me off. After a friend of mine repeatedly
insisted that I should do it I finally caved in, but not before I got his
promise that he’d be my model. That’s how the project materialized.
Twenty photographers brought their pretty pin-up pictures,
and I came up with this.
Many codes are hidden in this picture and everyone can develop
their own thoughts about it, as in each of my photos. The basis
of this work and how I was led to do it, however, was a certain
curiosity of mine about gay culture but also - and mainly - for crossdressing
and fetishism. My priority was to go beyond the traditional
imagery that we know: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Buffalo Bill,
Silence of the Lambs, et cetera.
I also started looking more and more into the impulse activity and
phantasm of the human being, like the games that were played by
Eros & Thanatos... . Big topics that I will continue to explore later!
Yannick, the model, moved me during this shoot: I think it was his
discretion combined with his complexes (which we all have) that
did it for me.
It’s never easy to get someone to trust you enough for him to unveil
himself and undress in front of the camera, forgetting any notion
of judgments others may have against him. Yannick is very discreet
and shy, but once he found himself in the midst of girls helping him
dress, he was like a child with stars in his eyes. Somehow his selfesteem
was lifted during the change of scene or clothes.
It’s something I found in the final result. I find him graceful in this
picture, releasing something strong. In the end, whatever happens,
it’s often a great adventure.
MODEL YANNICK CHAUVEAU CO MODELS IZZA / THALY / LÉO / SAPHO - PARIS 2011
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us
The personal story of Rick Genest touched me, and triggered the
desire to work with him.
When I collaborate with someone I don’t care whether this person
is famous or not. If he’s the muse of a great brand, or has been
featured in the clip of a world-renowned artist... I don’t care, I only
care about the human encounter, the person behind the mask. Rick
took the exact measure of his personal experience by going beyond
the limit of his thinking and his being. He accepted his scars and
went beyond, building a personal thought for all.
I had many projects in mind, and I had to get away from what
had been done before. I wanted to move beyond the traditional
image of Zombie Boy, or the death messenger so often seen and
reviewed. And there was this picture that turned in my head, him
with a baby in his arms ...
I didn’t want the classical picture of the Grim Reaper holding a
baby in his arms, I wanted to go beyond that and see this human
exchange, a simple touch of love without excess. Something
ephemeral, fragile, leaking naturally when you look at a child. This
is what happened.
In this photo, Rico doesn’t play the model, he stays himself. I
simply asked him to pose his arms while I was doing my tests...
A true sincerity and authenticity ultimately emerges, a warmth
between what appears to be two completely opposite extremes,
but that returns us to our own judgments about ourselves, what we
have been, and what we have become.
This is something I studied and observed the last few years
concerning the structure and behaviour of the human identity: the
difference between the world of the child and the adult. Things
which takes them apart, but what unites them too.
If the tattoo culture is becoming more and more a fad, it still
remains a culture of extreme for some media and much of public
opinion. The judgments that these kind of people undergo are
interesting and show many borders of the human and social relations,
even if they change over time. The tattoo and body modification
are part of the many themes that inspire me in image, as well
as in thoughts.
The road is still long, and I still have many things to express ...
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My Hand,
The Body Grenade
Surrendering.
Epiphany of the body.
It is a story of body, drugs, love.
It is a coming-of-age novel. It is a picaresque tale.
It might also be a story that will bore you – but you are
not obliged to listen.
I always knew it would be like this.

MONDAY
Body as master The beginning of the week (or possibly
end of a hectic week) has in no way undermined the erotic
nonchalance of our protagonist. Serene with regard
to the days to come, she contains her internal turmoil.
There will be more.
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TUESDAY
Body at stake A moment to oneself. The abovementioned
inner turmoil is transmuted into a redeeming sexual
energy. Making any circumvolution unnecessary, the
snapshot focuses on the erotic climax at work here. A
body at stake which reveals itself in the most beautiful
expression of its fierce sexual independence.
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WEDNESDAY
Body as meeting The sexual ballad begun the day
before takes on a new dimension. Rich in what she knows
about herself, animated by a loving, solar passion, our
protagonist opens up, affirms herself and invites us to
follow.
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THURSDAY
Body as intimacy Exquisitely painted lips, the rest is
bared. Difficult awakening, rare sleep. Body overworked,
ready to implode, the painful conversation of the previous
night its trigger.
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FRIDAY
Body as adornment For whom does the bell toll? Friday,
already. It is time to get ready. Body. Makeup. Clothing.
The outer envelope reproduces in its own way the inner
determination. The merger (of soul and body, interior
and exterior) will be danced, sweaty, erectile.
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SATURDAY
Body as eruption Exhausting week. Sisters, saints and
sibyls under a light grey sky on the streets of neukölln.
Surrender to the storgaard lens. Fragile beauty in shifting
territories.
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SUNDAY BODY AS...?
Off screen.
The paradox of the storgaard temporality: its objective
freezes for a moment these bodies at work, in becoming,
in transformation.
The immortalization of their true nature requires this
subterfuge.
These bodies are always subject to change: this is their
basic nature, their purpose. Constituted as works in
progress – due to constitutive (r)evolutions – they flee
boredom (the only enemy), and the normality which it
presupposes, in an ongoing movement of adjustments,
affirmations, appropriations.
Being oneself is a delicate battle, but to not engage in
it would mean to constantly stumble on the same fault
lines. The polymorphic ballad of camilla storgaard –
photographic orlando, middlesex of berlin: beyond faces
and genders, the series of portraits she has created
outline her own above all.
Free bodies sublimated by an accomplice, loving lens.
Without a doubt, the photographer would adopt as her
own –
Without necessarily giving it the exact same meaning –
the beautiful expression of hole (the title of one of their
albums):
My body, the hand grenade.
Our bodies, once they are accepted, espoused,
celebrated, are grenades. Peaceful weapons which
transcribe physically what is going on inside.
Body as outline (attempts).
Body as work (transformations).
Body as marvel (identities).
Our bodies, the hand grenades.
An informal and exciting celebration of our most beautiful
years: the storgaard lens.
TEXT YOANN QU E VEN-LAMAND E
PHOTOS CAMILLA STORGAARD
104 ET ALORS?

DR.A.G.
Drag has become a diverse form of
expression that challenges, entertains, and
educates by pushing boundaries, while
embracing beauty, comedy and glamour.
The hair. The fashion. The makeup.
Christopher Logan recently produced a
coffee table book of top drag performers
from around the world. The performers in
this book are evidence of that diversity,
captured by some of the top photographers
working in today’s world. In Logan’s own
words: “Dealing with a subject like drag and
just presenting it to the audience, without
explanation or instruction, lets people
make up their own mind and have their own
discussions. The reactions have reflected
that this is a book embraced by a mainstream
audience.”
Shot by highly creative fashion and celebrity
photographers, “dr.a.g.” was released to raise
funding for an independent film production
and offers a picturesque look into the artistic
world that is the drag performance.
www.bookthefilm.com
www.tectum.be

WE LOVE
LE CABINET DES CURIEUX
WHY
Whilst in Paris, we instantly fell in love with
this intriguing and simply beautiful little gallery
that contains lots of greatness.
PHILOSOPHY
Thierry Ruby presents his vision of Beauty and
Strangeness through a selection of artworks
belonging to alternative art movements.
He promotes these dreamlike universes in
which the arts interpenetrate: photography,
sculpture, fashion, digital art and so on.
The magic words are: Beauty and the Strangeness.
Artists from all over the globe approach very
powerful themes such as passion and death,
the psyche, the fantasy et cetera.
With the glance of a generation trained by
internet, these artists aim towards a quest of
aestheticism, thwarting the drift of contemporary
standardization.

The presentation in the environment of rarities
intensifies the pleasure of the discovery.
The “Cabinet des Curieux” is located at Passage
Verdeau, in a quarter that was named
“the New Athens” during the XIXth century,
while it was frequented by artists.
Back in those days Montmartre, Montparnasse,
St Germain des Prés had their avantgarde,
and now the Cabinet des Curieux reveals
this new artistic alternative.
WHERE
Thierry Ruby / Cabinet des Curieux
Diplômé de l’Ecole du Louvre
12 Passage Verdeau 75009 Paris
www.cabinetcurieux.com

KOBI LEVI
When did you know you were going to be a
designer?
It has been my passion since childhood. I
started to create shoe designs when I was in
high school. Back then they were made of
cardboard.
What’s your philosophy on shoes?
I treat shoes as though they’re sculptures to
wear. Shoes change the body’s silhouette,
posture and movement and they affect the
sensibility of the way the wearer carries herself.
A shoe should also seem “alive” and look
great when it’s not on the feet.
What do you think about when you create?
When I start a design I think about the new
shoe at hand. I ask myself: “Who is this new
creature, what is the feeling I want to experience
when looking at it?” I focus on that when
developing the new piece, making sure each
choice of lines, shapes, colors, and materials
will be accurate and appropriate for it. When
it is complete I check if the result corresponds
with the initial intention. If it does it’s ready to
be shared with others.
You have to make a shoe for Cinderella. How
does it look?
My starting point would be: this is the shoe
that will change her life! So I’d design it to fit
the character she’d long to be, her dreamcome-true.
I’d design a glamorous princess
shoe, using elements from her ordinary life
shown in a new light. She’d be the same girl
from a different point of view.
Favorite celebrity (dead or alive) you would
love to see wearing your work.
I would have to say Madonna.
WWW.KOBILEVIDESIGN.COM

short story
AS
passionate
AS
‘eventually’
WRITTEN BY LEONOOR ZWARTEVOOGHEL
He’s sitting in front of me in a bistro garden in Brussels, a hot cove
surrounded by giant, stone walls, a hidden paradise, smoothed
by the contrast of the insolence surrounding it. I know what
it must feel like to be a small garden, tiredly observing what I
have become at last after years of impatience: a deeply rooted,
wayward color palette which no longer shies away from the
world outside. I’m unable to understand the French allusions
around us. Aside from the language barrier, I find people just
as incomprehensible as always. They are just as unattainable
as the earth’s core around which we can only circle like a cat
around a hamster cage.
He makes me shy, as his eyes are constantly gazing at me,

short story
his saccades from left to right and from head to toe mentally
ripping off my clothes his desire’s stumbling upon. This man is
amused by the husk that protects my fragile self. I can follow his
glance, as long as I focus my attention solely on him, trusting
the fact that the rest of the environment will yield to me. In his
game I am a frantic deer, ferociously trotting in one direction.
I’m centering the hunter on my retina, fearing the nanosecond
when he will dissolve in my blind angle and I will meet his
deadline. Suddenly he wakes me up, tells me that his plate’s
missing a fork... Obstinately I do not move until he realizes I’m
not as servile as he wishes me to be. Clearly disappointed, he
goes to search for a waiter himself. The child in me hopscotches
from one tile to the other, then suddenly makes place for
audacity crawling up my brittle bones, triumphing in the tips of
my fingers.
Minutes later the tension is almost suffocating me. I can see
us in the glass partition behind him. We exist in a reflected
world as well, but it is only a vague dream in which meaning
fades away and in which we are no longer twenty years apart
in age. I ask what he’s thinking about. He avoids the question
while carefully stroking his fingers through my hair, like tree
branches combing moonlight, but I know that everything is
defined by its opposite. A caressing hand is what it is nót; a
stranglehold or a stigma. Calm comes before the storm and the
tide will continue to turn until lovers too become what they are
not; heart broken. I try to hide the question marks in my eyes
with my eye lids, painted green like the scene around us, but
my uncertainty stimulates him, reminds him of his nature. He
wants to start backing the foal before it is able to carry its rider.
Secretly I screen all exits, hoping to carry this insight with me as
a hidden weapon, but halfway the escape I would miscalculate
my moves anyway. I’d stumble or unexpectedly encounter a
river I did not know it was there. I would choose to be caught,
nevertheless continuing to fight until my tearing joints would
turn against me, pushing away the border between fighting and
surrendering. My strength would slowly ebb away and I would
decide to give him the largest sacrifice possible; nothing more
than a bundle of fears and grieves to ruin, waiting like a row of
110 ET ALORS?

short story
boring, silly pawns. I move myself toward him in this game of
chess called life, move further away from my together-self, and
way too early I picture how his lips softly embrace the word:
‘checkmate’. The loser goes home with… him.
Have you ever seen the light play of late summer clouds?
You know, when the sky is grey and gloomy and the sunlight
suddenly pours over the darkness like a pot of gold falling off
the table. The coins then soon stop clattering and the world is
poor, dim and modest again. This crimson red, precious light on
the terrace behind his house draws lines of shade on our faces,
emphasizing the three-dimensionality of our heads and bodies.
It breaks through the shape of our noses, and makes us feel like
a white screen on which time is refining our faces, after nature
has finished its sketch of us. I can tell that he wants to stop
thinking and talking, that he wants to leave the talking to our
sweaty skins, sighing as they rub against each other. It sounds
like muffled whispering. Children do it in class and get punished
for it. Thinking about life has tired me, therefore body language
could make a fine intermediate stop, because that is the only
way of communicating I’m able to improvise. Conversations
on the other hand, I must consider and weigh up, delete or
embellish. Let alone how exhausting it is to verbally describe
and write about feelings.
I’m observing him as he is sitting on his garden chair, totally
relaxed, staring at the grass. However, I don’t think he is really
looking at it. His legs are crossed. I wonder how such an attitude
could seem careless in its entirety, when one leg is submissively
offering support while the other is profiting from it. Calculation
never equals carelessness. Right now he is calculating how
much time there is left before he will take the initiative and tread
upon God’s sketch of me with all his senses, with an addictive
cadence, a drumming and droning one man orchestra. He is
planning a standing ovation two or three hours later, because
he loves to play long and extensively. He does not need more
than regulation of speed. I will close my eyes as it happens, and
imagine that my tears caused by his painful jolting inside of
me are the signs of brave resistance against giving in. This high
flowing blood pressure would be called mortality’s triumph.
ET ALORS? 111

short story
The trail of my saliva when he will draw himself from between
my jaws would be a sample of mixed madness. His seeds that
cannot nestle in my abdomen; a beautiful present I would
nevertheless refuse. I do not want everything from him. I am
fine the way I am.
Every time, I am unaware of the moment when simply being
with each other changes into being on top of each other. For
some reason I always end up the first one undressed. I probably
kissed him when he looked me in the eye and detoured me with
his inner peace, moving me further away from chastity. My
clearest memories of this evening will above all concern tactile
experiences; how a button of his undershirt tickles my nipple,
and how his strangled penis tries to escape from his heavily
pregnant briefs when his hips are pushing against me. We are
exactly like summer and winter, I naked and golden like a sh(r)
ine, and he in his dark clothes, storming. His cheek resembles a
winter’s stove, his tongue in my mouth a roll of fleece.
“You look like you are made of porcelain,” he says, carrying me
upstairs to the bedroom.
Gloria, gloria, gloria in excelsis... The beating of my heart
resembles the high notes that echo when the most charming
ladies in the world all laugh together, like pearls bouncing off a
marble staircase. Every possible classic masterpiece resounds
in my head, and all this because of one drummer mercilessly
banging against the vanilla colored skin of his instrument; me.
I haven’t got time to think in full sentences as he uses his hands
and nails so unpredictably. He is as passionate as the word
‘eventually’; he might, or he might not. My mind is reasoning
as if it were sending telegrams: careful – you – that’s so – pain
– don’t – please don’t. He asks if it would be alright that he take
off his clothes, as if being polite now and then justifies his overall
behavior. I tell him that he plays as slopingly as Pergolesi, that
those baroque pieces sound just as questioning, and that in fact
I am not supposed to give answers nor to ask questions. He
simply needs to play my piece until all of the strings snap and
I shiver to the bone like a roadkill Siamese. I don’t even realize
how long it takes for him to undress. I merely notice the cold
rushing over me, teasing the stiff little hairs of my skin, when
112 ET ALORS?

short story
his body is no longer lying on top of me. Yet again I am acting
like foolish Bambi, freezing at the sight of danger even though
it is still possible to escape. I have become a three-course meal
for this older man, whose naked, heavy loins then press my
outlines into the mattress, as if he were drawing a chalk lined
proof that somebody once had lied there and had never stood
up.
He orders me to crouch against the foot of the bed. He ties up
my wrists behind my back with frayed swing rope. It does not
take long before it makes my skin itchy and reddish. Somehow I
missed the moment I got from the bed to the floor. I do remark,
however, the heated combat between his throbbing penis and
my tensed mouth, a hoolahoop dancing around his youngster,
and the contrast with the icy balusters of the bed my back is
being roasted against. Around my almonds sticks a mixture
of his pre-ejaculate, my saliva and digestive juices which rose
up from my stomach when he showed me how much is too
much. I will still remember this taste for years to come. Blurry
flashbacks will make me as sick as then and as lustful an animal
begging for gratification. It is becoming dark outside and the
artificial lighting of his bedroom is casting a shadow over his
genitals like clattering coins, a crimson bridge to summery,
pale passion. Once more I want his cock in my narrow throat to
subsequently want him to pull away again and let me breathe.
This way I can continue to get what I want, again this addictive
cadence of predictability and routine.
He says that I have blown him enough. Rebellious as I am, I blurt
out that it was about time, upon which he slaps me in the face
three times, rock-hard. In a blunt manner he informs me that he
now wants to intrude this corpus of mine, because we have been
postponing it for long enough now. On the way downstairs, I
will especially remember his Kandinsky on the wall along the
spiral staircase. I will reminisce fondly of the tender way he
conducts me to the living room and bends me over a footstool.
I protest, but he firmly pushes me down again. The velvet fabric
caresses my belly and chin so soothingly; it’s such a mockery,
a denial of what comes next. Once again, velvet is what it is
absolutely not… He penetrates me from the back, although it
ET ALORS? 113

short story
feels more like twisting a screw, practically and intuitively like
when you assemble an IKEA-drawer, pretentiously ignoring the
instructions. I whisper that he must be careful. As if the more
quietly I speak to him, the less distressed I will be afterwards,
if it should turn out that he was not listening or allegedly did
not hear me. My words go through him like a train through a
landscape. He registers them but he only wants to arrive at his
destination. His thrusting becomes more driven, more oneway
traffic without interaction, no returning anymore to the
previous step, but we must go ahead, faster and firmer. What
gets in the way and does not fit must recede, or even tear apart.
No more leisure detours, but straight home leaving savage
tracks behind. The telegrams clam up and nothing but alarming,
rhythmic wheezing is being chased out of my throat. I didn’t
know that bodies could imitate the hollow sound of a rumbling
train, but it is possible. The more I hear the sound of carcasses
singing their elegy, the more I yearn for us to crash frontally;
two ghost drivers in a solitary and abandoned country, deeply
‘trained’ into each other, destroyed and resigned.
“Am I hurting you?” he softly asks, unable to sound natural:
above the lips that asked me this question, two eyes filled with
hope are looking at me.
“Not nearly enough,” I whisper, my eyes closed. For the
first time I am frightened by the way he looks at me, of the
precarious growl escaping from the corner of his mouth when
he pounds his flesh against my cervix, whereas in fact it is my
own destroying self which I should dread most. His dominant
being paralyses my whole autonomy, whereby all my nerves
point in the direction of his mass, feeding only on his sensations,
screaming ‘We want more!’ like maniacal fans. Concerned
I wonder whether this is true love, because the agony he is
causing me right now is unbearable, disgusting even. A few
seconds later, I cry out and climax.
I follow him, hopping, to the bed room. It fascinates me how
neutrally and awkwardly we move from one room to another.
In front of me this ordinary man, who has an everyday haircut,
is walking over his common carpet at an average speed. We’re
creating an impasse, a ‘Cut!’ in between two special scenes. It is
114 ET ALORS?

short story
whimsically amusing, ridiculous even. It is reality we are willing
to forget, because we despise triviality. What follows means so
much more. We love dancing on the borders between ‘not done’
and ‘do more’, stretching them ahead of us as if they were elastic.
We ought to push these borders as far as they can be pushed
without bursting. In bed again, he enters me effortlessly due to
the fact that I’m still soaked, although I just came. I am branded
by the steaming hot skin of his neck and shoulders, a bonfire
not nearly extinguished by his drops of sweat. Feeling naughty,
I call him ‘Mr. Beaudry’, telling him what’s so fine about an older
man inside of me, which makes him viciously grind his teeth. I
describe to him how I will always be inferior to him in age and
thereby naturally subordinate. I am experiencing unknown
stimuli like a newborn in the world of lust; stimuli he has already
perceived many times before, stimuli he has learned to channel
and even magnify by perfect touch. I tell him that, through the
way he’s handling me, he indirectly introduces me to all his
former women, that I not only feel his desire to have sex with
a woman, but also this exclusive craving for using, inhabiting
and running down a much younger girl. I sense that he wants to
punish as well as reward me for my immoral ideas: the sign of
a mutually acknowledged power difference, a spindle around
which we circle at suffocating speed. The minute I beg him to
destroy my youthfulness, he hoarsely announces his arrival. It
makes me deaf, so deaf, to all the sounds but his. I hear only
him, groaning and humming in my ears.
Just as briskly darkness alights, silent and sleepy. The world is
poor and gloomy again. His warm sperm drips off his fingers
and in between my buttocks, forming drenched little islands in
the mattress. I can feel his nature, a salted late-summer haze,
sowing into my mouth while I am licking his hands clean. The ice
in my soul has melted. Then I curl myself up purring, no longer
knowing whether I should feel satisfied or ashamed. With two
fingers he pets the valley of my back, in this way soothing the
last vibration of my spine. He proudly puts a wet toilet glove
between my legs where it burns: the echo of his work, a satire
of a sketch that once was pure and pristine, his polluted Lolita.
I am fine the way I am.
ET ALORS? 115

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ET ALORS?
116

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