October's Party Cornucopia!

(Dr. Sketchy's Berlin / La Fête Fatale / Pinky's Peepshow /
Let's Misbehave / Salon Kokett / Bohème Sauvage)

Well, now! Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Berlin really had a fabulous time as the closing event for The Big Draw Berlin festival last night. The Grüner Salon was an elegant and very comfy venue, Marlene von Steenvag was dazzling and lovely - as a model and as a performer, the organizers and staff were friendly and enthusiastic, our DJ, Dr. Hirschfeld, was as fabulous as always, Anne Smith was, as ever, a sweet and delightful burlesque roadie/clean-up girl, and our audience was great! We went away smiling once again! =)

And now for those additional October event dates I promised. My alter egos and I are busy girls this month... ;)

Event no.1: First off, a reminder that it's La Fête Fatale time again. They already spread their mad decadence in Hamburg for the first time on the 8th, and now it's home to Berlin again on Friday the 15th - at Goya this time around!



Event no.2: Lorelei Vanora will be making another Pinky's Peepshow appearance at the Bassy Club on October 20th (a Wednesday, as always); this time around as a special guest of the Schönheitstanz studio here in Berlin. Lady Lou will be presenting another one of her Burlesque School Graduation events (Schönheitstanz Berlin Burlesque Night); with Betty Redcherry (newcomer), Lilly Tiger (performer), and Amber Vanilla (newcomer).



Here's the Pinky's Peepshow flyer itself. Unfortunately, due to a little info-sanfu, my name (LaLaVox) ended up making it onto the flyer...


...But of course it's actually my alter-ego, Lorelei Vanora who will be performing. ;)


Events no.3 + 4: Two days later, on Friday, October 22nd, you will have to choose between The Roaring Twenties and more burlesque. In the Roaring Twenties corner will be the premiere of the Let's Misbehave party (a Josephine Baker Tribute) at Asphalt. In the Burlesque corner will be another lovely Salon Kokett evening at CCCP.

My personal choice for the evening will be The Roaring Twenties, since my alter ego, Lola la Voix will be making an appearance at Let's Misbehave. The fabulous and delightful Miss Erna Aloisia Pachulke will be the conférencière for the evening, and she's invited Lola la Voix to sing a couple of numbers with her!





Event no. 5: A reminder not to forget that we'll be back at White Trash Fast Food again for a regular Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Berlin session on the afternoon of Saturday, October 23rd! Dr. Sketchy's #10 - our Halloween Special - starring Lady Lou (La Fête Fatale and Schönheitstanz) and Mitzi Metzger (La Fête Fatale)! Meet us there for lots of gruesome Halloween drawing fun!!!



When?
October 23th 2010 2:30-5:30pm (doors open 2:00pm)
Where?
At the WHITE TRASH FAST FOOD RESTAURANT Schönhauser Allee 6-7
How much?
Just measly 10 Euros! (Tickets at the door)

Event no. 6: And last but not least, Bohème Sauvage No.45, on October 30th, to finish up a fabulous month of glamorous Fall events!



We hope to see you there!

Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com
[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html

Ah Berlin!

I'd seen this wonderful video posted around several places, but I hadn't actually taken the time to watch it until yesterday. I can tell that the maker of this video loves this city as much as I do....

Little Big Berlin from pilpop on Vimeo.

'I dedicate this film to Berlin where I have been living for 19 years now. While the architecture of Berlin is stunningly beautiful, only its inhabitants make Berlin the unique city that it is. In every corner there is something new to discover. And the best thing to do is to film it.
Filmed with my beloved Sony HC9. Edited with Sony Vegas Pro 9.The miniature effect is called tilt-shift, which originates from a particular lens that was used to photograph architecture. The miniature effect is a by-product of that. It can also be achieved by digital postprocessing.
Music: “Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2” by Franz Liszt' - directed by pilpop

...Which suited my Sunday mood perfectly...

I always feel glowy and good after a session of co-moderating Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Berlin, and Saturday's No.9 madness was no exception. A rip-snorting good time was had by all. We were treated to some truly divine insanity served up for us by Mad Kate and Juanofakind in the form of "Alien Birth":

Juanofakind approached the stage as the hugely pregnant Anita Drink, and, after a bit of tea and nostalgia, went into screaming labour pains, then proceeded to give birth right before our very eyes. Mad Kate tumbled into the world clad in a birthday suit of ripped nylons and blood (curry sauce apparently), only to terrorize first Anita, and then the audience, as she climbed her way over and through them before sprinting across the DJ desk to return to the stage for more shenanigans! It was a sight to behold, I tell ya! I can't wait to see the photos!

An audience review of the afternoon (including this performance) can be found at Jen Zeller's blog by the way. :)

And it was lovely to have Eve Blood of Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Nürnberg visiting us. We're always quite enamoured of the photos we see in the Galerie at her Sketchy's site, and are looking forward to being able to visit one of her sessions one of these days. I've never been to Nürnberg before. Hmmmm....

And Bohème Sauvage No.44 in the evening was a treat as well. It was held in this beautiful space this time around, and was terribly, terribly full:



It's funny about Bohème Sauvage. It is possible to find yourself feeling a touch of ennui at one these, in spite of all the fabulous eye-candy walking around (the dress code is mandatory, so don't expect to be able to get in in jeans). So, if you go, go intending to either swing dance or gamble (everyone is provided with some Reichsmark at the door to get things going). Or take sparkling company with you, and plan to meet more sparkling company once you get there.

You will be immersed in loveliness. It's always that oddly surreal sensation of swimming in another time; a time that never existed of course - since what you'll see there is a jumble of styles from the 1890s to the 1940s - and varying modern interpretations of these. The gambling tables are always full, and there's always a little movie theater where you can curl into cushy seating and watch silent movies from the 1920s. There are performances to see, and you can dance until dawn! I recommend staying until at least the wee hour of 4, to see the stylish couple-dancing (swing, foxtrot, tango, Charleston, etc...) mutate into a mad free for all as the night progresses.

I was delighted to see the Old Fish Jazz Band performing there again. They were fabulous at Bohème Sauvage No.41 at the Wintergarten, and were no less fabulous this time around. The New Orleans Vintage Jazz feel they jiggled our bones with really made this Mississippi girl's heart go pitter pat! And watching modern flappers dancing insanely in front of them (from the corner next to that stage that I had tucked myself into) was a bit like watching a wild fever dream from behind a velvet curtain.

Why do I love Berlin? All of this and more!

Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com
[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html

Dr. Sketchy's Berlin No. 9 + Info Roundup

Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Berlin No. 9
will be featuring none other than Berlin-based
dancerwritersingerperformanceartist,
MAD KATE (of Kamakazi Queens and Bonaparte)
and her husbandbestfriendmuseinspirationpartnerincrime,
fashion designer and DJ, JUANOFAKIND!



When?
Saturday, August 28th, 2010 - 2:00-5:00pm
(doors open 1:30pm)
Where?
At the White Trash Fast Food Restaurant
Schönhauser Allee 6-7, Berlin, Germany
How much?
Just measly 10 Euros!
(Tickets at the door)

And as you know, it often happens that our Dr. Sketchy's Berlin afternoons are followed by an evening of either La Fête Fatale or Bohème Sauvage. This time around it's Bohème Sauvage again; No.44 to be exact:



And the next La Fête Fatale No.7 has been announced in the meantime as well. Hold onto your hats, Hamburg, because La Fête Fatale isn't just a Berlin event anymore! Put October 8th (for Hamburg) and October 15th (for Berlin) in your calenders, folks!



Something I never got around to mentioning here was our Dr. Sketchy's Berlin Meets the Direktorinhaus event last week. It was so well publicized elsewhere however, and the turn-out was so good, that I'm finding it very easy to forgive myself for this.



105 People attended our first “out of house” session at the elegant Direktorenhaus Art Space in Mitte - which makes it our biggest event so far! (It couldn't have hurt that it was also our only free event so far... ;-))

Special thanks to Clare Molloy, Nicole, and all of the other lovely people at the Direktorinhaus, to our rockstar models Clea Cutthroat (of Bonaparte and Eat Lipstick) and Megan Goddard, to our musical butterflies Operalesque (Johanna Blackstone + Rachel von Hindman), and to all of you who flocked to us in such great numbers, and then drew and drew and drew some more, squished in together with us in those two beautiful rooms!

The Direktorinhaus has promised us a selection of some of the photos they took during the course of the evening, but in the meantime we have a selection of what our organizer (and my co-host) Johnny "Mulholland" Fitz (aka Matthias Pflügner) has been calling his "crappy" (and what I would call his "fun") snapshots to peruse. Please click this fetching shot of The Mysterious Bucket-Headed Woman to be whisked off to his Flickr gallery of these...




Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com
[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html

Rough Sketch vs Cleaned Up Storyboard Frame

I am currently working on a storyboard for a TV ad for a cosmetics company ( - on the shooting-board for the film-production company producing this ad, to be more exact).

As millions of other illustrators across the planet will have noticed, the rough sketch often has a liveliness and emotional depth to it that the finished product loses during the cleaning up process.

My finished shooting-board frames are very loose and sketch-like themselves actually, but they're still cleaned-up versions of the rough sketch. I dunno. What do you think? Not that I'm unhappy with the light, open feeling of the finished frame, but it seems to me that the rough sketch for it was livelier and somehow subtly more mysterious...




Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com
[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html
The LaLaVox Doodle Diary

New Websites for Dr. Sketchy's NYC + Lorelei Vanora

The new website for Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School home-base/headquaters, Dr. Sketchy's NYC - after years of big talking and months of heavy duty work - is now live! This baby has information on every single Dr. Sketchy's branch in the world! It lets you search for branches near you easily: with no more wading through 124 MySpace profiles, etc! So... Go and check it out!

Welcome To the New Dr.Sketchy's Website
Dr. Sketchy's World-Wide Branchs
Dr. Sketchy's Berlin's Branch Page at Headquarters




And I've finally gotten around to giving Lorelei Vanora a webpage of her own. Now, mind you, it really is only a single page so far, and it's simple and still under construction and all. But it is all hers, so there you go. You can see it here...


By the way: Lorelei Vanora will be appearing in Stockholm, Sweden with a group of other lovely freaks and weirdos from Berlin's burlesque/cabaret/punk scene on the 10th of September:

BERLINER NACHT @ Mosebacke (Stockholm)
Like a night in Berlin, but in Stockholm...

Here's the event page, for those of you who use FaceBook. I (and they) will add more information as the date gets a bit closer. ;)

[UPDATE! Tuesday, September 7th, 2010 - unfortunately I've had to cancel Lorelei Vanora's BERLINER NACHT performance in Stockholm this coming Friday. I hope those of you in Stockholm who I was so looking forward to meeting there will go to the show anyway. It's going to be a wild one!]


Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com
www.mildredlovesyou.com/loreleivanora.html
[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou/loreleivanora.html

A Tree Frog and a Disco Bike....

Back in September of last year I discovered Adam Bowman's website of gadgets and added the "Feed the Fish" and "Taunt the Penguins" gadgets to the sidebar of this blog. Today I decided to pay Mr. Bowman's site another visit and ended up adding another member to our family of blog pets. Now you can also "Feed the Tree Frog".



And last night, Alexi Johansen, Son of Techno Viking, came by Pinky's Peepshow to see Lorelei Vanora sing, and brought his mirror-ball-mirrored Disco Bike with him. The LEDs in the handlebars make it a sight to behold at night. I'm looking forward to him posting some nighttime footage of it that will do it justice, but in the meantime, here's a nighttime photo and some daytime footage:






Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com
[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html

p.s. I like the Freaky Nightlights over at Alexi's blogspace too...

Pinky's Peepshow and Dr. Sketchy Berlin No.8

Every Wednesday night here in Berlin, Trixie Trainwreck and Christopher Rose present Pinky's Peepshow at the Bassy Bar - Berlin's Best Boudoir & Kool Kat Hideout. And tonight Lorelei Vanora (The Singing Mermaid) will be making her 2nd appearance at one of these tasty events. Spanish burlesque dancer and shock queen Lola von Dage (who was one of our models for Dr. Sketchy Berlin No.2) will also be performing. Much to our sorrow, this will be her Farewell Berlin performance, as she is planning to leave us for her home country quite soon.

...Here's July's Pinky's Peepshow Flyer...


And just for fun, here's shot of Lorelei Vanora's appearance with Fez Wrecker at Dr. Sketchy Berlin No.7 ("Dr Sketchy of the 7 Seas"), back in April...

Photo credits go to Dr. Sketchy Berlin's Foto-Ninja Nina Zimmermann.

Speaking of Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Berlin - after having had to cancel our originally planned No.8 back in May, and having been absent during our Summer Break in June, we are back at last with July's new No.8 this coming Saturday afternoon. Our oh-so-lovely models this time around are Black Flamingo Burlesque Revue "sisters", Miss Honey Lulu and Trixee Sparkle.



When?
Saturday, July 24th, 2010 - 2:00-5:00pm
(doors open 1:30pm)
Where?
At the White Trash Fast Food Restaurant
Schönhauser Allee 6-7, Berlin, Germany
How much?
Just measly 10 Euros!
(Tickets at the door)

Hugs + kisses,

LaLaVox
www.mildredlovesyou.com

[update:added Aug.6th,2010]
www.mildredlovesyou.com/loreleivanora.html

[edit: March 28th, 2011]
Because of problems with my current mildredlovesyou.com domain host, I have set my Mildred Loves You site up at an alternate address for for safe-keeping (but am still hoping that my mildredlovesyou.com domain will go back online at some point anyway)...
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou.html
www.lalavoxbox.com/mildredlovesyou/loreleivanora.html