Joss Whedon for Equality Now

Here is a YouTube video of the speech that Joss Whedon gave at an event for Equality Now. He's brilliant and brief and he really, truly understands why feminism is an issue for straight men (via Feministing).

Villians are fun

This is great! You can vote for your favorite literary villian and the options are such a wonderful combination of goofy and evil and contemporary and classic characters that I want to vote for about 6 of them. I'd totally vote for Zaphod Beeblebrox, but he's so lovable that it's hard to consider him evil. I encourage everyone to vote because it's suprisingly fun.

A Glimpse into Heterosexual Dating

Internet Dating: The Musical. art/works theatre. 6/22/05.

Internet Dating: The Musical is an adorable world premiere musical about, obviously, the vagaries of internet dating. It's fun; a good, solid musical that had my affection from "You're Cute (...but you don't know how to spell)" sung by the delightfully energetic Reggie de Leon. Some of the songs in this show (most notably "Google You" sung by Suzan Solomon as a protective mom) are truly brilliant and hilarious, and well-suited to both the plot and theme of the show. One of the major high points of the play was the fact that every actor had at least one strong musical number that highlighted their talent and gave depth to each of their characters.

I apparently attended on an off night, a Thursday with a small audience when a new actor was joining the cast, replacing the actor who played Mr. Flexible. The understudy, Anthony Mannix, was playing the role of Eduardo, and the lead, Ali Spuck was sick and the role was played by Ali Pomerantz, who normally plays her best friend. According to reports (some reviews available on the press page), Spuck is a little darker and more sarcastic than Pomerantz, but I found Pomerantz wonderfully cute and quirky. She doesn't look like the typical musical theater lead, but did look like the kind of everywoman you might find in an office, and I think that worked in her favor. Female understudy Dianna Wyenn substituted as one of the lead's best friends, but she was dramatically outperformed by the spunky Sandy Shimoda as the other friend.

The highlights of the show were Jennifer Norkin, who was hilarious and extremely flexible in her various ensemble roles and her wacky number as an internet virus, and the musical number "Bi-Coastal Bisexual" which had me laughing out loud even though it was performed rather awkwardly by the obviously quite heterosexual Anthony Mannix and Trip Hope.

In fact, the whole musical was overwhelmingly heterosexual, in both cast and content, and while I've experienced my fair share of queer internet dating, seeing it from a heterosexual perspective is a bit different. The biphobia inherent in making the villian the only major queer character in the show makes me a bit uncomfortable. In fact, the whole thing would benefit from a gay best friend or other fun queer character. The gender dynamic of internet dating makes everything a bit more complicated in terms of norms and expectations, though the show does a good job of demonstrating that main character learns how to make the first move instead of hiding behind the idea that girls have to wait for guys to ask them out. I also like the fact that you didn't know which guy the girl would fall for (Was it Trip Hope, who was a little too conventionally attractive for his role as the dorky but adorable scientist or was it Kyle Nudo as a slightly rumpled coworker?) It wasn't until the beginning of the second act when the number "I Never Understood Why You Were Single" acts as the traditional musical theater love song that we even have a clue who Jenny was meant to be with.

My only other major complaint about the show was that it was supposedly set in Los Angeles, but it didn't feel particularly LA (except for one mention of a screenplay). It had a very non-descript locational feel, and I would have liked a better sense of setting. The set, however, designed by Mia Torres, was wonderfully fun and practical. With a screen-shaped false proscenium and a scrim screen upstage through which potential internet dates emerged, the set was cute and functional and very fun. The stage itself sometimes seemed too small for a musical with such great energy and big heart and a fairly large cast of ten. Director Annie Oelschlager did a good job of making use of a small space, but this show feels as if it needs a bigger space and a bigger run. The choregraphy, by Brian Paul Mendoza, was a little dubious at times, with some very cheesy musical theater moves, but in general the overall staging was fun and servicable.

Overall, though, I would totally recommend this show. The writer/composer/lyricist, Ron Weiner, has a lot of talent with musical comedy and the entire cast deserves hearty congratulations for their energy. It was a super-fun little show, and I hope it has a life beyond its closing date on July 15.

Creepy Censorship of Trans Performer

Turner Schofield, my favorite queer performance artist that I know personally, recently had a run-in with some pretty icky censorship at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina. The details are reported here at Homofactus Press and in the Charlotte Observer.

While I suppose it's a good step that the Charlotte Observer attempts to use male pronouns for Turner and generally posits him as male, their real emphasis seems to be on the "former girl" part of the headline rather than his masculinity (and note the use of the word "girl" instead of "female" or "woman"). And I like that the ostensible emphasis is on the conundrum of whether a transguy with his shirt off falls under the nudity standards for men or women, which is I suppose a valid question IF there were an explicit and consistent written policy for the venue communicated at the time of booking as opposed to

"there are no written guidelines. ... We have standards we have followed over the years."

Administrator Kim Rentz does come off as pretty transphobic with quotes like:

"A man who has always been a man is different, I think," Rentz said. "That's my own personal take on it"

and

Asked what audiences might have found offensive had Schofield exposed his torso on stage, Rentz said, "I try not to draw a (mental) picture"

(all quotes from the Charlotte Observer).

I've seen Turner perform, and all I have to say is that any *partial* nudity there may be is in NO WAY offensive. It is important, and political, and perhaps challenging, but it is not sensationalistic. I do want to emphasize that this is ONLY Turner taking his shirt off - it's not like he's trying to remove his pants, though I've seen some pretty good full nudity performances recently, too. I wonder if the people making this offensive decision had seen/read Turner's work before the incidence of censorship, then would they perhaps have come to a different conclusion? Is it perhaps the very failure to "draw a mental picture" of the performance that makes it seem much more offensive than it is? Either way, this last-minute cancellation is profoundly close-minded and therefore unconscionable.

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.