easter bonnet 2004

last tuesday, april 20th, i took a couple hours off work to go see this year's broadway cares/equity fights aids easter bonnet competition.  the event is the culmination of a period of fundraising for bcefa, where all the major shows on broadway and on tour come together to contribute their donation collections and, if available, perform a small skit and present a headpiece designed and constructed by members of the cast and crew.

this year, there were twenty-four performances, some of the inspired, some of them very lackluster.  my two least favorites were 42nd Street's "Forty Second Streak" and the Naked Boys Singing basically singing about themselves.  i did have three favorites, though.

my third favorite was a funny and mean-spirited dialogue from two dearly-departed characters, officer jones and little sally from urinetown, talking with each other about what hell was like.  ("it's like taboo," one of them replied.)  at one point, officer jones tells little sally that he thinks hugh jackman in the boy from oz is incredibly hot.  "i thought you were straight," sally protests.  "most men on broadway are," officer jones replies, "until they meet hugh jackman."

my second favorite was the skit by the company of the producers.  they performed a song to the tune and rhythm of stephen sondheim's "not getting married" about three gay couples applying for marriage licenses in texas.

my favorite, and by far the best performance of the show, was the beautifully done parody of both avenue q and fiddler on the roof — appropriately titled "avenue jew."  characters from avenue q's names were changed to kate monsterwicz, hannukah eve, and jewish american princeton, who performed songs like "everyone's a little bit jewish," and, to the tune of "tradition," a face-off between "the puppets/the humans."

other highlights of the show were deborah cox's performance of her club hit "it's easy" while backed-up by dancers from the show aida, the cast of phantom listing all the other broadway shows that have come and gone during their sixteen-year run, and de la guarda's closing line of "shake your heart, and open your butt!"  daphne rubin vega also made an appearance with all four mimi's from the current cast of rent, but, sadly, no one recognized her when she came out wearing her show's bonnet.

at the end of the show, the boy from oz was awarded for raising the more money than any other broadway musical, thanks in large part to hugh jackman's use of his celebrity.  the total amount raised from all the various shows and from ticket sales at easter bonnet came to over three million dollars.  good stuff!

the normal heart

two saturdays ago, april 17th, joe had tickets to go see larry kramer's the normal heart.  the story is about kramer's alter ego, ned weeks, and his leaving his career as a hollywood writer to become one of the first aids activists in new york city in the early 80's, founding both gay men's health crisis and act-up.  the harrowing discovery of the disease, and the government's complete lack of action in the face of the epidemic, serves as the backdrop against which the main characters confront the deadly unknown and the terrifying possibility that their sexual liberation is somehow a factor in the demise of so many of their own.

the performances in this show are amazing.  raúl esparza is brilliant as weeks, capturing the ned's emotional extremes — shy timidity, passionate anger — yet still presenting a consistent, believable character.  my favorite performance, however, was joanna gleason's, whom i had never seen live before but had adored in the televised performance of the original cast of into the woods.  she plays the wheelchair-bound dr. emma brookner, who, while caring for these dying men, never lets them pity themselves.  she is hard as nails, yet still amazingly sympathetic.

what i enjoyed most about the play was the writing.  kramer is very articulate in expressing his own anger and outrage at the stubborness of all the key figures of the time, such as then president ronald reagan, new york city mayor ed koch, as well as many prominent gay men at the time who were too scared or just plain unwilling to disturb the comfortable anonymity that the gay community had established for itself at the time.  kramer's stridency, both in his plays and in the press, was apparently off-putting to many gay men twenty years ago; only now do people realize how right he was, with many of us wondering, "why didn't anybody listen?"  amazingly enough, the play answers that question as well, presenting the fears and conflicts both from outside and within the gay community at the time.  what gay activist wanted to admit that what he had worked so hard to achieve, sexual liberation for himself and those like him, could have helped spread this disease and precipitated the deaths of so many?

while a lot has changed since the early eighties, especially public support and funding for the aids crisis, much of the progress we've made in terms of prevention efforts has been backsliding.  with the progress in drug treatments and anti-viral "cocktails," many people have started having unprotected sex again in the false belief that a cure, or the next best thing, has already been found.  the increased use of crystal meth has also been linked to the increase in seroconversion among urban gay populations, and, with so much less coverage in the media, i suspect that many people in the united states feel like the problem is going away.  i'm worried that only a new development in the disease, another wave of deaths, will shake people out of their complacency, and i'm afraid that the normal heart will continue to be a very relevant play.  i look forward to the day when it, and all plays about aids, will be considered period pieces.

holla back!

jem!
(jem is excitement)

ooh, jem!
(jem is adventure)

ooh, hoo!
(glamour and glitter)
(fashion and fame)

jem!
(jem is truly outrageous)
(truly, truly, truly outrageous)

whoa, jem!
(jem)

the music's contagious!
(outrageous)

jem is my name!
(no one else is the same)

jem is my name!

but we're the misfits!
our songs are better!
we are the misfits!
the misfits!
and we're gonna get her!

jem!
(jem)

the music's contagious!
(outrageous)

jem is my name!
(no one else is the same)

jem is my name!
(jem)

mizuto abura

my friend sue jean first described mizuto abura to me as a "japanese mime troupe," which, i have to confess, had the effect of making them not want to see them.  however, given how enthusiastic she is about them, i decided to give them a try.

honestly, i'm not sure how to describe them.  the group consists of three men and one woman who perform in black business dress.  their style is a combination of dance and theatre without dialogue, though their creative use of space and traditional stage conventions to break conventional narrative structures puts them, for me, in the realm of performance art.  the physicality of their performance is also incredibly impressive.

i would say to see the if you can, but they are only in new york city for two performances, last night's and tonight's.  they are, however, going on tour in north america and will be going to vermont, pennsylvania, and seattle.  if you happen to be nearby, definitely give them a try.  for mimes, they're really pretty good.

easter dinner

waiting for a batch update to run on the database here at work.  twelve minutes and counting — how patient should a boy be?

anyhow, just felt like bragging about the cool people my boyfriend knows.  on easter sunday, joe and i went to the upper west side to have dinner with his friend john and john's boyfriend danny, pictured above.  they have a very cute dog named mona, a drawing of whom i have posted on my old college website. 

the photo is from an ap news article about a lawsuit against the state of new york challenging the state law denying marriage to gay and lesbian couples.  danny is a pretty high profile plaintiff because he's a state assemblyman for the state of new york, and he also has a relatively famous sister who is also a lesbian and recently got married in san francisco.

hee hee.  six degrees.

ooh, batch update is done.  i'm free!

jumpers

last wednesday, joe scored some free tickets to see the latest production of tom stoppard's jumpers.  joe and i had been talking for weeks about getting tickets, but $70 a head just doesn't seem worth it sometimes.  as you can imagine, we were pretty psyched to score some freebies.

i've been a big fan of stoppard's since i read rosencrantz and guildestern are dead in ap english.  the whole idea of taking one of shakespeare's most famous plays and re-writing it from the perspective of two of its most minor characters and infusing it with philosophical and theological wit, insight, and humor got me really fired up and made me wonder who the hell this stoppard guy was anyway.  although i did see his translation of the seagull with meryl streep, kevin kline and christopher walken in central park back in 2001, i consider the last stoppard play i saw to be the invention of love...also back in 2001, come to think of it.  i remember the play somewhat fondly — partly because it was well written, but also because i got to see it with my good friend chris.  we saw it with my boyfriend at the time, who was being rather moody that day.  i can't say that i remember him too fondly...

anyway, his choice of the word "stamina" in nina's famous monologue aside, i had a major bias towards liking a play written by mr. stoppard — and, honestly, i can't say that i didn't like jumpers.  i'm just not sure what to make of it.  the play has the same kind of wit and wordplay as his others, but the staging and the direction were a little too goofy for my taste.  i was initially impressed by the novelty of the revolving stage set, but i was ultimately distracted by it the entire time.  i guess that could be a good thing, if the director's point was to continually remind the audience that they were, in fact, watching a theatrical production.  however, the play seems to be more about morality and ethics as essentially arbitrary social norms, not self-conscious acknowledgement of theater as an artform.  the pandemonium of whirling set pieces and acrobats in yellow jumpsuits did little to help convey what i took to be the overall message.

perhaps the confusion on stage was supposed to represent chaos or anarchy in the absence of absolute good and evil, but i would rather have been given a few quiet moments to consider what i was seeing and hearing instead of trying to figure out why the director chose to have a fifty year-old man running back-and-forth across the stage pretending to get to another room on the other side of a wall.  poor simon russell beale.  thankfully, i also got to see him as malvolio in twelfth night last year at bam, so my only memory of him won't be his sprinting on broadway.

my advice:  though the writing is great, and some of the acting quite superb — skip the play, read the book, save yourself some cash.  the words really are the best part.

whitney biennial 2004

i went to the whitney biennial last saturday with my good friend and former fellow williams college art major soomie.  we had tried to attend "pay what you wish" night the evening before, but, by the time we'd arrived, the line was too long, and the weather too cold, for us to bother waiting.  so, like good art patrons, we promised to meet each other the next morning when the museum opened.

in the last biennial, my favorite piece was chris ware's original artwork for his graphic novel jimmy corrigan, the smartest kid on earth.  i was completely surprised and very happy to see comic book art given that kind of recognition.

this year, zak smith and robert longo were my two favorite artists exhibited (pictured above). smith's "pictures showing what happens on each page of thomas pynchon's novel gravity's rainbow" blew my socks off.  these postcard-sized sketches, some of them in color, many of them in black-and-white, were all arranged in a grid on a wall, covering it from floor to ceiling — the cumulative effect is quite staggering.  the piece is, effectively, one very long wordless comic strip.  i spent a lot of time trying to examine each sketch individually.

longo's work is, in many ways, on the other end of the spectrum.  whereas smith's drawings are small and sketchy, longo's are very large, painterly charcoal drawings of tidal waves.  standing in front of these, i remembered what my art history 101 professors, talking about j.m.w. turner's work, referred to as the ridiculous sublime.  longo's drawings, with titles like hell's gate, dragon head, and godzilla, are enormously powerful, beautiful, and terrifying.

i should to give mention to fellow williams alumna and current williams professor laylah ali, who had a few paintings featured this year.  she's a really cool lady — i was lucky enough to have her critique some pieces i did for an independent study project my junior year.  if you're curious, i have also found some other samples of her artwork.

of course, there were many other types of art in the biennial — video art, sculptures, installations.  not surprisingly, i gravitated to work that is not only more traditional (ink, charcoal and gouache on paper) but which also reflects or relates to my own life and interests, specifically comics.  the longos might seem to be an exception to this rule, but, secretly, it's just another form of nostalgia — soomie used to do compressed charcoal drawings on a similar scale, though hers were of gothic gargoyle faces.  basically, my appreciation for contemporary art amounts to little more than narcissism and nostalgia.  go figure.

by the way, if you do get to the whitney, be sure to check out the non-biennial exhibit of alexander calder's early wire sculptures.  i thought his use of line was quite fantastic.

there, you see?  work i like that has nothing to do with comics or my college experience!  and, no, the sculpture above does not look cartoonish at all.  i have absolutely no idea what you're talking about...

miz phair

yesterday, after spending the afternoon at the whitney biennial (which i'll talk about later this week), i hopped the 1 train down to roseland ballroom to wait in line for the liz phair concert. 

let me start by saying that standing in the cold for two hours after walking through five floors of a crowded museum exhibition for four hours is not a smart thing to do.  on top of that, this concert i was waiting for was general admission, which meant no seats and at least four more hours of standing.

thankfully, arriving so ridiculously early meant that i was about the tenth person in line.  a little eager, perhaps, but, once my friend sue joined me, i was quite content.  and although admission into the building still meant standing through the two opening acts and the main event, at least sue and i would be standing front-row center.  very cool.

before i go any further, i should make it clear that my boyfriend, joe, bought me the pair of tickets in honor of my "new" job, i.e., my recent transfer over to the mtv networks is&t department.  he bought them for me back in early march knowing full well that he'd be out-of-town for a conference this weekend.  still, he wanted me to go with a friend so that i'd have a good time.  when told of this, sue's friend bree offered to trade her boyfriend for mine.  i pointed out that the whole gay thing might complicate the arrangement, but bree said she'd work it out.

anyhow, the first opening act was rachael yamagata whom i can best describe as a angrier version of norah jones.  her voice had a dark and raspy quality, and a lot her songs were about bad break-ups.  still, her repartée with the audience was very fun and light, and her anecdotes about getting to know liz were pretty cool.

the second opening act was wheat.  musically, they remind me of early u2, but more light-hearted.  watching and listening to them was a lot of fun, reminding me of when i went to see one of my favorite bands of all time, too much joy, at the 9:30 club in d.c. back in 1995.  these guys were dressed a little more nineties grunge, though.  cute, and the ones with guitars were, of course, very sexy.

finally, liz came on stage in a sleeveless shiny canary yellow top, a cut-off khaki jeans skirt, and some fuschia heels.  she started off with "flower," and continued to play a full eighteen songs.  for most of the concert, she was downstage center with her guitar, although for two of them, she merely used it as a prop while she gyrated for the crowd.  naturally, she walked upstage to play the keyboards for "chopsticks."

she hit most of her big hits from all four of her albums during the main set, and even sang one track from her internet ep, "hurricaine cindy" (which i downloaded only this morning).  she finished with "human supernova," and left the stage while the crowd cheered for more. 

finally, after the stage hands had finished setting up, liz and the four members of her band came back out for an encore "special for new york."  "i never play this live," she said, and then she and the band performed an acoustic version of "suspicious minds" which went into "whip-smart."  the band then played three more songs, the last two being her raunchiest (with the possible exception of the one with which she opened).  with a mischievous smirk, she introduced her final number as "everyone's soon-to-be favorite camp song."

after the concert ended, i could barely walk, so i sat for awhile.  i watched as a crowd gathered around the stage, waving to be tossed something by the strike crew.  when i asked what they were waiting for, they told me, "copies of the set list."  i smiled — being the nerd that i am, i'd made my own.

so, for my readers' pleasure:

1. flower
2. polyester bride
3. rock me
4. johnny feelgood
5. uncle alvarez
6. my bionic eyes
7. divorce song
8. 6'1"
9. chopsticks
10. extraordinary
11. love/hate
12. help me mary
13. red light fever
14. never said
15. favorite
16. hurricane cindy
17. why can't i?
18. supernova

- encore set -

19. suspicous minds/whip-smart
20. mesmerizing
21. fuck and run
22. h.w.c.

best concert experience i've had, yet — and i went to see madonna in 2001. 

thanks again, mr. joe.  you're the greatest.

epiphany

so i woke up this morning and i realized that i have been living a lie. 

my entire existence since the turn of the millennium (the real one, not the one the major networks celebrated) has just been one big sorry joke.  my search for love and happiness ended nearly three years ago — at the age of twenty-six, i met my soulmate, and then i lost him forever. 

for the first time, i truly understand that he was, in fact, my one true love, the only man who could hold and protect me in the way that i cherish.  i never realized until now how much he truly wanted to make a life with me.  if only i had listened, if only i had done more to make him stay.

everything i have done since that year has been one excruciatingly painful step towards forgetting one solitary fact — he is gone, and he's never coming back.  the little bits of pleasure i've experienced in the meantime — the new people i've met, the drugs that i've done, the men i've been with, the cheap sex i've had — are merely poor substitutes for the real thing.  all i have left is his friendster profile, connected as a friend of a friend.  in his online photo, he smiles like an angel, but immediately to the right, the cold hard fact stares me straight in the face — status:  in a relationship.

these days, i wait out the rest of my years as peacefully as possible, praying for my torment to end.  i know he's happier without me — he's made that perfectly clear to all.  yet, perhaps some day, we'll pass each other on the street again — probably in park slope, on seventh avenue.  our eyes will meet, and all will be forgiven.  only then will the sun shine upon my soul once more.

until that joyous occasion, happy april fool's, everyone!