Smash the Cartoon Heterosexual Paradigm

Comeau, Joey. Lockpick Pornography. Halifax and Vancouver: Loose Teeth Press, 2005.

I read this a few weeks ago now, and though my summary is brief and much-delayed, I wanted to share with the world or anyone out there reading how much I enjoyed this book. It was recommended to me by ProphecyBoy, as many good things are, and I'm so glad that he brought it into my life. It's the kind of book I can imagine going back and reading again, soon and often.

This is a queer puck sex and violence kind of novel in which four young queers team up to wreak havoc on the forces of heterosexuality, normality, and stablility. There's breaking and entering, blood, and general antisocial behavior as the main character thoughtfully addresses how sex and gender circulate in his life.

"I used to seal form heterosexuals for political reasons. Anything owned by a straight white yuppie is bought with oppression. The hetero-normative ownership paragidm is a tyrant belief system that deserves to be undermined on every front, from political protest to petty theievery.

Now I'm a little more honest about it. I can admit that I steal from straight people because I just don't like them"(9-10)

The whole thing is inspiring, dealing with political and social issues in a visceral, human way. The main character even confronts his own deep-seated hypocrisy in professing the constructedness and mutability of gender while struggling to recognize the masculinity of Alex, a young female-born genderqueer character attempting to identify as a gay man.

My favorite character, of course, is Michelle, rumored to be inspired by Michelle Tea. Her character does read like the young, rebellious, violent main character of Valencia. Each of the characters is sparingly but precisely depicted, defined by action and rebellion. I have some issues with the end of the story, but it does seem like a reasonable ending that's fairly true to the characters if not as idealistic as I would like.

This novel began with 7 chapters published online, and you can still read them at www.lockpickbook.net, but the volume itself is so slim and delightful that I strongly recommend that anyone interested order it immediately - the three extra chapters are worth the money and the wait, and they very much left me clamouring for more.

A Bland Evening at the Theater

Stages. Hudson Mainstage Theatre. 6/9/06.

Stages had its moments, but they were few and far between. While I admire what they're trying to do, Rosalind Productions' committment to producting plays "in which the female characters are as vital, complex and influential as the male characters" aren't served by this play that needs a few more rounds of editing to make the dialogue feel less stiff and the conclusion feel more natural. The whole thing reeks of a vanity project by Abigail Rose Solomon, who not only wrote the play but also took the leading role, which was a huge mistake. She was too old for the part - it was clearly an autobiographical piece about her 10 years ago or so and she looked much older than Ryan Michelle Bathe, the actress playing her best friend. Bathe was truly stunning and the best thing about this otherwise middling-to-poor play. The worst thing about the play was the costumes, which were completely, ridiculously out of character and unflattering, and completely inappropriate for San Francisco in the 1990s. They were vaguely appropriate for Los Angeles now, but still a lawyer wearing a halter top and summer skirt to the office is rather dubious. Anyway, the costumes were so bad they were distracting. The play itself was OK but not great for the first act. There were cute moments, including a seduction scene of actors rehearsing a love scene from As You Like It, which is the stuff of fantasies for the juvenile Shakespeare-lover. The second act, however, came out of nowhere. Everything that happened seemed unmotivated and awkward, and problems that barely seemed like problems got resolved in huge dramatic ways while things that seemed like major issues were swept under the rug. Overall, the whole thing was dissatisfying. With major rewrites and a new lead actor, it could be a good play, but it was by no means there yet.

Impressive

Woah, dudes. The Ditty Bops are riding across the country on BIKES. They're doing a concert tour without the bus. And they're blogging it. I love that the two entries I've read so far seem to mainly report on what they've eaten. These gals totally rock.

Queer LA Represent

Apparently, almost no one except Phranc (don't they look great together!) showed up for Alison Bechdel's book signing at Book Soup last night. Shame! This is just further demonstration of the immense difficulty of finding lesbians in LA. You have one more chance. She's signing at A Different Light Books in West Hollywood tonight (Friday) at 7:30.

And afterward, you can amble down the street for the first Guerilla Gay Bar for a revolutionary queer take-over of Barney's Beanery. Super bonus points if anyone manages to bring Alison Bechdel! Come on out tonight!

"I'm Happy Because I'm Stupid"

The Boy Least Likely To. The Roxy. 6/3/06.

Thanks to the combined effort and musical awareness of Phil and ProphecyBoy, I found myself at a show in one of the famous rock clubs on the Sunset Strip, The Roxy, last night listening to several bands of which I knew nothing, and the result was a truly delightful evening.

The Boy Least Likely To*, the headline band of the show, is a band from the UK with happy sounds and ecclectic instrumentation, and I'm quite glad to have been introduced to them. They have an extemely fun stage presence which includes a lot of clapping and good-natured jokes and insults between band members, so the live show was quite entertaining even though I had only heard a couple of their songs before I attended the show. Their songs sound poppy and summery, but the lyrics are quite dark and cynical, which I adore. My favorite song by far is "Monsters," which is about childhood friends getting married and having children. It's truly wonderful. The title of this post is from "Be Gentle With Me" which says "I just want to sparkle for a moment/Before I just fizzle out and die." This adorable band makes me totally happy, but not in a sappy way; the disillusionment and tang of bitterness only makes it better.

The Bicycles* were a brilliant choice for an opening band for The Boy Least Likely To; they were also fairly happy-sounding but mature, and their music was a good complement to The Boy Least Likely To without being too similar. They also really seemed to be having fun onstage. They had me hooked from the moment they took the stage; they began with a few beautiful notes as a demonstration of their vocal skills before bringing in rock instrumentation. This band consists of an extremely unusual group of people, which makes them a fascinating combination onstage. They're from Toronto and they're melange of styles and ethnicities. The two main singers, who appear to be called "Meatball" and "Doctor Ew" have lovely high voices and some real vocal talent. Meatball especially has fabulous rock star hair. Personally, I was totally in love with "Danatater," the girl playing the drums. It's not nearly often enough that you get to see a girl rocking out on a drum set, and she did it quite well. And after the show she had adorably nerdy glasses on - I totally have a new crush.

Their music was totally fun, and I highly recommend that you check it out, except that it seems shockingly unavailable other than the 4 songs you can hear on MySpace. Their album, The Good, The Bad, and the Cuddly is apparently quite new and is not on iTunes. You can purchase it for download it at Zunior.com, but I'm a little nervous about doing so because my computer keeps warning me that their security certificate is invalid. Clearly, I should have bought the CD at the show, but I failed to do so. Making the whole thing even more dubious, the band's website isn't functioning, which, according to this blog post* might be because they've failed to pay their webhosting bill. Someone needs to help these kids with marketing immediately, because all their touring isn't going to do them much good, no matter how fabulous they are, if people can't easily buy their music anywhere.

The first band of the evening, Trainwreck Riders were some scruffy boys from San Fransisco, and they were also fairly enjoyable, but not nearly as memorable. I couldn't hear a word they said because the instrumentation drowned out the vocals, which perofoundly irritated me. Their music was an interestingly tough sort of country rock - there were song titles like "Ol' Timey Feeling" and occasional bouncy country rhythms, but they also seemed very rock 'n' roll to me and they looked more like whiney rocker boys, complete with fabulous glasses on the lead singer. I'd give them another chance if given the opporunity to see them again, but they paled in comparison to the two bands that followed them.


*MySpace

WeHo's changing culture

The LA Times recently published this article on West Hollywood and "the soul of Boys Town." The whole thing is framed very awkwardly and is mostly a discussion of The HERE Lounge, which was mostly known (to me anyway) for its Girls' Night on Thursdays. HERE recently experienced a demographic shift as it started getting rented out for private parties, most of which were VERY, VERY heterosexual. The patrons were generally nonwhite, with macho guys and skanky girls in skimpy clothing and, most irratating to me, HUGE SUVs and HUMMERS. It was a very different group of people from those at The Abbey next door, and thus caused concern for some. The LA Times article mentions that "Thanks to pressure from the city and law enforcement and to the increasing tension he feels from the gay community, Rogers said May 19 that, as of that evening, Here Lounge is back to being '100% gay.'" While that's a bit creepy, I must admit I'm glad to hear it.

Interestingly enough, the article doesn't mention Barney's Beanery at all, which was the first site of tension between liberal, queer-friendly West Hollywood and the macho rock star/Sunset Strip crowd and continues to be a hang-out for heterosexual frat-boy types. Similarly, there's no discussion of the closing of Don't Panic, a store that sold gay themed novelty T-shirts and accessories (mostly for tourists), which was replaced with an American Apparel store. I think the real problem is that rents keep rising and cool, queer-friendly people and establishments can't afford to move into West Hollywood any longer, which really is unfortunate, because it means the neighborhood is losing its cool, liberal character in favor of generic commercialization.

A Somewhat Divided Trans-Unity

Trans-Unity Pride. LA Gay & Lesbian Center. 6/2/06.

My first complaint about Trans-Unity was the fact that there was virtually no available information online for this event, and what was out there both conflicted and seemed to have no connection to the reality of the event. The FTM Alliance page says one thing, while the LA Gay and Lesbian Center's flyer is not easy to find and offers very little information whatsoever. In reality, the Queen of California Pageant started sometime after 8:30pm, which seems to be a good hour and a half to two-and-a-half hours after its publicized start time. The tragic result of this delay was that the second show of the evening, the Living Legends show, began around 10pm while the Queen of California Pageant was still occuring, forcing audience memebers to choose one event or the other, and effectively dividing the transmen from the transwomen or one generation from another.

First of all, congratulations to Miss Nikki, who won the Queen of California Pageant. Her costumes were magnificent and her stage presence was quite compelling.

I was there for the Living Legends Show, however, which was a produced as a Transgiving Express event. Both the performers and the audience were relatively young and most were FTM or genderqueer identified. Dan* acted as MC and also did most of the organizing, I believe. He did a great job and is completely adorable as MC, but I'd love to see him rock the mic and take charge a bit more. A little more info about some of the performers, some of the other Trans-Unity events, etc., would have been nice.

The Living Legends show was a tribute to some past performances of gender, beginning with the fabulous Stephan Pennington singing and playing banjo to some great Elvis songs. His rendition of "Love Me Tender" made me wish there were more girls there to scream and swoon. Truly a heartbreaker. And Phil, his fabulous backup guitarist, rocks in his silent, steady way.

Next came Dan and Bryan performing songs of the Indigo Girls, which was fabulous in its nod to the affinities between lesbian and trans culture and even more wonderful in Bryan's heartfelt rendition of "Get out the Map" dedicated to his boyfriend. I would have liked to hear Bryan singing alone (with guitar backup or an instrumental track) rather than with the CD because he has a lovely voice which deserves to be heard on its own. I also would have liked their set to have culminated with an audience sing-along of "Closer to Fine" rather than beginning with it; the audience was too shy to sing along when they really should have milked the audience participation. I loved this act, however; their spirit was great and their act was sweet. Seeing transboys perform the Indigo Girls totally made my day, and I think these guys could work it if they wanted to. I'd love to see this again at Transgiving or elsewhere soon.

kale* performed as Roy Orbison, complete with a truly amazing wig and a delightful stage persona. He really worked his three songs, ending with Candyman. This kid has a great stage presence and seemed to be having a lot of fun up there.

The zeatles* closed out the show. They claim to be the first genderqueer Beatles tribute band, and I think it would be hard to argue against them, though a seemingly-now-defunct Beatles cover band from New Zealand seems to have used the name first. Anyway, they're very fun performers and they totally got the audience up and dancing, which matters a lot. They played a couple of Beatles songs or songs the Beatles had covered, and one original song as well, though the vocals were hard to hear so I don't have much to say about their original work. I would have loved to hear them tackle more of the Beatles more familiar repetoire. Mostly they were a cute, energetic group of people who seemed to be having a lot of fun onstage, and that alone could get them pretty far.

So despite the organizational disaster that one has come to expect and these events and the questionable policy of having the boys and the girls performing at separate events in the same night, I'd say the show was a pretty strong success. It was fun and community-building and a little wacky. I'd say the next goal is to get transwomen and transmen performing tributes to their respective legends together.

*NB: These links for performers link to myspace pages, as these performers generally lack full webpages and without a program, last names, or much identifying information, this is the best I could do in terms of finding their online presence. I apologize for this, and if anyone would like the link changed or removed they're welcome to contact me.

Transgiving: The Sex Show

Transgiving. Plummer Park, West Hollywood. 5/27/06.

This show, and my description of it, are sexually explicit and not for those under 18.

Transgiving's SEX Show was a fun, naughty tribute to queer sex and sexuality, beginning with a parade of strap-ons and sex toys from Babeland. They were followed by some lovely ladies from Glamour Boutique modeling some fabulous corsets, lingerie, and bondage. While something about the tempo and the audience energy for the two fashion shows was a little awkward, all of the models did a fabulous job working the runway and their products.

Helen Wong performed a fascinating piece about working in porn, complete with some hilarious audience members whose enthusiasm during a simulated orgy and squirt-gun cum shots totally made the show.

The special guest perfomers for the evening brought Trans as Fuck, a 'porn cabaret' from San Francisco, down to LA for one night only. Storm Florez, Annie Danger, and Seeley Quest performed some extremely intimate, extremely sexual pieces. Florez began his performance on a spiritual note, in which he began by praying and ended by masturbating with a dildo. Not to be outdone, Annie Danger gave a fun, funny demonstration for the low-budget trans and genderqueer youth that included sticking several carrots in her ass. Florez then performed three wonderful, intimate songs with guitar while two assistants performed an intricate temporary piercing on his back. Seeley Quest ended the evening with a compelling monologue about being a sex worker that involved three costume/identity changes in which hir fabulous self was adorably queer throughout. Sie ended the night with a fabulously hot spanking of a willing audience member.

It was a fun, steamy show and a wonderful end to ryka aoki de la cruz's tenure as curator for transgiving. It seems like a bad sign that she didn't introduce her successors in the role, but I hope that they will continue her passion and dedication in combining local talent and more well-known transgender and genderqueer performers from all over the US.

Latino Drag Charlie's Angels

Chico's Angels Cavern Club Theater. 5/26/06.

The Cavern Club continues to mystify me. It would be an awesome queer theater in the basement of a Mexican restaurant, except that the twohttp://www.cavernclubtheater.com/CHICO.html shows I've seen have had surprisingly straight casts and audiences. Chico's Angels Episode 3: Chicas in Chains was an odd combination of fabulously campy drag and a slightly off back-up cast who lacked a camp sensibility.

The Angels, led by the truly magnificent Kaye Sedia, were the stars of the show and any moments they were offstage seriously lagged. Kaye was hilarious, and the rest of the Angels were pretty fun as well. The hilight of the show by far was Kaye's rendition of "Hopelessly Deported from You" to the tune of "Hopelessly Devoted to You." That alone made my day.

The most painful moment of the show was the women-in-prison scenes, which completely failed as representations of sapphic films. The fairly normative female cast, who should have been either men in drag or recognizably butch lesbians, failed completely to treat gender or sexuality in an interesting or entertaining way.

Overall, the show was entertaining enough for me to recommend it, though I have serious reservations, because I think it could have been done better and I feel that it was significantly overpriced for what it was. In the end, I did laugh throughout the show, and that may be enough to to earn it a positive review, though it was by no means brilliant.

Pulp Fiction

Slate Magazine is doing Pulp Fiction Week! Yay! I enjoyed Terry Castle's article on Patricia Highsmith's The Price of Salt, even though it's mostly a summary and tribute to a novel I know and love. I like Terry Castle, author of The Apparitional Lesbian, and I like The Price of Salt, so it's a pretty good combination. I especially want to find some good scholarship on Pulp Fiction, to help with my upcoming diss chapter on film noir. While Slate's articles aren't scholarly, they are fun and I'm glad to see some literate attention to the genre.

It's not Bring It On

Stick It. 5/19/06.

I was honestly excited to see Stick It; I wasn't expecting great cinema, but a fun gymnastics movie written and directed by Jessica Bendinger, the creator of Bring it On, sounded delightful last weekend. Unfortunately, I left the theater groaning "What were they thinking?" although I did so in amused high spirits. I actually managed, despite the fact that the film had giant flaws, to thoroughly enjoy myself at Stick It; though I wouldn't say it was a good movie by any definition of the term, I did leave the theater laughing heartily.

First of all, the highlight of the movie for me was the main character, played by Missy Peregrym. Like Eliza Dushku in Bring it On, her adorably alienated and vaguely butch character is enough to keep my interest throughout the movie. It's not often that you see a cute, tough girl who doesn't completely sell out in favor of pink and prom dresses. If only there had been even the slightest hint of sexual tension between her and one of the other gymnasts, I would have been a much bigger fan of this movie.

So, if you don't know, Stick It is the story of female gymnast Haley Graham (Peregrym), a champion-quality gymnast forced to return to the sport she abandoned as a far-fetched way to avoid a sentence for juvenile hall. After much bitterness, and thanks to creepy, patronizing (well, he was supposed to be fatherly) coach Burt Vickerman (played by Jeff Bridges), she regains her mastery of the sport and then leads a revolt at the championship meet to recapture the joy of gymnatics.

What made the movie a fiasco when we saw it may have been the fault of an inattentive and incompetant projectionist rather than the film itself. In my version of Stick It, the boom mic was the star of the show. He was in almost every scene, often causing other actors to duck out of the way to give him space to perform. He had a range of appearances and styles, but he always upstaged and outperformed the actors. The image was so badly framed that not only was the microphone in every scene, but the gymnastic routines were all truncated, completely marring the running gag of girls falling down because when they fell, they fell off the screen. Panoramic and overhead shots intended to showcase gymnastic skills Busby Berkeley-style were off-center and frequently half missing. I'm not sure proper framing would have made the moment in which gymnasts proliferate as if they were a kaleidoscope any less ridiculous, but it might have allowed me to concentrate on the complete insanity of the multiplying gymnasts rather than the stupidity of the director, editor, cameraperson, and/or projectionist who allowed such a thing to happen.

In my opinion, parts of this movie are appallingly bad. It is frequently trite and too unjustifiably proud of its own cleverness. But I had a wonderful time watching it nevertheless, and if you approach it with a sense of humor and low expectations, you might really enjoy Stick It.

Here are reviews by Dave White, who liked it, and Scott Tobias from The Onion AV Club, who did not. Judge for yourself.

Transgiving Weekend

This weekend's Transgiving is the last to be curated by the event's long-time guiding spirit, ryka aoki de la cruz. de la cruz's work has made Transgiving an amazing event combining truly impressive professional performers with local artists to create an event that combines community-building with artistic prowess. I truly hope that those taking over for her manage to maintain the spirit and professionalism of the event. I don't know much about most of the perfomers at this weekend's event, but I believe I may have seen an enticing snippet of work by storm florez before. I'm also intrigued by the sex theme of this transgiving - this could be hot.

From their press release:


Trans/Giving's May showcase celebrates sex with a
hot and steamy spring show!
The sex-abration takes place on May 27th from 6:00-9:30 at Fiesta
Hall, Plummer Park, 1200 N. Vista St. West Hollywood, CA 90046.

We have a fabulous array of performers for this special show,
including Helen Wong and Trans As Fuck with Storm Florez, Annie
Danger, and Seeley Quest. We will have two steamy fashion shows from
Babeland and Glamour Boutique and enjoy hot visual art by Dan Dumont,
Mea Starr, Faith and Eva Sweeney.

This show is 18 and up and will include explicit sexual content.

This is the last show that Trans/Giving's founder and director Ryka
Aoki will be curating. She has worked so hard to give Trans/Giving the
respect and popularity it has now. We are very sad to see her go but
we know she will accomplish many other groundbreaking things.

Suggested donation is $5-20, with no
one turned away for lack of funds.

Now in its 3rd year, Trans/Giving is Los Angeles' pioneering
trans/genderqueer/intersex get-together, art show and performance
series.

Tangled Rose Vines

Tea, Michelle. Rose of No Man's Land. San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage, 2006.

This book was terribly beautiful. I fell in love with the cover, with its retro styling and two shades of pink, even though the character depicted seems to me a little too sylish to be either of the characters in the book. Of course, I was already in love with Michelle Tea, so I knew I wanted the book long before it came out, and I defied my own policy of avioding hardbacks by purchasing this one at the first opportunity.

Rose of No Man's Land is the story of Trisha, a disaffected young teenager, condensed mostly into one day in early summer, followed by a night of adventures with Rose, her wild new friend. The two share a dangerous evening, demonstrating the scary possibilities for two girls on their own.

I must commend Tea for the intensity of her writing - these girls felt like real, not always likeable, vibrant and complex characters. And their adventures carried the sense of risk, peril, and fear of real life with consequences rather than novelistic mishaps. These girls were dirty, spunky, and a little bit dangerous, both completely independent and youthfully foolish and as a result, everything that happened to them felt dreadfully honest to me, capturing some of the excitement and fear of my own youthful misadventures, however tame they might have been in comparison.

I finished Rose of No Man's Land in a haze - I would have read it through for two days straight until I finished it if I could have, and I almost did. I wanted to share my reactions with the world immediately, but I was also numbed to silence - it didn't feel over to me; I wasn't ready to let the characters go. I needed time to think about them, and thus I was slow to post my response, but I did love this book.

Part of my reaction was questioning who the audience of this book was. With its fourteen-year-old protagonists, it seems to be a young adult book, but it was also so bitter, so cynical, so adult in both content and spirit, that I had to wonder if perhaps it was more appropriate for adults who can appreciate its brilliance. But I also wonder if it isn't good for girls to have characters with the hard, glittery personalities of Trisha and Rose with which to identify. Better, perhaps, than all the stories telling you to conform and be beautiful in such conventional ways. These characters are misfits, with lives that aren't easy, and that in itself is amazing. While I might give children Dangerous Angels or Boy Meets Boy before Rose of No Man's Land (although I'm aware that there's a solid classist critique to that reaction that I'd be delighted to spell out if anyone wants to discuss it), I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to anyone who might appreciate a fascinating, complex, emotionally realistic coming-of-age adventure.

Perfect Title

Miller, Tim. 1001 Beds. Highways Performance Space. 5/12/06.

When people hear the title of Tim Miller's new performance piece,
1001 Beds, those who know Miller or his work generally respond "how appropriate" with a chuckle. Miller's known for telling many stories of sex and love as a gay man in his performances, and 1001 Beds is no exception. It's a wonderful piece telling the story of some of the 1001 or so beds Miller has slept in or will sleep in over the course of his life as a travelling performance artist. It's a story combining sex and opera in a tale of coming of age as a gay man, a loving account of Miller's relationship with his partner, and a triumphant vision of revolutionary queer sex and politics. The show demonstrate's Miller's delightful charisma and amazing command of an audience as he runs around an almost empty stage in gym shorts, and conjures visions of entire political movements. This performance, exactly what one wants and expects from Tim Miller, demonstrates his prodigious performing and storytelling skills in a wonderfully human tale. I highly recommend that you see it this weekend if you have the opportunity.

Here's an interview in LA City Beat to help convince you or tell you a bit more about Miller.

Karen Finley: More than Just Reading

Finley, Karen. George and Martha. Hammer Museum. Los Angeles, CA. 4/30/06.

Karen Finley kicks ass. She's an amazing author, artist, and perfomer, and it was a pleasure to see her in person. She perfomed what was supposedly a reading from her new novel, George and Martha, but this was much more than just a reading. She took the text and put it on screen so that we could see her illustrations as she read, and we could also read along with her. Which meant that we could tell when she inserted the repetition characteristic of her solo performance. Rather than merely reading the text, she performed excerpts as spoken word pieces, modulating her voice dramatically for character and emphasis. It was beautiful and quite effective.

George and Martha is a novel that originated as a performance and it's about a fictional 30-year affair between George W. Bush and Martha Stewart. She talked about the mythical and psychological resonances of these two characters, talking about war and loss and relationships between parents and children. It seems like a fascinating, edgy, challenging book and I can't wait to read it.

I was impressed with Finley as an author and a performer, so it suprised me to hear that she had such a disasterous panel at the LA Times Festival of Books the day before, as Susie Bright relates on her blog. Apparently, brilliant, challenging writers Bright, Finley, and Dennis Cooper were placed on a panel with Late, Late Night Host Craig Ferguson, who turned out to be a jerk who tried to hijack the panel. From all reports, Finley kicked ass there too. Pretty awesome.

Avante-garde but Accessible

Wilson, Robert, dir. The Black Rider. The Ahmanson Theatre. Los Angeles, CA. 4/28/06.

I really enjoyed The Black Rider, which was a "musical fable" based on a German folk tale with libretto by William S. Burroughs, music by Tom Waits, and direction and design by Robert Wilson. This is a fascinating combination of three very interesting and actually fairly distinct sensibilities. The resulting production was not exactly an opera, but more than a traditional piece of theater, and certainly not what one would expect from musical theater. It was what one would expect from Robert Wilson, famous for theatrical experiences such as Einstein on the Beach except relatively short (under 3 hours with 1 intermission) and honestly rather weirdly pleasant.

The feeling of the show was dark, but playful; it was very German, and it makes perfect sense that two of the leads (Matt McGrath as Wilhelm and Vance Avery as Pegleg) had both played the Emcee in Cabaret on Broadway. The leads (McGrath, Avery, and Mary Margaret O'Hara as Kathchen) were extremely skilled and did an excellent job at expressing Wilson's movement and Waits' music. I especially enjoyed McGrath in Wilhelm's dance at the crossroads, a beautiful moment in Act II.

The interesting thing about this show is that Act I and Act II were profoundly different, especially in pacing. Act I was relatively narrative and mostly clear, with songs frequently advancing the plot and a story progressing in a recognizable manner. Act II was more expressive, with much less happening in terms of action and more in visual spectacle and feeling. It was like one slowed down extended moment emphasizing the climax of the piece. The pacing for Act II seemed deliberately much slower, and more like what I expected from Robert Wilson. Looking back, I find the contrast between the two acts fascinating and delightful, an excellent choice for this strange piece of theater.

My overall opinion of this is that it has the advantages of Robert Wilson's work with a minimalization of the drawbacks; it's avante-garde and visually stunning but less maddeningly slow than some of his other work. It has a clear plot and sense of action, but it uses actors' bodies and visual spectacle as important instruments of the storytelling. If Robert Wilson, German Expressionism, or Avante-garde are ideas that appeal to you, I would recommend this piece. I certainly wouldn't take my mother, but I would take all my goth or hipster friends. It's an important theatrical experience, and while it's not for everyone, it is fascinating and well-done.

You might also be interested in the LA Times review, which I found quite informative.

UPDATE: Metroblogging LA also has a review up from someone who is less of a theater nerd, which some people might find useful in deciding whether or not to see this piece.

Lesbian Booksignings!

Two fun and exciting upcoming lesbian booksignings at Book Soup:

Thursday, May 25th, 7pm
Sarah Schulman presents and signs Empathy
The award-winning author of After Delores writes a novel that probes the
questions of sexual identity, self-renewal, and transformation. An office
temp's journey of self-discovery culminates when she meets another woman. (Arsenal Pulp)

Thursday, June 8th, 7pm
Alison Bechdel presents and signs Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
This breakout book by Alison Bechdel takes its place alongside the
unnerving, memorable, darkly funny family memoirs of Augusten Burroughs
and Mary Karr. It"s a father-daughter tale pitch-perfectly illustrated
with Bechdel"s sweetly gothic drawings and like Marjane Satrapi's
Persepolis, a story exhilaratingly suited to the graphic memoir form.
(Houghton Mifflin)

Reasons to wish I were in NY

Besides the fact that many of my friends seem to be moving there:

Vaginal Davis is performing and hosting a Bricktops Manhattan as part of the Where Art and Life Collide series of events. How great does this sound:

Saturday, April 29, 7pm
Bricktops Club will take the streets of downtown Manhattan in full costume, parading as speakeasy characters of 1920s in broad daylight. At 7pm Failed Dwarfstar's Beatrice Glow and Bricktopschildren will be throwing a welcome party for Bricktops hostess Vaginal Cream Davis in the Soho boutique, Burrow. Come costumed...or else ready to be transformed, do the Charleston to live music, and sip some Bootlegged goodies!
FREE
Burrow, 31 Crosby St., between Grand and Broome

Thursday, May 4, 10:00 PM
Vaginal Davis will host a one night only revival of this 1920’s themed showstopper extravaganza of old-timey glamour as “Bricktops Takes Manhattan,” with salons, shacks and speakeasy installations built by Future Art Stars from the NYU Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions in collaboration with Obie and Bessie award winning set designer Michael Casselli. Produced by Earl Dax Presents, with performances by the DJ Billy Miller of Straight to Hell, John Blue, Jennifer Miller, Julie Atlas Muz, and Surprise Guests.
Siberia, 356 West 40th Street, $10

I'd also love to see Lisa Kron(formerly of the Five Lesbian Brothers)'s The Well before it closes. I hear (via Playgoer) that it's not doing well at filling a Broadway-size house and thus affordable tickets can be obtained. Which is sad, but also reason that those who can should go see it.

Church Lady Drag

Go To Church. The Cavern Club Theater. 4/16/06.

I was pretty excited to be spending Easter going to what I believed was a church-themed drag show in the basement of a Mexican restaurant with some of the people I've come to consider almost family. It felt queer and appropriate and subversive and wonderful. It was also a great warm-up for our upcoming Backyard Drag show whose theme was to be "High Church."

Sadly, "Go To Church" didn't live up to the appropriateness of the situation. It was more performance art than drag, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in my mind; the real disappointment was that after the first number, it rather lost its theme. It included several numbers and skits that had very little to do with church, including an interesting but inexplicable rendition of "Paper Roses" and an actually pretty funny talk show piece called "Two Jans and a Janet" featuring Selene Luna and the only cross-dressing of the night by Robbie D. The two of them made a great pair, but this closing bit went on a little too long. For the most part, the show felt like one big inside joke and some of the bits were funny but several of them seemed as if they were just filling up time. As this was their first of a series of performances, it felt a bit under-reheased and thrown together. Their next performance will feature drag queen Jackie Beat who I've heard is excellent and thus the show might get better, but personally I was disappointed. I rather suspect each of the performers has done and could do better work. I would have been happy if they had just managed to keep it all church-themed.

The Al Pacino Show

Oscar Wilde's Salome. The Wadsworth Theatre. Brentwood, CA. 4/20/06.

It seems that when this production was in New York, it was publicized as Oscar Wilde's Salome: The Reading. Somehow, the subtitle was dropped in LA publicity and thus I was suprised to see music stands and folding chairs on stage at the Wadsworth. I'm not sure minimalism does credit to Wilde's opulent poetry in Salome (the text of which is available here if you're interested), though the reading does place emphasis on the language and the acting. With nothing else to look at on stage, Al Pacino as Herod and Jessica Chastain as Salome embraced the challenge of commanding the audience's full attention and bringing life to to an extremely lush script almost entirely though personal charisma.

In this particular version, Al Pacino as Herod very clearly stole the show. His spectacular portrayal of a proud and dissolute king kept the audience engaged through long speeches in which all he did was list possessions or boast of his power. He is very clearly a masterful actor who made this role his own, and I feel fortunate to have witnessed his skill in person.

Jessica Chastain in many ways had a much more challenging job in interpreting the role of Salome, and though she was beautiful and compelling in the role, there were moments when the reading style of the performance held her back. To be denied the horror of seeing her kiss Jokanaan's lifeless head made the end of the play strange and abrupt, making her seem more childish and less passionate. Similarly, relying entirely on text instead of connection or touch between the actors made her passion for Jokanaan and her rejection by him seem awkward and superficial. The stilted lack of interaction between the actors did, however, throw into relief the moment in which Salome danced. She stepped out of the reading style and took possesion of the stage and the audience's gaze in a dance that quickly passed from a fairly traditional-seeming (not that I'm an expert) belly dance to a bare-breasted modern frenzy. The dance and certainly her body were compelling, though I think that as the centerpiece of the show, it should have lasted a little longer and transitioned more slowly from sexy to insane.

Overall, it was an interesting but odd production that showcased good acting, but perhaps did not do justice to the spirit of Wilde's text.

My Lukewarm Reaction to the Ahmanson's New Season

CTG announced their lineup for next season. The LA Times reports it here. As the Times indicates, it's rather deficient on new and exciting work. The shows are mostly Broadway imports, including Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf complete with stars Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin and Doubt starring Cherry Jones. I'm a little ambivalent about the whole thing. It's nice, and very convenient, to have some of the most exciting things from Broadway come to LA mostly intact, but it's not exactly inspiring to just be the second or third stop for shows that have already played in New York and London. As our largest and most expensive local theater, I'd like to see the Ahmanson do some new and exciting work, but it matters much more to me what they schedule for the Taper and the Kirk Douglas. I haven't attended either of those smaller theaters this season, mostly because I was so disappointed in Michael Ritchie's decimation of Gordan Davidson's tradition of developing new work, often by queers and people of color, in favor of programming "classics" such as The Cherry Orchard or relying on the names of famous playwrights (David Mamet) and actors (Alfred Molina, Laurence Fishburne) to sell the shows.

In terms of the Ahmanson's season, it actually looks rather inticing, if not really inspiring. The season consists of two classics (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Twelve Angry Men), two of last year's biggest new works from Broadway (Doubt and Light in the Piazza), a new (if not terribly original-sounding) musical (Berry Gordy's Aint No Mountain High Enough), and Matthew Bourne's Edward Scissorhands, which I really do want to see. Though it would be nice to see the Ahmanson do more that's original and exciting, this is a solid season to which I would at least consider subscribing. At least there aren't any holes in the season this time. The whole thing is very commercial, clearly designed to appeal (almost exclusively) to middle-class, middle-aged white people who pay attention to what's on Broadway but don't travel there, and who can affort to go to the Ahmanson. There's absolutely nothing reflective of or particularly relevant to LA or its population, but these are mildly intereting shows that I would rather like to see.

On the Margins

Violet Blue posted today that Patrick Califia recently suffered from a heart attack. A friend reports that he is recovering, but facing terrible medical bills without insurance.

An article by Califia was one of the first things I read in grad school, and I have been extremely grateful for all of his work that I have discovered since. Public Sex is one of my favorite books, a brilliant combination of scholarship and passion in clear, intelligent essays. His erotica manages to push my buttons perfectly, no matter the gender, sexuality, or species of its subjects. I would gladly encourage you to rush out and buy any or all of his books, depending on your taste (tell me if you want a review or recommendation).

But more importantly, this is a reminder that many of my favorite writers and performers are working without a net. There are no health insurance providers and often no retirement accounts, savings or middle-class families to fall back on for performance artists, freelance writers, and sex radicals. Peggy Shaw references her uninsured status in Menopausal Gentleman, and Susie Bright asks for donations so that she can afford to give some of her writing time away for free on her blog. These people provide work of great value in this world, and in doing so are uncared for by our system. Califia deserves whatever people can give him to help ease his pain and provide for his ongoing medical care. Califia's LiveJournal page and his website provide information on how to donate via PayPal or postal mail. Please, do what you can to support him and other other writers and performers working on the margins of regular employment, steady paychecks, and health insurance. Do it so that hopefully they can worry less about money and instead spend their time experiencing life and writing about it, sharing with us as much of their work as possible.

Theater at its Best

Miller, Arthur. All My Sons. The Geffen Playhouse. 3/12/06.

I'm not actually a huge Arthur Miller fan. I understand why he's important and I respect his skill as a writer, but I've never really loved his work. I've read Death of a Salesman and The Crucible a million times each, and I saw The Ride Down Mt. Morgan on Broadway, but in general, I wouldn't exactly rush out to see an Arthur Miller play. I'm more likely to write it off as heavy-handed American Realism, obsessed with fathers and sons and the suffering of the straight, white, middle-class American male. While all these assumptions aren't entirely false, they fail to encompass my experience this evening.

All My Sons at the Geffen was extemely well-crafted in every aspect of the production, and as such it was a truly wonderful experience at the theater. It actually energized me, making me want to see more theater, and left me a bit stunned at the skill of playwright, director, cast, and everyone else involved. A significant portion of what made this play so great for me had a lot to do with a fabulous cast, headed by Len Cariou (Sweeney Todd on Broadway), Laurie Metcalf (original member of the Steppenwolf and most famous as the sister from Rosanne), and Neil Patrick Harris (Rent, Assassins, and of course Doogie Howser). Harris blew me away; his character was the conscience of the play and he appeared from his entrance as both a good, decent guy and a reasonably complex character so that his morality was believable. This man is a truly skilled actor, and I should remember to see anything else in which he performs whenever I have the chance. Len Cariou as the flawed patriarch did an excellent job at seeming lovable even as his morally corrupt actions were exposed. In this, only the second performance, he seemed to be grasping for lines at several points especially in the first act, but he made this stumbling sound more like character-appropriate senility than the mistake that I assume it was. Laurie Metcalf as the mother gave a compelling and nuanced performance that kept the play from being carried away entirely by fathers and sons. Amy Sloan rounded out the main characters of the play with compelling strength and practicality and held her own among these luminaries.

When I say that this play was well-crafted, I mean that everything seems to have been done with skill, passion, committment and energy. Not only the acting, which was fabulous from leads Harris, Metcalf and Cariou to little Sterling Beaumon as the neighbor kid, but even the sets (by Robert Blackman) and the costumes (by David Mickelsen) were extremely well-done with excellent attention to detail. The high-waisted '50s pants caught my attention, as did the full facades of neighboring houses that extended the realism into the wings. Excellent pacing drove to a rapid conclusion that left me a little shocked, but greatful for not having been dragged slowly through Miller's moralizing. Artistic Director Randall Arney deserves credit at the helm of an outstanding production. I highly recommend it, as both classic and timely, but mostly as excellent theater.

Drag for the whole family

Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance. Ahmanson Theater. 4/6/06.

Dame Edna is the giga-star (that much more than a mega-star) drag persona of Barry Humphries. She's a hilarous comedian with fabulously glittery costumes, and I laughed outrageously throughout the show. The performance was well-written, well-paced (it was nearly 3 hours long, but the time flew by!), and funny thoughout. Dame Edna performed songs and dances and fabulous audience interaction, which is not easy in a venue as large as the Ahmanson. It was quite nice to be in the back and thus know that we were safe from being called on by the Dame herself. It's a wonderful show and anyone who goes is sure to laugh until they hurt. I was especially impressed by the full costume change for the curtain call and the animatronic flowers, both of which were hilarious. So go to the show; you'll love it, I'm sure.

I couldn't help thinking throughout the show, however, that this was drag for straight people. It was safe, middle-class, all white, and not very political. Edna performed couples counseling, choosing a nice married couple out of the audience to drag on stage and embarrass. Humphries' bio carefully mentions his wife and children. It's all of the fun and camp and sequins of a drag show without those pesky homosexuals. While extremely queer and fabulous performers like Lypsinka are performing to half-full houses in tiny venues and Vaginal Davis is semi-homeless when she's here in LA, I felt a little guilty that my money was going to support Dame Edna. I felt as if I should instead spend my time and money at The Cavern Club Theater and Backyard Drag supporting local queer performers. And where are the fabulous, famous drag kings, btw?

Film Noir Festival!

This week and next (April 7-16), the Egyptian and the Aero Theaters will be conducting the 8th Annual Festival of Film Noir. They will be showing some famous noir films such as The Damned Don't Cry and some obscure and newly restored films such as Angel's Flight. They especially focus on films set and shot in LA. Some personal highlights include:

The Damned Don't Cry (1950), Saturday, April 8, starring Joan Crawford.

Ruby Gentry (1952), Saturday, April 8, directed by King Vidor. With Charlton Heston and Karl Malden. Tagline: "The story of Ruby Gentry, who wrecked a whole town - man by man...sin by sin."

Beyond the Forest (1949), Saturday, April 8, directed by King Vidor, starring Bette Davis.

Don't Bother to Knock (1952), Sunday, April 9, starring Marilyn Monroe and Anne Bancroft.

No Man of Her Own (1950), Saturday, April 15, starring Barbara Stanwyck.

Most of the showings are double features, so you get a whole evening of double-crosses, murder, and femmes fatales. The full calendar is here. So, anyone want to go to a movie (or two) with me? This might very well be my plan for Saturday night.

Children's Musical Round-up

Dr. Dolittle. Orange County Performing Arts Center. 3/23/06.
and
Honk! Laguna Playhouse. 3/31/06.

These are two familiar stories made into musicals best suited for children, but fun nonetheless. Dr. Dolittle is most memorable for Tommy Tune's performance; he's an extremely skilled entertainer and he carries a musical with a tenuous plot and little else to speak for it. At over 60, Tune's tap-dancing is wonderfully skillful; I would gladly have clamored for more and more. The sets and costumes were also well done (by Kenneth Foy and Ann Hould-Ward respectively) and extremely fun and colorful. Talented twelve-year-old tap-dancer Aaron Burr (yes, really) as Chee-Chee the Monkey also had a delightful tap dancing scene and a charismatic, playful performance throughout the show. Dee Hoty as the leading lady in the show did an admirable job in a role that wasn't thoroughly fleshed-out. The main problem with the show, however, was that its plot was rather tenuous, better for children with short attention spans and little care for continuity, than adults that may want to think about the show even a little.

Honk! had slightly more substance but not a great deal. It's the story of the Ugly Duckling, adapted into a children's musical, including several roles for children. The Laguna Playhouse used it as an opportunity to showcase the students in their conservatory program as chicks, ducklings, and froglets (including some pretty impressive dancing) while hiring adults to take the major roles. This show was also cute and has a little more substance to keep the parents interested. The sets by Wally Huntoon created an adorable larger-than-life watercolor farm. My major complaint here was the costumes, which looked quite low-budget including a few too many sweatpants and tennis shoes for my taste. In the costumer's defense, there were an awful lot of characters to outfit in this production with what was, I'm sure, a tiny budget, and certainly some costumes were better than others. I just don't think sweats are ever really the right choice, and especially with the goslings I had a lot of trouble figuring out what animal the characters were supposed to be.

Both of these productions were light and fun and good for children, but I wouldn't rush out as an adult to either of them. Do bring your kids, though; teach them the magic of theater while they're young and start a tradition of theatrical attendance now.

Review by Proxy

I've been told that Claire Z. at Sacred Fools is excellent. It's based on absurdist Durrenmatt's The Visit. The plot summary is promising:

Singing eunuchs, bizarre butlers, drumming, chanting and much more!

The richest woman in the world returns to her hometown: an impoverished little village enduring an agonizing period of decline. She will open her purse and give her vast wealth to the town, restoring it to grandeur, on one condition: kill Alfred Schill, the man who wronged her years before.

Will they kill him? Absurd... but the town is desperate, and Claire can wait...

CLAIRE Z is a percussive-driven, movement based theater piece drawing from the work of Grotowski and Suzuki, featuring the music of Lou Reed, Simon & Garfunkel and much more.

I hope I can get out there before it closes next weekend!

Vendetta

V for Vendetta.

Seeing V for Vendetta last night with friends inspired a long evening of conversation about the politics of film, comics, and video games, and, of course, politics in general, which is in itself almost enough of a reason for me to see it. Anything that leaves me wanting to talk about it was well done, even if it wasn't exactly the movie I wanted.

I have complaints. V was too conversational, to voluble at the beginning when he should have been mysterious. I wasn't sucked into the world of the film immediately; I would have liked to see more setting established. Evey and V aren't the only things going on in this world, and I would have liked to see more of that immediately, and not just through the TV. Some of the editing was difficult, and not necessarily good.

But by the end, I was completely wrapped up in the film. It did a wonderful job of tying all the plotlines and metaphors together, building to a truly stunning climax. It was a fairly faithful rendition of the graphic novel, editing some subplots out for the sake of clarity, playing up the ties to the contemporary situation, but for the most part following the plan layed out by Alan Moore in the graphic novel.

Moore, however, wants nothing to do with the film. He had his name redacted and refused a share of the profits. He has reasons to be angry, some of which are explained in this New York Times article. In addition to his disputes with DC Comics, who do indeed make a habit of stripping their authors of any intellectual property rights, Moore's objections to film adaptation stem partially from his commitment to establishing graphic novels as a valid and complex medium in their own right, rather than just prototypes for film. His worst fears about film might be evident in an examination of From Hell and how completely unrelated to Moore's dark, literate graphic novel the Hollywood movie turned out to be.

I've read V for Vendetta and I must say that the film in some ways felt more clear, just a little easier, but for the most part very similar. I definitely felt that I knew what was coming every moment. Both were intensely literate, dripping Shakespeare quotes and images of famous artwork, and not at all subtle, trying to force the audience into some realization about life, politics, and revolution.

But will people see this movie? Will they think about it beyond the big explosions? Why aren't people angry? Can they really think it's just a movie, rather than a much-needed political speech of an extreme variety? Perhaps the New York Times Review is an indication, dismissing it all too easily in a show of wit rather than serious consideration. The only sentence in the entire review I agree with is that it "never manages to make this Goth dystopia pop." Although perhaps this one at least deserves some consideration: "The more valid question is how anyone who isn't 14 or under could possibly mistake a corporate bread-and-circus entertainment like this for something subversive." Like this sentence, the whole review is haughty and superior, not for a moment giving the movie credit as a political statement. And perhaps the reviewer is right that within the system you can't possibly overturn it and this film is indeed motivated by profit as much if not more than by art or politics. But I think that the people dismissing this as a facile political statement are wrong. It's saying something that needs to be said, in the 1980s, now, and again: the government is wrong, DO SOMETHING.

Review Long Deferred

faults, lies, and faultlines. Katastrophe. 2005.

When I ordered this CD, I meant to write a review fairly quickly. But with CDs, I tend to want to let them sit in my head for a while, to give myself a chance to figure out when I want to come back to them. And the first time I listened to fault, lies, and faultines, it didn't quite get stuck in my head (with the possible exception of the first song, "The Life." I wanted to listen to it more, understand it deeper, penetrate the lyrics, but I didn't immediately love it. So, taking a month to listen to it occasionally, and to come back to it whenever I wanted, I've discovered exactly how wonderful it is.

There's an amazing level of depth and complexity in this CD, both in terms of layers of sound and layers of meaning. It's a little different than Let's f*ck and then talk about my problems, which I feel does a lot of work toward establishing a persona for katastrophe. This album seems to wrestle more with issues and individual choices, from "Diamond rings," which claims "I'm fine, without those diamond rings attached to price tags. I'd make a nice dad, but I'm not taking any chances in a word that takes advantage" to "all wrong" which says "It doesn't matter if you even like me anyway. 'cause you don't live my life and I don't know what it's like for you. So you mind yours and I'll mind mine and everybody can get along just fine." And katastrophe doesn't back away from trans identity and trans issues in this CD; queer and trans issues are integrated throughout the album, sometimes coded and sometimes direct, but very clearly part of a larger identity and larger issues with which the album wrestles.

The first song on the CD, "The Life," is a collaboration with Shaggy Manatee and Ruby Valentine of Romanteek. The several voices within the song make it a lot of fun, and it's a great song to dance to. The chourses of "break down" and "drop a line" and "read me" similarly compell me to dance and sing along. Other songs feature pointfivefag and jb rap (Juba Kalamka and Jeree Brown of Deep Dick Collective), cindy wonderful of Scream Club, and aggracyst. The entire album is a beautiful balance between multiple layers of katastrophe's unique voice and collaborations that add interesting complementary voices, demonstrating a commitment to a queer hip hop/rap community. It also has a great tension between brilliant lyrics and poetry I want to listen to and fun beats I want to dance to.

And I must mention "fake meat" which is a wonderfully witty rumination on insecurity, both personal and financial. Katastrophe even reminds us that "I ain't proud to let y'all know money come in slow, so dig deep and we'll all sleep easy," which, oddly enough, rather than irritating me that he's asking for money, actually makes me want to send some to him. I think I'll order a replacement for that long lost copy of his first album now. Anyway, I highly recommend this CD, but it took me some time thinking about it before I really fell in love with it. The more I listen to the lyrics, the more impressed I am.

Full Disclosure

Recently, I found myself in a situation I never expected. This blog actually lead to a real world benefit for me. Specifically, Sarafina from the band Lipstick Conspiracy read this post from when I saw them perform at Fresh Meat. Not only did she contact me, which was sweet, but she took pity on my complaints of poverty and gave me a copy of the CD, Don't Tell a Soul, that I never managed to buy when I saw them perform. I was delighted! I'm a huge fan of free stuff, and this CD made me very happy. The only things I have to offer in exchange for this wonderful gift are a mention here on my blog and a review, so even though she didn't ask me to, I promised to at least link to the band's website. For a moment, I felt almost guilty about that. Does this mean I'm bribe-able? Will I promote anything that gives me free stuff? I decided that this was a silly little moral dilemma because:

A. I make no claims to professionalism and journalistic ethics
B. I saw, enjoyed, and linked to the group before they gave me anything
C. Reviewers get free CDs, books, theater tickets, etc. all the time

So, basically, I decided that if anyone wants me to review anything (CDs, books, videos, fabulous fashion accessories, etc) feel free to send it to me. I also accept theater tickets (gladly!). I'd love to get stuff to review. I'd love to be more aware of cool and especially queer bands, performers, etc. So, while I doubt anyone will take me up on the offer, feel free to email me and offer me things to review. I'll do my best to provide thorough consideration, interesting and honest opinions, my performance studies expertise, and appropriate links.

I'm also excited to hear a rumor that Lipstick Conspiracy is in the process of recording a new CD and may be touring this summer. So feel free to check back here (or here) soon for info on when they'll be in SoCal. I'll also be reviewing their CD shortly.

Book Signings

There are two very interesting author tours coming up in the near future.

Sunday, March 26, 7pm
Michelle Tea reads and/or signs (I'm not sure) Rose of No Man's Land at Skylight Books

Leslie Feinberg will be in California speaking and signing hir new novel, drag king dreams

Thursday, March 23, 7pm
LGBT Liberation in Time of War Abroad and Repression at Home
Featuring Leslie Feinberg
with LeiLani Dowell of Fight Imperialism Stand Together
and John Parker of International Action Center-LA
5274 W Pico Blvd, #203
Sponsored by: Leftbooks.com & International Action Center – LA

Tuesday, March 28, 7pm
An Evening with Leslie Feinberg
Transgender Author and Activist
One Institute National Gay and Lesbian Archives

(Feinberg info via thuggery & skullduggery)

You know what this means? It means I'll be buying Rose of No Man's Land in hardback. I have an irrational distaste for hardback books, but sometimes, you're stuck with them.

Another Reason I Wish I Could Date Annalee Newitz

I am completely in love with Annalee Newitz and especially what she is wearing in this picture (via Laughing Squid). Please note the t-shirt with blazer (hot) and especially the matching plaid bottoms. Pants? Skirt? I don't know, but either way, it's pretty darn awesome. I also love that her t-shirt says something, but the only word we can read is "gay." Rock on.

Disclaimer: Annalee Newitz is clearly a genius and writes a weekly column at AlterNet on technology which generally explains and comments amusingly on things about which I had no idea I should care. Go read this week's column on the attention economy. She is my latest internet crush, but otherwise has no connection to me whatsoever and should not be concerned by my mild stalking.

Oscar Roundup

I thought I'd share my thoughts and some of what I've been reading about the Oscars. I am very disappointed that Crash won, although I can't say anything against it because I didn't see it. I didn't see it because I heard mostly mediocre things from my friends who did see it and I know several people who HATED it. Hardly a resounding endorsement. I felt that both Brokeback Mountain and Good Night and Good Luck were execellent examples of what filmmaking could be. These were gorgeous, important, challenging films. Not only did they have something to say, but they had a style that supported and delivered that message in a clear, effective way. Again, I can't say whether Crash fits in this category as well or not.

Instead, I will point you to the LA Times, where James Bates explains the promotion and insider politics behind Crash's win and where Kenneth Turan offers a wonderfully angry breakdown of how Crash was the safe choice. Turan isn't the only one who feels that this decision was homophobic. The Virgina Quarterly Review and Backwards City (via Bookslut) both discuss Crash's win as homophobic and conservative. Cintra Wilson at Salon similarly discusses how the Oscars this year were safe, pandering to the conservatives. Finally, Bill Robinson at the Huffington Post has a slightly creepy counterperspective that I find disquieting but interesting.

I did indeed find the Oscars a bit upsetting. I can't really say for sure that the refusal to honor Brokeback (and Felicity Huffman for Transamerica) was homophobic, but it does feel that way. In fact, it feels a lot like after the last election when 8 states past anti-marriage amendments; it forced me to realize that there is a lot of the country that still hates us. While grand, sweeping, beautiful statements such as Brokeback can be made, people still feel as if they have the right to hate or ignore them just because they're gay.

George Clooney began the night so well, claiming a proud, liberal tradition for the Oscars as politically out of touch in a good way. But then everything about the night fought to contradict him. Even the the horrible, nonsensical anti-DVD rants demonstrated exactly how conservative the Oscars really are. Come on, who watches Ben Hur in theaters?!? For those of us who aren't 92, all of the movies whose 'spectacle' they celebrated we first watched on DVD or on TV if at all. And maybe they should be showing more of the old classic movies at theaters to recapture some of the glory of great film. Perhaps their fight against DVDs should involve making moviegoing an event (and an enjoyable one rather than one about crowds and lines and screaming children and ringing cellphones) or perhaps they should just recognize that they don't get to dictate how and when people enjoy their products. But they shouldn't be lecturing and talking down to their audience in the middle of an awards show. Jon Stewart may know that, but apparently a lot of the Academy does not.

Even 'A Return To Glamour,' which was the theme of the Oscars this year, seems wrongheaded and conservative. None of these movies was about glamour. These were movies with something to say, which was mostly achieved through looking gritty or sparse. It was a refusal of artificial glamour that made them notable. By denying and ignoring that, the Oscars were once again trying to whitewash and hide the real issues.

Cintra Wilson's observation on Salon about Resse Witherspoon as advocating conservative values is brilliant and important. She's a beautiful, young, blond starlet who talks only about her husband and children and her grandmother. She seems unsure at times about whether she was playing June Carter Cash or her own grandmother. She stresses her similarity and identification with the role as a 'strong woman' and a 'real woman.' I'm mildly amused and slightly horrified by a couple of the people liveblogging the Oscars whose first thoughts after Reese's repeated "she's a real woman" comments were, "Is she saying something about Transamerica?" Examples here, here at 10:59 and here in the comments. I suspect she's just dumb and not that cruel, rude, and homophobic, but even the fact that it can be interpreted that way is pretty scary and reason enough why she shouldn't have said it. In this interview from two years ago, she talks about how motherhood has allowed her to play women with whom she can better identify. If this isn't a blatant promotion of conservative values, I don't know what is.

Finally, I'd like to point you to the latest Guerrilla Girls Oscar campaign: The 500-pound gorilla in Hollywood isn't King Kong—it's discrimination against women directors!. They remind us that:

Only 3 women have ever been nominated for an Oscar for Direction (Lina Wertmuller (1976), Jane Campion (1982,) and Sofia Coppola (2003). None has won.

Clearly, the Oscars are and have always been a boys club, and while they like to seem liberal and congratulate themselves, the reality is the same exclusion and discrimination that you see all over.

Another Moment in a Long Tradition of Broadway Orientalism

Bombay Dreams. Orange County Performing Arts Center. Segerstrom Hall. Costa Mesa, CA. 2/23/06.

Bombay Dreams is a musical set in the Bollywood film industry and on the streets of Bombay (now Mumbai). It was a beautiful, lush production with a talented cast, but it was still profoundly problematic. Despite its attempts at authenticity, several moments certainly evoked the orientalist tradition of Broadway musicals.

The good news is that, unlike Rodgers and Hammerstein in The King and I or South Pacific, Bombay Dreams features several people from the culture it represents, both in its cast and among its creators. Composer A R Rahman is indeed a composer for Bollywood films and the romantic leads are played by actors of Indian descent.

In fact, I suspect that a little more familiarity with Bollywood film and Indian culture might actually have increased my appreciation of this musical; a large proportion of the audience was Indian and I would guess that Bombay Dreams has elements of both tribute to and satire of the Bollywood genre that a greater literacy might have given more meaning.

There were some extremely troubling moments, however. My biggest problem is with the role and the treatment of the character of Sweetie (played by (Aneesh Sheth), whose unrequited love for the leading man, Akaash (played by Sachin Bhatt), is unbearably painful. She's a hijra played by a man and fated to die tragically in the end in a rather unnecessary moment of queer containment.

My other concern is the fact that in this touring production, only about half of the performers were of Indian descent. Almost the entire cast was extremely light-skinned, with several people from across Asia playing Bombay natives. Several of the men were apparently African-American Just as the Puerto Ricans in West Side Story are generally played anyone with dark hair, including Natalie Wood, whose parents were Russian.

The strength of Bombay Dreams is its spectacle. The lush production numbers, full of bright colors and beautiful dancing, make this an entertaining show despite its flaws. The Bollywood setting, like the long Broadway tradition of backstage musicals, provide ample opportunities for singing and dancing and the cast does so quite well.

Fred and Ginger with Backup

Never Gonna Dance. Musical Theatre West. Carpenter Performing Arts Center. Long Beach. 3/2/06.

Never Gonna Dance was a fairly inexplicable musical. It has the basic plot structure of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical, Swing Time, but with changes to the plot that made even less sense than the original wacky 1930s musical. With Fred and Ginger, the plot was just an excuse to get from one dance number to another, but Never Gonna Dance lacked the pace and frivolity that made the Fred amd Ginger musicals so much fun.

The dancing throughout the show was excellent; leads David Engel as Lucky and Tami Tappan Damiano as Penny worked really hard and carried the show pretty well, and all of the chorus were extremely talented tap dancers. Every member of the chours got an opportunity to dance a bit of a solo as well as serve as ensemble backup dancers. It was odd, however, the way they adapted songs that were originally Fred and Ginger solos in closeup to production numbers. It drained a bit of the individual personality and chemistry away from the leads.

The performance I saw was questionable at best. There were several technical difficulties including a backdrop getting caught up on an electric and twisted. More problematically, the sound, especially in the second act, was extremely over-mic'd. It made even the leads sound shrill, and it ruined Harriet Harris' solo, showing just how much she wasn't a singer (although she's a brilliant character actress and performed quite admirably in "Shimmy with Me").

Overall, the show was fun, although in no means great. It had its moments, and it had its problems. I think as a concept, it was weak. I'd rather watch the original with Fred and Ginger. Or even a live stage production of the original text, without Never Gonna Dance's tweaked the plot and odd collection of songs.

The Politics of the Closet on Broadway

In this preview of shows opening on Broadway this spring, Charles Isherwood fails to mention that three of the four shows he discusses star lesbians. There's Cynthia Nixon* in Rabbit Hole, Lisa Kron of The Five Lesbian Brothers in her own show, The Well, and Cherry Jones in Faith Healer. Now, their lesbianism is not particularly relevant to any of these shows, all of which seem to mostly be about family and the fact that life sucks, so perhaps it's best that Isherwood doesn't sensationalize by mentioning their personal lives. I'm sure there have been plenty of articles that mention lots of gay men on Broadway without talking about their sexuality, but the whole thing does raise the question of where the line between private and closet falls. Might there have been a reason to mention Kron's history with the Five Lesbian Brothers or the WOW Cafe? I, for one, am glad to see lesbian actresses getting work and I think that sexuality isn't a relevant issue in this particular article, but it did make me think about when you do and don't discuss an actor's sexuality.

*NOTE: The assertion of Nixon's queerness may not be entirely accurate; she seems to have refused to confirm or deny the fact (and she is known to have had boyfriends previously), so she can't really be considered an out lesbian actress.

Orton on Broadway

I'm a huge Joe Orton fan. He's funny and dirty and fabulous. So I was thrilled to hear that The Roundabout Theatre is reviving Entertaining Mr. Sloane. I know Sloane backwards and forewards, and yet I would absolutely love to see again. Ben Brantly's preview of perverse British plays opening this spring on Broadway has reminded me why people go to New York to see shows. I certainly wish I had the money to fly out and see shows periodically. As a matter of fact, I would love to see the Roundabout's whole season (how great would Alan Cumming be in Threepenny Opera translated by Wallace Shawn?)

Are Russian Vampires Better?

Nightwatch. (Nochnoi Dozor). Nuart Theatre. 2/25/06.

I really enjoyed Nightwatch. It's a Russian movie adapted from a the first in a trilogy of novels about vampires, an impending apocolypse, and battles between Good and Evil. Its sequel, Daywatch, is apparently already in theaters in Russia. It kind of reminded me of what Constantine should have been if it had been done right.

Overall, I'd say that the movie was extremely well done. It was dark and intense in a creepy, grimy way. It was like The Lord of the Rings or The Matrix in epic action storytelling, but much less visually crisp and clean. Very Russian, I suspect. The plot was complicated, and not always entirely clear, but less confusing than just giving the impression that there was a lot below the surface that may or may not be revealed. While it wasn't precisely morally ambiguous (it's very clear who are the good guys and bad guys), it was complex, with a rather flawed hero. There was plenty of blood, and the violence wasn't pleasurable and satisfying the way it would be in a summer action movie.

Oddly enough, this particlar film is getting recognition for its subtitles, which are a little more artistic than the standard boring white subtitles across the bottom of the screen, but not unusual enough to be irritating. The editing of the film is also notable, though it's sometimes great and sometimes distracting. It moves very fast, which is mostly a good thing that serves to keep the audience engaged but can occasionally be disruptive, especially in the final sequence.

The movie itself has a pretty strong visual sense and moments of brilliance, including an adorable moment when one of the characters watches Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a beautifully creepy animal-to-human transformation. Some of the fights were hard to follow, but mostly disorienting in a fascinating way.

The New Yorker review of this film is fascinating. I'm not sure the reviewer actually understood the film particuarly well, but he managed to be quite snarky anyway, putting the emphasis more on his own cleverness than the film. So I'd say don't believe him, although I love the line:

The battle between good and evil, in its messy desperation, feels not like a comic-strip confection, as in “X-Men,” but like the foul-tasting hangover of something true.

If Russian vampire action is your kinda thing, go check it out. I'm totally engrosed and will be seeing Daywatch whenever it makes it over.

A mental break

I'm in the middle of some serious work, but I took a little break to read blogs, and what did I come across? This. Now, normally I wouldn't be looking at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue to save my life, but I'm fascinated by the retro pinup style of these photos. It makes me happy when 40s and 50s glamour appears in contemporary culture.

(via kinky bitch.)

Whores are great!

Sex Workers Art Show. Northwest Campus Auditorium. UCLA. 2/14/06.

It's a bad sign when you arrive to see the artists leaving the venue ten minutes after the performance should have started. When I got to the show late (traffic), I was hoping it hadn't begun, but I wasn't expecting to find the audience locked out. The show started half an hour late due to extreme technical difficulties, and while I was initially annoyed, the show was more than worth the wait, and they did a great job of rolling with the punches as the sound cut out spontaneously, microphones only sometimes worked, and technology proved generally unreliable. They went on with the show despite everything, and did an excellent job. Each of the individual performers was excellent, and I will try to talk about all of them, though I will sadly be brief about it. This altogether, despite technical difficulties, was an absolutely wonderful, sexy, brilliant, well-organized show and I encourage everyone who can to get out and see it. The schedule is here.

Annie Oakley organized the show and introduced the performers, but I would have liked to have heard more from her about the project, the artists, herself, anything. I want to listen to what this woman has to say.

Once the show finally started, it began with a beautiful dance piece by Julie Atlas Muz. Muz opened and closed the show, with her first piece involving bondange and stripping, and her closing piece entitled "Bloodbath." Both were short, simple, and stunning. She has a beautiful body and she uses it with wonderful skill and expression. She had a rough time with an audience that wasn't warmed up and didn't know what to expect, but that's no indictment of her skill. It was just strange to be cheering loudly for a naked women, whose performance was so clearly beautiful and artistic, especially with a modest audience of mostly queers, feminists, and other people particularly sensitive to exploitation. It took a little encouragement to convince us to be vocal, but once the crowd warmed up, we really did love the performers.

Tralala Farsi Sentiamo really broke in the audience by reading a fun, not entirely erotic piece about sex work. She encouraged us to laugh and cheer, and got a really great atmosphere going.

Scarlot Harlot, "one of the foremothers of the sex workers' rights movement," performed a great Dworkin/McKinnon spoof, then stripped to her fabulous unrepentant whore self and performed a song about her weight. Her performance was fierce and fun and fabulous, and she's really a force of nature.

Michelle Tea was really the one I was there to see. I've read several of her books, and I think Rent Girl is the greatest thing ever and I would recommend it to anyone. But, despite my adoration, I had never seen Michelle Tea perform. I had seen her in person, at several of Katastrophe's shows and once just on the streets of San Francisco, but I'd never heard her read. It turns out she's an amazing performer as well as an amazingly talented writer; she chose a great, hilarious selection from Rent Girl and she read it perfectly with wonderful clarity and expression and animation. She's another one I would just love to listen to her talk for as long as she was willing to do so. I can't wait for Rose of No Man's Land and I hope she does a book tour!

Simone de la Getto of Harlem Shake Burlesque performed a fun burlesque strip number, and then sang a song, for which the music cut out in the middle and she continued fabulously. She is quite a performer, and although there were scary moments as she gave audience members lap dances, in general she had a great connection to the audience and a great performance in general.

The adorable Bridget Irish perfomed a wacky reverse strip tease in which she emerged onstage naked and in secret agent fashion she had to find articles of her clothing stashed all over the theater. Despite the stripping of other performers, there was something much more disconcerting about a naked lady running through the theater. It felt like a real triumph and a relief when she managed to find and put on her bra!

Juba Kalamka of The Deep Dick Collective performed a fascinating song/performance piece entitled something like (I may be wrong about this) "Requiem for a Nigga Ass 'Ho." It was an intense, serious piece displaying his musical range and skill.

All of these performers were selling merchandise, and I wanted it all. I bought a Sluts Unite T-shirt for the sheer audacious fabulousness of it (I'm not sure if/when I'll wear it). But I kind of also wanted a Sex Workers' Art Show t-shirt (the one with the mud flap girl); if I weren't quite so broke, I totally would have bought that, too. And I came home later and realized I should have also purchased Rough Tongues: Femmes Write Porn as a V-day present to myself, so I ordered it from Amazon. I will probably also break down and purchase Scarlot Harlot's book, Unrepentant Whore as well; I bet it's great. Overall, for a free show it cost me $21, but these women deserve my money; they were pretty darn awesome. If anyone outside of LA reads this, and the show's coming to your town, by all means get your ass there and bring plenty of cash. You'll be glad.