About Princess

Genderqueer Captain, Princess, Pirate, Geek, Music lover, Writer, Sailor

Greetings from Ca La Fou

Hi everyone ! We have been pretty silent those past weeks, we apologize for that. We have been fixing the last details before heading Ca La Fou. This…

Greetings from Ca La Fou

Ca La Fou is a pretty special place, they describe themselves as a post-capitalist, eco-industrial colony, they have amongst others a very rad hacker-lab, and a bunch of people living there permanently.

I only visited it once, during an epic road trip with Quiet Riot Girl (RIP) who was part of the Junk Raft Armada (see above quote/link to their blog) and I loved it. This was over ten years ago, so I don’t know what’s been happening there.

If you would happen to be in Catalunya you should visit them. Snd they have a website to check what they are up to: https://archive.calafou.org/ (it seems like they were/are planning to move to https://calafou.org/ but that’s just a holding page first now).

1978: punk, disco, hip hop

In the year I was born, 1977, punk ruled in the UK, and in New York Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were formed and disco was over its peak.

Share what you know about the year you were born.

Punk has always spoken to me and I growing up I thought of myself as born in the punk era. I love the Clash and can enjoy sone other classic punk bands but it is more the punk mentality, towards music, but also towards other things, that spoke to me.

Even though the first hip hop record (Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”) would only be released a year later, hip hop was growing out of the underground. Hip hop culture is s similar to punk in many ways and I fell in love with it in the nineties, by mistake considered the “golden age of hip hop”.

Disco was starting to experience a backlash in 1978 as Saturday Night Fever (1977) propelled it into the mainstream and caused literally everyone to jump on the bandwagon. House music was on the horizon but nit there yet and disco never really went away.

It took me till the mid nineties to start appreciating electronic dance music , first through crossover acts like the Chemical Brothers and the Prodigy. But I fell in love either way house music and if i had to choose one genre that I love the most it would be house music.

So yeah, I see the year I was born mainly through the lena of music and there was sone great music made in 1978.

I am most happy underwater

When are you most happy?

I love swimming and sailing but the most happy I have been since a child is under water. I have always preferred diving to regular swimming and as an adult I learned to freedive. I now live in the deep south of Cape Town which has done exquisite underwater fauna and flora, check out the documentary “My Octopus Teacher”. So yeah under water is where I am most happy.

Not sure how f this is just a South African thing or if neighbourhood WhatsApp groups always end up being about some “dodgy character” walking somewhere who always turns out to be a person of colour.

The problem isn’t Trump or fascism, it’s democracy itself

This guest column, written by PG on Crimethinc eight years ago, just after Trump was elected, pound out that “Fascism is Obsolete, Whiteness is Here to Stay”: https://crimethinc.com/2016/12/13/feature-does-trump-represent-fascism-or-white-supremacy

While that is a good point, I do believe it’s correct to call Trump a fascist: https://crimethinc.com/2016/12/16/counterpoint-yes-trump-represents-fascism even though that label might not be very useful as pointed out by PG and Robert Paxton: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/magazine/robert-paxton-facism.html

We are fucked no matter who wins

The idea that Trump could return to the White House is terrifying. Even if he doesn’t win the election, the fact that it was so close says everything, not just about the US but about the world we live in. Fascism is on the rise everywhere and I don’t even know what to say. Really depressing world we live in. And Gaza and Climate Change and the general state of affairs.

DJ St Dic still deeply mised

In the late nineties I went to study at the VUB in Brussels, it was also the time I got into partying to house music and into DJ’ing. At that time Pascal Saint Dic aka DJ St Dic was resident DJ at Fuse club in Brussels at the first floor playing house music. Scalle as he was know to his friends was an inspired me to dance my ass of and to play amazing music, no matter what genre. He sadly took his own life in 2006 and is still dearly missed by all those who knew him. I can’t say I knew him well, I only spoke to him a few times, he studied at VUB and worked as a barman at Kultuur Kaffee, the on campus bar and my favorite hangout. But I can say I still miss you, great DJ, great human.