And my whole body hurts. It's a good hurt. I thought it would be smart to go to the gym before meeting up with her for dance-making, but I guess this was a mistake. Ouch!
Today, I have a cough. My chest feels scratchy. I blame the radiator and the heat in my room. The dust. The environment. It sucks. I'm really angry about having a cough. I better not fucking get sick. I will kick my own ass.
Last night I went and saw dear heart Nicholas Gorham's new show GOD FREE THE QUEEN at Dixon Place. I know that they filmed it, but still, I'm kind of pissed off about the fact that it was only one performance! It was really beautiful, and I hope Nicholas does it again! I don't remember when I first met Ms. Nicholas Gorham, but I have always loved her (and I'm not the only one). His performances all over NYC both solo and in fantastic group productions of the likes of Mx. Justin Vivian Bond and the Big Art Group have made him something of a rising star. And he should be! Nicholas is absolutely one of the reasons I am excited about living in New York, is because I get to see work like the show I saw last night. I really enjoyed his piece last year at La MaMa, One Drop Passing which examined identity, race, and language. It was pretty epick, and also conversational, with surprising gravity and nuance. The new show I saw last night, GOD FREE THE QUEEN, explored the themes of loss, beauty and decay. It's kind of hard to describe. It reminded me of that part in the Bill Cunningham documentary, where he talks about how a sign of Rei Kawakubo's forward-thinking was she copped to being inspired by the silhouettes of homeless people in New York in the 1980s. (Actually, she said that she designed for the "bag lady" of New York). Nicholas' performance, both visually and textually, refers simultaneously to classic high art, medieval aesthetics, as well the desperation and danger of life on the streets. I was incredibly impressed by the writing in the show, his deft and very clever use of iambic pentameter was actually really cute and smart.
The show also featured some great musical numbers, danced in part by everyone's favorite Cabaret Superstar Bradley Kal Hagan. There were at least two songs by Queen in the show. Nicholas has such a great voice, maybe better (or at least more human) than Miss Old Freddie Mercury's. And anyway Nicholas is alive to sing them.
Hearing "I Want To Break Free" did remind me, however, of my trip to Berlin last summer, when homegirl La JohnJoseph and I followed our sexy Israeli cab-driver over to his apartment, after my performance Bassy Cowboy Club (that is actually what it is called). Sexy Israeli Cabdriver took us to a gigantic living room in a beautiful old building, and asked us to stand in front of a projection screen while he shot images of other naked boys onto us as lighting and took our photo. (Typical). Anyway the sexy Israeli cabdriver revealed not only that he was a billionaire Aries Heiress, but that she was gifted musically as well. He picked up an acoustic guitar and began to sing, with this indecipherable (to my ears) accent "I Want To Break Free". La JJ was of course wooed by this, I was trying to maintain my pose in the screen-light and wanted to keep taking photos.
"Dude," I asked "are you singing, like, QUEEN?"
"Yes," he said "but it's my own special version."
I don't know the words to the song, but JJ did and they sang them together and fell in love and the rest if herstory.
Anyway the point is Nicholas' show was great! It made me happy. Pray that you can see it performed again soon.
Here's a classic video of Nicholas: "IN THE WOODS"
Speaking of CATCHING UP, the bartender at Dixon Place last night was none other than old friend Thain, who I hadn't seen in some time and whom just returned, sun-kissed, from a tropical vacation. We do love the Sun. Anyway I ordered some drinks before the show and I had the much-ballyhooed SAINT VIVIAN, named of course for Mx. JVB and concocted by Thain. I know I'm late to the party on this one, it was sort of the Official Cocktail of 2011, but it was great! I am not even the biggest cocktail drinker, really (just some warm flat beer, maybe a little Mountain Dew to cut the flavor), but it was so good. I could drink them all the time. I see what all the buzz is about. You should go drink them. I will meet you at the DP bar and you can buy me one and we'll drink them together, how about that?
Also in the "Catching Up" department, I got a big pile of books for Xmas (thanks, Santa!) and finally am getting to them. I just finished Gerty Stein's Wars I Have Seen, and thoroughly loved it. But it did take forever to finish. So now I'm reading Laurie Weeks' Zipper Mouth which is AWESOME. I know I'm late to the part on this too, everyone else has read and loved it, but I just started it. it makes me want to smoke and do drugs and fuck everybody and be in love. How exciting!
Last week I did an interview with a blog at my old college, which asks me some nice questions about the type of writing and art work I do. You can see the interview HERE.
Sunday, I went back to Seagull Salon for a haircut and I got a good one! William there is fucking rad! Nice! Then I went to CdG and got this cute new polka dot PLAY shirt.
It's a new motherfucking day, World.
Yesterday I had a serious case of the Mondays. Nicholas' show really cheered me up, though. And the usual cure for a case of the Mondays is, of course, a good old-fashioned Tuesday.
My fucking cough though. Ack!