Meanwhile... though it seems I wrote nothing today,that's just because you don't check me out at New Critics, as I try to tell you... and this one, about the lead-up to Sex And The City... well, it's not bad. :)
-- Weboy
Who says Andy Sullivan is totally hopeless? Thanks to him, I found this:
Just the kind of lighter note I need. :)
Via Shakesville, I spent last night doing one of those "YouTube eighties music video searches" that we all do now and then. It's amusing to see how much of my MTV past is readily available for viewing.
In her FYI series, Melissa includes Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like A Record)" - a warhorse of a dance track that's become the signature song to remember them by (especially, pardon my French, for straight people); though the song is, still, one of the most perfectly remixed 12 inch dance records of all time (it was the #1 dance single of 1988, by far, all over the world), it is not, realy how I remember them.
No, that would be the song below, the song that - still - I believe, will get gay men of a certain age onto the dance floor. Since my twenties, it is the song that somehow seemed to sum up our experience: free, unbound by convention, not interested in being tied down. It is, to my mind, one of the most perfect breakup songs, the upbeat kiss-off that really leaves nothing unanswered: What I really need to do, is find myself a brand new lover.
Share and enjoy.
Last week marked the renewal of the Weboy's High Culture License. A trip to the theater, the symphony, and the movies - the former 2, at least, likely to elicit "oohs and aahs" from co-workers for their general imprimatur of "classy" - made me feel less like the world I'm in is a cultural wasteland.
The play was William Inge's Come Back Little Sheba, centered around th lead performance of S. Epatha Merkerson, a/k/a everybody's favorite senior police officer on Law and Order (I hadn't been counting, 
but she's been in that part for 16 years). Merkerson's casting in the role was interesting because the casting was basically colorblind, and added a layer of interracial relations to the proceedings.
Though I thought I knew the substance of the play - I think of it as part of the "neo realist" part of the fifties, where theater and TV especially tried to do dramas that captured the very everyday nature of some conflicts and problems - but really, I didn't. Merkerson plays Lola Delaney, a housewife married to a midwestern chiropractor, who, she reveals fairly early on, is a recovered alcoholic. Due to the state of their finances, they have needed to take in a boarder, a young woman named Marie, who is involved with a man back home, but is having a fling with the handsome sorts star who models for her art class. Doc, the recovering alcoholic, has taken a shine to Marie, and disapproves of her liaison. And it all falls apart, when Lola arranges a dinner for Marie and her soon to be fiance, and Doc disappears on a drunken binge, only to return in a nearly murderous, alcoholic rage.
One can see how the play was a revelation for its time - alcoholism was still not widely discussed at the time, and the role of Alcoholic's Anonymous even less so, and Inge works in a lot of AA material, including a general sense of hopefulness about recovery that's welcome. But he does it all with something of heavy hand, and though the actors tried heroically, the dated impressions of drunken binges and out of character behavior didn't entirely work - though it makes a nice counterpoint to the sweet, sad, poetic drunks of O'Neill and say, Tennessee Wlliams.
What did work was Merkerson, whose abilities and talents are rarely on display in L&O. In this play, she found the heart of Lola's character, the world of a codependant woman trying, as best she knows, to deal with a bewildering problem she can't really fix. It would be easy to make this a tale of being beaten down and hopeless, and Merkerson really refuses to wallow: this Lola is a woman who plays the hand she's dealt, as best she knows how. And it's all the more heartbreaking because her choices are so circumscribed. There's a moment in the second act where, surrounded by reminders of Doc's alcoholic rage, she literally finds herself unable to carry on, to even move. It's a stunning, revelatory moment, and Merkerson makes it entirely true.
The thing is, what worked in this production best were moments like that, in the silences. What was left unsaid, what went unexplored... these are the things that made this Come Back Little Sheba so affecting as drama. I suspect that wasn't always the case. I suspect that, back then, even the modest admissions shown here - of day-to-day coping with alcoholism and its aftermath, of knowing that young single "nice girls" could be sexually active before marriage, of the emotional problems that underpin marriage... must have seemed, in themselves, like a revelation. That's not the case now - our world has moved, we know more, we talk more about these things (though, arguably, we could stand to do more of it). It's the play that feels dated, slightly archaic, something of a throwback. that it has the power - as it did for me - to continue to move an audience, and catch us short, was a tribute to sensitive, thoughtful direction and talented, impressive actors. I'm glad I caught it; I'm sorry, since it closed this weekend, that you can't. But if someone has the brains to film it and bring it to TV or cable, try and catch it. Merkerson, and her costars, are wondrous. Especially in the silences.
We could talk about the gay vote... but
surely there are more
pressing
issues - I mean, you know how someone could just, you know, accidentally wind up stripping for money in a gay bar before going on American Idol, or how it's nice to have a... friend. A really good friend. People can be... so judgmental, you know?
Tilda Swinton!
Tilda Swinton!
Well, it may be one of the dullest Oscars, with some of the least engaging winners... but Tilda Swinton has an Oscar. It can't be all bad.
And so does Marion Cotillard.
Now for the bad parts: Jon Stewart was weak, and looked entirely uncomfortable. The show seemed oddly small and muted for an 80th Anniversary - no doubt a consequence of the strike - where were the ambitious montages? Where were the old stars? I mean the really, really old ones. Jack Nicholson, doesn't really count. Why no medley of the score nominees? Why the dull production numbers for Enchanted?
As an aside - apropos of my comments last year about film as truly international, I think this may be the first time we had acceptance speeches in French, Spanish, and I think Italian. Which made that embarrassing moment between Helen Mirren and Daniel Day Lewis almost passable (and PS, when you have two Oscars, a wife who's the daughter of Arthur Miller, and the pedigree he has, a knighthood for Daniel Day Lewis is pretty much a given).
As for the dress parade, I saw very few duds. Best I saw in rough order of preference: Katherine Heigl (stunning), Hilary Swank, Tilda Swinton, Renee Zellwegger (though she has GOT to stop sucking in her cheeks), Marion Cotillard (Jean Paul Gaultier couture - best choice), Amy Adams (her green velvet number, not her performance dress), Kristen Chenoweth, the costume designer for Elizabeth (a damn fine dress), George Clooney's date, Nicole Kidman (the necklace, absolutely).
Not so good, but still lovely: Anne Hathaway (the weaker version of Katherine Heigl's), Jennifer Garner (bad strapless; bad, naughty strapless), Jennifer Hudson (full figured gals have such struggles), Cate Blanchett (maternity... always a challenge), Nicole Kidman (the dress - so-so, but also a maternity challenge), Miley Cyrus (too teen prom), Helen Mirren (well constructed... but the pieces didn't work together as a whole).
And finally, a small memo to Diablo Cody: it's all good, dear, so long as the dress doesn't wear you. And generally, slits are dangerous. But dude, way to rock the tat!
More delays... yesterday was taken up with a lot of running around, culminating in several hours of nephew moments, followed by a Christmas Concert.
Nephews first - I got to spend some quality time with the Little Star, who, at a little over 4 weeks, may be the smallest thing I've ever gotten to hold. We seem to be hitting it off. Like his brother, he's already staring intently, taking in all sorts of things. And luckily, though he can't communicate, he mostly either wants to eat, be changed, nap, or burp. Satisfaction comes easy at his age.
As for The Most Adorable Nephew in the Universe, he struggles a little with slightly less attention than he's used to, but he seems calmly confident nonetheless. We played with one of his Chanukah presents - a photo memorization game that was actually kind of tough - and he and I would up winning as a team.
As Halloween approaches, a walk through any urban shopping district shows the annual Halloween costume 
display - I saw them with Red and her MAS up in Boston, and again today wandering around Chelsea in Manhattan.
And one thing I keep wondering: when did Halloween become the holiday of naughty girl getups?
I'm not actually a big fan of Halloween; I like dress-up well enough, but I'm terrible at on-the-spot costume design. I don't have the mindset to come up with dressing up as a trash can or the Enron logo or a Freudian slip... and I'm not a big fan of looking like a decapitated body or other bloody outfit. I'm fine with dressing up in drag, but all the serious drag people will tell ya - Halloween is about more than just slapping on a dress and heels.
That being the case, why is Halloween becoming the holiday for naughty nurses and French Maids?
Continue reading "This Is Naughty Nazis AND Naughty Marietta" »
Is there anything sillier lately than the "controversy" over the Folsom Street Fair?
I know... "What controversy?" you ask. Well, apparently someone is upset that this ad is meant to resemble The Last Supper:
And they're going after Miller Beer for serving as a sponsor of the Fair.
Now, you may also be asking, "What's the Folsom Street Fair?" which, apparently is something Michelle Malkin should have asked, too. Contrary to Malkin's overheated description, it's basically summed up as a primarily gay leather and fetish, BDSM type thing. Mostly, it's a bunch of nice, middle aged folks who share a common interest in the leather scene. How Malkin and others get "Catholic bashing" into it is beyond me.
But mostly, this is silly. This is the conservative right at a loss for a good controversy frantically trying to turn something hardly worth a look into some sort of big deal; it's not going to work, mostly because the Folsom Street folks are really kind of mundane, and the poster, really, is a kind of low-rent exercise in this sort of thing (and if you want to see how low-rent, go take a look at the astonishing collection of "Last Suppers" Dan Savage has managed to assemble - and I think he missed History of the World, Part I).
Now, it's true, if you're not a leather Daddy, or into the bondage and fetish scene, the Folsom folks may seem a little, er, hardcore. But that's what happens when people with a real passion for something get together.... I mean, Trekkies make me anxious too. But despite the heavy breathing, the Folsom Street Fair is basically benign, and not really worth the effort - and the visible huffing and puffing - of the right to try to make this into something it's not. And Miller, clearly, knows where the customers are (Hmmm... leather Daddies drink beer... who'uld've guessed?)., and won't be abandoning it's hold in the gay market anytime soon. Andrew, really, we hardly knew ye.
Sometimes these things just write themselves.
Kathryn Jean Lopez on National Review writes about "Gentlemen's Clubs" and their advertising:
If you enter Manhattan from the West Side Highway, your welcome mat is Larry Flynt's in-your-face Hustler Club. If you enter from the Battery Tunnel (as I just did), it's ads (on the Brooklyn side, enticing those who would be enticed) for the Hustler and two other "Gentlemen's Clubs."
I know he's from Louisiana and they have their own problems, but if David Vittet [sic - Vitter] were to fundraise or convince Disney to make find a way to wholesomely obstruct those views, I know he'd be making a worthwhile contribution to society. And he'd make more than a few New York City metropolitan area parents grateful.
Well, Ms. Lopez (who's childless and unmarried, by the way, but never mind), why is The Hustler Club on the 
West Side Highway? Well, that would be because, um, Mayor Rudy Giuliani slammed through new regulations for strip clubs and porn shops that pushed them out of almost all of the city, except for it's edges, like, well, along major highways (where you don't find things like schools and churches).
And why would the clubs need huge billboards to advertise? Well, push the clubs from the seedy red light districts into business zones where rents are substantially higher... and you can pretty much explain the need to both go "upscale" - hence no longer "strip joints" but tony "Gentlemen's Clubs" - and to lure in as many men as possible.
And what has all of Giuliani's maneuvering wrought? Well, not much - strip clubs are all over town, porn shops are spread out all over the boroughs , and there's giant advertising for sex shows. Quite an improvement the prudish ex-Mayor foisted on the city he loves so much. Say what you will, but back when we had "red light districts" - the Combat Zone in Boston, the Block in Baltimore (which is still, pretty much The Block), Forty Deuce in New York - at least one knew the effect was concentrated into one bad area. Now, adult entertainment is even more ubiquitous and gentrification has pushed the shops into new bad neighborhoods far less equipped to deal with the ancillary problems associated with the industry (or, the industry is ancillary to problems like prostitution and drug use, take your pick).
So sure, K-Lo, there's one for David Vitter - ignoring for the moment the humor of associating him with "sex industry" yet further (there's a PR disaster in the making!) - to take on: the problems caused by one Republican's well-intentioned, if misguided efforts to police something which will, probably, never really go away. As long as we're clear: this has nothing to do with liberals.
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