Queer West Arts Festival 2010!

It is that time of year again: the sun is shining and queers want to come out and play! Why not see some amazing and provocative art along the way?

This year I will be the Media & Public Relations person for Queer West Arts Festival.

Come to The House of Provocation for the latest updates and also visit Queer in the City for the latest!

Here is the official media release for what we have in store for this year!

(Sunday May 23, 2010. By Parul Pandya, Queer West Media Spokesperson and Casey Reid, Program Director of Queer West Film Festival.)

August 2010 will mark the 5th annual QUEER WEST ARTS FESTIVAL - this year QUEERING BOUNDARIES will be the vision to initialize a wide-scale community reinvention. Though it is certainly important that gay, lesbian, bi & trans individuals express individualities, uniqueness and differences, this year’s festival will promote a central platform to create inclusiveness and communication between these groupings. Limits typically placed on a queer identity will be explored and re-explored in an effort to move away from "Queer" as a singular, often fixed, and essential identity.

The Queer West Toronto community is committed to ushering in a necessary and more contemporary attitude in reaction to the ever-changing threads of fiber that fashion the notion of “queer” in its entirety. The festival will view the complexity of queer identity beyond set places, spaces and community settings and bring diversity to the forefront of all programming. Art and performance will be utilized as the vehicle to show queer identity as a contested space. Though the theme is Queer Boundaries, where and how those boundaries are formed is subjective. The Queer West community emphasizes a sharing of space and the exchanging of ideas as a political act, within and outside of the Queer West Village.

Though queers may converge and diverge on particular spaces to create a community, the heart of the festival is to emphasize however different our identities, we all share our humanity. To mark this historic event, Toronto's "West End" will be (re)claimed, (re)presented and (re)named as "queer" over the course of 8 days (Saturday August 7 to Sunday August 15, 2010). Artists and performers will convey genuine and relative ideas across multi-disciplinary forms to entertain, educate and enlighten.


Festival Contact Information:
Festival Program Coordinator & Volunteers - Jaclyn Isen - queerwestfest@gmail.com
Film Festival Program Director - Casey Reid - qwfilmfest@gmail.com
Sponsorships - Michel Paré - queerwestinfo@gmail.com
Literary Events - Philip Cairns - fullmoon@auracom.com
Media & Public Relations - Parul Pandya - queerwestfestmedia@gmail.com
Visual Arts Curator - Brian McCurdy - qwfingerpaint@gmail.com

Nature City

1920 Toronto, Queen St. from Old City Hall

Sit and reflect all that you knew you thought you knew. Spring brings with it such a height of symphony and sounds...in the town where city is in nature. Charcoal birds with turquoise beaks flying above the streetcar, and the bell it rings. Silence falls on the dusk like dawn when your skin scoops a coco feel of smooth brown butter.

I am not meant to live outside my comforts necessity, the Bible swore to be such a conveyor of the truth. I am told by gossip and control and all religions said something (including those Christians) about charity and kindness - I do not need a religion to define my faith.

Air passes through space with memory of feeling touched with ocean coolness. Kisses of flowers nibble of my nose leaving an itch even after taking allergy medicine.

It is funny how the richest in tongue and mind are often the ones who die without ever being recognized for their virtue.

Paris Hilton, hiccup. Burp.

The sky peels into vision as the site of a marmalade bee hustles by looking for human flesh.

Fear let it go. Panic, let it pass.

The noises of the city have to fade in order to get in touch with nature.
The city reminds me why I keep my game tight and my mind infinite.

Green grass burn.

Blazing through the traffic lights like no one is worthy of passing you. Eyes of a curious onlooker feeling the sensation of your thigh and you realize that all is all.

Dear Darling

I hope you don’t mind if I watch you a little while.

Seeing you smile brings such a peace to my heart, it makes all my mistakes seem like a faded memory of time. Please don’t rush yourself to get out of bed, lay with me a little while longer. I want to be lost in you, I want to need in you, I want to be here with you. I feel as though when you look at me, I can see the beauty of gracious love, the unwillingness of my hearts journey to give up on love. I have waited for you to come, now you are here with me.

I admire your strong, defined body as you rest in the glaze of the sun that comes in from the skylight above our bed. I sigh and take a deep breath as I am doing yoga deep in my hearts integrate threads, reinforcing that you are real and this is a dream that has become actuality. You and I, it sounds as natural as the sound our lips make when they caress.

I would never ask you to do more than you already do, for you do so much more than I thought I could ever receive and wish to deserve. You are love and kindness.

I am grateful for you each day. I never wake-up without compassion for the universe for helping to guide you my way.

You are my best friend.

Lady Liberty

Get me through the day.
You don't know who I am when you stare at me with such repair.
I neither need to be fixed, nor do I care to hear the empty words that fall from your forced smile.
Why do you fear me? Is it that I have something you disapprove of, do I make you feel uninterested?
Open your mind to me and you may find that I have a very strong point of view, that I am someone beautiful and full of worth bricked in knowing the truth.
Numbers crunch to tell that I am incorrectly balanced, that humans are scientific creatures trying to survive in a human world.
Sell me your soul and I will grant it the access to fall at my feet and be lifted.
I will not let my spirit fail me, so believe in me.
I will go my way and you are welcome to come with me.
Hurt.
Let go.
The best person you can be in still in store.
Rise up. Free.

Soul Beyond Death

I have learned many things in my 28 years so far, in this lifetime. However I wonder how much of our knowledge we are able to carry-on from past (life) experiences? Let me clarify what I mean by this statement: I don't know if I take re-incarnation as a literal act, however I do think that our energy (soul) does live beyond the days of our bodies and leaves in impact on the things that we have come in contact with over a lifetime. This energy can also attract itself to new devices after death to take other living form(s) - whether a new body or a beautiful purple flower.


Like an apple sliced, I think the core energy of our being continues to survive beyond death, while little 'slices' of it remain to left behind in objects, people and spaces that you had filled when you were alive in all your carnations, and felt a strong connection with. This could be a reason why people say after a love one is deceased, that they continue to feel that person's presence.

No matter what religion you come from, even if you don't believe in re-incarnation, I wonder if you think this could be true? What do you think?

Have you ever seen someone that you swear you have seen somewhere else? Have you ever felt eerie when you entered a certain place, but were not sure why you were feeling this way?

I believe that we will live forever, not in life but in spirit.

To those I love, I give a little piece of my soul to always remember, Parul Pandya.

New Jack Playback: SWV "Weak"

Sigh. So good. Remember those 90's styles?

Stereotypes: Stimulating, Cruel & Fun!

Stereotypes are an amusing form of making observation based on habitual nature mixed with healthy hateration and bigotry. At the risk of misunderstood like Lauryn Hill, I want to make clear that I am able to admit that I am often quite vicious in nodding my head at particularly race and sexuality stereotypes. Don't hate me for having a mind, hate the world for making me intelligent enough to identify humour in situations and in people!

I am not a stranger to discrimination. From when I was a child I had people throw typecasting at me in order to make themselves feel more natural and powerful. When I was a wee lezzy in England the white kids would call me brown bread by yelling it across the street while I walked home. At the time this devastated me, but in retrospect I am thinking it ain't such a bad thing after all! I wish I could go back to that scenario and say "well at least I taste good, I am full of nutrients compared to your bleached white ass! Wonder Bread, please you ain't got nothing on me." I wish I could make those kids eat rye or pumpernickel bread and choke just a little, until they were red in the face and I could make a spectacle of them. I know retribution can be tacky but in this case it would be sweet karma!

Then there is the case of the paki dot. When I was young and had chicken pox I ended up picking one on my forehead that left a scar - naturally this became the making of what the white kids would call my paki dot. Again I would love to go back to today and say "you stupid little cackers, Paki's come from Pakistan, I am actually born in England, my parents in Africa and I am Gujrati, does that mean anything to your uneduacted ass? Why don't you go home and play with your swastika-making kit."

On the other hand I will not deny the stereotypes that I myself am guilty of when people do point them out. Firstly the Indian head bobble! Yes I do it, even when I bust a move on the dancefloor I implement the booble-bobble-backslap into my choreography.

Also don't think that when I lived with my parents I did not leave the house smelling like the back on a Mississauga Transit bus; yes curry potpourri sprung from my pores to give those around me a strong and pronounced headache. Yes when I was young I called my mother and father's friends uncle and auntie, but never papa g or mama g!

Then there is the whole identity of being queer. As the Queen of Queer I am obviously a fierce defender of queer rights and freedoms, however I can also admit that queers can be the most irritating and messily exaggerated projection of what being gay or lesbian is about. No girl, you are a girl, take off the elastic band that you use to hold in your giant tatas, it makes you look like Spongebob Squarepants! Free your breasts and the rest will follow. Also just cause you don't want to wear lip gloss it don't give you the right to have crusty lips - moisturize! If those kneecaps are as ashy as those dehydrated, flagellated lips, I am done with your ass!

Oh fags, oh fags. Stop dancing like dancing queens. Janet Jackson choreography is not suppose to be soft like tender assholes. Dance hard like cock! Oh and the styles I see are just not ok! We are lucky that many of the worlds famous designers are queer because if it wasn't for them, people would really realize that both queer men and women tend to look like they are as confused about their wardrobe as they did when they penetrated or fingered by another for the first time. If you stick it in remember it comes back out. Stay in the closet if you are gonna be a hot mess - I don't need you on my team of representation.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my ramblings from the contents of my explicit and sometimes cruel mind. Now go slap an ugly gay and have a lovely day!

Heart Attack

Have you ever been in love with someone so deeply that you felt as thought you were missing a part of yourself when you were apart? I know some may say this is a sign of codependency, even call it pathetic, but I am telling you that if you knew what I know and felt what she makes me feel, you would understand how unexpectedly she has become the centre of my happiness. She deserves me and I am hers alone.

I can’t sleep without her heat coming into me when our naked bodies are pressed together through the night. She is gentle, she is warm, her talents are fruitful and I am privileged to watch her grow.

She encourages me to be a wiser woman and also allows me to come clean with my fears and hesitations at times when I feel compromised. When I come apart, when I begin to tumble down towards the ground, she is always there to take me into shelter by opening her chest and allowing me into her heart. I feel safe with her by my side, so safe that at times I fear being homeless, displaced if she is ever to go away from here.

I want to say to her: “Shine on me dear baby, lead me through the endless corridors of life, meet me at each wrong turn I take to kiss me and tell me that you will lead me back to the safety of your arms. I need you so much it makes me cry, when I think of how deeply your love encourages me to reflect the eternal wisdom of the moonlight.”

I will kiss her every time with every ounce of passion I can conjure just so she always remembers how I feel - just in case tomorrow I die, I want her to know, I will carry a piece of her heart with me away if she permits me to do so.

I feel an abundance of complicated emotions when it comes to her, I feel weak and vulnerable, unlike myself at all sometimes. Usually I am tough, I am blunt, I am independent and agile in mind. I don’t know if this is healthy, I feel like I am loosing my mind.

Don’t try and save me, it is too late to turn back now. Forever she will remain engraved into my soul as the women who opened me to a plethora of visceral sensations and became the consort of my longings realizations.