Happy lunchtime,

Delay in Fem Friday today due to me doing my job, but don’t worry it’s here now!

I am enormously enjoying the new CHVRCHES album, and also enjoyed this interview with their frontwoman Lauren Mayberry, by Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney. One of my favourite things about this is her talking about how she doesn’t know what to do with her limbs on stage. This is a perennial problem for me when I do any talking to large groups of people and I frequently wonder if I can – as Beth Gibbons has – make “my thing” just clinging to a microphone as though it the only thing between me and drowning.

I think I found a more assertive character easier to get into on stage. I never know what to do with my limbs—just always flapping around

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/chvrches-every-eye-open/#_

Here is pop star of the early 80s, Anita Pointer, talking about her collection of black memorabilia. This is also an interview about her childhood in the American South in the 1950s, being a backing singer in the 1970s, and being in a band in the 1980s. It is all fascinating, and quite a long article so settle in with your sandwich or coffee before you click the link:

It encompasses all representations of black people, from negative to positive. I wish I had focused on one type of thing, but I just bought every piece of black memorabilia I found. […] I’ve found paper stuff like postcards and advertisements. I have a list of slave auctions. I have ceramics and wooden objects. I have potholders, cookie jars, banks, toys, dolls, aprons, hair combs, and hair-grease tins.

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/anita-pointer/

Alex.