Recovery

Well, in time I recovered. I still have a slightly wicked cough, which I can use to scare off leering men, but other than that my Bronchitis is on the decline. That’s right, it turns out that it was Bronchitis, not Swine Flu or The Flu or anything related.  2 weeks of abject illness then slight fogginess have brought me to now, so I have good reason for my lack of blog activity, but still, I’m sorry. For the 4th of July I took a break from the ghetto, which I affectionately refer to my neighborhood as, and went to Fire Island.  F I was clearly fabulous and I was overwhelmed with nostalgia for Australia. Ah, I miss that place. I miss living somewhere clean and beautiful. Near the ocean. Thus Fire Island was kinda like going home. Pictures to come x

Sick in Bed

Whoah, I have the flu. It is no fun at all. From throwing up to stomach pains, fever, dizziness, cough, head cold, I feel like I’m in 2 no Trump. For all the non-bridge players that means, I’ve got high cards in all the suits, a little of everything, enough to win with out naming a suit. Or in this case enough to loose, with every symptom rolled up together, it’s got to be the flu. I know this because I’ve had it before. I hate doctors and don’t have a reassuring level of health-care coverage so I’m going to have to stick with the self diagnosis for now. My dear friend trekked over into my sick room yesterday, bringing me much food and love and good company. When she joked that it may be swine flu, I nearly started to cry. Do you think it could be? That would be a reason to go to the doctor, if I’m not substantially better by tomorrow I will try to make myself go.

For now its ice-packs on the head and tylenol and thinking about all the great things I’m missing. No that’s sad, how about reading Eilleen Myles and watching Barbara Kopple docs and writing stories in bed. That’s what I’ve been doing for the past 4 days, man I haven’t been sick like this for a long time.

Tony Blair in Person

Yesterday was exciting, not only did I get to while away the late night dancing to some determinedly old school djs at the Nightlife Preservation Community party, but I also was among the security cleared crowd at Tony Blair’s talk at the 92 Street Y.

Having been a History student and residing in the British empire during much of the reign of Blair, and most memorably during his decision to go to war in Iraq based on imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction, I was very interested to see what he had to say for himself.

Charming to a tee, it was clear how he had managed (at least in part) to ascend to the highest level of office. Within the span of little over an hour he quoted Rabbi Hillel and Winston Churchill, did impressions of Americans who have mistaken him for the actor in The Queen and of his cockney friend who always gives him good advice.

Where was that helpful mate in 2003 when it came time to issue the command for war? Although Blair channelled him and his other cast of colourful cultural references to please the crowd, he was undeniably uncomfortable when Mathew Bishop the interviewer leading Blair’s Q&A asked him point blank if he regretted the decision.

Blair gripped his chair with both hands and stuttered through a long explanation of how he admits that the intelligence was faulty, but they believed it at the time and any way the world is still “better off without Sadam and his two sons ruling the country.”

When asked whether he thinks that the war in Iraq has actually increased Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and ill feeling towards the west, he said absolutely not. “The responsibility for terrorism lies in the hands of the terrorists.” he said.

At the moment the former PM’s main activities are his work with the recently formed Tony Blair Faith Foundation, the Africa Governance Initiative, the Climate Group and his position as a negotiate of sorts for peace in Israel/Palestine.

On climate, he seemed to grasp that it is a very real and pressing issue, yet one of the main solutions that he proposed is Nuclear power- in my mind a terrible idea.

On Africa, he said that aid alone is not enough, governments have to be taught (by him) how to operate. He proudly asserted that he is working on bottom up state building in Sierra Leone and Rwanda.

On the Middle East. “For Israel the only Palestinian state they will be able to accept is a secure and well-governed state.” Blair said. He is working on state building there as well. Well clearly Britain and its former leader knows best. Perhaps those good old imperialist days are not yet over after all.

He said many additional things about religion, democracy and justice, but I am more concerned with what he didn’t say. Bishop actually selected my audience question, “What was the most significant mistake you made as Prime Minister?”  Blair’s response, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.” A chilling thought.

Whatever Works-Northside-PIFF

Since last we spoke, I spent a busy few days in Brooklyn, taking in the Northside festival in Williamsburg and Greenpoint (saw a fun band called The Dodos, which confirmed that I am not too old to be pushed around by crowds of hipsters) , spent time with my friends (going to rainy Brooklyn Pride) and feeling guilty that I had no time left to make it to The Brooklyn International Film Festival. Ahhh, my alma-mater suffers, but to make up for it I have traveled all the way to the lost (and found) beautiful end of the known (gay) world. That’s right, Provincetown. The pilgrims landed here, the artists came and planted flags, soon those flags turned rainbow colored and now I’m here for a film festival.

The Provincetown International Film Festival opened last night with Woody Allen’s new film Whatever Works. It was typical Allen with a lot of wildly unrealistic Oedipal scenarios. The basic premise is attractive yes, but why must it always be couched in the notion that anyone, let alone a young, beautiful, perfect-bodied, long haired woman would want to sleep with Woody Allen or one of his stand ins,  in this case Larry David.

Allen is very funny, David is funny, Seinfeld his award-winning show was hysterical, but all three rest upon some very misogynistic assumptions, which in my experience just aren’t true. Usually when the young girl goes for the old guy, he is modelesque not a limping hostile geriatric. Whatever Hugh Heifner would  have us believe this is not a sane norm.

Okay, if you have not seen the film and would prefer not to read the Sony Pictures Synopsis I’ll tell you what happens: Larry David is an unhappy old guy, he has a hot rich wife, teaches string theory and considers himself to be a genius, but he doesn’t appreciate any of it and tries to commit suicide. He fails even at this, and then one day meets a runaway played by Evan Rachel Wood, who begs him to let her stay in his apt and eventually develops a huge crush on him.  She is a southern beauty pageant princess and is ignorant in many ways.  Wood and David serve as an odd couple until both of her parents in turn journey to NYC and try to get her to return to the south. Instead of her leaving they both stay and go through significant transformations.

Polyamory plays a role, along with the concept of New York as re-education camp and the lesson that David’s monologues issue directly to the audience is Whatever Works. This means, maybe your perfect sophisticated wife and great job wont make you happy, maybe a simpleton who worships you will, and maybe not. In his final speech David’s character, Boris Yellnikoff, says basically ‘If your not hurting anyone else do whatever makes you happy, take whatever bit of love you can find in this world.’

Hmmm, almost convincing, except when that translates to sleeping with minors and people who are, I don’t know, your adoptive children.

The Reckoning-Human Rights Watch Film Festival

Last night I saw the New York premier of The Reckoning. The crowd was quite astonishing. There were two prosecutors from the International Criminal Court, Christine Chung and Fatou Bensouda, both are also featured in the film. The top brass from Human Rights Watch were also present along with one of the prosecutors from the Nuremberg trials. When Pamela Yates, the director, introduced him he got a standing ovation.

The film was stark and penetrating. It discussed the worst war crimes and crimes against humanity of our time, but did so in a rational, rights based justice context. The main character in The Reckoning is the International Criminal Court itself. Founded in 2002, its mandate is to try the perpetrators of crimes that have been committed since the court’s inception. A stipulation exists that the court may only make cases against member states, unless the UN Security Council has referred them to mount an investigation.

In other words, the ICC is based on a treaty, when a country signs on to the treaty, it then formalizes its stand against impunity, and it makes its citizens eligible for possible investigation. However, the process requires the court to be a last resort only applied if a country proves unable or unwilling to try its own perpetrators. Over 100 countries have signed on to the treaty, but the United States, China, Russia, and Iraq have all refused to do so.

Since its founding the ICC has made cases against the leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, war lords in the Congo and the people with the most responsibility for the Darfur genocide, including Al-Bashir, the president of Sudan. They have also built a preliminary case in Columbia against paramilitary leaders and the corrupt members of government who support them.

Like any other court the way the ICC operates is by gathering evidence and using to to try criminals. By insisting upon rule of law in the international arena they are able to combat atrocities in areas of the world where there has been no justice and powerful leaders remain punished for their crimes.

This is an extremely important aim. The film shows the victims of abduction, child soldiers who were forced to be killers or sex slaves, women who were raped and babies that were beaten to the point of brain damage. Distressingly the restriction that the court faces is its lack of an enforcement arm. As the ICC has not been granted a military or police force it must rely on the national forces of each member state or wait for the UN Security Council to agree to send UN forces.

Right now an ICC arrest warrant for President Al-Bashir stands, but his forces will not turn him in, and as Sudan is a sovereign state no other country’s military can enter and arrest him, without it being seen as an act of war. The Security Council could go in and enforce the warrant, but they have yet to do so. As China and the US hold sway on the council its unlikely that this result will occur.

A beacon of hope in the world, the ICC stands as a glass giant in the Hague, but the question the film poses is will its halls be filled with prosecuted criminals, or will it be rendered ineffective as little more than a symbol.

Jennifer Muller/The Works Dance Joyce Gala

Last night I spent the evening with the board of directors of Jennifer Muller’s dance company. Was this coincidental or the result of mischief on the part of the PR person? We’ll never know, but irrespective of how i found myself keeping such company at the Joyce and then Tavern on the Green, I will say that I enjoyed them. Especially a certain Ernie Miller III, who in good spirits became my platonic date as both his wife and my friend had piked.

Among the most charming of my companions, Ernie aside, was Jennifer Muller herself, we shared a breather outside at the end of the night and bonded around our love for Joni Mitchel. One of the new pieces in series B of her Joyce shows, entitled Tangle is danced to Joni and takes its inspiration from the mixed-up love line, “I love you when I forget about me.”

This reminds me of sordid car trips with a distant ex and more recent beautiful drives to Woodstock. Jennifer was strikingly down to earth, very open and accessible. She has been choreographing since before I was born and she described to me the way that her piece Tub was originally considered to be completely radical. This was a shocking idea that a tub filled with real water could be placed on stage aiding dancers to perform wet! The power of it still remains today even if the novelty factor has expired.

Opening with Tub and moving into Bench and Walk it Out, program A, which was performed last night, was fresh, interrogative and engaging accross the spectrum of audience age and dance literacy. Unlike Molly Davies, this performance was fun, accesible and clearly symbolic. When Bench references environmental degradation, specifically the various present and approaching ravishes of global warming, there is no confusion about what is being said. Theory is most powerful when it is deftly expressed and this is certainly acheived  by Jennifer Muller.

Back in Brooktown

Ahh yes! After a too long absence I’m back in Brooktown, broke town-broke down, built up, rockstar, artstar, blogger…whatever you want to call it. My upstate days have come to a close, that means I’m back on the streets rolling from event to event.

I touched down on Friday, off the Amtrak train and onto the rainy streets of New York. Since then I’ve been busy, between the Celebrate Brooklyn opening gala, the Amadou and Miriam concert, Molly Davies dance at BAC, Asclepius at La Mama, restaurant soft openings at Palace Gate and BDGB, not to mention the events I didn’t successfully show up at, including Internet week’s Webutante Ball and the opening of the Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Among the most fun weekend outings was the sailing trip I went on with the Gotham Yacht club. There is nothing quite like turning the back to the city and sailing off up the Hudson. Even Jersey looks stunning from the right vantage point and sunning with charming international types, Gossip Girls in training and a few day traders, who are kind enough to share their boat wealth with the plebs isn’t a bad way to spend a Sunday.

After that Asclepius at La MaMa was wonderfully funny without necessarily setting out to be. Ellen Stewart, the Genius Award winning director and founder of La MaMa was truly an inspiring sight as she addressed the crowd from her wheelchair to thank us all for attending. She said she hadn’t been outside for 3 months. If you’re looking for a hero, I nominate her. For 45 years she’s been keeping the theater scene real.

In contrast Saturday’s Molly Davies dance was considerably more abstract and inaccessible.  I loved the toe-monster sequence pictured below, but the opening ladder meets Victorian era gesture was a bit out of my reach. The last piece which involved a long story telling session by an Indonesian choreographer was equally far out there, but that’s just my novice opinion. The blog doesn’t hold back, alas, there is no tight ass editor on my back here, shame that.

As for last night, the Celebrate Brooklyn Green Gala opening was quite lovely in fact. I found myself after an hour or so happily marooned at a table with the young singles! It was me, the daughter of Two Boots, the young workers from somewhere and the owner of Teany. I also met a nice woman from the South African consulate and the director of BRIC arts. The dinner was served eco-fabulously on bamboo plates and quinoa was among the selection. Kimora’s green guru would have been pleased.

Amadou and Miriam was definitely the height of my night though, that blind Malian couple are strictly brilliant. At one point a rapper, who’s identity is yet to be confirmed, joined them on stage and the music went off into this crazy trip hop, David Bowie, Bjork direction, I almost shit myself, it was that fucking good. Thanks to some good PR karma we were in the VIP section and dancing along side of us were the band members families, very cute kids, and fun music enthusiasts. It was a great place to be and it capped off an excellent night.

Word of the Day- ManCode

As I am in TV land, I have just now been taking in the wonderment that is The Bachelorette. Out of the 20 guys that are after her hand in marriage, and a million dollars or so, only one of them is not white. His name is Juan. He looks pretty similar to the white guys, tall, buff model/actor type, but beyond the crime of not being white, what’s even worse is that he is the sensitive type, a poet/artist/architect, who talks about his feelings and, apparently, “Does not respect man code.” David one of his competitors, dropped this line of brilliance, after saying that if he had met him outside of the show, he would have “Tied him to a tree and beat him up.”

Yes he really did say that.

So what is this ManCode? According to David, Juan broke it by not taking his shot with the boys at the bar, he dared to pour it out and then allegedly pretended to have drunk it. Ouch, pretty evil! But David says that “Juan was breaking man code left and right.” What else did he do? What is this elusive ManCode? If you know what else it entails please share. This could be the key to understanding, not only realityTV, racism, and violence, but perhaps the entire hetero-normative capitalist society…

R

Ella at Howard Zinn

I will just preface this by saying that as someone with a degree in History, yes not your typical socialite trade, nonetheless true…Howard Zinn is my idol. Take that American Idol, last week, while I was paying my dues in the country, Ella went to hear him speak along with a few other visionaries at the 92 street Y. Here’s her report back. R

Entering the 92nd Street Y last Wednesday, I may have been guilty of bringing more than a healthy dose of cynicism. Don’t get me wrong – I cried as much as the next liberal during Obama’s acceptance speech. But, well… I struggle with a lot of the liberal left’s self-righteousness and lack of self-criticism. Especially when confronted with it in its Park Slope post-hippie incarnation. And let’s be honest – if I struggle to stay polite to Park Slope liberals, Upper East Side liberals should entice me to set off fire alarms by smoking Marlboro Reds,  and to loudly proclaim my affection for clubbing baby seals.

Also, taking the subway from Crown Heights to 86th street is such a bizarre exercise in people watching.  Not a situation geared to inspiring faith in the existence of a post-racial America. Even in oh-so-liberal New York.

The high schoolers carrying AP-study guides and the people handing out fliers for every cause and demonstration under the sun did nothing to raise my spirits. I haven’t been grumpier since my mother forced me to take part in a Swedish outdoor Hannukah celebration.

Imagine my surprise when A Young People’s History of the United States
turned out to be the most inspiring and intellectually challenging event I’ve been to in a long time.

Howard Zinn, I shouldn’t have doubted you. Surprisingly tall and gangly, Zinn’s introduction to the evening showed not only that he’s still sharp and funny but also that he can command an audience without bogarting the stage. Despite the fact that the evening tied in with the publication of A Young People’s History of the United States, the self-evidently titled young reader’s version of Zinn’s non-fiction bestseller, it didn’t feel like an excuse to hawk books.

Instead, the evening introduced me to several historical speeches I’m going to have to revisit, and several performers I’m keen to check out again. Tim Robbins has been a long-term favorite of mine, but Avery Brooks is definitely someone I’d love to see act again. And I want to hear Shontina Vernon sing again and Staceyann Chin perform poetry.

For me, one of the very genuine effects of the evening was a return to the feeling that dissent and questioning of the ruling order can be intellectually satisfying. And that this doesn’t have to be done mockingly. The Martin Luther King Jr speech, Where Do We Go from Here?, performed by Brian Jones, was a picture of sincerity, while at the same time addressing the troubling link between race and class which was true in the 60s and has not yet been overcome.

Emphasizing the role of young people in shaping the world, Evann Orleck-Jetter, the twelve year old girl whose testimony helped sway the Vermont state legislature to allow equal marriage rights, read the piece she’d delivered early this year, as well as a document against child labor from 1913. I was worried for a while that this would be gimmicky and embarrassing. Instead, her calm performance was a restrained tear-jerker –- impressive in anyone and incredibly dignified for someone that young –- which highlighted Zinn’s argument that the study of history should inspire people to participate in the struggles of their own age.

The evening inspired me to email one of the poems performed to an old teacher of mine, from back when I was a super idealistic teenager. She wrote back, thanking me, saying she’d needed it that day. I guess the evening brought back those feelings of I matter-ness that otherwise tend to get trapped beneath my everyday life. Maybe, sometimes, the enthusiastic young person in me needs to be given space to push the post-ironic jaded city dweller aside.

By Ella Fitzsimmons

The Socialiting Continues- Ella at Sonar

Sonar Sound at the Baryshnikov Arts Center showed that I’ve probably been in New York too long, because Europeans are starting to look inherently cool to me. I grew up there. I should know better. But where once I’d accurately identify their appearance as nothing but a synthesis of washed-out black clothing from H&M, a lack of vitamins showing on sallow complexions, decades of smoking and greasy-ish hair, I now saw urban sophistication. I even caught myself thinking it was cool to hear people switching between French and Spanish as they waited for over-priced beer.

This is troubling. Some might even call it a disgrace. Obviously, I need to return to the semi-socialist old world soon, in order for me to regain proper disdain for other Euros.

That being said, Sonar was pretty… well…cool. The 16th edition of Barcelona’s International festival of advanced music (which kind of sounds like an exam, but isn’t) and multimedia art was in New York for the Catalan days. I’m usually predisposed to automatically mocking any art happening held in a gritty space (courtesy of a long running joke targeting the London art scene’s predilection for showing sub-standard up-and-coming work in a “charming little dumpster in Hoxton”), but the slightly post-industrial feel of the Baryshnikov Arts center served Sonar well.

(Though, as my friendly co-reviewer pointed out, “There were a lot of stairs”. While it made sense, sound isolation-wise, to separate the shows by a couple of floors, this clearly confused a lot of people, including me. When I envision suffering for art, I mean my art. Or at least watching someone super-creative self-destructing in artistically portrayed ways. Being sweaty and lost and running in stairwells…not convinced.)

The first floor of activities started out on a firm footing, with Spanish musicians Fibla and Arbol’s live, ambient electronica accompaniment of pleasantly weird Taiwanese film Goodbye Dragon Inn. With dialogue kept to a minimum, Goodbye Dragon Inn is a near ideal film to reset a soundtrack to – Fibla and Arbol’s accompaniment chimes well with the recurring motif of a limping office girl making her way around Taipei , adding a balletic dimension to the character’s disability and social isolation.

Unfortunately, the next show that was on in Theatre C, Balago, managed to undo some of my newfound respect for multimedia performances. Projecting a giant screen-saver-like image and playing new agey-whale birthing music – admittedly without the sound of actual birthing whales. Or of the rainforest at dawn. But it’s terrible when your subconscious is triggered to add these sounds and you’re not even being given a massage or some over-priced “healing.” – Does not qualify as art. Ever.

The second floor was dedicated to dancing. I wasn’t entirely convinced by Prefuse 73’s set – though I could have been unfairly biased against him by unfortunate displays of unrepentant hipsterness in the audience. I spotted some fool wearing a t-shirt saying, “I’d rather have one truth than 15 minutes of fame” and realizing that this was definitely a case of freedom of expression working against me, I had to leave before telling the little weasel how his cheaply tinkered together philosophical tenets pained me.

The top floor, showing two interactive installations, quickly became filled up. Luckily, we managed to check out Marcelli Antunez’s piece Metamembrana before the floor was closed. Clearly influenced by Guernica-era Picasso and Surrealism’s affection for combining unlikely images, Metamembrana was a fun piece, which benefited from the second run through, where the audience was coached by Antunez on how to make the screen respond. Antunez’s explanations of the background to the project were helpful in appreciating how the work was rooted in Catalan culture (citing folktales, local produce, fertility myths and history as inspiration. My co-reviewer and I looked at each other, shook our heads and said, “Nah, he just likes boobs and naked art students.” Fair play either way). Plus, his geeky enthusiasm for his gadgets was quite endearing, and did manage to get people involved in the installation. For me, though, the most successful interactive art pieces don’t require instruction – they work because something about them( be it use of material, choice of images, use of sound or smell) compel the audience to breach the boundaries of more traditional gallery spaces, where you participate in art work by looking, rather than touching.

We rounded off the evening with some comedy dancing to d.a.r.y.l’s set. While his use of punctuation might be self-conscious, his music was anything but – a really lively electronic set, incorporating a lot of funk and disco. My companion for the evening, who is unpleasantly tall and good-looking but who dances like Elaine in Seinfeld, wishes for it to be known that she got the party started with some of her signature moves. Good times.

Photo Post- Best of the Country

Ok, so I was a bit freaked out in my last post, but now I’m really starting to enjoy the Simple Life. Here are some of my favorite experiences so far, in pictures…

My first creek trip

the creek

The unattended apple store where they trust you to leave your money in a tin

My new Apples

The natural pool at the top of Katerskill Falls, had to take a dip in that one

The falls from below

The country can be pretty wicked, I must admit.

R

Country Living

Hunh, I just wrote this whole post and then when I published it it was blank. What’s up with that? WordPress gods swoop down into the country and save me. That’s a command. Not being heeded it seems.

Nevermind, I will just have to start over. My last post was about how strange it is to be in the country. It’s like the polar opposite of my actual everyday life. Rather than dance parties, there is a local brasserie with live harp music tonight. Instead of constant speed, chatter, noise, vibrancy, there is just silence, interrupted by the occasional lawnmower or bird song.

This location is bringing out the chef in me though, soon this is going to morph into a recipe blog, but not yet. I’m holding out, remembering the days of social activity and not letting that woman at the garage sale call me a mom, and get away with it. She really did, it must be the mini-van that I’m driving. Not mine of course, part of the house sitting bundle, I even feel weird using it though, it’s funny, I feel like Where would I go? and Isn’t it a waste of energy to drive? Definitely not a middle of American, surely guilty as charged, I’m a City Folk.

I tried buying baubles at a antique shop and watching hummingbirds and little caterpillars. Actually, these acts were all fun, but I had a visceral feeling of being out of place. Am I allowed to sit around and do nothing but enjoy being alive? That is so faux pas in NYC, let’s face it. Running around, being creative, or trying to make money, or be smart or whatever, that’s kinda the flow in the shitty isn’t it. It’s ok to say yes.

I say this not disparagingly. I miss the place like really a lot. Seriously though, I am even beginning to long for the invasions of space and the irritating little noises and disturbances. They come with vitality, expression — Life. I miss Brooklyn.

As Robyn Has Retired to the Coutryside +Binibon Review

I’m Upstate, stay tuned for posts about the caterpillars and hummingbirds I’ve been meeting, in the meantime, here’s Ella!

As Robyn has callously abandoned her friends for a few weeks and retired to the countryside, Brooklyn Socialiting has been left to me for a bit. Braving the Hudson River, or rather, the evil machinations of the subway system, I left my lovely King’s county nest on Friday for an evening of Big City cultural activities. Not just hanging out in bars.

Admittedly, as I was early for the Bermuda art opening in China town, a little bit of Ella-in-Bar was necessary, so I sat myself down in Les Enfants Terrible. Lychee martini is the glass, Pink Martini playing on the stereo and meretricious French barmen multi-taskingly flirting with everyone around the bar. A good way to warm up for a friend’s art opening, which is generally not something that should be attended without some sort of support, alcoholic or otherwise.  Because there’s always that underlying terror that your friends are going to be profoundly untalented, and you still have to be nice BUT SPECIFIC about their creative output.

Having reached the age where a disturbing number of my friends are spawning, I’ve found that a parallel case exists with people’s babies. Otherwise funny and open-minded people have a complete sense of humor failure when it comes to their own children, which is why I have had to hold back about how many children I could name that look like Dick Cheney. Even though it’s intrinsically funny. Similarly, otherwise intelligent and interesting people often like and make bad art.

Luckily, this wasn’t the case with the Bermuda exhibit. Put together by students and fellows from the School of Visual Arts, the theme was secondary to showcasing works in progress. While a lot of the work was interesting, the looseness of the theme meant that the exhibition as a whole didn’t necessarily work, despite several really interesting pieces.

Running late, I had to jump into a cab to get to experimental art space, The Kitchen, for the eight o’clock showing of “Binibon”, a new piece of musical theater, based around the early 80’s stabbing  of aspiring actor and waiter Richard Adan by John Henry Adam,  a former convict whose writing talents had made him the toast of New York’s literati.  Back in the bull economy, cabs used to be a part of my daily life, pretty much always charged to my work account. No longer. I’m hoping that relative poverty and strife will successfully translate into me eventually writing something that’s not nauseatingly terrible, and it seems as if the team behind Binibon come at creativity from a similar angle.

At the same time, let’s face it – New York? Not what it used to be. I’ve heard people discuss the matter over organic, cruelty-free yuppie food: “Is New York’s current stability  and safety a fair trade for the loss of vibrancy?” Where once the city was genuinely throat cuttingly cutting edge, or was at least violent enough for the frenzy to rub off on the art scene, now it’s a place where people feel OK about raising their kids. Dear lord, even Madonna, a woman my MOTHER listens to, recently criticized the city for losing its edge.

After which, she moved back to raise her children.

Binibon, the experimental musical play put on at contemporary art centre The Kitchen in the west village is part of this debate.  Part of, but also symptomatic of. Because while the writer, Jack Womack, brings attention to the Disney-fication of the city that has taken place in the last few decades, the piece can’t escape the fact that it’s a play about a New York that mainly exists in the memories of the things were much realer in the past-brigade. Which brings questions about where the responsibility for the city’s loss of edge lies: I may be wrong, but it struck me as hard to believe that writers and musicians in the early eighties would have put together a piece about a murder in the mid-50s.

Elliott Sharp’s live music works most of the time (though there’s an unfortunate electric guitar solo which reminds me of a Dave Chapelle sketch where he wonders about white people’s love of the instrument), and gives an urgency to the storytelling which is occasionally lacking in the writing. One of the problems, for me, is that the role of several of New York’s literary heroes in the release of John Henry Adams from prison was touched on, but not really examined – despite the fact that their moral responsibility for the death of Adan is at the core of the play’s preoccupation with the city, creativity, authenticity and violence.

The Girlfriend Experience, Fixer, Print vs Blog

It’s been another busy week friends. Since last I wrote I saw The Girlfriend Experience and  Fixer:The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi at the Tribeca Film Festival, went to a Print vs Blog talk at the Tribeca Y, had a poetry reading and danced the blues off at two Brooklyn house parties. Plus, I had another successful meal at Buttermilk Channel, this time brunch. Their biscuits are pretty good, but not as good as mine! I also had a chance to live it up a little bit on Saturday while actually reading peacefully in the sun in Choice Greene’s backyard patio. On the way there I passed an awesome kids clown show on Grand, in front of the Still Hip clothing store. Apparently they are having them every Saturday, if you love costumes and clowns, and environmentally themed, musical children’s performances as much as I do, then definitely check it out!

First a note about Brooklyn house parties and then onto my film reviews. Note: They rule! Ha, ha, no really they do. OMG Michelle played at the one on Friday night, which was at this house called Mansion (not to be confused with the snooty Manhattan club, Mansion.) DJ Designer Impostor played and on Sat, DJ Shomi Noise was awesome. Aside from being my friend, she is also a generally great DJ!

Ok film. So, the two films were extremely different than each other, the first Steven Soderberg’s new opus on high class prostitutes, who give their customers the illusion that they are somehow in a loving relationship with each other, was less than spectacular. Although the directer himself, with huge successes like Erin Brochevich, Sex Lies and Videotape, and Traffic under his belt, was wildly confident during the Q & A after, several elements of the film caused me to take pause.

He typecast, if you will, non-actors to play the roles of the prostitute and her personal trainer boyfriend. He didn’t give them a script and instead set them up with a situation and encouraged them to ad lib. Although this technique was quite successful in Ballast it fell very short in The Girlfriend Experience. Soderberg claimed, during his talk back, that if people didn’t know that was his method, we never would have noticed. I beg to differ.

The holes in the dialogue were obvious. The language was incidental and often seemed forced. Many of the relationships were unconvincing and the main character, played by porn actress, Sasha Grey, was stiff and boring to watch. If you made a film about me walking around NY having somewhat random conversations with strangers, I’m sure I would also be stiff and boring to watch. Why? Because I’m not an actor and films which follow non-actors are usually called documentaries. Why not just call the whole thing off, and make a documentary about a real prostitute who offers the girlfriend experience? Just asking.

Speaking of documentaries, let’s talk a bit about the really good film that I saw at Tribeca. But first, a note about opinions. Yes everyone has one, and some people start blogs and share them, people like me. But Tony Ortega, editor, and Michael Cohen,  publisher, of the Village Voice have a bit of a bone to pick with people like us. However, the founder of Gothamist and a writer from Mashable, who sat on a panel with them on Thursday, they kinda think us bloggers are great. If you’re interested in finding out more about this secret society who is bringing down the media oligarchy, come to the Brooklyn Blogfest on Thursday, that’s where most of our upcoming schemes for world domination will be hatched.

No, to be fair, Ortega claimed to support bloggers, to want to maintain the integrity of the Voice, and most shockingly, he insisted that the Voice is still making good money.  Strange, those claims seem to run counter to the Voice’s recent massive layoffs and to their stubborn attempt to remain the source of NYC event advice. Unless they become a little more cutting edge with their suggestions, I don’t see people continuing to look to them to find out what’s happening.

But that’s just my opinion, and it’s here in my blog, not pretending to be impartial in some newspaper. Anyway enough angst right? Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi without necessarily seeking to do so, makes a very different and much more compelling argument in favor of the old media establishment. There is absolutely a place for researched, well-sourced journalism, especially in terms of foreign correspondence.

Fixer is a documentary that follows Christian Parenti, a Nation journalist, on a fact gathering trip through Afghanistan. As he travels around the country, meeting with Taliban leaders, villagers and any other potential sources of information, Ian Olds, the filmmaker is in the back seat of the car, a fly on the wall, observing Parenti’s transactions.  In order to navigate this active war zone, Parenti requires help from what is known in the journo trade as a fixer.

A fixer is a local person who makes contact with potential sources, estimates the level of risk in traveling to various areas and then facilitates the actual journey by driving the foreign journalist to the rendezvous points and serving as translator while there. More than a middle man, Parenti’s fixer, Ajmal Naqshbandi was a journalist in his own right and as portrayed in the film, was a very savvy and intelligent individual. He died not long after the journey that Parenti and Olds took with him.

On another fixer job, working for an Italian journalist, Naqshbandi and the Italian were both kidnapped by a notorious Taliban leader. This man is known to have kidnapped and brutally executed several people. We are told at the start of the film that Naqshbandi died in this cruel way, but that his Italian employer was released relatively unharmed. The rest of the film navigates how the fixer got to that point and questions why he was not saved.

I was glad to see that Fixer won best documentary at Tribeca. It is truly an interrogative film. It forces us to question A. what is really going on in Afghanistan, B. how much that self-government and democracy actually protects Afghan citizens and C. How we would  even begin to answer these questions without the field researched findings of foreign corespondents funded by media institutions.

1 point scored for blogs and 1 for old media. Looks like a tie Tony.

The Way We Get By Review, Mashable, Central Park

Wow guys! I just discovered that there is wireless in central park. I have been sitting here for the better part of the afternoon, offline, when all along I could have been blogging…well wonders never cease! Any way,  here is the run down from last night:

I was a very dedicated Brooklyn Socialite, after editing all day I tore off into the glorious heat and made my way over to the 92 Street Y Tribeca, Mashable was doing one of their networking/educating/mashing events. It reminded me of Mediameshing, except I didn’t run into the gawkerteam, maybe they were all tweeting away at Tribeca. Anyway I did dutifully mingle, with a lot of friendly PR people(!) and then the event finally started about 20 minutes before I had to leave for Stranger than Fiction. I did catch a few presentations done by start-ups, including Sluth.com, which is a wine aggregator (if you know what that is) and Savvy Auntie, which actually seemed pretty interesting, a social networking site for aunts, which are apparently about 40% of women.

I was sorry that I had to miss their advice about how to become wildly succesful, because I’m sure that would have come in handy, but it was time to catch the screening of The Way We Get By. I have plans to interview the directors, so hold off for that, but in the meantime, my initial review:

The Way We Get By is a film that cleverly navigates the subject of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, without clearly choosing sides. It avoids the left right dichotomy and instead focuses on the human experience of loss, bravery and kinship. It is about the Troop Greeters of Maine, who gather day and night at Bangor Airport to welcome and see off all of the soldiers who fight in Iraq. Although it is such a remote airport, 90% of the flights in and out of the war zone, pass through there. The greeters have already seen almost 1 million members of the military return through Bangor.

The majority of the greeters are senior citizens and the film follows 3 of the most committed and older members of the group, including the mother of one of the directors. What is so interesting about the subjects is how they seem to live just for the opportunity to brighten someone else’s day. This reveals the isolated state that many older folks live in, believing that their utility has passed. People who have worked their whole lives, raised families and some who have personally served in the military reach their 60s and 70s and begin to feel that society no longer values them. If they are not providers, what is their purpose? Although, they may be of great value to their families and respected by their communities; living alone, and sitting idle, the subjects in The Way We Get By seem to be at a loss when they are not giving their time and support to the troops.

The dignity and integrity of these people will stir even the coldest heart. I cried repeatedly! see it

Searching for what’s good

My yesterday got off to a bit of a bad start, it all began with the search for a good brunch spot in the LES. This type of quest can be depressing when you are surrounded by herds of hand holding co-habitues, and blocked on the path by strollers and up-gazing tourists. Harrowing as it was, I managed to settle on a new French place called Regate, where I attempted to swallow my dread under the stream of a very weak latte. (I failed). The search for Lunch in Soho was no easier, after a few false starts, I finally landed at L’ulvio, then journeyed up the west village, towards meatpacking on the look out for a good desert joint. I settled on the Birdbath Bakery, which I’ve always respected for its combination of organic practices and really good cookies. Unfortunately, this time I noticed their excessive use of disposable paper and plastic products and lack off espresso machine- but nobody’s perfect ( least of all me-many snob points were earned today! )

What’s the moral of this story? 1. Another day of leisure spent in vain. 2 Eating all day is weird. or 3. It’s really hard to find good eateries among the cacophony of choices in Manhattan south.

3. That’s right 3 OK, maybe all of the above, but what I mean to say is that after all this search chagrin got in the way of my relaxation, I came to the conclusion that it was high time to draft a guide to what’s good. I needed a voice that I could trust, to help me sift through all the mediocrity, than I realised I could be that Voice. (he he) None of the food spots I visited yesterday quite deserve inclusion in the guide so hold steady, Food picks will come. In the meantime lets talk about Culture: see the next post for how my inspiring evening contrasted with a sadly mundane day.

Visions

Lately, I’ve been having visions of myself on the treadmill at my local YMCA gym, jamming to books on tape, while running in place. These visions are strange, but not dissimilar to my vision of starting my own cultural curation website, with a focus on Brooklyn. So I bought a domain name, and tried to get all fancy, but that web design mumbo jumble got me down, instead in the wee hours of night, with you dear fledgling readers, I have decided to Start Simple. Please try to ignore the less than flash photos, and not so awesome formating, all that will one day come. I promise, because somewhere amidst the visions of fashion labels, gourmet stews, crazy pitch idea and all my other visions, The B S has a lot of potential and she will rise!

Definitions:

Brooklyn Socialite

Brook·lyn \ˈbru̇-klən\

Function:geographical name borough of New York City at SW end of Long Island population 2,465,326

so·cial·ite \ˈsō-shə-ˌlīt\ Function:noun a socially prominent person

PaperBagMan-by me Another Vision

NYC Adult Spelling Bee recap at Choice

“If you’re looking for an opportunity to hit the spelling bee circuit, look no further. Since staring down 8 year-olds at the Scribbs National Spelling Bee, seems you know, kinda unfair, or just plain creepy, The New York City Spelling Bee is strictly for adults.” read more

I am really not above quoting myself, so that was an excerpt from my flavorpill preview of the NYC Spelling Bee at Housing Works. Now for the review…from the vantage point of Brooklyn

Continuing the conversation of the challenging hunt for goodness in Manhattan, I began to ponder what makes Brooklyn So God-dammed Good. The answer was clear- At least in my neighborhood, the lovely Bed Stuy (which some friends are truly afraid to visit ), there is not a plethora of choice. There is however, Choice bakery. This flaky croissant home to the excellent Mocha, fresh squeezed-one gulp grapefruit hot gourmet to take away-mecca of Goodness exists at the intersection of Grand and Lafayette, in Petit Panam. That is, half a block of stoop sale, Parisian, french African anomaly, contrasted against the hundreds of blocks lined with residences, laundromats and Pentecostal Churches.

I love Choice! As I sat there 5 separate people I knew, came past to grab their Sunday vitals, while I told the Philosopher about my Sat night Spelling Bee. “It was so much more fun than you can imagine,” I said. “It’s a hipster librarian’s ultimate contest, you win book vouchers and feel validated at last!” He just nodded, as philosophers do.

Ballast and The General of the Dead Army

The General of the Dead Army rightfully earned Ismail Kadare the Booker Prize. It is a stark investigation into loss and lingering sanity, which takes the form of an anti-hero’s quest, while borrowing heavily from the dystopia genre. The protagonist is an Italian General who wanders the emotionally barren landscape of Albania in search of the bodies of fallen Italian soldiers from World War II. His journey into darkness, whether intentionally or coincidentally, references such magnificently tragic journey’s as those that comprised 1884, the Time Machine, C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy and naturally, Heart of Darkness.

After a significant amount of procrastination, I managed to write my review of A General of the Dead Army for Bookslut. That is the first paragraph and the rest will soon be available on their sight. As a B S exclusive though, I wanted to talk about this book and the film Ballast together. I interviewed the film’s director, Lance Hammer, last week and that will soon see the light of print, I promise. Meanwhile- let’s talk Tragedy.

Hammer used non actors, who were local to the two towns in the Mississippi Delta where he shot the film. After 10 years of research, he decided to make a film that as he told me, “wasn’t so much about race, but about universal human suffering.” He chose African Americans to play the main roles, and encouraged them to use their own distinct vernacular. Rather than hand them a script, he gave them a situation and encouraged them to improvise language around that particular scenario. What remains of this method, in the edited movie is a steely, classical, cinematic gem. Like The General of the Dead Army, Ballast is a tragic play of emotions, which seems to take place in real time. It is similarly stark, subtle and quietly passionate.

At the Edge of the World Q&A w/Dan Stone

I used to live in Melbourne, Australia, not Florida. One day the Sea Shepherd docked on our shores and I got to meet some of the people on board, including former Greenpeace activist, Captain Paul Watson. People in Melb were so inspired by the Direct Action Whale Rescue that the Sea Shepherd crew engaged in. A benefit party was organized, t-shirts were bought and one of my friends even decided to join them on their next mission.

Roll forward to last night in NYC, I saw Dan Stone’s film about one of their Antarctic missions, At the Edge of The World as part of IFC’s Stranger Than Fiction documentary series. I was struck during the Q&A by the apparently contentious relationship that Stone has with Watson and the Sea Shepherd crew. He told us that many of them did not like the final cut. This is a curiosity that I will have to explore further; I intend to interview him and will update this tangent later.

As for last night, I can say that the film was rocky and oceanic, after the dubious Q&A, I ran into an old old NYC activist friend and cracked into some Belgian Beer and lively debate at Vol de Nuit (def on the GOOD list). Obama and Pallin, Stone and Watson, Preservation and Indigenous hunting ceremony, Old gays vs. New Queers, all the relevant rivalries were discussed!

Tre, Bembe, Metropolitan, Catherine Opie preview and opening, Corner shop, Carmen Valle

Committed readers, welcome back! I am determined to blog every day, which sometimes means 2 am the next day- true Brooklyn Socialites are immune to exhaustion. I wish I could say that were true. It is the end of the month, which means that rent has to be paid, the GO deadline met ( I’m working towards Monday), and that all my visions are starting to pile up. They get cleared out on the 1st- kind of like how I’m not tired now.

Let’s work backwards. I rolled home tonight around 10 after Carmen Valle’s reading from Haiku de NuevaYork at McNally Jackson (both are additions to the GOOD List, GL). My once awesome Spanish comprehension skills (yes folks, I was a Spanish/History major in College) had abandoned me in a hungover fog of Lavender tea, beautiful chicken soup (Thanks Corner Shop Cafe, GL), and an all day jittery, shot of afternoon espresso (from my Bedstuy local Tiny Cup), which brings me to last night and why I am not at my freshest.

The reason is, because my cutely awkward streak emerged among the Lit Icons and Art Stars who were in attendance at last nights Catherine Opie: American Photographer, Guggenheim opening (GL). This drove me to free shwag wine and after party mojitos. The best conversation I had during the night was with Hans and Johan pictured below.(Checkout the October Go for more photos). We talked about hitchhiking, Situationists, Hans’ films, Johan’s design collective-The House of Very Much, my latent fiction, polyamory and then in the end we just danced! Justin Bond, T Cooper, Felicia Luna Lemus, Thelma Goldin, Eileen Myles, Debbie Harry, John Waters, Opie and countless others equally, failed to resist the dance floor as JD Sampson dropped fly beats.

Hans is the subject of some of Catherine’s photos, which are on display at the museum. I enjoyed my chance to preview the exhibition yesterday morning and promise to post a link to my review and interview with the artist as soon as it is out! That is all I’ll say about that right now, except to explain that yesterday morning in heels at the museum was mitigated by my too recent memory of Wed night, my best mate in town, exorcising demons in the dive splendor of Metropolitan (GL). This after a false start at Bembe (apparently it was groove night or something, who knows what that music genre is called? Tuesday nights are great though! GL) and a bottle of Sangiovese at Tre (GL). Authentic Italian’s serving wines from Italy’s regions only- a little pricey but the staff are cute.

From back to front that’s where I’ve been.

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

Wow, its 3am this time and exhaustion is setting in, but I can’t sleep without getting a first draft of this statement out. I will revise, but it starts like this:

Allen Ginsberg was famous for the inspiration he found in Visions. William Blake appeared to him, as did Aurthur Russell, in the flesh. Ginsberg found him dressed in urban monks attire and ever after referred to him and his music as Pop Buddhist. They later lived for many years in a building stuffed with artists flats. Whether they were ever lovers, I’m not sure, but Russell lived out his life there with his faithful beloved partner, who was at the IFC center tonight to answer questions about Matt Wolf’s new film Wild Combination (GL).

Continuing with this week’s sea fascination: At the edge of The World, Cathie Opie’s depiction of surfers and Trouble the Water, Wild Combination emphasized Russell’s love of water. Fish tanks, the Staten Island Ferry, oceanic jaunts through midtown- wherever the water came from, he synthesized it into his work. Mastering cello, keys, guitar, vocals-this musician was a Brooklyn Socialite indeed- he could compose like his friend Philip Glass, create disco for raves at the Loft, and croon electro-cello-poetry. Arthur Russell rocks.

Peaches and No. 7 Greene

“Do not fear the blogger,” I wanted to whisper into the ear of both Peaches owner, pictured below (with his daughter behind the cashier) and GM/owner of No. 7, not pictured. I wasn’t really trying to be ingognito, maybe the big camera and little notebook completely gave me away. As a paying customer, I felt free to dine as I pleased. For their part though, they seemed a little unsettled by my presence.

I will try to step outside the situation nevertheless and focus instead on squash. At Peaches, I had butternut squash soup with honey and cinnamon for brunch, which reminded me of the way I like to eat oatmeal. Savory sweet, oats with maple syrup and cinnamon, sweet breakie soup, yellow squash puree under a tender little mountain of just raw seared hangar steak, with Chinese broccoli and kimchi perogies- that is what I had at No. 7. Again squash, savory battles sweet again.

Beyond yellow gourds, the two restaurants have precious little in common. No 7 boasts charming wait staff, a competitive wine list, art-deco-blanc interior design and lush food pairings. Peaches remembers it’s in Brooklyn, totally unpretentious, with definite potential, but I’d like to see espresso, alcohol, and a microwave-free promise join their menu.

Day Off- Live Through This

So even socialites eventually need a rest, and maybe even a moment away from Brooklyn. Family called and I have found myself in Connecticut, by a lake being pulled into Bridge games and getting email flack from NY which I’d prefer to ignore. The lake is beautiful, I need to rest my head.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to briefly discuss a book I’ve recently read called Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-destruction Yes, even the very act of reading has become work. Books are assigned to me for review or I solicit them for potential review. Live Though This kind of falls into that second category. My relationship with it remains unclear… but…

Content is all that really matters right? So lets get into it. This book in an anthology of women writers who have experienced abuse, mental illness, self-injuring, basically some form of pain that could have stopped them from creating and maybe instead catalysed them to start or continue to make art. Nicole Blackman, Fly, Bell Hooks, Cristy C. Roads, Daphne Gotlieb, Eileen Myles, Nan Goldin, Patricia Smith, countless women seem to swell the ranks of survival literature, poetry of the oppressed, struggle till it gets better penmanship. To be honest, I don’t know quite what to make of it. I like many of the contributors, and spoke for a bit with the editor, still I guess I feel this crumbling sensation that perhaps past suffering is not what brings these writers together- what it is I reckon is talent, consistent vision and just general ability to kick ass.

Besides my qualms with the premise, I definitely dug some of the submissions, especially Fly and some of the other names I’ve mentioned above.

The Bad List- I thought it was only fair

Still outside of the city and just about ready to return. God I miss Brooklyn! I thought this would be a good time to express my egalitarian instincts and create a Bad list- indeed it is only fair. For everything there is that is Good, there are probably 25 things, which are bad, so don’t worry I won’t list them all. However, there are some things which suck so goddammed much that I will have no choice but to rail against them. Why not build them a home, place them where they belong on the bad list. Feel free to leave additions to the list as comments bellow, whatever deserves a place on this mantle, will indeed be given one!

THE BAD LIST

People

people who feel the need to create dialogue for dogs, “He’s saying, ‘pet me, love me, I’m here too, don’t forget I’m here too.’”

Christian Fundamentalists

bad tenants

Harry Shearer and band performing songs of the Bushmen

Things

Photoshop downloads

Blade Runner, Bad tenants, Blue Man Group

I finally broke down and saw Bladerunner and I have to say, in light of my love for dystopias, it was a really great dvd. Based on the Philip K Dick book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it imagined the future in a beautiful post-apocalyptic china town for the senses. I loved it, loved younger Harrison ford, the male on male kiss of death, and most of all the following quote.

“It’s hard to live your whole life in fear, isn’t it? This is what it means to be a slave.” Go Philip! Go Ridley Scott, applause all around.

Which brings me to Bad Tenants (bad list BL) all I can say is avoid them at all costs, they will suck your blood to the very core!

Then Blue Man Group, I don’t know what its about, other than a mild dig against Internet obsession and modern life, something of a plea for a reconnection with the primal, interactive theater loving self. It is mostly just fun and slapstick, and grotesque-dirty. Thoughtful at best, I remember being really inspired by it at 18, this time it felt more like a colorful circus, sadly lacking the bearded lady.

This was my today, now see you tomorrow!

Frontrunners, Gomorrah, Matteo-Garrone Q&A, I’m famous

So I’m famous, according to one of my friends, who was standing with me on the cold street corner when I pulled a copy of New York Press out of the dispenser and found my article on Tegan and Sara in it. I almost started to believe him this morning when i bought a copy of The Progressive and my article on Sgt. Marshall Thompson was in there too. Fame! The illusion started to disentegrate fairly quickly when I remembered that I still don’t know how I am going to pay my already late rent, this month.

Oh well, as we Brooklyn Socialite’s do, at least I was able to spend the rest of the afternoon schmoozing among people who are gainfully employed in the business of being writers and filmmakers. That’s right, the pass wearing journalati who frequent the New York Film Festival. I was on a guest pass at it were, but was let in long enough to see Matteo Garrone’s new Cannes darling, Gomorrah. This is a mafia film, set in Naples, which is made to look almost like a documentary. In fact, the scenes are meticulously constructed and brought to life by local Napoletano theater actors, many of whom are teenagers. In the Q & A Garrone explained that Roberto Saviano, the author of the book on the Camorra, which Gomorrah is based on, had to go under protection, after threats were made on his life. Yet, Garrone has not had to do so becuase, ” People there love the cinema so much, that having a film made about them is something they are happy about, which allows them to forget about everything else.”

I also saw Caroline Suh’s Frontrunners it was fun and simple, very much in the spelling bee, and child dance competition genre. Sort of like the crossword puzzle movie too. It made being an overachiever look cool, in a weird kind of reverse way, and it reminded me that we have our Eton, and the class system in America is certainly not dead.

Kalup Linzy and Dynasty Handbag, Humboldt County, Stonewall

Since Stonewall, artstars and novices alike have been free to express themselves multi-genrely. Tonight was no exception. I ended my revelry at Stonewall amidst the ladies of Stonewall69 and the men who had wandered upstairs. It was a house music explosion and I have the headache to prove it. Yet, as my roommate pointed out, it was kinda awesome how a bunch of fugly people  were there dancing badly. We were happy watch mini-dramas unfold for an hour or so.

Before that we were caught in the passion of high school imbalances remastered. Suddenly the cool guy in school, is a looser adult, and the dorks are king of the art hill. Oh to be a boy in New York, oh to be a girl. I always find it necessary to right some of these wrongs, by berating the former popular kids and building communion with the once smarty pants nerds. I too was once a smarty pants nerd, yesterday. Today, I can’t even talk about today.

Moving on, that funfest high school mash-up occurred at a wonderful reception, where I got to see my lovely friends Darren and Danny, the directors behind the film, Humboldt County, which was released last week. I interviewed them for the Northcoast Journal, but haven’t gotten to see them for awhile as they live in LA- a nice reunion!

Before that, my roomie and I saw Kalup Linzy and Dynasty Handbag (GL) at the New Museum, both of whom were insanely hysterical. See pictures below. I haven’t had that much fun at a performance in I don’t know how long. This means a lot coming from someone who has seen a lot of performances lately. Do not miss their next gigs!

Gilbert and George

Gilbert and George at the Brooklyn Museum. Are they racist? wonderful purveyors of self-portraiture? or secret germ warfare agents…there is a terrorist in our midst…. more on this in the morning x

OK, I’m back. The large scale pencil drawings which greet the visitor upon entering the exhibition are inviting, lackadaisical, and highly evocative of this sense of a golden summer, for self-reflective intellectuals.

However, as one further traverses the museum landscape, huge imposing brightly colored, cartoon, Ali G style works threaten racial, and religious semi-slurs from every wall. This inquiry, finally descends into toilet humor, with monochromatic representations of shit and dicks.

“Is there a God?” They ask. God save us all.

The Women Generals of the Yang Family and Introducing BS Agent Angie

Just to get it out of the way first, I saw a great Peking Opera today. If you’ve never been, give it a try the next time that chance comes your way, which may not be for awhile. These folks came direct to NYU from China and it may be a once a year type gig. When I previewed it on Flavorpill, I predicted great costumes and cool backdrops, that was def. the case. There were also crazy drum beats, shrill high notes and awesome back flips, which bolstered the extremely feminist plot. Basically a hundred year old grandma, leads an army of women and they kick the imperialist enemies out. Go Bubby!

Now, with great pleasure I must announce Agent Angie, as promised, I will be rolling out other writers as I go and now its time for Angie to take the stage. No, she doesn’t wear high-tech kimonos and do triple flips, but she does have a keen eye for culture and from now on will be a valued agent of Brooklyn Socialite reportage.

Get Ready! Here’s her first post.

Agent Angie at the Atlantic Antic

I woke up chilly Sunday morning– the prospect of sleeping in and hanging out in my pjs with a steaming pot of tea was quite palatable even though I’d already decided to check out the Atlantic Antic Festival in Brooklyn Heights. Luckily, I decided to suck it up, and umbrella in hand braved what was forecasted to be a soggy day, but what turned out to be sunny and delightful, perfect weather for an outdoor event. Atlantic Avenue was the perfect setting for a festival as vast as this one. The beautiful brick storefronts and historic townhouses lining the wide street were the perfect backdrop to the endless line of booths pedaling wares ranging from handmade jewelry to culinary and fried delights of all kinds. Funnel cakes and corndogs abounded .

Atlantic was bustling. We had to take a break from the unyielding pedestrian traffic if sanity was ever going to stay with us. We stepped into Tazza (GL), a cafe with a few outdoor tables right off Atlantic on quiet Henry Street for a break from the crowd. It provided a lovely atmosphere and a nice perk-me-up latte. The staff was friendly and efficient, the décor of dark wood cozy, and the copper bar top—a nice complement to the feel of the historic neighborhood. It was a nice people watching spot—we laughed as a ballsy old lady muscled her way into an outdoor seat that was already claimed.

On our way back to the subway, we passed performers from local churches, including a pastor preaching to intent and curious crowds, and perhaps most mystifying, a woman wearing a Swiss-lederhosen-inspired outfit (back-up dancers in tow) performing raucous versions of various golden oldies. Between the occasional rear-endings from impatient stroller-pedaling mommies and daddies and stagnant traffic jams, we stepped off to the sidewalk and sidled through the pricey antique, furniture, and clothing boutiques. The participation of local businesses (all of which had sales for the occasion) set the festival apart from others of its kind.

-Angie Venezia

A place at the Table-Aly Fourney Benefit-Chelsea Museum-Sandra Bernhard

The Chelsea Museum is definitely on my GL, I love that space. Whenever I go there it’s fun, and watching gays bid over hot auction items tonight was obviously, and not suprisingly, amazing. It was so exciting. I had to hold my hands down with some force in order to resist bidding on 3000 dollar tequila parties and trips to P-town. I managed to control the urge, the threat of poverty is very sobering you know!

Then, the joy of seeing Sandra Bernhard was pretty much unparalleled. After watching her as Jenny’s writing teacher on the L-word (yesterday ’cause I own the DVD) and of course Unzipped and Roseanne- it was high time I experienced her comedic revelry in the flesh. My favorite lines were, “I hate Blogs” and “I adore Barak Obama.” then when she said she was praying for the republicans on Rosh Hashana, I felt that my misfired holiday had finally been avenged.

The Seagull on Broadway with Kristin Scott Thomas

Broadway is a little far from Brooklyn, but I labored all the way up there for a fun night of flying. Well watching flying, alright they didn’t actually fly on stage, but phlegm from the coughing man behind me did fly into my head and the man to my right did dominate the armrest with his flailing flying gestures. The seagull did not fly, but Chekhov’s poetics flew into my mind.

All soaring aside, I thought it was a great play (GL), and I will have to go back and read it. Yes the production was a bit dry. It was Broadway after all, most of the audience had gray hair and I-phone w/earphones. Still, Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgard displayed their theatrical merit, not to mention good performances by Mackenzie Crook and Art Malik.

The themes also resonated: struggling writers, happy with neither failure nor success, narcissistic mothers, unrequited love, country dreams aside a lake- all in a day’s fun!

Guess What? There will be a giveaway tomorrow afternoon so remember to tune in x

The Same Man-George Orwell & Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revsited

Well Folks, I have been busy (!) riding the subway from Beautiful Brooklyn to Hot Mess Midtown, and during all of that time, I have been reading. My latest conquest is The Same Man: George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh by David Lebedoff. Again, despite the fact that the premise is damn near preposterous, (hello? What do these two writers really have in common?), it’s a pretty decent read.

Yes Lebedoff, they were born in the same year, of the upper middle class, Orwell went to Eton and Waugh went to Oxford, but come on! Orwell was an ingenious political visionary and fab writer, who lived barely above the poverty line for most of his adult life. He volunteered as a foreign soldier among the Anarchist-Syndicalists during the Spanish Civil War. Waugh was a self-made aristocrat, Catholic, heavy drinking womanizer, who once dined with Mussolini- a talented writer nonetheless.

Anyway, this brings me to the GIVEAWAY!! I have stated these opinions boldly and will no doubt reiterate some in my review of this book for Bookslut (be on the lookout), yet to be really fair, I have read almost every book that Orwell ever published and can not say the same for Waugh. In order to judge him fairly, I invite you my reader to read his classic novel Brideshead Revisited alongside of me and then to comment widely about your impressions. In fact I have 2 copies to give away to the 2 readers who correctly answer my trivia question. Then after you read it, I will happily post your reactions on the BS!

The question is: What is Goeorge Orwell’s real name? What did he do for 5 years after finishing high School and what incident involving a cane, did he learn something important from?

Tip: a key to finding the answer is included in this post!

Email answers and your mailing address to: carpetbaggerk@gmail.com

Giveaway, Spin, Barmarche

Hello! The giveaway is still open, we have had one winner so far, but there are two copies of the book to give away, so remember to email your answers in by tomorrow at midnight for a chance to win! carpetbaggerk@gmail.com. The correct answers will be announced on Saturday!

Tonight I went to see Spin presented by the Stage Farm at the Cherry Lane Theater. It was a collection of five short plays by a range of directors including Adam Rapp and Gina Gionfriddo. Her play was a game show o’ misery, which pitted Britney Spears against a US soldier who had died in Iraq. The contest was to see whose life was more tragic, according to the textbook definition. Britney won, after a grandstanding speech about how she had survived child labor in the Mickey Mouse Club and a monolougue by the contest’s judge, which as I recall peaked at, “When I was a brillo-haired little girl, I had a straight-haired Malibu Barbie who I worshiped, and you Britney, were that Barbie come to life!”

The highlight for me was Judith Thompson’s Nail Biter. Framed as a rebuttal against a damning youtube video, a Canadian soldier defends, albeit nervously, his complicity in torture at Guantanamo Bay. Jesse Hooker convincingly embodies this character and the way the confession wraps in a reel-like circle is quite effective.

Go check them out, they were good!

Don’t however run on down to Barmache afterwards, as I did. The American, references Mexican food is overpriced and over-fried. Yes, the decor is shiny, charmingish, and of course referencing the white tile trend as much as possible,  but I’d rather eat my grilled chicken and mash at Whole Foods for $6 B S style. The company was great though, thanks guys!

More on Orwell- I Heart Brooklyn Girls Party

Since I’m on this Orwell tip lately, I thought I’d share an excerpt from and link to his essay on writing called, “Why I Write”

From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books. more

Books online are amazing! More to come tonight I promise….and for all the Queers in the house, check out the I heart Calendar Girls Party tonight at southpaw….the whole neighborhood will be there. Here’s a snippet of my Go write-up about it:

I Heart Brooklyn Girls and GO Magazine have teamed up for the exciting launch of the Brooklyn Girls 2009 Women at Work calendar. Famous for depicting real-bodied voluptuous queer femmes who call Brooklyn home, this year’s calendar effectively realizes its reference to 1940s and ‘50s Bettie Page style pin-up girls. It focuses on campy professions; all the ladies are dressed in carefully selected vintage attire and are shot in an ironic work environment. There is the “Baking Beauty,” the “Stitching Sweetie” and “Chemist Queenie” about to measure her beakers, but my favorite is obviously the “Literary Lady.” It’s about time that writers were hailed as sex icons! more

I’ll be sure to review it afterwards x

I Heart Brooklyn Girls recap

Okay party people, expect another post from me tonight, but meanwhile I have to give you a little bit of talkback on yesterday’s party.

It sucked!!!…..shhh, don’t tell. The doorman was rude, really Southpaw, its a big city, surely you can find someone who is not a shit-talking homophobe…no? The floor was not quite-lovingly encased in very sticky beer, the entrance price was 15 bucks and although the djs were good, it was too packed to dance until the end. Next year a bigger venue- I suggest anywhere other than Southpaw!

I did go to my favorite South Indian restaurant earlier that night, Dosas and a good chai will cheer a girl up-even when she gets dissed. (ooh!) not saying anything else, I will reveal the location though: corner of Lexington and 26th. Put it on your list girl(boy), it’s on mine. GL

Loulou’s, Winners, Gowanus Harvest Fest

Wow, I meant to post last night, but staying up until 5am at and after the I heart Brooklyn Girls party, translated to falling asleep at 8pm last night, while watching the Making of the Spice Girls DVD. Yes, people who are under the misconception that I’m pretentious will be pleased to know that I am not too cool to get a few kicks off watching Posh back when she was a chubby Spice in training. That was one of the fun prizes that came in my Aly Fourney benefit gift bag. But…

The point is that now I have a lot to say. First of all the answers to the Trivia question and winners of Brideshead Revisited are Shannon and Angie- yes it was a sad showing of competitors so Ang you are now officially eligible. The correct answers are:

George Orwell’s real name is Eric Blair, he was an imperial policeman in Burma for 5 years after finishing High School at Eton. When he struck a Burmese child with his cane, for some small slight, and was taunted for this by other children, he realized fully the ills of imperialism and resolved to commit to socialism and writing. Congratulations winners!

I have a new recommendation for the GL, Loulou’s in Ft Greene on Dekalb, is a great little brunch spot (especially if you have fun company like i did). In typical petit panam style, they have pretty decent crepes and all the other necessary ingredients like Mimosas, lattes and cake. The best feature is the garden. Have a long convo out back, suggested topics are education, misfired relationships, intresting court cases and Ashland vs Portland vs Brooklyn (Booklyn wins!)

After my much edited preview on Flavorpill, I won’t bother to link to it cause it won’t even sound like me—the review is that, unless your a city hippy with ten kids, you should probably skip it next year. The yard is a great space though, as I suspected (GL). Go there and bliss out in the sun, while looking at a 5 mile/hour bridge over the Gowanus canal

Bedstuy, Clinton Hill, FT Greene Cafe Contest- BS rundown

I have been long been meaning to do a little size-up comparison of the cafes in this hood. As the Brooklyn Socialite and a writer, let me assure you that I spend many a daytime hour in cafes so I should know a bit about them by now.

We have already talked about Choice- which is where I am now PS- definitely the best option in terms of food, coffee, deserts. In terms of hang out spot though, they get a lower score. Yes wifi, but no, the feeling that its cool to hang out all day on your laptop- it’s a bustling place, people are constantly online to get bread and savorys to take home or eat quickly on one of the outside benches. Another minus is no alcohol, sometimes an afternoon beer helps you get by, what can I say?

Then there is Tiny Cup this was my favorite for a long time until it became clear that the always fresh batch of new staff members would just never stop messing up orders. The amount of times I found jam on my bagel instead of butter, yogurt on my fruit bowl and coconut after I asked for without, or got someone else’s order all together is too many to count. What’s Worse, I have more than once been given food that wasn’t quite fresh enough. Beyond these major faux pas the good things are, the owner Lisa is really sweet and i like her. The crowd that hangs there is often cool, friendly and comfortable. This is def a laptop friendly spot, frequented by work-from-homers. Wifi yes and reasonable prices too.

Which brings me to Outpost. The best things about outpost are 1. spacious outdoor, smoker friendly garden seating and 2. They serve alcohol, beer, wine, even rum and they do really nice fruit juices to boot. Other perks are that they have young gay owners, host cool events like DJ and open mic poetry nights, have wifi and lots of laptop plugs, and similar to Tiny Cup a daytime mostly independent worker crowd. That said, the drawbacks are not very good food, some of it is pretty shocking, coffee that could be better and sometimes the feeling that it is too crowded. Maybe they could  spread the tables out a little more?

Then there is Breadstuy which hardly deserves a mention. The main pluses are WiFi, friendly staff and cool clientèle, but the coffee and food are so universally bad that it’s hard to go there for any significant period of time.

The last of the best,( bear in mind that all of the aforementioned cafes represent the best options in  daytime hood cafe chilling/working) is Smooch. A bit of a haul from where I live, but they have coffee, good smoothies, and alcohol! Plus some cruisy outdoor seating. The staff alternate between being awesome and surly, but try your luck. When I was last in the WiFi situation was indefinite so will have to check back and gauge whether or not this can really be a work spot. It’s good for a coffee date though.

If you know a place in the hood that you reckon deserves a spot on this list, please let me know!

Literary Death Match- Deadlines

Hello Friends,

Although hanging out in cafe’s is joyful, deadlines are not. I am down to the wire on another one and feeling the burn. I also put my back out- what the? So in honor of Spa Week, I am taking my broke self on down to the Brand Nu Day Spa, I will be sure to report back on it’s level of goodness.

After I stop procrastinating and manifest some genius, (what what!) I will get my back back in gear, I hope, than journey on over to the Kitchen for A Literary Death Match/ Release of Opium Magazine (secret blog fans, stalk me I’m yours!)

This is how I previewed it in Flavorpill:

Competitive-reading series Literary Death Match requires authors to step out from behind their writing desks and show some performance chops. The contestants this time around are Katherine Taylor from the Vermin on the Mount reading series, Thomas Hopkins from L magazine’s Annual Literary Upstart, Dennis DiClaudio of Guerilla Lit, and Thaddeus Rutkowski from Poetry vs. Comedy. Celebrity guests (Ben Greenman from The New Yorker is on hand) judge the participants on literary merit, performance, and various intangibles. more

I will let you know afterwards how it really was. I will also have a report back on the ITTY BITTY TITTY COMMITTEE DVD launch party which I previewed in GO. Again, stalkers are welcome x See you soon.

Lit Death Match Recap- to start

OK friends I have so many things that I want to recap right now, but my popcorn just beeped in the microwave and the DVD player is waiting. I rented Itty Bitty Titty Committee so that I could find out what all the fuss last night was about. Got to go watch and get back to you.

On to the Literary Death Match, presented by Opium magazine. Well I was going to write a little summary, but when I went back to review my notes, just seconds ago, I realized that they may be better in all their unabridged glory. Courtesy of my new iphone (we’ll talk about that soon) Here they are:

Lincoln Michel
Spit talked and was boring.
Ben Greenman said that be confuses animals and people.He likes airplane catalogs and “long bills”. Kurt says, “tuck in your shirt!”, no eye contact, spoke too fast, this guy Kurt Bodden is funny
Jodi bullock says, “don’t make word definition mistakes.”

Katherine Taylor
Not so funny and yet published in the Times, blonde, I don’t like the way she reads ‘dumb woman style’
“How you know you are a cliché”
Lit merit: greenman says style is hard to pull off but she kinda pulled it off and felt like jokes on Brooklyn writers. “There will be no bad sandwich in your memory”. Kurt; second person imperative voice. Spoonerism… Jodi says Chablis pronunciation, good story. Fear of umbrellas.

Lit matches in Europe
Baby voice

Dennis Diclaudio
Tic tac up the butt story w/therapist
Story is better than reading style
Lots of whiny bratty writer shit
Tic tac is cover for whiny shit.

Thaddeous Rutkowski
Great, funny. Good performer. Vonnegut said respect your audience. He has it memorized and wins. “ceremonial head dress” he says he wants one.

Wow, raw observations are scathing, “I apologize, in advance.” Meanness sucks, really.

The next post will cover Cookshop, and Itty Titty the night and film. Oh and the NU YU spa which by the way rocks!

Itty Bitty review and Cookshop, NU YU day spa.

I have been experiencing anxiety all day, caused in part by the meanness of my last post, and yet Allen Ginsberg said “First Thought, Best Thought” and there is a man I must honor. So no deletions.

Let’s talk about Itty Bitty. This film was fun. I wrote about 1,000 notes but I will spare you another reprint. In short: Daniela Sea is really hot, the soundtrack was great, I do love Le Tigre. You could tell that this film was very indy, it looked low-budget, nowhere near as polished as Jamie Babbit’s acclaimed feature, But I’m a Cheerleader. However the fact that it was produced by Power-Up and actually depicted culture jamming and Direct Action, despite the fact that the premise was a bit “fanciful,” pretty much makes it a winner in my book. Melonie Diaz is a really fresh young actor, big up to her, and thank you Itty for the mostly positive portrayal of a trans person. Check out the trailer.

As for the party, it looked like a snatch of fun. I can’t really say, because I couldn’t stay long. Before the party, I ate at Cookshop. It was overpriced and not amazing, yet super packed. Things that make you go hmmm. The bread sticks were good?

The exciting place, which does make the GL is NU YU day spa. If you ever really need a massage, in the Clinton Hill area, hit up Courtney, Jules or one of the other lovely staff members. Especially now, as it’s Spa Week and they along with many others across the country, are offering discounts.

Jane Lynch Interview

Yay! The interview that I did with Jane Lynch back at Providence International Film Festival is finally available online. Here’s an excerpt!

JANE LYNCH studied acting at Cornell University and then went on to act in comedy theater, TV, and film. Her role in The Fugitive introduced her to a wider audience, which led to appearances in major movies and TV sitcoms. However, Jane has remained committed to independent films and to playing lesbian roles whenever possible. She underscores this dedication through her work with Power-Up, a professional organization that “promotes the. visibility and integration of gay women in entertainment.” It was at a Power-Up conference that she first met L Word creator Ilene Chaiken, who asked her to join the cast.

Jane is known for the intelligence that shines through her comedy roles and has recently been honored with the Faith Hubley Memorial Award at the Provincetown International Film Festival. This award is a testament to her talent and versatility. Hilarious yet subtle, Jane is an accomplished actress with many films to her credit, including The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and the recently released Tru Loved (2008).

I caught up with her at the Ptown Film Festival in June, where I sat with Jane at a screening of Best in Show, a 2000 movie in which she played lesbian dog trainer Christy Cummings. After the movie we talked about her status as an out actress and her work as an actress on the big and small screens.

Robyn Hillman-Harrigan: It was great to watch Best is Show with you in the audience. It was cool to see that it is still funny for you, even though I am sure you have seen it many times before.

Jane Lynch: I have, but I haven’t seen it in about four years, and we all look so young. There is such a difference in how all of us look eight years later. It was fun to watch it, because it holds up so well. I was really struck by some of the performances. Every time I see a Christopher Guest movie, someone’s performance stands out to me. This time it was Parker Posey who cracked me up.

RHH: I understand that it was made in a very non-traditional way, that you were given strong character descriptions, but no lines.

JL: That’s right. We improvised all the dialogue. We shot a lot of film. The art of this comes not only from our performances, I don’t mean to reduce our significance, but it’s in the editing. Christopher Guest creates these movies in the editing room.

RHH: I love your work on The L Word. What’s it like working with everyone on the cast–with Cybill Shepherd, for example?

JL: Cybill Shepherd is great. She’s usually who I work with. Cybill or Laurel Holloman. sometimes Jennifer Beals. I usually work with just one person. I love doing the show. They write really well, I just come in and do my piece, and then I leave. When I see the episode, it is brand new to me.

RHH: In both Best in Show and on The L Word you play a lesbian character. You are highly respected as an actor within the lesbian community; you have many lesbian fans. Is being well regarded by queer women important to you?

JL: Yes, absolutely. Acting is about human nature, so it is all of human nature that I’m curious about, and I know that historically we have been kind of a silent group and we haven’t garnered much respect or acceptance. This is changing now and I think it is really great that people like Melissa [Etheridge], and Ellen [De Generes] and Rosie O’Donnell stood up and were courageous enough to say, “I’m Gay.” Now the rest of us have had a much easier path. So kudos to them, and if someone looks up to me because I’m open and okay about it and they take strength from that, I think it’s great. Read More

Still to come, my review of Nights and Weekends, which I saw yesterday and Angent Angie’s post on the Jorie Graham reading that we attended last night. xx

Nights and Weekends, Mixx, Secret Faggot

“I don’t respond to sarcastic fun!.” was my favorite line in Nights and Weekends, it captured the eerie gray area that relationships enter after a certain amount of time. In this is a zone, 2 people know each other well, but not well enough to avoid trampling over each others sensitivities. Perfectly capturing that awkward intimacy, Nights and Weekends somehow delivers. True, it appears low budget, the camera work is simple and the scenes are shot almost exclusively in the same 2-3 apartments. Still, it feels like one long conversation, the kind which I have had with my best friends. It addresses the conflict over having babies, being in relationship, being alone fiercely, being lonely, and ultimately falling in love with someone, and feeling kind of out of control about it. This film is a useful meditation on autonomy and what it means to give that up. Check the trailer.

Now a brief shot out to the Mix 21 Queer Experimental Film Festival. I went last night and especially enjoyed a film called In Formation by Za Martohardjono. If you missed it last night Za will have more films screening tonight, so go see for yourself. There are several other good programs being offered, including a cool video art installation. More info here

Finally I ended the night at Glasslands for the Secret Faggot party. Wow, I had no idea that that space was so vaudeville. It did feel squat homey though, and the makeshift bar was even endearing. I guess I was just waiting for the DJ section to begin, and it didn’t until 1:30, by then I was longing for my pillow. Beauty sleep right?

Agent Angie gets round Robin

The Baltimore Avant-Garde at (le) Poisson Rouge

I suppose the bands I saw Friday night in the Baltimore Round Robin at (le) Poisson Rouge didn’t overtly define themselves as avant-garde, but they were certainly esoteric enough to be described that way. Furthermore, their pride in their irreverence, marked in many cases by aloofness, to the extent of failing to tell the audience their name (as if they’re so above the current music scene to care if we know who they are), made me think that many of them have quite lofty perceptions of themselves.

Despite my initial aversion to the elaborately esoteric nature of some of these performances, very quickly I began to hear the rhythm and beauty in even the most bizarre of noise bands there that night. Even the Lexie Mountain Boys, a group of women who did all manner of screeching, moaning, and yelping to convince me that I was either at a ritualistic ceremony or a violent orgy, captivated me.

The round robin concept, in which the audience forms in the middle and is surrounded by all of eleven bands, who alternate playing one song after another, was the perfect way in which to experience this music. I couldn’t imagine staying through concerts of most of these bands independent of each other, with the exception of Beach House, Jana Hunter, and possibly Teeth Mountain. The avant-garde elements were accessible because of the alternating and spontaneous form. The round robin is broken up into two nights. Friday was “Eyes Night” and Saturday, “Feet Night,” a night of dance music rather than the more visual music of Friday’s show. (le) Poisson Rouge on Bleeker and Thompson provided the perfect space for this unusual event, getting it on the GL of NY music venues.

I haven’t come close to succeeding in describing this show adequately for you. The bizarre, fantastic, and insane knew no bounds. These elements were all too numerous to describe here, so let me briefly list the highlights:

Beach House: My favorite band of the evening, and the one I was most anxious to see. Read this wonderful reviewof their latest album on Pitchfork.

Lexi Mountain Boys: As I mentioned previously, somehow the orgasmic grunts and howls of this group of women (wearing headdresses of baby doll heads and black perforated veils), became increasingly rhythmic and melodic to me as the night wore on. The blast they were having, that was apparent from their infectious, genuine smiles, took any pretention out of their inexplicable music.

The female drummer from Teeth Mountain: This woman’s sexy, tribal style of drumming and the captivating music it made, blew me away. I could have listened and watched her play all night.

Santa Dads: This band consisted of three people: one man beat-boxing in a cotton, handmade tiger suit, another, wearing a red dress with a Peter Pan collar playing an electric ukelaili, and a back up dancer undulating frantically with a stuffed leopard print octopus. Enough said.

Wish I could have gone to “Feet Night” as well, to get the full Baltimore music experience, but the 92Y Tribeca opening was that night. I wouldn’t have missed if you paid me. Expect a post soon.

Agent Angie reads to us

This has been quite a week of readings, providing events so diverse, from Opium Magazine’s unorthodox literary death match to 92nd Street Y’s uptown and kinda uptight Jorie Graham and Yusuf Komunyakaa reading.

And in the middle, Wednesday saw the 85th anniversary reading of Weird Tales Magazine at KGB Bar. The magazine brought three of their favorite authors, Micaela Morrisette, Jeffrey Ford, and Karen Heuler. Morisette started things off with the weirdest of the night, a story about ritualized cannibalism. Her reading of it was disturbing; she described her characters devouring their meals with such a plethora of adjectives and in such a soft and captivated voice, fetishizing the concept. I felt like I was listening to a harlequin romance about craving human beings for dinner. Unsettling? Yes. Not exactly my cup of tea but compelling nonetheless.

My favorite part of the night was when Stephen H. Segal, the editorial and creative director of the magazine, did a reading of Weird Tales’ readers’ submissions of 500 word stories inspired by a spam subject line they found in their inbox. He read three of the honorable mentions throughout the night. They were awesome.

Those were the highlights of the evening. KGB Bar is so far my favorite readings venue. It is surely the most intimate, being so tiny that there were people overflowing into the hallway. Predictably, everything is red, with busts and portraits of Lenin galore. The disappointing beer selection, offering only the usual suspects was a downer for me, but its atmosphere, authenticity, and tininess get it on the GL of NY bars and reading venues.

The next night came 92nd Street Y’s Jorie Graham and Yusuf Komunyakaa reading. Sometimes I wish the Y could loosen itself up a bit. I’ve been to one other reading there, and both times I nodded off at some point during the event. It’s not intimate by any stretch of the imagination (I’ve found that intimacy is best for readings so that one can absorb and thus more easily follow what the writer is reading), the seats are not too comfy, and it’s not a place where I feel relaxed.

Graham read first, and sadly, it was tedious. Her voice was very abrupt and breathy when she read. It was very “poet-like;” the stereotype that inserts pauses in odd places for effect, and pauses at the end of every line. I hate when people read poetry that way. It makes poetry sound foreign, validating the preconceived notions some have about the inaccessibility of poetry. She read solely from Sea Change which didn’t thrill me. I had trouble associating any of the words she was saying together. I felt like I needed to have the book in front of me and follow along to grasp the meaning behind her words.

Yusuf Komunyakaa on the other hand had a beautiful reading voice. It was very soft and deep. He recited Rs with a unique flair and had a bluesy lilt to his voice. My favorite poem of his was called “Requiem,” about New Orleans after Katrina.

Party Like it’s 1992 at Santos Party House

Well last night my friend lured me out of my warm sewing cove and convinced me to come to the Shitty. On a Sunday night no less! It was kind of worth it though to see all the b-boy colorfabulous fashions that were on display at Santos Party House. If you weren’t wearing hyper color high tops you may as well have been a leaper. The only way to make up for such a grave slight was to rock glitzy vintage rainbow bright party dresses or collage popping hoodies. I didn’t quite make the grade, but i still managed to get myself caught on the dance floor amidst spontaneous vogueing, cap wearing, boot stomping b-boys and heel high glamazons. The drinks were slightly overpriced but the sounds of 1992 were refreshing. I had to call back to the fore several of my retired dance moves but I just about managed to bust a move. Upon departure, I was rewarded with a 1992 t-shirt by local designer Brooklyn Basement.

Trouble The Water Article Interview Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

Hello! My Trouble The Water article which features an interview that I did with the film’s directors Tia Lessin and Carl Deal is now available on line here.

If you have yet to see the movie, please do. It is a very inspiring narrative documentary about a heroic, yet humanistic couple who survived Hurricane Katrina, while aiding their neighbors in the lower 9th ward. This in an excerpt…read more!

“So many people lost everything, their homes and families.” Lessin said. “It is not exactly the time that you expect people to rise above it all, but the truth is that Kim and Scott lived in a community that had failed them all of their lives. They were used to having to be the first response for problems that were occurring in their community. The government had long since abandoned the lower ninth ward. At least a quarter century of right wing attacks on social services set the groundwork for the poverty in their community. So many of the basic things that our country is supposed to look out for, safety, health, environmental and market regulations, civil rights, had all fallen by the wayside. This was the trajectory of their lives.”

Indeed, the scenes that show Kim riding through the neighborhood, pre-storm, affirm her status as caring community member. She knows the names and stories of each neighbor, shop owner, and even homeless junkie. Memorably, she warns one such man to take shelter. Later the film viewer finds out that he was one of the many who died after being unable to leave the city. However, Kim herself, also speaks about the hardships she has endured at various times in life, which have led her to take desperate measures, including selling drugs. Aiding their neighbors and emerging as true leaders, seems to have catalyzed a process of continued change for the Roberts.

According to Deal, “This film was about perspective as much as anything, by stepping outside of their everyday world, Kim and Scott were able to look back in and see themselves in an enhanced manner. They could understand the better parts of themselves and by seeing things in this affirmative light, multiply the positives in their lives. They were the same people they had always been, except more self-assured and hopeful.”

Agent Angie Sings to us

92Y Tribeca Opening

If you read my review of 92nd Street Y’s Jorie Graham and Yusuf Komunyakaa reading last week you know of my hope that the good ole’ Y could become a little more hip. They book the best literary events around, yet manage to put their audience to sleep. Well, it seems my wish has been granted. 92nd Street Y opened their Tribeca location, on Hudson and Canal, last Saturday. I’ve heard that 92Y Tribeca won’t be hosting many readings in the near future, leaving that to their uptown patriarch. Hopefully that changes, because 92Y Tribeca’s space could potentially excel in providing the intimacy that literary readings need to be as satisfying and exciting as possible (yes, readings can be exciting!).

92Y Tribeca has a fabulous line-up of music events scheduled. Check out their site. John Vanderslice kicked off their series, 18 Nights of Inspiration on Saturday, while also celebrating the opening of the Tribeca location. Michael Showalter opened for and introduced Vanderslice with a stand-up routine. He was a little unprepared but otherwise hilarious as usual (remember Wet Hot American Summer?). Most of his routine recapped the current events surrounding the election.

Vanderslice’s performance was what I was excited about. He put on a great show, visibly elated to be performing at 92Y Tribeca and to be introduced by Showalter, whom he’s performed with before. The San Francisco-based singer/songwriter has intrigued me ever since I heard that he produced Spoon’s Gimme Fiction and two recent Mountain Goats’ albums, The Sunset Tree (2005) and Heretic Pride (2007), which also happen to be two of my favorites. One of the most prolific, yet under-the-radar musicians of his generation, Vanderslice was slated to intrigue, delight, and of course, entertain.

Vanderslice’s lyrics remind me a bit of anecdotal, folkloric/nursery rhymes, in particular “Dear Sarah Shu,” which he dedicated to John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats at the show:

“Dear Sarah Shu,
I leave for you
All i knew about this job
On microcassette for further review

What it meant to me
How you’ll make it dear, hopefully
It’s dangerous here
Yes it’s dangerous here

Peer round corners with dental mirrors,
Heed the threats, taking cautionary measures,
In the end, it is love
You’ll have to learn to survive …”

and “Angela”

“Angela
Don’t be mad
There’s something i’ve got to tell you dear
Before you come back here

I lost, i lost your bunny
I let him out of the cage
He was eating spring mix on the carpet
He jumped through a window into the haze

And hopped down magnolia boulevard
No way he’ll survive
Maybe those last days of freedom
Were the best of his life …”

92Y Tribeca picked a great inaugural act! I had a blast.

The space was very well orchestrated. There are gallery spaces displaying the exhibit “Goddess, Mouse, and Man” featuring the etchings of Lauren Weinstein, Tom Hart, and Matthew Thurber. I went to a reading of Weinstein’s fantasy graphic novel Goddess of War (the etchings of which are currently displayed in this show) at the Strand a couple months ago. She is definitely worth checking out.

Expect some exciting things to come from the Y in the coming months. I’m interested to see what happens.

by Angie Venezia

George Stoney Q & A

Last night documentary filmmaker George Stoney made a special appearance at Thom Powers’( programmer for the Toronto Film Festival) film series, Stranger Than Fiction. Stoney is 92 years old and has been making films for two thirds of his lifetime. It was a great pleasure to watch him, climb up and down off the stage( poor thing) and discuss his cinematic legacy with total clarity and insight. He informed us that his early films were made almost exclusively for a commissioned purpose. The first video that screened last night, “All my Babies,” was made for the Georgia Health Department as an instructional video. It depicts a real African American “granny midwife,” as they were called, delivering a baby for a woman in her home. Many black women in the early 50’s, when this film was made, did not have their children in hospitals. Stoney explained that this film helped to educate white doctors about the respectable practices of the midwives, and the somewhat desperate position of the mothers. This knowledge encouraged many of those doctors to make visits to pregnant black women before and during births, in order to ensure safety and bring women, who were likely to have complicated births, to the hospital.

This film like all of the others screened was thoughtful and admirable. Throughout his career Stoney tackled issues such as workers rights, prison drama societies, Native American rights, and rural to urban immigration. Do Netflix him or audit one of his classes at NYU (that’s what I’m thinking of doing!) Yes, you heard me right, at 92 he is still teaching and still making films. He should def hang with my 98 year old Bubby. They would have good chats.

Here is a revisiting of the original film with commentary. Loads slow but is pretty interesting!

Murakami contentious review!

Here it is:

Is a Ph.D. in fine art a pre-requisite for the production of sexually offensive, hyper-color, infantile comic book styled corporate clutter? If your name is Takashi Murakami than the answer is, “yes”. The self-proclaimed creator of a new art movement entitled Superflat, which refers to what Murakami has defined as the lack of distinction in Japan between high and low art, as the flat space in between. A trend he points to in traditional as well as contemporary Japanese art. According to the artist, “Japanese don’t like serious art. But if I can transform cute characters into serious art, they will love my piece.”

Murakami maintains that his goal is to question the Japanese obsession with western art and immature consumerism, by blurring the lines between art and commerce. However, rather than critiquing this shift, his work further intensifies the magnetism. Murakami describes postwar Japanese impotence as a void, popularly obscured by Hello Kitty dolls that the artist has stepped in to fill with ultra commercial merchandise as art. A man who can sell paintings for 1.3 million and toy figures for 50 bucks a pop has demonstrated his capabilities as a marketing genius. Perhaps his designation as the new Andy Warhol and best contemporary Japanese pop artist is just another example of his promotional mastery.

Born in Tokyo in 1962 from working class parents, Murakami earned a BA, MFA, and Ph.D. in traditional Nihonga painting from Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Growing up, he was a member of the Otaku geek subculture, which centers around anime (cartoons) and manga (comic books) that often depict the explosion of the atomic bomb and gritty realities in post-war Japan. They also sometimes serve as outlets for repressed sexual fantasies. Otaku are mainly young Japanese men, who like American trekies or renaissance fair enthusiasts, collect figurines, and go to trade shows, except in this case the figures are often sparsely glad young girls called, bishojo.

As otaku relates to Murakami’s art it is a borrowing from cartoons and animations with the sexual or grotesque element almost made palatable by containing a somewhat child-friendly veneer. The latter is the imposition of an element called kawaii, or cuteness. This presence is found increasingly in his more recent work. Paintings such as Tan Tan Bo capture a combination of otaku and kawaii, which culminate in the figure of a bloodthirsty, yet colorful, cheery caricature. It is this very reference to morbid isolationism, augmented with hyper-color joy, which has rocketed Murakami into the mainstream. Millions of dollars later, he is still known to sleep many nights alone in a sleeping bag in a small building attached to his Japanese factory.   Read More!pleasexx

Tan tan Bo- Murakami

Thanks for listening and loving art like I do (except when you take objection to it!) Speaking of art, tomorrow you can expect a full review of the new AnySpaceWhatever exhibition at the Guggenheim. Until then! your faithful Brooklyn Socialite.

TheAnySpaceWhatever initial Review

Ok folks this post is going to be a little computer challenged as I am forced to iPhone send it. My initial reaction to the anyspacewhatever exhibition which opened yesterday at the Guggenheim is: I loved the wall text and the hanging plaques that redirect the typical flow of museum traffic. They say things like various admissions above the ticket booth and cookoo sanctuary above the coat check. Then the walls whisper, for example: “every time you think of me you die a little”. A message to your ex or a cross affirmation? I wonder. One patron upon exit said that tourists would be disappointed after paying 18$ to enter. Oh, the tourist, but what about the art critic? So far i can tell you that the bid towards experiential art and the rejection of the basic concept of asthetic display is compelling, but I’ll get back to you after further consideration!

Pics to come.

Inkblot Kelly, NY2022, Obama/Baldwin, Bitch, Edgar Keret

I want to talk about the futuristic performance art piece that accompanies the AnySpaceWhatver exhibition.

The performance, entitled NY2022 combines Balenciaga dresses, with the Staten Island , Richmond County Orchestra, 82 year old singing actresses and a shower, a bicycle and a hot plate. Based on the 1973 Sci-fi film Soylent Green, the artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster creates an image of New York in the future. Apparently it is a place where people lovingly pour water over each other in lieu of actual showers, and where music and clothing, although beautiful (Balenciaga dresses) and lackadaisical, are gradually dissipating.

On the Subway downtown, I was wedged between the Russian members of the Staten Island Orchestra, although this environment was decidedly less glamorous then the Guggenheim, I felt a kindred connection with my fellow Brooklyn Socialites. Yes they live in Staten Island, but the point is that they are subway riding, comfortable shoe wearing, down to earth recessionistas like me.

When I arrived downtown, I was just in time to see Bitch and Feron at Joe’s Pub, which was a little folksy slice of the west coast from Daniela Sea’s lovely female folk singer girl-friend. The show was quite sweet, it made me feel like camping, and watching lakes. At one point, Ferron commented that new Yorkers view trees as concepts, that they are not in fact real to us. It was a joke, but I want to shout “Hey, I resemble that!” (which is a play on ‘I resent that’ For other fun pun’s in the sun dig this little gem of a site

And, it’s about time that I rail off about a few books and publications that I have been perusing these past few days. First of all did anyone else read the epic comparison of Barak Obama with James Baldwin in the NY Review of Books? What the? This brings to mind other “well matched” personages such as Orwell and Waugh. Until Barak comes out and publishes something with a little more literary merit than his “touching” autobiography provided, I will have to maintain my gasp. I love our next president, but don’t mess with Baldwin.

Speaking of writers, I caught Edgar Keret at Housing Works. He read from his latest book, A Girl on the Fridge. I really can’t speak volumes about his work, although it is very popular and often recommended to me. Its conspicuous lack of political choices, for a collection of stories set in conflict rich Israel/Palestine is a bit off putting. The style and subject matter is also v. male and seems to neutralize violence. However, the lady poets, who read before him, presented well crafted verse. Housing works still rocks!

I am also proud to share my new clothing website, Yay! The BS is also a Designer x www.InkblotKelly.com That lovely model is sporting IK gear below x

Supper, Channeling

Just finished editing the busy events of Friday night, and happy to realize that Saturday was by far a quieter evening. I just have to recap the cool film screening and after party that I attended and the great dinner at Supper which preceded it.

I keep being drawn back to that restaurant, It reminds me of Tiamo, this great Italian spot in the Italian district of Melbourne, which I used to frequent. Going there offers me a little taste of my home away from home, tied up between piping hot homemade pasta, gorgonzola polenta, and decadent procioutto mellons. Sorry vegans. Which brings me to the next event of the evening.

I had to try to pull off vegan chic among talented experimental filmmakers, artists, DJs and friends. The screening at ABC No Rio, (moved from Le Petit Versailles), was charming, subtle, at times hysterical, at others confusing, but overall thought provoking and bold. It is always good to see queer stories, which ponder identity, earthliness and disco. Check out the work of Elliot Montague and Michael Robinson on youtube maybe or in your local radical lending library.

The afterparty was a refreshing amount of fun. After most of the crowd at Heather’s cleared, what remained was a friendly crew, Aurthur Russell and other disco/hip hop/pop and house beer guzzling queertabulousness.

The Economic Downturn & Depression Entertainment

Let me tell you, writing for a living (and making clothes) is not all that lucrative for some people that i won’t mention, ok me. Still I look around and notice that the signs of the times are quite prominent nearly everywhere. Friends are loosing jobs, moving cities, desperately promoting themselves, or sliding into negative state of mind funks. For me, not all that much has changed ‘cuase I actually didn’t have that far to fall. (ha ha) Any way, this brings me to consider the rise of Broadway musicals during The Great Depression, which is this week mirrored by the success of High School Musical 3. It looks like American’s on average would like to be entertained by ultra-positive, unrealistic singsong in times of Crisis.

I fear that I tend to go in quite the opposite direction for my ressionista kicks. I watch a lot of documentaries, which not everyone considers to be a good time. Like tomorrow, for instance I am really excited about the Stranger than Fiction, screeing of Making do the Right Thing, to quote myself,

“St Clair Bourne captured the conflict-rich environment of Bed-Stuy in the early ’80s and the ways in which the community responded to seeing its streets turned into a live set.” Read More

Angela Davis

This will be a great night because not only is a film about my neighborhood screening, but Danny Glover and many others will be in the house to pay tribute to St Clair Bourne, who I had the honor of befriending before he died last year. Later in the week, more of what I call good cheap fun, Angela Davis will be speaking about Abolition Democracy at Cooper Union for free. More info

The other fun, affordable and cheery things that I am, and suggest doing in today’s economy are playing with dogs and reading! Yay, so Brideshead revisited reading group, get busy! I also love making soup in these times, it’s cheap and it lasts all week. Any one who has a good soup recipe, please comment post it or email it to me at Brooklynsocialite@yahoo.com. I will share one soon too, maybe even giveaway a soup dinner to one lucky reader… x

Coco Rosie at Heather’s

Last night I saw Bianca, aka Mad Vicky, one of the members of Cocorosie, DJ at Heather’s. Known for wearing crazy wigs and lots of beautiful, built-up costumes, Bianca was rocking a realistic, white girl dread wig. I’m assuming that wasn’t her actual hair, but not sure. Her clothes were slightly more downplayed but still somehow imposing. My friend commented that he loved her rainbow aesthetic, which is ironic considering the truth that Cocorosie have often referred to themselves as Rainbow Warriors. It kind of did feel like a tribe had come home to chill, with Bianca, joined by equally snazzy mix-mistress Black cracker and her band and life- mate Bunny Rabbit. Members of OMG Michelle were also in the blender, plus designers Leif and Tooya.

DJ Mad Vicky

If you haven’t heard Cocorosie’s sounds, check them out. Popular in Barcelona and Paris, where they live part time, and of course on the west coast, their music is a rhythmic cross pollination. Fisher price toys compete for dominance with operatic vocals, disguised voices and good old fashioned (ha ha) beats. Danceable, at times queer-centric, melodic, lyrical, their music is so many things. Black Cracker and Bunny are pretty ace too, especially when you see them in Athens! The DJing was of course different from the band, but our verdict: fun and thought provoking, definitely going on the GL. The slide show that accompanied it was positively wacked out. Yay, more experimental film cures, in these depressionista times.

Unappreciated?

Do you ever get the feeling that people are wildly underestimating you? They say things like, “Well, if you really wanted it, you would…” or “Well, you’re young, you have have plenty of time to make money, you don’t need it now.” This is when the incredulity sets in, “Do you have any idea who I am?” you want to scream, ” Do you have even half a notion of what I’ve done to get to this place in my life?” Officially you have more heart, more chutzpah, and more integrity then some people carry attached to their keyrings, “but I digress“(To quote one blogger who is in the habit of quoting me)… By now you have mentally jumped upon a table top and started demanding, back taxes, lost invoices, belated birthday presents and every other manner of substance that you now realize you are rightfully owed. In appearance, your body may be still quite contained behind your just slightly rolling eyes and your calm, controlled voice- in truth, you are raging. The diatribe is getting juicier, ex-partners are invoked, broken dishes that your roommates never claimed responsibility for, that diet that sabotaged you, the exercise that you no longer have time for. You are starting a movement here, look around and notice that others are also standing on their tables and chairs. Not visible to the untrained eye, but I see them. I am glad that I found my kin group, and we are beginning the departure…follow me! shhhh, don’t stop to think, just follow, or lead, whatever, just come.

Send me your best undervalued rant: Brooklynsocialite@yahoo.com

Possible topics include: 1.Who wants to be Paris Hilton anyway. 2. Why I’m a superstar (to myself) 3. A funny thing happened on the way to today and 4. Why canceled vaycay’s suck on top of everything else.

And now for a quick recap of Making Do the Right Thing. After seeing it for the second time, I noticed that Spike Lee was super fashionable in the late 80’s. Where can I get me a pair of yellow and green leggings, with green mini-shorts on top. Men were really comfortable with taking fashion forward back then. Pretty hot. I also loved the part where Melvin Van Peebles tells the crowd that refuses to quiet down and give him his propers, ” I didn’t get to where i am by being a choir boy, now shut up.” He’s on that table with us. He’s coming!

Melvin Van Peebles

Sorry Tree -Eileen Myles

Time to hit you with a book review. Sorry Tree is a recent book of poetry by Eilleen Myles. By way of description of Myles, for the uninitiated, I don’t know whether to say, ‘Still hot at almost 60,’ ‘In the genre of Ginsberg and Patti Smith,’ ‘Lesbian for president, Poet for all,’ or just, ’someone who owes me a coffee/chat.’ I will content myself with saying instead, a voice that will influence you, Myles has mastered her craft.

Now on to the book. This is a poem from one of my favorite series of poems in Sorry Tree, “Dear Andrea”

Myles writes:

“Dear Andrea

You are the candy melting

in my mouth.

Is that a euphemism

For what? Witnessing your love.

That’s pretty good.

Oh I thought you said

Hear the candy

melting in my mouth.

All the people like me

are thanking all the people

like you. Can we call

it bird house?

I wouldn’t take that

away from you. You’re

like an orangutan.

You’re like a little brother

I just allowed in the bed.

Did you have coffee with

your dinner. No

I’m excited. We

bought a bird house

today. We didn’t

get it yet. No

but we should

call it that. I.M.

sweet”

I missed my stop on the subway, while reading this, I was transported and, perhaps fortunately, not to my intended destination. Instead I visited the spaces that the poet inhabits, which her voice so viscerally describes. I was on a ferry and in a bedroom, within a warm house deep in thought, capturing each minuscule feeling that visited me. For the other “Dear Andrea’s” buy the book

See you at  Angela Davis’s talk tonight!

Angela Davis Recap, AnySpacewhatever Pictures, Halloween

The crowd at Angela Davis’ talk last night was pretty spectacular, v. Dyke March NYC meets Critical Resistance, Oakland plus a large helping of Eugene Lang Students and free Mumia activists. The vibe was very serious though, not to many accidental lover pick-ups or new friendships made, the main focus was on the star of the show: Angela Davis. (Definitely on the Good List)

She spoke about another iconic figure who is regarded in a sometimes similar light, our next president, Barak Obama. As a socialist, Davis was not so much advocating for Obama on the merits of his democratic policy proposals or his moderate-left record in office. Instead, she spoke of his power as a real milestone of progress and a symbol of it. The election of the first Black President has a collective significance on our society, which actually overpowers his personal significance as an individual, she asserted.

My favorite moment in this discourse was when she offered her analysis of McCain’s run in with the woman from Minnesota who said, “I can’t trust Obama, he’s an Arab.” Mccain responded, “No mam he is not an Arab. He is a decent family man and a U.S. citizen. This is the very exceptionism which so perfectly defines modern racism. It is as if to say, ‘Well Obama may be black, but he went to Harvard, he’s one of us.’ Or, ‘I am fine with gay people, as long as they don’t try anything on me, I have plenty of gay friends.’ McCain did not address that there was a problem with her anti-Arab racism. The way he attempted to clear Obama’s name was by justifying that he is “decent” and ‘one of us’ because he is a “family man.” Thereby not being Arab, being heterosexual, and being committed to “family values” acquits Obama, and anoints him as a good, normal American.

That was the highlight for me, but she touched on so many good points, essentially, 1. racism is not over, we must know our history, celebrate the milestones, but focus on how much further there is to go. 2. prisons must be abolished and they are systemically racist- dating all the way back to slavery, she also talked a lot about the role that surveillance plays in coloring the prison population. 3 Davis, kind of mocked the internet a bit, hey I resemble that! Other than the quips that implied that google and youtube were sort of un-cool, I have to say Angela Davis has earned the attention of her supporters. I bought her book afterwards, so look forward to a review!

Now for a couple of overdue AnySpaceWhatever pictures.

Liam Gillick

a Robyn's eys view

Are We Evil

And finally, happy Halloween. I am hiding out at home with a bag of candy, prepared for trick or treaters, so if you know where I live, ring my bell!

Tonight, Harry Shearer, Party

I don’t have any Oct 31 events to report back on as I decided to hibernate with all the ghosts and ghouls in my head! But tonight should be a little more active. Even your very own Brooklyn Socialite (me), who has feverishly resisted election hoopla, is starting to feel and hope that these may be the last days of a dark and twisted era. I hope that Tuesday will be enormous and deeply relieving. In order to help roast Bush in his final days, I will be Joining Harry Shearer at the 92 St Y Tribeca. In an effort to quote myself often:

“Grammy-nominated actor, Huffington Post blogger, and the voice behind many of The Simpsons characters, Harry Shearer performs tonight with his band the High Volume Detainees. Beyond his involvement with Spinal Tap, Shearer has been consistently political: the tunes off his album Songs of the Bushmen focus on President Bush’s Oedipal complex and other infamous imperfections, while members of his administration are also taken to task. In celebration of the end of Bush’s term, Shearer unloads his impressions of Palin and praise for Obama.” Read More

I will hit you with a recap tomorrow.

And, In an effort to be queerly fabulous in these hard times, I may face the outdoor ghosts and ghouls at:

FLAUNT AND HAUNT @ KALLI LOUNGE

“The extraordinarily party savvy, Gaysha, presents a special Halloween version of Choice Cu*ts.  She has always taken theme parties to the extreme with bifocal, leg-warmer-clad, bisexuals or Olympic obsessed nutters for Nastia, but Whoreween will blow the lid off all those past concepts.” Read more

Yes I am ashamed to say that I did write that for pay, but don’t hate, it was heavily edited. See you tonight!

Harry Shearer Recap, Whoreoween

I hope you are all pulling up as well as I am on this fine, sunny, post-mayhem Sunday morning. The scariest Halloween costume that I saw this season was the guy with the Harry Shearer mask on. No wait, that was really him. As much as I want to jock the 92st Y Tribeca, I have to say that I was far from impressed with my first event there. I’m hoping that was an anomalous experience and will reserve judgment.

Harry Shearer on the other hand, prepare to be roasted! The roast master himself seems to have not quite realized that the very act of mocking our misbegotten president and his team of political pariahs, does not give one carte blanche to use every racial and sexual slur in the Book. I was offended by his likening of Colin Powell to Smooth Jazz, his bashing Alberto Gonzalez with a Mexican ole song, and his repeated references to Condoleeza Rice’s perm. Seriously? Worsened by his descent into toilet humor, and the essentially boring old-timer band that backed him, Harry Shearer’s Songs of the Bushman (rock/jazz/weird Al Yankovic style?) concert blew, to put it mildly. Definitely on the BL

Luckily for me I did meet some nice folks during the ordeal and we commiserated together. Afterwards I checked out Whoreoween as promised, with a quick stop at Metro on the way. I still love that place, go Metropolitan, go community! Well the party was actually pretty fun, the DJ (who doubles as my GO co-worker) was pretty darn fab. Anyone who plays Arthur Russell, next to The Gossip, and on top of old school hip hop is alright in my Book.

Speaking so highly, as I always do, of books and words, I’ll part with a word of the day:

Trustafarian: Someone with a trust fund. This trust fun dictates one’s choice of social activities. Not a Brooklyn Socialite.

Podunck Tea House- Another Gem Discovered

Hidden amongst the rank and file of 5th St boutiquey joints, this wonderful gem quietly lurks. Podunk: An American Tea Room, is cozy quaint, yummy and just good fun. A cross between a South of France Salon du The and an English High Tea and scones house, this American interpretation of calming, healthy, leisure time is pretty ace. You can share a pot of tea and a themed meal, “ladies luncheon,” “Savory Brunch,” and “Sweet and Cheese,” are some of the options. The meals come on perfect little doily clad trays, and always represent more than one course, savory with sweet, including a choice of homemade cakes or cookies and fruit. Every different kind of tea is on offer, from organic lavender and mango chamomile to spicy authentic chais. Podunk reminds me of a gem I once frequented in Ales and the Arab Bath’s Tea Room in Sevilla, although it’s not quite Europe I will make a point to keep taking mini-Sunday -brunch-vacations to 231 E 5th St. Stop in and say hi to Elsbeth, the charming owner, who runs the place almost single-handedly. GL

Stumble It!

Vote, Shirley Chisholm, Party

Well Kids, this is the big day. Pretend you live in a swing state, that there is no such thing as the electoral college and that our past elections haven’t been so corrupt that congresswomen had to request the intervention of UN observers and just ROCK that VOTE. No, cynicism aside, I’m excited and nervous all at the same time. What will happen? Will I need to flee the country, again? No, yeah I have a lease, I’m sticking come hell or high water. Brooklyn 4EVA!

So how will we bring in this heaven or hailstorm? There are a few particular plans that I have my eye set on. I will definitely be at Stranger than Fiction, my Tuesday night local, to watch Chisholm72 and celebrate Shirley Chisholm, Black Brooklyn Congresswoman’s, 1972 bid for the presidency. Obama’s fore-mother deserves her propers.

After the film, I think I will hit up the Activate election party at Tom and Jerrry’s. It will be a good chance to share drinks with my Flavorpill peops and other new media intelligentsia, ok drunken post-academics (Free Dewars from 6-8), call them what you will. The main idea is that, I reckon it will be nice to bring in the sea change ( I hope), or cry over the same old sh*t in the presence of a leftist, brawl-ready- socialite crew. See you there!

Obama, Obama, Obama! Chisholm72, Santos Party House, Madiba

Every morning I hypothetically kiss the ground of this wonderful piece of Earth called Brooklyn. Clearly, I love it a lot, but yesterday it literally kissed me back! Although Obama has long since been declared president of Bed Stuy, last night it became official, and I couldn’t have been happier. My friends were crying, fireworks went off in the park, strangers hugged me enthusiastically and Brooklyn kissed me back!

Wait, I started too soon, let’s go back to the voting booth. There I was standing for too long, when the old woman at the registration table shouted, “Pull the lever!”. Right, I knew that, pull it twice and in between exercise Agency. Or as Obama would say, “Yes We Can.” I floated out of the booth feeling like something of a rock star, and washed into the Activate party at Tom and Jerry’s. The charm of post-academics quickly wore thin, and after an hour I was ready for Stranger than Fiction.

Chisholm72 was truly an inspiring film. I would love to talk more about it soon. I told the director Shola Lynch that she was on my good list and better get ready for an interview, seems like she was amenable, so more on her and the film later. For now, I will just say that Shirley was deeply inspiring, especially in these times when we are re-investing in Heros. The first black congresswoman, and from Brooklyn, who presided over Bed Stuy (really!), Chilsholm was also the first woman to seriously run for president. A great speaker and a true believer in paving the way for systemic change. She stood up for the Black Panthers, Native Americans, feminists, poor people and Black Americans. In sticking with our recent themes, Shola’s next film will be about Angela Davis.

After the film, I arrived back in Brooklyn in time to chill over a drink and a television set at Bonita’s, the swanky cool Mexican fusion joint on Dekalb which is closely affiliated with No 7. The verdict came in so early and by that insane landslide, you know what happened next (Brooklyn kissed me back). The street revelry spilled back into a bar, this time Madiba. We had to watch the acceptance speech. Champagne was popped, whiskey was inhaled, the restaurant owner sincerely thanked us all for sharing this historic moment with him and as the confetti started to settle, we knew that the party must not stop.

We hit Santos Party House. Oh my God, it was hot! Q-tip was DJing, as if that weren’t enough, Busta Rhymes was suddenly spinning and talking to us. Was this for real? We had a black president, Busta Rhymes was in the flesh spitting the word, a person I went to High School with identified me (somehow in my state of drunken revelry) and everything was fine. Yes I said, I believe.

A.M. Holmes, Stop Me If You’ve Heard This, Ben Greenman

Yesterday evening, after pulling up with difficulty and enjoying a coffee and croissant at Choice, I managed to get a lot of actual work done, including the business of editing and writing. By 6:30, still somehow awake, I stumbled uptown to the Guggenheim to catch a reading by A.M. Holmes.

Who is A.M. Holmes you ask? Let’s start with our meeting. It was in the basement of the Guggenheim. After the reading inside one of the Catherine Opie galleries, which was very intimate and populated primarily by curators and other museum staff. Holmes read from her ‘fiction to accompany art’. This is a genre of her writing, which in this case was related to Catherine Opie, and which in the past has been applied to Ghada Amer, Cecily Brown, Rachel Whiteread and several other artists. After she read from the Opie story, there was a quick shy Q& A. My favorite quote from her was: “Contemporary life to me is kind of surreal, reality seems less and less applicable to me lately.” Next, we few remaining members of the public were ushered down to the basement for a wine and cheese reception. Out of the maybe 10 people who were now huddled in the basement, A.M. was surrounded by 4 of the head curators, in other words not easily accessible. Brazen with exhaustion, I decided to approach her for a quick Hi anyway. She shook my hand and thanked me for coming, “No, thank you I responded.” The conversation was quite simply, over… (!)

Ah well, now that she is on my radar, when next we speak, perhaps the discussion can extend to matters such as, her stint as an L-word writer, the several acclaimed novels she has written and her most recent work, a memoir entitled, The Mistresses Daughter. I might ask her about her rumored bisexuality (leave Brittney alone! I mean Lindsay), or how she makes the transition back and forth between writing fiction and art and literary criticism. I’d ask her for some advice probably.

One liners aren’t that terrible though, or so says Stop Me If You’ve Heard This. My review of that book recently came out in Boldtype. Here is a snippet:

“Stop Me If You’ve Heard This reads like a tall tale. In fact, it’s what Jim Holt might call a “long joke,” which, unlike a one-liner, could take an hour to tell. Holt strings the reader along, extending incredulity and curiosity, as he offers unlikely tidbits about the history and philosophy of jokes through detail-rich, well-delivered narration. No matter how preposterous some of it may seem, it is safe to assume this veteran reporter of both the BBC and the New Yorker is faithful to the facts. Holt discusses joke collectors and humor philosophers including such characters as G. Legman, the man who invented the vibrating dildo and coined the Phrase “Make Love, Not War.”" More

Finally, again on the lit tip, today I went to the launch of Ben Greenman’s new book at the Tenement Museum (GL). Decidedly more approachable, Greenman remembered me from the last time we met. I also got to see Fly, who was fascinating as always, and spoke to a few new and interesting writer/editor/publisher types. I would love to delve into the content of Greenman’s new book, oh and I will, but now I must sleep. Suffice it to say that it is a Luddite limited edition letter writing book project…more to come.

Hateration, TV, Roseanne Cash, 2x

I was in an apt with a TV in it today. Being as I don’t own one this was a bit of a departure for me, but I will admit that when I do watch, I get sucked in. Hours passed by as The Tyra Banks Show, faded into The View, followed by Desperate Housewives and finally Boys on the Side. By the time I left at 4pm, I felt more than slightly ashamed about my “wasted day,” but here’s what I learned:

The word of the day is Hateration: A combination of admiration and hate, as in hating, as in ‘Don’t hate.’ (I had heard this word used before in songs, but honestly didn’t know what it meant until Tyra provided the proper definition) When you admire someone and most likely envy them, you hate on them as an expression of your insecurity.

Hateration: Don’t do it.

I also learned that Woopi Goldberg, co-host of The View claims not to be gay, nevertheless fiercely defends the rights of gay people, including that of marriage. This is the same Woopi, who ‘played gay for pay’ in Boys on the Side. Interesting. Oh god, I forgot that I also watched Zoolander. No wonder my brain resembles soft candy ahora… Alright looks like I didn’t learn that much from TV after all.

Hopefully the night will redeem me, I am going to go see Acoustic Cash, a sort of live talk show format, that centers around Roseanne Cash. She will interview Joe Henry, and I reckon they will also play songs together.  We’ll see.

Plus, the Brooklyn Socialite is so committed to being a full-on Arbiter of Taste, that I will now commit to posting 2 times every day and am going to start rolling out more new writers, so head’s up! yay x

Acousitic Cash, Impermanence, The Rubin Museum, San Fransisco-Michelle Tea

Acoustic Cash last night was quite beautiful. It was held in this warm small theater inside the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art. Roseanne was classy and sardonic, saying things like, “I liked the Rubin better when it was a Barneys.” Tongue in cheek of course, because the Rubin really is a cool space, forever in reference to Buddhist thought, the floors spiral upwards towards a stunning glass dome.The theme of Roseanne Cash’s musical interview with Joe Henry was Impermanence. They played songs which related to the Buddhist concept that nothing is permanent except for the self. Clinging to that which is fleeting, (almost everything) is what causes human suffering. Roseanne played some of her father’s songs and Joe managed to charm the audience with his twinkly smile, constant tuning, and that confidence that comes with knowing you are really good at something. Most of the people there were middle aged straight women, with husbands in tow. He sang a song called Flag and talked about how Americans resist letting go of dead ideas, such as bankrupt nationalism. Quickly, he added something about how in the new Obama-America maybe some of those beliefs can be rekindled.

America sees itself as a constant-a self, so to speak. Can it be permanent?

The night ended with a Tupelo Honey/ People Get Ready duet and then, yes, a sing-along to The Times They are a Changing! (ha ha)

Just a quick note about Michelle Tea and San Fransisco: I am reading Valencia and although it takes place in the 90s, I can’t help but wonder if San Fran is really that cool? What do you think, how does it stand up against Brooklyn (ok NYC)?

I’m off to see Dr Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera, will report back later today.

Dr Atomic, GetOutOfMyFacebook

I saw Dr Atomic at the Metropolitan Opera this afternoon. The Opera was written in 2005 about Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who invented the Atomic Bomb. He is painted as a modern day Faust. A heroic villain, distinctly human, but made mad by the zealousness of discovery and dominance. Oppenheimer is pictured referring to the bomb, pre-test, as a great “luminescence.” He focuses on its momentary beauty, not the destruction that it will yield, or the fact that as the Germans have already surrendered, its use is no longer necessary or potentially justifiable. Serving as a valuable history lesson, Dr Atomic informs the audience of the semi-mutiny at Los Alamos. Apparently many of the other scientists on Oppenheimer’s team did not want to use the weapon against Japan, without warning, at such a late stage of the war. Additionally, we learn that paradoxically, Oppenheimer, warmonger that he was, was also a highly literate lover of the arts. He spoke several languages, adored poetry, often read the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit and Baudelaire in French. He composed sonnets in his spare time! The poems that he so loved are incorporated into the opera. Ultimately he is faulted for masterminding such immense destruction, but there are a few too many warm and fuzzys given to the father of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Opera is really fun, for those who haven’t given it a go, I recommend trying. The met has a lot of discount options, like student rush, standing room and HD projections at movie theaters.

The word of the day is Getoutofmyfacebook: A new web 2.0 application currently being developed by haters.

J. Bob Alotta and Toshi Reagon benefit/birthday Party

It was a strange night… I arrived at this event super early, cause I was in the neighborhood, planned to go to the Y and found it closed, so just dazed my way into Sputnik around 9pm. It was me reading Valencia at the bar, and Toshi Reagon chillin with friends a few stools down. A typical Saturday night, then life got even more normal when my friend showed up and discovered her wallet had been lost/stollen. I switched into serious iphone/google/police report mode and 2 hours later things were pretty much settled. We canceled the cards, felt shitty and went back to Sputnik for a dance. The music was House, not my favorite, but the crowd was fun and the cuase excellent.

“j. bob alotta is a media activist, story teller,

worker, preacher, rabbi, builder of community.

whether its on the screen or at the dinner table,

s/he believes in gathering the tribe.”

The birthday celebration for Bob was also a fundraiser for

“4REELTHO: the narrative arm of our project.

our goal: to tell stories borne from the world in which we actually live.

TRUTH2POWER is the documentary/educational arm of our project.

our goal: to create the world we believe this could be.

which is to say, our work / our stories are unapologetically multi-racial, gender

variant, urban, sexy, strong, resistant & uppity.”

www.4reeltho.com

Sounds amazing. I threw down some of my meager earnings, and Betty even showed up for a quick second. Along with some older Frenchies who bumbed a flame off of us. I had to speak French a couple of times that night. The skills you almost forget you have, until you need to remember. We ate cake and rolled out onto the street around 3. A night well spent.

Introducing Mr. Slate Honey, Trans Entities Review

As promised I have held true to my mission to offer multi-voiced meditations on this fabulous city from Brooklyn Socialites. It’s about time we got more variant translations up in here, so with that, I give you: Mr. Slate Honey…

Mr Honey will blow up your spot, so don’t get too comfortable!

Trans Entities: The Nasty Love between Papi and Wil + A Review

Way back in September, Robyn and I went to a Queer Black Cinema screening of Trans Entities at the LGBT Center in Manhattan. A small audience sipped wine in a room dotted with red candles as QBC hosts talked about their safe sex and HIV/STI prevention campaign. Two fiery erotic spoken word performances paired with an association game among audience members initiated by the enthusiastic MC to set the mood. Finally, the lights were turned down and the room quieted as Trans Entities began.

Trans Entities is a daring “docu-porn” that does not hold back. Its two main characters, Papi and Wil, are poly-partners open to exploring everything and anything they desire… and can handle. For the two, opening their bedroom door also means talking frankly about all aspects of their relationship. Between fast-cut scenes of Papi, Wil and their third partner fucking, slapping, punching and teasing one another, documentary footage shows snippets of their daily lives and interviews where they discuss gender-identity, queerness, homophobia, desire and love. In one scene, the three discuss the experiences of one hearing-impaired partner and open up powerful dialogue on body politics. Lifting the expected barrier between porn characters’ on-screen lives and their personal lives, Trans Entities gets truly intimate in a fresh way.

In a Q&A after the screening, the film’s two main stars compared Trans Entities to previous porn films they had acted in. Diverging from a staged porn production, transgender director Morty Diamond filmed the actors in their own home and used a documentary approach to capture a true-to-life portrait of the couple’s sexual relationship. The actors also discussed negotiated BDSM, revealing that some of the most hardcore play caught on film was a new experience for them.

Trans Entities is a unique video that balances provocative play with refreshingly thought-provoking conversation. And in Trans Entities, real conversation does not take the fun out of sex. Instead, Papi and Wil take role-playing, hard-core love and erotica to the ultimate level of pleasure and comfort. Check out http://mortydiamond.com to find out more about Trans Entities.

-by Mr Slate Honey

Ballast Article

Here is the full text of the article I wrote about Ballast, it includes quotes from the interview that I did with director Lance Hammer.

After 10 years of research, Lance Hammer shot a film in the Mississippi Delta, starring local African American non-actors. “Ballast is not so much about race, but about universal human suffering,” said Hammer. He encouraged the participants to use their own distinct vernacular and rather than hand them a script, he provided situations and encouraged them to improvise dialogue. This method has yielded a steely, classical, cinematic gem. Ballast is a starkly tragic play of emotions, which seems to take place in real time.

Few recent films have portrayed African American protagonists with as much complexity and integrity as Hammer’s first feature, Ballast. Set against the backdrop of the Delta’s desolate beauty, it tells the story of Marlee, a single mother, who struggles to support her 12 year old son James. He is lost in the chasm between childish devotion to his mother and manhood expressed through experimentation with crack, guns, and older boys. “Left to his own devices, there is a lot of pressure on James to grow up really quickly, and to have emotional maturity,” Hammer said. “It isn’t actually fair to expect this from a kid. James makes some innocent choices, a few of them turn out to be bad ones, but he’s just trying to make his way in this world.”

James’ already delicate balance is derailed by the suicide of his estranged father. He begins to know his dad posthumously through association with Lawrence, his father’s twin brother. The complications of inheritance catapult James, Marlee and Lawrence into a shared working and living situation. Forced intimacy requires the threesome to either mutually rebuild their fragmented lives or further destroy each other. Individually, they also continue to grapple with private sensations of loss and depression. “I chose extreme tragedy as the one window into the human experience that I would explore in this film,” Hammer said. “I wasn’t trying to imply that the Delta is a depressed place. On the contrary, the full chromatic spectrum exists in that region. There is so much joy there. You can think of it like the seasons, in the summer it is verdant and full of life, in the winter it is the opposite.”

Hammer decided to focus his lens on tragedy as a means of working through the depression that he was personally experiencing at the time. This process helped him to heal he said, “I will always make work that deals with mortality. That looming specter of death is very important to me, because only with an intimate understanding of mortality and suffering can we truly appreciate what joy is.” He continued, “I identify very strongly with Marlee. We share that rage and frustration at being powerless, as well as the persistence and strength of character to simply refuse to give up.”

The decision to build his tragic window around the narrative structure of a twin’s suicide was also a very personal one for Hammer. “Because my mother is an identical twin,” he said, “I understand that the kind of grief that one would feel over the death of their sibling is intense. My girlfriend told me a true story about an identical twin, who came home and discovered that his brother had committed suicide, without any prior indication of a desire to leave the world. That story really shook me.”

This scene is expressed in the film when Lawrence, distraught upon discovering his dead twin, shoots himself, leaving a blood stain on the wall. He does not die, and weeks pass before he can bring himself to remove the stain. The repetitive image of Lawrence’s bloodstained wall is characteristic of Ballast’s haunting, visceral cinematography. Another poignant scene depicts James overhearing a conversation about himself. The people speaking appear blurred in the background, while the focus is on James, half-listening. “This scene is a good example of my artistic vision,” Hammer said. “James is the subject of that conversation, and the fact that he is tuning it out is significant. I think it was Goddard who expressed that it is best to put the camera on the listener when you really want to show what’s happening in a scene.”

Ballast has been honored by multiple film festivals and Hammer is still surprised and delighted to have received such support for his ‘Delta project.’ “I haven’t gotten over the fact that Sundance even took it into their festival,” he said. “We are all very fortunate. The cast poured their emotional souls into this and it worked. Their commitment has earned them much deserved recognition, a kind of wealth that fills the void left by the very small financial reward that independent films like ours can provide.” Despite the lack of profit, Hammer has succeeded in distributing this gentle humanistic composition. Ballast typifies avant-garde cinema; it is daring and full of integrity.

by Robyn Hillman-Harrigan Brooklyn Socialite (!)

Valencia, Cafe Lafayette

I just finished reading Michele Tea’s Valencia, this is the second book that I’ve read by her, not including Baby Remember My Name an anthology that she edited. The first was Rent Girl, which I found to be really interesting and would require a whole other post to discuss properly. About Valencia, what I can say is this: Tea is something of a hero in the world of lesbian lit, one of the more successful writers in this heavily marginalized genre. Like watering a dry garden, her words effectively begin to fill the void of queer stories. It is good to hear something relatable, depictions of characters that I can recognize and landscapes that I have at least partially inhabited. However, it all feels like one long spit session, perhaps thus originated the tittle of her Sister Spit literary tour. The chapters all inhabit one novel/memoir/autobiography, but they don’t seem to flow together and it feels like she hasn’t completed any of her stories. It reminds me of commentary, would make for excellent blog posts, but I don’t think it functions as well as a consecutive, ideally complete book. Tea talks a lot about drinking, smoking, drugs and sex, a little bit about prostitution and love and self-loathing, but a sense of emptiness is transferred more than anything else. It’s strange to talk about love, yet express vacancy more than depth. I did enjoy it though, it had that addictive quality and really made me consider moving to San Franscisco. In a way I like Tea’s voice, but kept wishing she might write slower and consider craft over expressive explosion. But what do I know? I ‘m not the Queen of queer lit, not yet anyway! I know crossing Michelle Tea could be like crossing Oprah, but the Brooklyn Socialite is nothing if not honest.

A quick mention goes out to Cafe Lafayette. If your in Ft Greene, check out the amazing Lafayette burger, French bistro style, chill with the Mexican waiter, drink Corona’s after closing, or come on the weekend for yum crepes and good coffee. I love this place (G L)

Prop 8, The Gay Disclaimer, slippers and a robe, Lit Death Match

When I find my shoes and reacquaint myself with outdoor clothing, I will head over to Housing Works for the next installment of The Literary Death match. I’ll report back later. For now let’s talk about Gay disclaimers. In the wake of proposition 8, it seems that everyone feels the need to make one. Woopi said, “I’m not Gay, but I still believe that gay people deserve rights.” I love the rest of what she said, but why the disclaimer? Last night over dinner at Epistrophy (sweet little Sicilian spot with very reasonable prices for Soho), the two women sitting next to us (both married to men) were talking animatedly about Lesbians On The Prowl. This myth is almost as messed up, and similarly formed as the “I’m not Gay” disclaimer. It goes something like “Gay people are fine, as long as they don’t try anything with me.” They were talking about some friend of a friend who, (so they believe) was coming on to both of them, because obviously Queer people are predators. Predators that go after married straight people. Smart. Thus the need to justify impartiality and decency with the “I’m not gay, but…” speech. As much as this usually sucks, I have to share an otherwise amazing “Special Comment” by MSNBC’s Keith Olberman. Despite the disclaimer (which he extends all the way out to include his entire extended family) his outrage is kinda awesome.

he even invoked Impermanence!

Lit Death Match, Don’t Despair Poetry Conquers all

I went to the Literary Death Match at Housing works this evening, and I’m pleased to report that all of the readers were quite good. The event was bizarrely being televised and it ended with some money throwing shenanigans, but apart from that it was fun. I was feeling alarmingly anti-social ( I know, quite taboo, coming from the Brooklyn Socialite, but cold weather is a strong and scary force), so I don’t think I spoke to anyone, except for a quick exchange with Ben Greenman on my way to the door. I was hungry, and eating pretzels ( my hungry food) wasn’t quite cutting it. They did manage to tide me over long enough to observe the following: the first round was a stand off between Tao Lin and Alex Rose. Alex was unremarkable, but Tao on the other hand was hysterical and shy, which I always find to be a great combination. He was sarcastic and dead pan and read a poem from the perspective of a salmon killing, yet lovable bear. The second round was for the ladies, Amy Sohn went up against Mishna Wolff. Mishna read pre-teen diary excerpts about a longstanding Jim Morrison obsession, while Amy created this sappy chick-flick character who gives a guy a blow job and then gets not so subtly dissed. They were both funny, and engaging, but please tell me why women have to sexually or psychologically demean themselves in public, in order to be approved of by the boys club of Literati. I’m noticing a trend that sexualized-self mocking in women, makes others feel comfortable somehow. It makes me uncomfortable, but I’m just going to respond to that with my own poem!

I have resuscitated my old literary blog, so read the rest of this piece there!

Permission

to request

attention

Smack down

for tall poppies

Christmas with your family

drunk Englishmen

in summer

wildly good-mannered

still, kind.

Or a twisted

Broadway musical

scene

with my family

an obligation

served by proximity

Read more!

Synecdoche New York

Sadness and Whiskey are a bad combination, I apologize for not posting yesterday. It won’t happen again. Throw a Charlie Kaufman film and lunch at Conde Nast in and there you have a recipe for a very strange day. It was a good day though, except for the portion of it I spent at Wholefoods using their non-existent wireless and chomping on stale over-priced food. The harrowed whole halls just didn’t compare with the Conde cafeteria, designed by Frank Gehry. Let’s talk about Kaufman though and his star Philip Seymour Hoffman. Here’s the trailer.

The writer behind Being John Malkovich, Adaption and Eternal Sunshine on the Spotless Mind has offered up another intense psychological study. Kaufman creates a magical realist landscape dictated by the fading mind of an aging playwright. It is peopled by an over-published, wizard-like shrink, a no longer committed artist wife, and a 4 year old, daughter who eventually morphs into a thirty something German body artist. Other characters which represent unrequited love and familial loyalty weave in and out of the storyline. Essentially the film is about a lifetime performance, literally a play that is being rehearsed for 25 years, inside a bio-dome style NYC warehouse. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that it is bleak and peaceful.

Post Synecdoche, and my whole foods stint. I hit up Heathers and that champion of dive bars, Nowhere bar. It was chill and gross. If you don’t lean against the walls you just might have fun there!

Slate Honey weighs in on Prop 8 and “Transvestite” Media Bating

I give you Mr Honey… This is not me, Robyn, I am not a gender-queer Junkie-Ha ha, that’s my most earnest sarcastic disclaimer…now for slate:

A response to gay disclaimers:

I should make a disclaimer myself. I’m a gender-queer junkie. All things related to the gender-queer and trans community immediately grab my ears and eyes. It’s a rainy Thursday, I am grant-writing for my current film project (a film about Transy House—a house that’s been home to a self-made gender-queer family and has been open to homeless trans women for fifteen years). All of a sudden, I hear an ad for the Leonard Lopate show on WYNC, something akin to “One thing you may not know about celebrity chef Jaime Oliver… he likes transvestites.” The web page relating to the Leonard Lopate show has some questions asked of Oliver, the last of which is:

WNYC:What’s one thing you’re a fan of that people might not expect?
J.O.:I love art and graffiti, jazz music, and transvestites.

So, I go to the on-demand podcast to listen. Disappointing! The interview itself is twenty minutes of Lopate and Oliver discussing meats, vegetables and home gardening. Among the chatter about poisonous rhubarb and raising chickens, there is no sign that anyone is about to talk about anything transgender. So, why use as the draw in (on the radio ad and on the webpage) this question that was not asked in the radio interview? Is anyone going to explain what exactly that means, to be a fan of transvestites?If I were Leonard Lopate interviewing myself, Slate Honey, it would go like this:

L.L.: What’s more difficult to grapple? Hetero disclaimers that precede pro-gay rights advocacy, or using a random line about transvestites (that’s left totally unexplained) as a way to draw a listener in to an interview about poultry?
S.H.: Well, Leonard, I don’t believe it’s a contest. What isn’t problematic on the queer and trans civil rights frontier? These both reinforce an already solid conclusion I have: We better self-represent and stick up for ourselves in this world!

On that note, November 20th is Trans Remembrance Day. Something to keep in mind and heart and maybe to counter some tokenizing advertising.

-Slate Honey

And now for an extra note from me-Robyn- Gawker and The View also seem unable to stay away from this subject. Without giving too much credence to the finger pointing dehumanizing antics implicated here: A link

Be Like Others, Q & A w/ Tanaz Eshagian

In the lead up to Trans Rememberance Day, whether intentionally or coincidentally there are several trans stories in NYC events this week. As your faithful socialite, I dragged myself uptown to see Be Like Others at Lincoln Center. Eshagian, the Iranian-American filmmaker returns to her home country and films a group of Transwomen who are pre and post sex change operation. Most of the footage is shot in the clinic where there operations take place, with extensive focus put on the doctor who performs the procedure. He is part of a group of men in the government of The Islamic Republic of Iran who have either decided, agreed with or implemented the concept, put in place by Ayatollah Khomieni (the father of the Iranian Islamic Revolution), that sex-changes are permissible under Islam. Khomeini passed a Fatwa to this effect, officially declaring them legal. In a country where homosexuality is highly illegal and punishable by a stoning death penalty, it is surprising that being transsexual is so legal that people are given a new legal name and passport post-op. Take a look at the trailer, only available on her website and a brief interview with her below.

Much of what’s contained in this interview was seconded by the vibe I got off her last night. She didn’t really seem to want to take sides, so to speak. I wasn’t sure if this was just another case of the gay disclaimer, or if she was really a distant outsider, looking in at this story from the perspective of novelty. The film sheds light on an interesting subject that not many people know about. In that sense its investigative journalism, but in terms of its humanity at moments I wondered if Eshagian herself was transphobic, or if she was just somehow hiding behind a lens of impartiality. Questions for the interview, I guess. If you read this, talk back! Maybe she will be at transhistorian, Susan Styker’s lecture at the CUNY Grad center tonight at 6:30? See you there.

Arthur Russell- Love is Overtaking Me

After I saw the recent Arthur Russell film by Tom Wolff, I resolved to give the new album a listen. It is made up of all sorts of tunes that lived  alongside of him in the mix tapes that lined his apartment, and ultimately survived him. His partner, aided by Phillip Glass, eventually archived the tapes and the remastered versions appear on the recently released Love is Overtaking Me. My favorite song on the album would have to be “Nobody Wants a Lonely Heart.” Its refrain is “Don’t expect nothing, ’cause nobody wants a lonely heart.” Similarly clever and dire songs include the hysterical “What it’s like.” The song is about a married man, who tells his wife that he’s,” been touched by the lord.” and can’t be with her anymore. Then she responds that she only was with him oringinaly to, “see what is was like.” A mutual breakup, the best kind. The album is a progression from slow, guitar-based, folksy songs to more pop-infused disco beats. The two songs I mentioned are my favorite folk selections, while on the dico spectrum “the letter” is nicely suggestive and the title track, “Love is Overtaking Me” is pretty great as well.

Susan Stryker lecture, La Zarza

Yesterday evening I attended a lecture that Susan Stryker gave at the the CUNY Grad center. It was a nice moment for different cool folks in the trans and queer community to gather, talk back and primarily to listen. I really respect the history gathering, voice planting work that Stryker does, she is a leading force in the movement for trans civil rights. This was evidenced during the introductions she received from Paisley Currah and Joanne Meyerowitz, two other academics who work in the field of trans studies. In terms of the lecture itself, I have to say she lost me at times. The part about Foucault and Hobbes, a lot of theoretical words that can’t yet be found in the dictionary, and several ‘this is not cultural appropriation’ disclaimers had me at the point of putting my pen down. The trouble was I really came to the lecture prepared to learn and left feeling befuddled and not quite there yet. The parts which I did find to be insightful, centered around the concept of a trans person sensing a need to transform outside appearance in order to fully realize an inner potential. I could really relate to this concept, even when applied to writing. When I am unable or unwilling to create something that really resonates for me, I walk around feeling un-realized, incomplete. This is a very spiritual concept, the idea of reaching self-realization. Thus the larger premise of the lecture, which was something like, “Ghost Dance: transperson as spiritual leader” sort of followed along the same avenue, implying that the trans person, innately experiencing transformation towards self-realization, is naturally qualified to be a spiritual leader. Interesting. Have I got it all wrong? Or was that the argument? Afterwards I spoke with Stryker, her partner, and a lot of other good folks about the beauty of dialogue, so comment away!

Just a quick note on La Zarza … This loungue space underneath a sort of swanky Nouvau Italian place, is a sweet spot, when the Grey-Goose promotions are flooding and you are somehow on the doorlist. It is still free if you get there early, but otherwise $100 bills may get thrown around. Last night there was a good pop-hip-hop dj and lots of guys in suits and girls in drag. No wait, that wasn’t drag, straight girls really dress like that!

Agent Angie on Relationship Therapy, Courtesy of Evelyn Waugh

Faitful to her book club duties, Agent Angie provides astute observations on Brideshead Revisited.

The relationship in Brideshead Revisited, between the narrator Charles Ryder and the Flyte family is of interest to me. I’m about halfway through, and after reading how the Flytes romance Ryder and take him in, before setting out to use him for their own selfish purposes, I find myself disturbed by the level of dysfunction that exists, and greatly respect Evelyn Waugh for his talent at portraying the destruction of codependancy on relationships.

Lady Marchmain’s destructive, Catholic guilt tripping has a profound effect on the text. She holds Charles responsible for her son Sebastian’s well-being. At first Charles submits to the weight the Flytes place on his shoulders, allowing himself to be pulled in two directions by Lady Marchmain’s pressure to keep Sebastian out of trouble and Sebastion’s fear of begin eclipsed by his family. It would be impossible for Charles to fulfill both roles of informant to Lady Marchmain and true friend to Sebastian. After Sebastian begs for Charles’s money for liquor, and Lady Marchmain’s discovery of Charles’s betrayal, she says:

I don’t understand it. [...] I simply don’t understand how anyone could be so callously wicked [...]. I’m not going to reproach you. [...] God knows it’s not for me to reproach anyone. Any failure in my children is my failure. But [...] I don’t understand how you can have been so nice in so many ways, and then do something so wantonly cruel.

I doubt I need to pick apart the method to Lady Marchmain’s guilt-ridden madness and her efforts to exercise them upon Charles for you all. What is interesting to me is the moment in which Charles’s response to her shifts from compliance to rebellion and complete lack of concern. Charles can only participate in this emotional abuse for so long before he attempts to extricate himself from the relationship:

I was unmoved; there was no part of me remotely touched by her distress. [...] But as I drove away and turned back in the car to take what promised to be my last view of the house, I felt that I was leaving part of myself behind, [...] ‘I shall never go back,’ I said to myself.

Charles’s knowledge that he’s left some part of himself behind is a foreshadowing of the corruption of his concern for others. The impossible position that Lady Marchmain forces him into motivates him to turn aside the part of him that cared about Sebastian and the rest of the Flyte family. In order to survive the guilt that was being put on his shoulders he had to care more for himself and stop caring for them.

A few pages on is Charles’s dinner with Rex Mottram in Paris, which validates the perception of foreshadowing. Charles feels so inconvenienced and frustrated at the prospect of dinner with Rex and the inevitable conversation about the Flytes, that he proceeds to use Rex for his money, thus making the situation more palatable to himself:

If I had to spend an evening with [Rex], it should, at any rate, be in my own way. I remember the dinner well–soup of oseille, a sole quite simply cooked in a white wine sauce, a caneton a la presse, a lemon souffle. At the last minute, fearing that the whole things was too simple for Rex, I added caviare aux blinis. And for wine I let him give me a bottle of 1906 Montrachet, then at its prime, and, with the duck, a Clos de Bere of 1904.

Charles’s description of the extravagant meal, purchased on Rex’s pocketbook, and his sense of entitlement to the meal, is indicative of his retreat to the self with less concern for the Flytes. Throughout the conversation between Rex and Charles, Waugh interrupts dialogue with Charles’s further descriptions of the meal and his and Rex’s appreciation of it. This narrative technique cements Charles’s new-found selfishness and propensity to use others.

Waugh’s explication of this type of relationship elevates Brideshead Revisited to a novel not merely of manners and post-WWI British society and snobbery, but to a psychological one; embroiled in thoughtful and constructive studies of non-familial relationships that, I imagine, most can relate to. The novel inspires me to be more aware of not expecting too much of others, and not allowing others to expect unfair things of me. As Waugh points out, these kinds of expectations ruin relationships.

-Angie Venezia

That´s My Jam, Black Iris, Kellogs Diner, Mixphobic

Last night I had dinner at Black Iris on Dekalb in Ft Greene.  It´s this very reasonably priced Middle eastern place, byo. The food was really simple and standard, nice lamb pizzas and the waiters are super friendly and cool. Nice on a wintry day-comfort food. Afterwards, I finally managed to check out That´s My Jam. TMJ is a queer party in Clinton Hill, it claims to be in Bed Stuy, but those of us who actually live in bedstuy know better. It was mega packed and I ran into everyone and his brother. The music started out kinda amateurish, but picked up in speed and efficiency around 2 as DJ Tikka commandeered the tables and the crowd started to thin out. At 3, I wondered what I was still doing there and braved the windy walk home(to the real bed stuy). This morning I woke up on a Latte mission and had to accept cappuccino because the people at Kellogs diner have never heard of Lattes. Really. I know it sounds strange, but they are only familiar with certain functionalities when it comes to espresso machines. The food at Kellogs was not much worth a mention, but it’s a really chill unassuming spot to spend Sunday morning dishing with friends.

The word of the day is Mixphobic: A fear experienced by DJ’s who do not know how to mix. Bartenders, who do not know how to mix have also been known to experience this anxious condition. Wallflowers in Brooklyn may also sometimes experience said phobia.

Quick Note

Wow, so its 2:30 am and I’m exhausetd again. I’ll tell you why exactly this is, tomorrow. For now all I can note quikly is that I spent the better half of the day organizing my bookcase. This was a truly healing expierience and I recommend it highly. There is something quasi-spiritual about communing with books. I’m thinking of starting a lending library, so holler if your looking for something to read. Goodnight and speak soon!

Queer is Normal, Shannon Mustipher reflects on Saturday`s Prop 8 rally

I am pleased to introduce a new writer, Shannon Mustipher. This is her very personal and intesting reflection on the recent Prop 8 debate and rally.

Fight H8 at NYC City Hall, November 15, 2008.
The Kids Are Alright
By Shannon Mustipher

Saturday November 15th was a remarkable day that was personally significant for a number of reasons. First, the whether was strangely beautiful, unseasonably warm: I barely needed the jacket that I had on, and I even saw a few folks in shorts and flip flops.  There was a kind of drama in the air, due to the threat of intermittent, heavy downpours. You knew that at any moment, you might have to dash for cover or get soaked.  So even though it was nice, the streets were fairly empty and that, along with the thick blanket of grey overhead, gave the day a moody romantic quality more befitting London than New York.

Second, (bear with me as I jump forward in time,) the bar I worked at later that night was teeming with queer boys and girls…it seriously looked like a gay night.  One of my friends got invited on a date (I am proud to say that I get the assist on that), and I made a few new acquaintances as well.  Not that our bar doesn’t have a number of queer regulars…it’s just that most are couples, who come in together and chat among themselves.  My job is not historically a good place for us to make a love connection,  but that was turned on its head Saturday night!  I like to think that Fight H8 had a hand in this, but we will have to come back to that later.

Finally, and most importantly, Saturday the 15th was the day that I became truly proud to be who I am.  Don’t get me wrong:  I’ve been out from day one:  I told my family the same week I realized, (I was 15 at the time). Soon after, I started sporting a rainbow patch on the backpack.  Mind you this all took place in Stone Mountain, Georgia, in the 90’s. The KKK national headquarters was five minutes away from my house at the time.  There was no Queer as Folk, no L Word. It was not cute to be a lesbian there.  A few people even threatened to jump me.  My younger sister, bless her heart, slugged a guy she overheard saying something to that effect. (Thanks, Tamika!)

Later, I was out to my church, where there was no legitimate way for me to express my sexuality within its theological framework.  I really wanted to learn about G-d, and to be part of a faith community, and the price I paid for that was being single. I was ok with that, for a certain amount of time.  A few people did talk to me about seeking reparative therapy (I didn’t), but most of them did not.  And if you’re guessing, I left.  I don’t know for certain what the Bible says about homosexuality.  I know how the text has been traditionally interpreted….and my church’s interpretation of the text could not support my being romantically involved with another woman. Most of my friends from church are married, some have families.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted that per se, but I begin to feel that I was missing out on something that might prove to be very good for me, so I left. All that, is to say I have always known the importance of being out, especially in places historically hostile to us. My silence would have made me a co-conspirator in shame and hate.

I wear a number of “identity hats”: Daughter, Sister, Woman of Color, American, Artist/Creative, Believer. Queer, Southerner, Liberal.  I care about the world, believe me, and I’ve chosen a very specific area in which to make my contribution to the greater good:  I am a visual artist. Still, I might also point out that I never felt like I had much personally at stake in the debates about queer rights and what we need to be able to fully function in this society, as I have felt, up until now, that the social climate is ‘open enough’ for many of us to live our lives as we wish, and certainly an improvement over how things were even twenty years ago in some places:  I’m not afraid to kiss, or hold hands with a girl on the street.  If I’m speaking to someone and it becomes clear that they might think I am straight, I don’t take the easy out and ‘pass’, I’ll find a way to come out, mentioning my preference for women as casually as I would my preference for anything else.  I live in NYC, after all, and it’s not easy to live this way everywhere.  Still, I haven’t done much to involve myself in a larger queer culture and the dialogue about our issues. I haven’t felt called to actively participate in the work for change. I chalked this indifference up to temperament and my thinking that, “well, I’m queer, but that’s not the only thing I am, I have other things I want to focus on.”

A darker, less flattering read of my lack of participation could be that conservatives have succeeded on some level in their desire to repress me: maybe I’ve sublimated my need to engage my identity politically into nerdy philosophizing, art making, and the pursuit of success.  The more I think about it, the more it seems like conservatives don’t just want us in the closet, they actually want us to be gone.  We have to show them that they cannot banish us from existence with laws, as if being queer is a debatable issue, not a fact of life. Some of you may feel sorrow (or anger, depending on your temperament) as you read this.  Might I be the queer equivalent of an Uncle Tom? Could my approach to being out be less about self-acceptance and more about political correctness?  Let’s face it, being in the closet is not only viewed as cowardly these days, but for the most part unnecessary, if not just silly.  I might be a lot of things, but I try to keep my silliness to a minimum.  If my being out was just about being P.C, those days are done.  What I like to think is more true is that I’ve always figured that we are basically free to live as we please anyway, so who cares what the laws actually say about marriage?  You live in a place hostile to queers?  Leave, move to a big city.  You love someone?  Commit to them and make a life together.  You’re family has a problem with your sexuality, or the fact that you’re dating so and so?  Well, don’t talk to them, leave them alone.  Fine.  Easy.  Wrong

Wrong, because by leaving, and ghettoizing ourselves, we make it easy for hate to be justified.  By settling for domestic partnership status, we agree that there is something fundamentally different about us.  By making all the concessions and accommodations, we make it ok for the people who think that they have a problem with us to stay that way.   If you don’t like me, why should I leave?  Why should I need to change, while you get to stay the same?  Forget that.  The Fight H8 rally was the first time in my life where I could stand there and feel like being gay was normal.  Can you believe it?  15 years of loving women and I feel this way for the first time?  The crowd was great, and the vibe of the rally was positive, passionate, and life-affirming.  Not a hint of anger and hostility in the proceedings…it was about focusing on enacting change in our society, to make it more livable for all of us.  Anthony D Wiener (D, NY) gave a rousing speech at the start of the rally, his booming voice and familiar accent beckoning me from three blocks away and affirming my pride in my Brooklyn zip code:  “We are not going to rest at night until every citizen in every state in this country can say, ‘This is the person I love,’ and take their hand in marriage!”.  Kim Stoltz from MTV News declared, “I am done with being a 2nd class citizen,” while Daniella Sea admitted to us that she’d never considered that she might want to be married someday…until now. Former Ms. America Kate Shindle, who made a point to identify herself as conservative and Catholic, emphatically declared that she has always said yes, two people who love one another, regardless of gender, should be allowed to marry.  One speaker gave us the phone number of a state politician from the Bronx who is moving to enact legislation that will ban same sex marriage in New York.  His name is Senator Rubin Diaz Sr, and the number is 718 991 3161 Call him right now to let him know how you feel!

Over and over, the speakers exhorted the crowd to just talk to people.  Talk to your family, talk to the religious and conservative people that you know, let them see you for who you are: lesbian, gay, genderqueer, trans, but most importantly, human, and a person who can fall in love, and who might want to consummate that love in the same way that straight people have been able to for years, by getting married. The people voting for Proposition 8 probably didn’t have any people who were out to them in their personal lives.  I don’t know how you could see your friend, sibling, son, or daughter in a loving, healthy relationship with someone and not want them to stay there and to be supported in it.

The crux of the message I heard at the rally: it’s time for us to do everything we can to contribute to making this country a good place for all of us to be.  We don’t need to blame, or to hate those who hate us. We need to be out in a fuller sense of the word, and in so doing, we will make a compelling collective case to put an end to the toxic fear, hate, and ignorance gripping our society. I feel so proud, and lucky, to have been there, and I have only begun to think about it’s implications for my own life, and some changes I need to make for myself.  That afternoon, I started texting all my friends, looking for someone to share the experience with.  Unfortunately, everyone was at work, or at school, or otherwise engaged, and so unable to join me. I could also only stay for a brief time, as I still needed to pick up my mac, feed the cat, and later on open the bar.

But no matter, I got my chance to celebrate later, by holding court over a queer night that felt ‘normal’ in a typically straight bar, because, guess what?  Queer is normal.  I was born into a culture that has gone to great lengths to tell me otherwise, but after Saturday, there is no room inside of me to harbor those attitudes any longer. Maybe the folks walking past my work that night could sense this from the street, and they knew that my bar was a good place to be.  I don’t know….maybe I never will. What I do know is that I’d like to thank all the organizers, speakers, and supporters of Fight H8, for providing us with some new models on which to base our pursuit of a fuller, more meaningful equality.  I am excited to see the changes taking place in our country and those that lie ahead.

SM

For more information on how to join in the creation of positive change go to www.jointheimpact.com

Normal, Better, Drunker

Sorry I´ve been a little bit out of commission lately. There is a price to pay for being a purveyor of nightlife. Especially when best mates come to town and pour vodka down your throat. It is not that you (me) are saying no at the time, but when you are crawling towards lattes in the morning, the regret does really set in. I can admit that much! In my defense, the work has continued. The joy of The Brooklyn Socialite is not just writing, but also curating, and I have enjoyed the chance to put forth some other perspectives lately. Shannon tells us that Queer is normal, Susan Strkyker alludes to the concept that Queer people may be supra-normal, in fact special spiritual leaders, equipped with extra fabulousity.

Monday night, I attended the GO magazine Nightlife Awards, which suggested that perhaps queers are drunker. Susan Westenhoeffer hosted the affair, a comedian, who actually managed to be quite funny. DJ Stacy was on decks and they hysterically kept giving self-shout outs. “DJ Stacy in the house!!” That was the highlight. The most fun moment came when we went to find food after the party ended. It was in hot mess midtown at a place called Touch (pretty fancy club by the way). We wondered down 8th ave and eventually found a Kashmiri restaurant/deli. It was dirt cheap and we got a selection of quite tasty buffet items, then settled down to eat them at the shop´s single table. We shared the little eating spot, with a  bearded man dressed in traditional Muslim attire. He told us that he was European American, but had long ago converted to Islam. He recommended Briyani and agreed that the food was very spicy, but one gets used to it. I left with my mouth on fire and we wondered down to HK lounge for the Awards After Party. It was a really intense go-go dancer scene and we didn´t stay long!

Last night feels like it was a continuation of Monday night, because my cultural consumption was somehow limited. Not completely though, as I am given to having Existential conversations while under the influence. This is what I love about certain friends of mine. Race, class, gender, identity, art…everything is invoked on the bar stool and when I look around and listen, I notice that other people are doing it too. Last night ended at 4am, me dragging my friend away from a pretty great chat at Mug about Obama and race in America. The Jamaican man told us, he is not African-American, someone said that I wasn´t, my friend insisted that I am, another biracial guy on a  bar stool, said that he considers himself to be black and white and then this white guy said, “I am totally white, I`m Ukrainian!” Wow, I don´t know what was going on. Time for that latte I guess!

Bad Art Auction, Tablediving

I never did have my latte this morning and I began to feel the burn- of coffee not through my blood-halfway through the Bad Art Auction at Le Poisson Rouge. The premise of the evening was this: Judah Friedlander aka Champion of the World (one of the 30 Rock (which I’ve never seen) writers ) auctioned off bad art, as a benefit for New York Cares. The night was sponsored by New York Magazine and attendees received a free year-long subscription to the rag. The spectacle was amazing, (that’s sarcasm). People were paying one or 2 hundred dollars for xerox copies of 80s faux-art ephemera, macrame owls and racially offensive Christian paintings. It was hipster heaven, I feared that Williamsburg had been momentarily misplaced and supplanted within the walls of Le Poisson Rouge. I was so inspired by my new and trendy crew that I decided to table dive.

Decidedly sober, I resisted the open Vodka bar after last nights excess. Instead I focused my sights on food, other people’s food that is! There was some kind of staff meeting and several appetizer plates had been ordered, many of which were untouched. At one point everyone at the table just up and left, what was a hungry lady to do? That’s right, I dove. Tablediving rules! It is the word for the day.

Tablediving: The art/science of spotting un-eaten food on stranger’s restaurant tables, then grabbing and eating it in the space of time after the strangers leave the table and before the waitstaff clears the food.

Brooklyn Socialite Italian Comfort Food

For anyone out there who is planning to woo me, things you should know to win me over are…

My favorite food is Gnocci and the best place in the city to score the uncooked variety of it is Murray’s Cheese on Bleeker B 6th and 7th.

After you take it home and cook it, it will look something like this.

Another one of my winter comfort foods is potato pizza and I reckon the best place to get it in this city in Grandaisy Bakery.

It goes well with lattes!

For amzing homeade gellati and cheese plates(really good), excellent wine, check out Otto on 8th and 5th ave. And, for a really authentic Italian coffee spot, Fortunato Brothers cafe in Greenpoint is my recomendation.

What are your foody picks? Do you want to cook for me? Answer these questions and more in the comment section below!!

Dust by Hartmut Bitomsky, learning German

I feel like I am learning German now, perhaps telepathically. All my housemates are German (yes all, implies more than 2) and one of them has been kind enough to lend me her laptop, while I wait for my new macbook to arrive. The keyboard and the interface are all in German. Whenever an error notice or any kind of other notice pops up, I basically guess at its meaning and then choose one of the options at random, which I translate to mean: yes or no, send or don’t send, save or cancel…I don’t know, I guess there are a lot of options, but the point is that suddenly I am knee deep in language immersion.

My experiential German course was taken one step further this morning when I attended a press screening of Dust. The documentary made by Hartmut Bitomosky, is not only in German, but also about dust. There were subtitles, but when you are a night owl, and then you wake up in the am for a screening, the likelihood is that if the film is a documentary about dust, you may fall asleep. I tried hard to fight the enveloping slumber, but sometimes it won. The parts that I did catch were pretty cool though. Apparently there are a lot of Germans from all walks of life who devote themselves to the subject of dust. Be it scientist, artists, cleaning persons, vacum cleaner manufacturers, devoted homemakers, they all love dust!. No, seriously the film was entirely more existential then that, but since I cull my deep thoughts from bar stools chats and not small particles, I may have not have been fully qualified to understand the crux of it. All I know is that the bit about depleted Uranium was fascinating, and I am positive that the part regarding 9/11 dust would have been great if I had been awake for it. That was what I was most interested in learning about. The visuals were good though, the color fields were stark and monochromatic, and the odd quirkiness of many off the interview subjects charming. As I am still in the process of reading Transgender History, I’ve found that many of the early sex researchers were Austrian and German. Then tonight, I went to the Powerhouse Arena, which is run by another German. Is this a sign that I should seriously consider pretending to be German. No, I don’t think so.

Anyway here’s the trailer in German!

Quicknote2- Things to do this Weekend

I sat by the window all day today, waiting for my mac to come, but alas, it did not. So I am only able to use my old about to crash laptop for a quick sec (my German roommate took hers to work today). I have to make a few shout outs. If your in the shitty come down to Mc Nally Jackson, there should be a great poetry reading in progress, or if you are closer to 13th st, mosey on into the Quad for a screening of the new film I Can’t Think Straight its about Lesbians, yay! There will be a Q & A afterwards, or go to the Kinsey’s Women exhibition or the Cindy Sherman show, then catch the midnight screening at the Tribeca 92 St Y… or…or, I can’t even leave the house because I’m paralyzed by all the choices! Promise to find a better computer option soon, and write more then. x

Cave Canem Workshop, Stains Movie,Wild Ginger

My fingers have been itching all day, lets face it I’m an internet junkie, the iphone isn’t enough and I’ve been fiending. In an attempt to deal with my separation anxiety, I did what most junkies do, I cleaned my room. After yesterday’s dust film, I figured it was time. I stole a few moments with my broken old laptop and then I did what all good Socialites do, I went out. The first event of the evening was a truly lovely affair. I was overwhelmed, in a good way, by all the beautiful black people in the room. I felt like I was at Aaron Davis hall or in the old BAM. Beyond just staring at beautiful people, which I’m told I have the habit of doing, I heard some really good poetry. The highlights for me were Devonne Heyward, who offered up a shy avalanche of liquid meaning, Erica Mapp, who cautioned us not to pursue those who don’t give freely(amen!), and Amanda Morgan, whose queer suburban tales resonated for me. Pretty much everyone was great though, and Cave Canem seems to be a cool organization. They offer writing workshops for people of color and organize talented writers on a national scale.

Afterwards I got to check out Wild Ginger, a vegan joint on Broome. Prior to entering, I was feeling a little sceptical of its ability to be veganfabulous, but it was indeed. Nice scallion pancakes, mango salad, excellent steamed dumplings, green tea ice cream…all good. The waitstaff are also really cute and human. It’s not pretentious at all and reasonably priced too!

Then I did manage to make it to the Midnight screening at 92 St Y Tribeca of Ladies and Gentlemen the Stains. The leading role in this film is played by Diane Lane and it was made the same year that I was born. Like Times Square, The Stains has a girl power, feminist, vaguely lesbo theme. It’s cool, really funny somehow. Some of the characters include a spoofy, takes itself seriously British band, and a Bob Marley quoting Jamaican band promoter, called lawnboy. He gives a pretty crazy soliloquy at one point. The basic premise it that Diane, her kid sister and her blonde cousin, want to be loved, be fierce, make money and become famous. They realize that the way to achieve all of these goals is to appear on tv and wear incredibly bright eye shadow and no pants. Maybe they’re on to something.

In Bed, Eat Cafe, Superfine, Rhong Tiam

I’m in bed with my new baby. I’m referring to my laptop, it finally arrived and now my life can return to some semblance of normality. More posts, less German. I’m excited about the great writing I’m going to do on Franny (mac prompted me to name her, so franny it is) and I’m also very excited about the lit salon I’m having at my house tomorrow night. I promise an in depth report back on Monday morning.

As for today,  I started off at Eat Cafe/record store in Greenpoint for Lattes and French toast with stewed apples. Good coffee, and sweet neighborhoody vibe. It reminded me a lot of Melbourne, which is just the thing I”m always looking for in cafes. The menu changes daily, which seems to be the new theme for hip little joints, Superfine also works that way. I went there on Wed night but it somehow hasn’t made it into posts until now. Maybe because the food was fine, but not super and after all the good things I had heard about it was expecting more. The waitress was friendly and the space super cute but the food combos were a bit off-putting, I’d rather not have chicken liver on my polenta.

Rhong Tiam on the other hand is kinda worth the hype. It blends chic decor, a jazz and blues soundtrack, a fashion savvy host and pretty authentic Thai food. The New York Times says its one of the best Thai restaurants in Manhattan, but they admit, and I agree that the best in the city require a trip to Queens. The desert is decadent, enough for an army and they have a few creative fried rice options, like green curry and coconut. Plus good wine.

ok gotta crash now!

Communal Literary High

Very little compares to a literary high, the only thing better, is that high experienced communally. It wasn’t the red wine, though we 20 souls went through several bottles of it. Not the soup or the thick hot chocolate, although that alone would’ve been enough to make for a sweet evening. It was the temple of past experience, future dreams, present tensions, colliding under the umbrella of openness, community, literature. Last night’s lit-salon was a a truly sacred experience, and I felt blessed to have presided over it in my Ella Fitzgerald party dress.

People shared their own pieces about unrequited love, then that thought was capped by an Austrian poet’s instruction that “Love says,’It is what it is.’” Published Trans stories shared space with emerging confessions of complex nature, or becoming. We had a free write about waterfalls and Spain, while powerhouse confessions of death and the end to mourning neatly fit beside Einstein Stories, a card trick and a report back about Central Park, in broken English and jagged winter. Miles Davis played Sketches of Spain, voices were found, unfamiliarities lost, as Subway Strangers became friends and LA transplants hooked in to Brooklyn. We remembered where we have slept, plus the dreams we had there. Then we decided on the places where we might sleep next, and with whom.

Sheila Rowbotham on Edward Carpenter

I went to CUNY this evening to see Sheila Rowbotham talk about her new book and the man that inspired it, Edward Carpenter. This is how the CUNY website pre-described the event:

“Feminist historian Sheila Rowbotham discusses her latest book ‘Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love’. Edward Carpenter (1844 to 1929) challenged both capitalism and the values of Western civilization. He pioneered homosexual, lesbian and women’s liberation along with nudism, recycling, anti-pollution, diet reform and animal rights. He was friendly with such cultural icons as Walt Whitman, E.M.Forster, Isadora Duncan and Emma Goldman. He lived his politics, advocating a minimalist simplification to cluttered middle class Victorians and initiating a craze for country cottages, beeswaxed floors and sandals which helped to prod the modern age into being.”

Carpenter seems like an interesting man, who expressed his gay-ness fairly openly at the end of the 19th cetury. During this time, sodomy was considered criminal and Oscar Wilde was on trial for that very act. Sheila herself is a pretty fascinating lady. Earlier this year I read her 1973 book, Women’s Consciousness: Men’s World. It is a highly readable analysis of British socialist feminism. She tells the story of women who chose to trade eye liner for revolutionary politics, back in the day when it had to be one or the other. I especially like her likening of marriage to feudalism. While I categorically believe that queer people deserve equal rights and protection under the law, in all areas, including marriage. Like Sheila, I personally don’t think that marriage is a goal that any of us need aspire towards. Let’s focus on legalizing free thought instead shall we? It was cool to see Rowbotham, British accent and all, in a small room at CUNY. She is a thinker that holds a vital place in the history of second wave feminism.

The Last Cigarette-Stranger than Fiction

Last night I went to my favorite documentary series in NYC, Stranger Than Fiction, and I saw a film called The Last Cigarette. It was directed by Kevin Rafferty, who’s most recent film Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 is currently screening at the Film Forum. The Last Cigarette was made in the mid 90s purely out of news and archival footage. It fits into the documentary genre, yet there are no interviews or original voice-overs and it seems in fact that the filmmaker never once picked up a camera while working on this project. All in the editing room, like a modern day mash-up, it meshes scenes from Vertigo and Psycho with footage from the Congressional hearings, in which the cigarette companies were held to task for selling cancer sticks. The middle aged men, who represent Philip Morris et al. bumble and attempt to euphemize their way out of taking responsibility for smoking deaths. They all actually say that they don’t believe smoking is addictive, that it does not cause cancer, and they swear that their companies have never marketed to children. Interesting. The film serves as  a comical, yet frightening glimpse back into the mid-nineties. It is hard to believe how much attitudes  towards smoking have changed in the past 15 years. Plus, quite bizarre that people have gone from thinking that cigarettes weren’t that harmful, to knowing they are, and smoking anyway.

Thanksgiving, Thanks for Taking

Although there is something really fun about shooting out random “Happy Thanksgiving” emails, it is still important to take pause and call this holiday what it is: Genocide day, Invasion Day, take your pick. Just please don’t tell me that played out old folktale about the peaceful dinner, “pilgrims and Indians sharing corn (or maize, that is.)” Maybe it’s the historical mis-telling that plants the seed of discontent in me, your resident former history scholar. Or, perhaps it’s that always bizarre feeling of being expected to feel on cue. ‘It’s New Years, make resolutions and feel happy!’ ‘It’s Halloween, dress up and feel ghoulish!’ ‘It’s Christmas, give gifts and appreciate others!’ ‘It’s Thanksgiving, count your blessing and list everything that you have to be thankful for.’

I’d rather gorge myself on Pumpkin Pie and wine, and from my curmudgeounly corner, raise a fist in support of the Native People who truly own this land. Happy Thankstaking and never feel afraid to express your honest emotions on any day of the year!

Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera

Last night I went to see the opening of Daniel Barenboim’s production of Richard Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (itself an interpretation of Shakespeare) at the Metropolitan Opera. The opera was five hours, and well, what can i say…It’s a love story, which is more about loss than anything else. Wagner said before writing it, that he had never truly experienced love. Interesting. Maybe that’s why the love depicted is so tragic. Tragic love and tragic death. When the third and final act ends, Isolde is surrounded by Tristan and his two best friends, dead. Perhaps the type of love that Wagner most understood was homeogenic love, as Carpenter called it, better known as homosexuality. Shoot me for saying this, but why didn’t Isolde follow Tristan to death as she promised she would. It ends with her dying, apparently from grief, but not a sword to the chest like Tristan’s two best mates took. I digress…the point is, even if we assume the premise and believe that the man and woman were the only true lovers on set, why should love destroy us? I believe that desperation is not synonymous with passion and strive to see love instead as a sustainable site of healing. love many, love one, love for living, not as a form of torture!

First iphone post

So I just discovered the wordpress application for the iPhone. I am your budding technological baby, with open eyes and outstretched arms I am slowly learning what this whole Internet/computer thing is all about. Forgive me for my lack of total computer nerdyness and trust that I am rapidly catching up! Wow, what a dream boat you are wordpress iPhone app. + a shout out goes to my two thanksgivings, I got some tech tutorials over turkey and what a revolution it has been! Ok, officially a nerd, going to go check the big screen to see if this worked!

Transgender History- Susan Stryker

I finished reading Transgender History by Susan Stryker during my long post-Thanksgiving public transport journey. It was overall a very informative and straightforward book. It was easy to read and understand, which is a feat for non-fiction, and a contrast to Striker’s recent CUNY lecture, which was considerably more cryptic. I really enjoyed the book, it felt immediate and relevant, engaging the reader with the past 100 years of struggle for transgender rights.

The movement towards visibility has been pretty fascinating. It seems that the first people to challenge the assumption that transpeople are not only mentally ill, but also extremely perverse, were people within the medical establishment, German and Austrian psychologists and doctors. Then it was wealthier white male bodied individuals, who campaigned for the rights to cross-dress, and separately, to be granted sex-change operations. The book moves from that telling, to the history of early FTM agitators for change, who also seem to have started within the upper class, or rather gained initial success there.

Direct action, and quasi-revolutionary groups later emerged in the second half of the 20th century, with Stonewall, and it’s predecessors, such as for example, the staged sit-in that occurred at Compton’s restaurant, inspired and enacted by civil rights activists, who were also queer, many of whom were trans,-rights activists. That intersection between transpeople and LGB folks was a theme that Stryker consistently explored in relation to recent trans history.

It seems that although there was a lot of overlap between struggles during the 60s, that unity was often fractured by both, feminist lesbians, who rejected trans people as impostors of a sort, and gay men who labelled trans individuals somehow not radical enough because they were willing to seek help from the medical establishment. As transgenderism remained a disease in the medical books, certain gay activists, judged the transpeople who sought sex change operations, while some lesbian feminists claimed that by enacting femininity in a stereotypical way, transwomen mocked their struggle towards an androgynously expressed equality, and that anyone not born a woman could never fully understand and experience Women’s Oppression.

With so much fragmentation prior to the late nineteen-nineties when queer emerged as a blanket, inclusive term for a whole wide variety of folks, it is kind of nice to see how much of the old divisiveness has died down. However, recently when transgender people were left out of the new anti-discrimination law, many of those old flames were rekindled. In explanation of this political division the distinctions between homosexuality and transgenderism are offered. As well as the wide ranging differences within the transgender umbrella. People often presume that transgender people are by definition homosexual, when historically and continuously that is often not the case. While for some the distinction between gender and sexuality is obvious, many members of the general public don’t quite get what the difference is. Stryker clarifies this within her large definitions section. For anyone who is still confused please refer to the text!

Shannon on Brooklyn Luv Girls

I’ve been to a number of girl bars and parties and Lowpost’s monthly Brooklyn Luv Girls party is a welcome addition to this city’s mix of nightlife options for the ladies.  The first night of this event was on the Friday after Thanksgiving, which caused me to doubt that it would be a lively gathering. Happily, my fears were unfounded, the place was pretty packed.

Lowpost is Habana Outposts’s winter installation. The vibe of Brooklyn Luv Girl was local, young and ethnically, and culturally diverse.  While many of the girls were under 25, brown, and from Ft Greeene, Clinton Hill, and Bed Stuy, there were also a good number of tatooed, mohawked and pierced hipsters and Manhattanites. The space is intimate, with a 6 foot bar at the foot of the stairs, low ceilings,exposed brick walls, and a long, narrow lounge area with benches and tables that give way to a sunken dance floor and stage for performers and DJ’s.

The scale of the club is perfect for a party that attracts a mostly local crowd, and makes it easy to go in alone and make friends or to bump into people you might already know from around the way. I chatted with a few ladies from last month’s Spin Sugar party and ran into some friends of friends. The drinks were affordable, the crowd laid back, and the location perfect for a brownstone dweller like me;  close to work, next to the subway and a quick walk to other bars.

By Shannon Mustipher

Olea, Afternoon In Ft Greene

So I’ve spent the whole day at Olea, ostensibly working, while also having brunch and lattes and now a drink with different friends who have wandered in and out during my all day residency here. I figured that now might be a good time to report faithfully on the place. First of all, It’s great, because not only are they cool with writers like me camping out all day… Their mediteranean food is also adecuately posh, approved of by nytimes, New York Mag and etc. Very decent coffee as well! For dinner they are slightly pricier, but the French infused breakfast is reasonable. Try the homemade pain chocolat and enjoy free wireless!

Trouble the Water Tonight at BAM

I can’t rave about Trouble the Water enough. I have been on the journey with this film for several months. From the time that I first saw it until now, interviewing the filmmakers somewhere in between, writing an article about them and the film…let’s just say I am on the boat for the long haul with this one.

If you are in the New York City area, come to one of my favorite gem spots, The Brooklyn Academy of Music for either the 4:30, 6:50 or 9:30 screening.

This is what NY Mag and BAM have to say about the film:

“Trouble the Water is ineradicably moving.” —New York Magazine

“Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly powerful documentary takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. Brooklyn-based filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal tell the story of an aspiring rap artist and her husband, trapped in New Orleans by deadly floodwaters, who survive the storm and then seize a chance for a new beginning” BAM website

This is the beginning of what I said about it:

The human spirit, all toughness aside could not withstand this movie without tears of empathy, regret, boiling anger, growing conviction and then the commitment to respond. This feeling of good will, fueled by a desire to help, is something that filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal consistently refer to as what motivated them to bring their cameras to the gold coast and begin what would become, Trouble the Water. Long time collaborators with Michael Moore,  they experienced a similar impetus towards action after 9/11. Turning their cameras outwards towards their own Brooklyn neighborhood, they made a compelling short about the backlash of racism and unjust deportations which affected many Muslims at the time.  More

See it for the first time, see it again. Then talk about it with your friends, send me comments, see Spike Lee’s Katrina doco, remember that New Orleans is still in crisis.

x

Slate Honey reviews Recitement, Music/Poetry

Recitement Review- by Slate Honey

A week ago, I immersed myself in Stephen Emmer’s poetry compilation album Recitement.  Pairing recited poems by a wide variety of writers (from Lou Reed to Jorge Luis Borges) with musical composition, Emmer curates a work that is more akin to a series of short films than an album with a solid identity.  Emmer does a comprehensive job of creating genre-specific music that works hard to set a tone for each spoken piece.  Recitement’s sounds bounce back and forth between dark, spacy down-tempo, bouncy classic rock, cinematic European pop and whispery retro French electro.  The musical style is laid a little too thick and is at times sentimental.  And melody sometimes becomes competitive with poetry.  The weight of the poetry often gets lost in the layered soundtracks.  Emmer does best when he presents pieces that really lend themselves to music.

Two tracks are particularly good. “Invergence of the Twain” is reminiscent of spoken word set to cool-sounding acoustic guitar and light percussion.  The beautiful rhyming and careful pacing of the poetry make for a sexy, relaxed sound that is easy to get into.  “Absolutely Grey” has the kind of melancholy space-age sound of Tricky and matches well to a sparse monologue on absolutes.  Especially good for those days when one is feeling super emo and particularly philosophical.

I’d recommend Recitement if you are tired of albums packaged with a singular look and feel.  It’s worth a listen if you want something really different.  Expect to be taken along several twists and turns and leave yourself open to the multi-media feel.  Recitement is not background music.

Slate Gets Milk- Gus Van Sant’s new Film

Great review and thoughtful Analysis of Milk by Mr Slate Honey. Van Sant is giving a Q&A tonight at MOMA- hopefully I’ll get tickets and be able to report back tomorrow.-R

It seems everybody and their gay dads saw Gus Van Sant’s Milk as part of the Thanksgiving routine this year.  I was warned to go equipped with tissues and to be ready for problematic portrayals of the few characters of color in the film.  (Thanks lover, for the forewarning by the way.) I went prepared with a dewey heart and my critical lenses on.

I have been a committed Sean Penn fan ever since I saw Dead Man Walking when I was a little mister.  And I got on the Gus Van Sant train a bit late but his recent films Elephant, Last Days, Paranoid Park have served my grungy emo-homo skater-boy obsession very well.

Cinematographer Harris Savides and Van Sant make a great visionary team.  They previously worked together on Elephant, a film with a very precise, clean cinema verité style that transforms violence into real-time horror and renders its viewers innocent witnesses.  In Milk, Savides and Van Sant play with perspective, creating layers of consciousness for Penn’s character.  Switching perspective and cinematic style, and weaving archival footage into the film, Savides and Van Sant reveal a determined, emotional man at the center of a violent socio-political setting.  A particularly lush scene that is classic Van Sant perspective comes early on in the film.  Harvey and Scott (played by James Franco) fall in love in a soft-focus dreamscape of close movement, shot all in extreme close-ups set to the soundtrack of their tender conversation.  Gorgeousness.

Overall, Milk is very historically accurate.  Activist Cleve Jones and friend of Milk’s was on-set during production and connected Van Sant with screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, who had long been preparing a manuscript. Milk serves as a good personal portrait counterpart to the 1985 documentary The Life and Times of Harvey Milk, directed by Rob Epstein.  I had the feeling watching MILK that I could trust the filmmaker team’s attention to detail and the solid sense of collaboration gave the narrative a documentary quality.

So the accuracy and detail of the film bring up a pretty big concern on the race-politics front.  I was charmed by Sean Penn’s old-school New York accent and faggy gestures, seduced by James Franco’s flirty eyes and mini handlebar moustache and increasingly worried as Josh Brolin’s character’s passive aggressive repression began to seep out.  And the constant influx of characters served well as a distraction from the tragic and narrow development of the few characters of color.

A member of Milk’s activist dream team includes an Asian man who is only referred to as Lotus Blossom despite his many appearances.  Random folks of color magically appear in the crowd every time Milk gets a further push forward in the political machine.  During an acceptance speech near the climax of the film, a black woman with a classic 70s look complete with afro smiles enthusiastically behind Harvey.  She promptly disappears behind a shower of balloons as soon as Harvey wraps up his speech.

Leaving the theatre, my mom suggested that the race politics of the film merely mirrored the San Francisco scene in the 1970s.  There just weren’t that many people of color, she argued.  And there were barely any women in the film, she added.  Historical accuracy?  (And, I might add, how much has the San Francisco gay scene departed from a mostly white gay male playground thirty years later?)

The seldom appearance of people of color is one thing.  I suppose you can reason this with some argument about accuracy.  What is more troubling is the passiveness of the characters of color.  Black and Asian extras dot the activist scenes, always with their thumbs in the air and big smiles.  Lotus Blossom doesn’t seem to wince at his nickname.  And finally, Jack, the one Latino character that makes it on-screen for more than thirty seconds is portrayed as an irrational, mentally unstable, co-dependent, infantile wifey.  Jack’s tragedy becomes expected and you can almost hear the characters whispering under their breath “She brought it on herself.” This is fodder for post-colonial theory.

So my warnings were well-heeded.  In the end, I cried like a baby, just as hard as I cried when I watched ‘The Life and Times of Harvey Milk’.  I left the theatre thinking about the fearless work of an older generation of queer activists that laid some ground for young folks to make demands relevant to what it means to be queer and fight for rights today.  I also left thinking about how race politics have systematically been swept under the rug by a white gay and lesbian rights movement in the 70s.  I thought about what work that has left contemporary queer activists of color.  And how truly far-thinking activists never get comfortable and only keep pushing and questioning.  Finally, making my way out of the city back to Brooklyn, I meditated on queer love as freedom, queer survival as civil rights, and a beautiful fearlessness that comes naturally to us.

Milk, Gus Van Sant Q&A

It’s hard to see it, but that, my friends, is a picture of Gus Van Sant. The Q&A was almost as teary as the film itself with testimonials: from a queer youth who thanked Van Sant for his film-making as activism and from the director of the Hetrick Martin Institute on behalf of his students at the Harvey Milk School. Lessin and Deal the directors of Trouble the Water were also in the house as well as a good crew of Bedstuy qpocs. Unpacking the film with them afterwards was one of the highlights of the night. We all agreed that it was a great Hollywood biopic. Although we loved experimental Van Sant in many of his earlier art house films, we thought that this format and budget were appropriate as a showcase for Milk’s life story. Slate Honey’s previous observation on the problematic portrayal of people of color, was indeed confirmed. However, Van Sant mentioned that many of the people depicted in the film were on set consulting during most of the filming, including the Asian man, who is referred to in the film as Lotus Blossom ( Find out where they are now). Still, I was kind of floored by Jack’s portrayal, it did feel somewhat superficial and unsympathetic. Overall though, I remain highly impressed by Van Sant’s cinematic mastery. If you squint you might be able to detect in my iPhone photo that Van Sant is suitably chill in his down to earth jeans, red sneakers and green socks. He was equally approachable and laid back after the Q & A as he happily talked one on one to folks from the audience. Thanks for putting me on the press list after all MOMA! Bloggers are tops!

The writers from Tongues Afire are about to set Brooklyn a-glow

By Mr Slate Honey

This year’s members of the creative writing workshop for queer women, trans and gender-non conforming people of color will be presenting new works in two readings.  Common Grounds, the cozy Bed-Stuy cafe at 376 Tompkins Ave, will be hosting the first on Saturday December 6th at 7pm.  Later in the week, The Audre Lorde Project, sponsor to the group, will be hosting the second reading on Thursday December 11th at 85 South Oxford Street at 6:30 pm.  Both events are free and open to the public.

Be sure not to miss these.  Excellent artists pass through this workshop and judging from friends who have been in it or who will be reading, I can assure you that it will not disappoint even the most fine-tuned ear. For more information about Tongues Afire and applying to the workshop, contact tonguesafire@gmail.com

Just Seeds, Spin Sugar…

Yesterday was one of those anachronistic days when everything and nothing happens. I worked for a friend at a conference at the Tompkins Hotel. Then I spent most of the day there working in a coffee charged stupor. After which I went to see the Just Seeds collective’s wonderful poster show. I bought a beautiful black panther quote lino print, which much to my chagrin I lost later in the night. It went missing during my 3 hour fly on the wall experience as press at the Farm Sanctuary’s benefit. I interviewed Ally Sheedy, Corey Feldman, Jenefer Coolidge and Daniella Sea, in between bouts of nerve steadying alcohol consumption. Celebrities usually don’t intimidate me this much, but hot people do I guess. I tried not to impulsively grab Sea’s hand in mid convo. Somehow, I managed to exercise control and stick to normal interview protocol. Transcript to follow+ a full description of the sanctuary’s great work.

After I left the art directors club, I took the subway, in true b s style down to spin sugar at sin sin, where I intercepted my friends on the way in and ran into the entire staff of go. Dancing ensued, plus more drink, under the beat propriety of Sophia H, Noa D and Amber Valentine. We closed the warm little dive around 3 and all went home.

L-Word’s Daniela Sea- Interview, Sanctuary

This  is a picture of the back of Daniela Sea’s head and of Jenifer Coolidge, trying to reel in a crowd of thirsty vegans at the Farm Sanctuary benefit. I know, it’s not a great photo, but Iphone pictures are generally quite lame. I’ll get press photos on Monday, but couldn’t wait to get this up. Sea was pretty calm and friendly in person, but somehow more guarded than I’d expected her to be. I don’t know why I expected otherwise, but when I first went up and said hi to her she was nice, pretty open seeming, then when I said I wanted to interview her, her energy seemed to immediately narrow. I guess that people kind of fear or disdain the press and our potentially distorted ways. So in an extra effort to stick to the facts, I will proceed.

First an exterior description: She was shorter in person, maybe about my height, but had the same transfixing fiery green/blue eyes. As I previously expressed, I got a little distracted there, with the eyes etc. She was kinda flopping around the room, talking to people, carrying a Tupperware container, and wearing gypsy style tuxedo pants and a simple men’s stripy button down shirt, over a wife beater. She was with a friend, who also seemed really nice. When we found our time to talk, off in a quiet corner, sitting on top of a counter of sorts, she explained to me that she needed to pack food, because she was catching a taxi-to a flight-to a train- to the North of England, in the next 20 minutes. I realized, I’d better talk fast.

TheBrooklynSocialite: When did you get involved with the Farm Sanctuary?

[Farm Sanctuary for those who don't know, is a farm animal rescue organization. They have 2 farms, one outside of NYC and the other near LA. Their mission is: "To work to end cruelty to farm animals and promote compassionate living through rescue, education and advocacy. "]

Daniela Sea: I  got involved about a year ago. My dad and his boyfriend connected me, they said there were some people there that I should really meet. I’ve always had an interest in compassionate activism, so it was great to get involved and now I have some really good friends there.

TBS: Have you always been connected to animal rights?

DS: Yeah, I’m Vegan, I was just brought up that way, to care about animals and think about the food we eat.I have a lot of friends who aren’t vegan or vegetarian, but I’ve always found some really good connections  among people who are.

TBS[ I couldn't contain my interest in her involvement in the L-Word for much longer, so I proceed to ask her about the show...]

DS: We just finished shooting the final season, and it was really great to be involved with it and be up there working on it. Now that it’s over I have more time to spend on my other projects. I’m working on a screenplay about the relationship between a father and a daughter, which is semi-autobiographical, and I play in 2 bands. I’m going to be going on tour with one of them, Thorns of Life , after i get back from visiting my brother in the North of England.

TBS: What’s he doing up there?

DS: He’s a cobbler, he chips away at stones, shaping them to fit into crevices that need to be restored in ancient cathedrals.

It sounded so romantic, and I half wished that I was going to take a flight that night. I wanted to tell her about my travels and how important I think it is that she portrayed one of the first semi-positive depictions of a trans-person on television. But, the chat got kind of cut short by a person with a camera, and a couple of transmen who are running for office in NYC. That seemed like a pretty great, and important conversation, so I willingly forfeited the floor,  and continued to try not to stare at her as I walked away.

Somehow it was easier to talk to Coolidge and Ally Sheedy, they both expressed their commitment to and support of the work that Farm Sanctuary does. Sheedy a long time vegan, and Coolidge a devoted animal lover, both seemed super-intelligent and quite warm. Visit the Sanctuary, hang out with their down to earth staff, many of whom I met that night, and of course chill with the animals!

This committed lady, bought that painting in the auction to benefit Farm S.

Agent Angie gets Techy at El Guincho

I headed to (Le) Poisson Rouge the other night to see El Guincho, aka Pablo Díaz-Reixa an electro-pop artist based in Barcelona. I arrived very early. I must admit a few things that threaten to undermine my status as a “socialite” dear readers. The first thing is that I don’t know if I am capable of attending these late night shows anymore. I really enjoy going to (Le) Poisson Rouge, but most of their shows start barely before midnight. When you work full time during the day, is going to a show that starts at 11:30 feasible? Not really.

Finally, Lemonade, the opener started, whose weird electronic mix of pops, blips, pings, and buzzes accompanied by occasional vocals provided the best electro-dance music I’ve heard in a long while. Everyone was gyrating to the music and thoroughly enjoying themselves. Later, when I listened to it again on myspace I felt more ambivalent. This type of music is better in person.

El Guincho drew an impressive crowd, (Le) Poisson Rouge was packed, but I wasn’t so impressed by him. A part of me wondered what all the fuss was about. His enthusiasm and personality were wonderful to watch, but the music didn’t win me over.

Therefore, I will go back to discussing my experience as a bad socialite that night at (Le) Poisson Rouge. I arrived early because I didn’t want to bother going back uptown after work. I thought it started at ten (I have a terrible habit of confusing the “doors” time and the actual time the show is set to begin). Arriving early did afford me the opportunity of observing the people around me. There was a dj, a pretty decent dj at that, but everyone was standing around looking bored (including myself). I kept thinking, ‘aren’t we supposed to be dancing? Someone dance with me.’ I was alone for most of the show and kept trying to push myself to strike up conversations with strangers who were also alone, but never did. I looked around at everyone clicking away on their BlackBerrys and iPhones and regretted that technology has driven a wedge between us. Who knows if I would have worked up the courage to do it even if the BlackBerrys weren’t present, but it’s a little harder to do when someone is preoccupied texting or twittering or what have you.

I feel I have a love/hate relationship with technology. In this instance, before I made a point to put away my iPhone in order to stop discouraging others from being friendly, I caught up on some reading. I read a wonderful article by Roger Ebert about the struggles in the journalism world of late. I was grateful that my iPhone allowed me to be productive and escape the boredom of being alone. However, it also made me feel very cowardly for using it (partly) to avoid being social. It made me wonder if depending on technology since my first year of college, when I first started to develop my social skills in an adult world and develop relationships independent of family, crippled me socially in the long run. And, what does this tell us about individuals growing up in front of screens? Imagine having a facebook profile in middle school. Any thoughts dear readers?

-by Angie Venezia

The Weekend in Pictures

There have been several things that I wanted to post about but didn’t immediately find time for…so here they are in photographs. Match the  numbered  blurry iPhone pictures with the following letters: A- IL Passatore, an authentic Greenpoint Italian restaurant, which some claim is among the best in the city. They have prominent exit signs, excellent lasagna and a few other decent pasta options. B- The Beatrice Inn, Bjork is rumored to do coke here, looks shabby from the outside but the muffled bouncers will practically frisk you, before they decide you are “Someone” and casually let you in. C-The Belcourt, LES brunch spot, pretty disappointing other than the fancy decor. The food is mediocre at best and they are adamantly against substitutions. D- Roebling Tea Room- good drink options, chill staff, filling- comfort food style menu. E- Misnomer Dance Company opening at the Joyce.  This is Chris Elam’s company, he choreographed Bjork’s (speaking of) last video,” Wanderlust.” Queen of Dance Critics Gia Kourlas sat in front of me wearing an imposing fur hat, and scribbling enthusiastically in her notebook. The dancers told me afterwards that they nearly tripped over themselves in fear. The photo is of a particularly friendly yet camera-shy stylist, who’s self tailored coat won the recessionista award of the day. F- Tongues of Fire reading at Common Grounds. Excellent community event, good poets, bad run-ins with exes(!) And now for the pictures!

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I guess the answers are kind of obvious, but thank you for playing. x

Good Photos, VU

Here are the press pics from Farm sanctuary and Misnomer dance

Above Photos by Greg Straight Edge

In light of all the photos beautifully taken, or of beautiful people. I thought it might be a good time to discuss VU. Although it sounds like some obscure venereal disease, it’s real meaning is Voluntary Ugliness. Come on people, don’t do it. Fashions come and go, and there are a lot of people who do take them way to seriously. However, there is nothing more serious than VU. Don’t want to fashionable? Don’t bother! But please don’t give way to VU. All you have to do is find a look that works for you and rock it out. No more glasses that make your eyes pop out, please don’t abuse corduroy or turtlenecks, don’t blame it on money, because you know that you could look cute even in torn shards of fabric if you wore them right. As a person who sometimes takes themselves pretty seriously, I have to give it up for superficiality this one time. Let’s make a pact to try to look our best for just one week, then a month a year, forever. This city really needs some brightening up and so does everywhere. Don’t fall victim to VU, let your beauty sparkle, razzle, dazzle and …ok I’m stopping I promise, but on that note, for the next week I will be posting photos of the bravest VU resisters that I encounter on the streets, cafes and clubs of New York….

Yes Man, Dance Class Contessa

On the list of things that I want to blog about, but sometimes get distracted from, or avoid out of fear of never sleeping, drinking too much coffee and missing my train tomorrow to upstate New York are:

Yes Man- the new Jim Carey Film and

Dance Class, Contessa’s 25th birthday party at Webster Hall.

Let’s begin, quick before fear gets the better of me…The trailer:

Yes Man was pretty f-ing funny. That means either a lot coming from me, or very little. As it is, that I rarely expose myself to abject humor, preferring the darker, documentary style film, I may not be the best person to judge funny mainstream movies. That said, I did enjoy it. It was kind of a cross between Magnolia,  The Montel Williams Show and every other Jim Carrey film ever made. He definitely pulled a lot of faces that I recal from The Mask. Kiwi actor, Rhys Darby, from the Flight Of the Concords was hysterical and Zooey Deschanel was super cute. Plus the songs that her band inside the film play are classic, probably the best part of the movie. They are about things like people respecting the limit on times they are allowed to call, and the guy that she hates becuase he called after 11pm. I guess I wasn’t expecting much from the director of Bring it On, but as a vapid-comedy starved individual, when faced with slapstick and overly simplistic jokes, I will laugh, and I did.

Moving on. Mama Contessa, impresario, dancer, Bed Stuy fashion plate and so much more is celebrating her 25th Birthday at Webster hall tomorrow night after 10pm. DJ prince Terrence is spinning, new pop will be snapping away, go-gos doing their thing, Theophilus London will perform and I’ll be there!x

Check the poster:

Slate Honey, Novice Theorey

By Slate Honey

My favorite musical experiences are ones that feel like lucid dreaming.  The one-person band Novice Theory has quickly found a choice spot on my list of vision-inspiring.  I sink into self-reflective hallucinations somewhere in the curves of songwriter Geo’s grandiose melodic piano-playing, pulled deeper in by his heartbreakingly sharp, lyrical narratives.  I saw Novice Theory live for the first time at Joe’s Pub last night.

This morning, I woke up to flashes of dreams still fresh on my mind.  In one, I braided my miraculously-grown long curls.  In another, my mother and I had a love-affair breakdown in a restaurant in Chinatown.  Lying in bed, two lines from a Kate Bush cover performed the night before looped in my head.  I hummed it over and over again on my walk to work.  I couldn’t kick the tune all day… but I didn’t really want to.

I often lose touch with my own tenderness in dealing with complicated questions of identity.  It’s easier for me to turn to political and overly-intellectual language to make sense of the daily experiences of gender-queer and racially-othered bodies in this wide world.  Novice Theory takes on these questions on an emotionally bare level.  Sometimes pounding and other times caressing the keys of a grand piano, Geo works out so much in his music.  He labors through intensity and honesty with a crafted precision.  Novice Theory mixes together classical and folk tones, a tender darkness, cutting humor and an entrancing theatrical sound.  Experiences most difficult to process somehow become easy to listen to in the candid and lavish storytelling–or maybe just graspable, simply distilled to rich and vivid imagery.

The Joys of Public Transport

I wanted to share this little moment with you. I am on a bus in Bed Stuy, wobbling my way to Greenpoint on blue plastic seats. There are several copies of AM New York strewn about the floor, with headlines blaring “Depression”. This is the life! South by South dialogue amounts to taking the bus up and down brook-town x

Soda Bar

Soda bar is straight out of A Different Strokes, your every local, Brooklyn, Ace for Diversity- bar. It attracts a mixed, mostly straight crowd, and they have DJs and events on certain nights. The snug couch set-up is perfect for de-briefs with friends and impromptu dancing.