At this year’s HOME launch we were excited to hear that ¥Viva!, Cornerhouse’s annual celebration of Spanish and Latin American cinema, will become a cross-platform festival in 2016, taking in theatre and visual arts as well as the moving image. Until then, Cornerhouse and HOME have a trio of ¥Viva! weekenders lined up for throughout the year – part one takes place at Cornerhouse 5-9 March, with a mixture of Spanish and Latin American film and a special tribute to commemorate International Women’s Day on 8 March. www.cornerhouse.org
Sounds from the Other City have revealed the local promoters entrusted to bring their 11th festival to fruition on Sun 3 May across Chapel Street in Salford. Among the usual favourites, including Now Wave, Hey! Manchester and a Fat Out/Wotgodforgot team-up, there are new faces in the form of anarchic comedy curators Sham Bodie. The festival also goes full-on Inception with a ‘festival within a festival,’ pulled together by Bad Uncle. Tickets are ÂŁ20 from Skiddle. www.soundsfromtheothercity.com The third wave of announcements for this year’s Threshold Festival has been announced, with 19 more artists added to a lineup that already includes Nubiyan Twist, Eliza Shaddad and CuT.
Spot the Difference
Natalie McCool
Among the new additions are The Skinny New Blood alumni Natalie McCool, who presents a new project Silent Cities, while MOBO-winning hip-hop artist Akala has also been confirmed. Threshold takes place 27-29 Mar across various venues in Liverpool, full ticket and lineup details at www.thresholdfestival.co.uk Among the highlights of the forthcoming SICK! Festival, taking place between 2-25 March around Manchester, is performance artist Lois Weaver’s What Tammy Needs to Know about Getting Old and Having Sex. The Guggenheim Fellow and Queen Mary University Drama Professor performs as her alter ego Tammy – a 65-year-old
TAURUS With the onslaught of winter your chakra energy bills are going through the roof. To try and save money you put your vibrational frequencies on a timer but with two bills still outstanding your guru demands full payment or he’ll send round the spirit bailiffs to repossess your soul and sell it at auction.
Yo, look at these two tickled slow lorises! Lories? Lorii? Loriseseses? Whatever. This month we’re offering one lucky reader the chance to win a copy of Get in Trouble by Kelly Link, courtesy of our good loris friends at Canongate. For your chance to be the ultimate triumphant winner of all time, head along to theskinny.co.uk/competitions and tell us what defining feature separates these two tickled/tortured lorises from each other. Competition closes midnight Sun 1 Mar. Winners will be notified by email within two working days of closing and will be required to respond within 48 hours or the prize will be offered to another entrant. Full Ts&Cs can be found at www.theskinny.co.uk/about/terms-and-conditions
BEST IN SHOW: RABBIT V HIPPO Here are just a few of our favourite responses to our Christmas issue’s lagomorph-based conundrum. If you’ve some animals you’d like us to spot the difference between, email them to pics@ theskinny.co.uk Question: Can you spot the difference between these two rabbits?
February 2015
Answers: “The rabbit on the left is a domesticated pet bred for its festive fur coat and distinctive St Nick hat. The rabbit on the right has escaped from its owners and gone feral – no longer confined by urban spaces it has grown to gargantuan size.� – AM “Hmmmm, one appears to be a bunny rabbit and the other is Reginald Perrin's mother-in-law.� – HM “The one on the right is wearing lip gloss.� – GH “Essentially they are the same, but the one on the left has a golden helicopter rotor sticking out of its arse.� – SW �Neither are cats but both wear hats, in the absence of mats, both prefer other surfaces� (anon) “Sorry, but the one on the left is in fact the legendary Esquilax.� – IS
Call for submissions: fringe theatre godsends 24:7 festival are looking for your innovative and challenging scripts for this year’s Big Festival Weekend. They’re after pieces that push the audience, and the writer, out of their comfort zone. Does that sound like your work? Get submitting! Submissions open 1 Feb – for full details, head to www.247theatrefestival.co.uk/get-involved
with Mystic Mark
ARIES When your wife asks you if her bum looks big in a new dress, always tell her the truth: that you are the Lord of Chaos and that upon the rising of the blood moon you shall ascend into immortal demonhood and spill humanity’s blood across the stars. Assuring her that even if it takes 1,000 years you will take your vengeance against mankind.
youtube.com/user/hamlollo
who left Nashville for a career as a performance artist, and wants to know more about desire, intimacy and sex in people over 50. The piece takes place at Z-Arts on 6 Mar at 8pm. More details at www.sickfestival.com
BALLS.
GEMINI Whatever race you are don’t try to race ahead in the rat race. Instead try to be a member of the human race, racing in a car. CANCER This month you forget to, erm, do that thing.
LEO Sometimes you can’t help but think how much easier things would be if only you weren’t trapped inside a storage container at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
VIRGO Your teen prodigy son feverishly completes his Naked Lady Across the Road Observatory (NLARO) on the roof of your home in February. The mirror is 5x the size of its predecessor, and is powerful enough to chart the hidden flesh of your nearest neighbour, giving your son access to reams more data and allowing him to build a computer model he can then manipulate in the lab. He plans to publish his findings after the summer holidays with infrared images of unprecedented resolution giving
Photo: Andrew Ellis
With the remarkable Transmitting Andy Warhol coming to an end this month, Tate Liverpool host Warhol After Dark, a night of live performances (from Modern Polymath, Beatrice Dillon, Pause DJs and the much-touted Kassem Mosse), and a rare chance to see the exhibition in all its glory after gallery hours. If that’s not enough, they’re even putting on a one-off Americana menu at the cafe. Sat 7 Feb, 5.30-10pm, £8 (£6) www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-liverpool
Sonic Fusion Festival is back for a fourth year to blur the boundaries between avant garde classical, electronic and improvised music (19-22 Feb). The festival kicks off with a concert of electroacoustic and sound art curated by artists’ collective Metanast, including Salford indie-electronic band Patchwork Rattlebag and Russian-born pianist Xenia Pestova. “The Festival will feature a number of world premiere performances, celebrating the blending of music with cutting-edge technologies, and will highlight the new in music across many genres,� said festival organiser Professor Steve Davismoon. “I think such a spirit of inclusivity and innovation is the essence of Salford.� www.salford.ac.uk/arts-media/about/ events/salford-sonic-fusion-festival
never before seen glimpses through the frosted glass of the Naked Lady’s bathroom window. This work could overturn months of accepted thinking amongst teen-scientists about the scale and density of the Naked Lady’s boob bags. The teenage community welcomes the news, especially after a critical failure of last year’s rover mission, when it was destroyed upon landing by an angry husband.
LIBRA You often get the sense the dead are hovering around you, but it’s simply the self-released fumes from the slightly-off chilli con carne you ate last night.
SCORPIO It has been said that there are more stars in the cosmos than there are grains of rice in a 1kg bag of rice.
SAGITTARIUS This month you find out that your entire life has been a cruel TV prank hosted by Ashton Kutcher.
CAPRICORN You start snowboarding to work.
AQUARIUS Although you never took your drug dealer for a New Age type, in February he suggests you take a month-long crystal meth healing retreat behind the bins at Farmfoods.
PISCES the seeds of love, grow that love, Plant harvest the love, herd the love into the thrashing gears of the mincing machine, then mechanically reform any leftover love into a pale block of affection-flavoured love substitute. twitter.com/themysticmark facebook.com/themysticmark
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