Hey Folks. First of all, thanks for indulging my previous post ranting about Bill Maher and opportunities missed in the spiritualist / atheist dialogue. (Good clean petty bourgeois fun but probably not what most of you are reading this blog for. So without further ado...)
The Wet Spots toured in Australia for the month of March 2009. It was our second trip down there and our second performance at the Sydney Opera House for their Mardi Gras programming. To me, it was almost more of an honour to be asked back a second time. It's sort of like sex - once could have been a drunken mistake on their part. Twice implies a certain degree of premeditated intention.
And what a bill they had on for the Mardi Gras this time: Alan Cumming! Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls)! Meow Meow! Justin Bond! Best of all, they had several late night cabarets in which this stellar cast would perform impromptu duets and goof off. It reminds me of the stories of the original Ocean's Eleven starring Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior etc. After a long day of filming, the rat pack would hold court in some Vegas casino lounge and fuck around - telling stories and doing songs and comedy. It is a great regret that our tour schedule did not allow us to arrive in town in time for these shows.
As it happened, we got to perform two nights following Justin Bond's "Close to You" show. For those of you unfamiliar with Justin, he came to fame over the last decade as Kiki of the cabaret duo Kiki and Herb. (Others will know him as the MC in Shortbus.) This act completely re-wrote the rules of what a drag performance could be, stormed Carnegie Hall and toured to critical acclaim worldwide. And then they decided to pack it in. Kiki was a savagely quick-witted, nihilistic drag character and Justin was wearying of embodying those emotions so often. So he began to perform as himself, trading in the boozy, agonizingly funny fictions of Kiki's eternal descent for equally poignant true stories from his glamorous life amongst the gliteratti and his pagan romps amongst the Radical Faeries. His genius as a musical parodist is undeniable, so his choice to focus on earnest interpretations of pop classics and original material is particularly bold. It is a roll of the dice, and it has come up double sixes, as far as I'm concerned. His transformation is an inspiration to any creative who is feeling the need to stretch and grow beyond their comfort zone. Here he is at Joe's Pub in New York City performing Marat / Sade.
In Australia, Justin performed his "Close to You" show, which features him singing every song from the classic Carpenter's album, accompanied by a ten-piece live band. When I walked into their rehearsal, I saw that the pianist was executing a flawless performance with his left hand, while simeltaneously jotting notes for the musicians with his right. And so I was introduced to Lance Horne - Emmy Award-winning musical genius and tireless cabaret booster. Lance acts as musical director for Justin Bond, Meow Meow, Alan Cumming and a host of others - grounding their oft-eccentric visions with sound technique and theory. I tried to find a Youtube video of him performing on his own, but almost every clip showed him making some other performer look astounding. Here he is singing at Joe's Pub - his second home in NYC. (And don't even get me started on his first home...)
Our shows were a delight to perform, and on our closing night we recorded a brief interview with Australian radio. It is interspersed here with clips of audience reactions...
From Sydney, we flew on to Adelaide for the 2009 Fringe Festival. The Adelaide Fringe is second only to Edinburgh in terms of size and prestige, and we were fortunate enough to perform in a truly glorious venue - the fabulous Parel van Vuren Spiegeltent. Speigeltents are antique, portable performance venues that used to tour with circuses around the turn of the last century. They have cloth roofs, ornate carved wooden frames, and countless stained glass and mirror panes throughout their structure.
Our dressing room - behind it - was a rather more prosaic porta-cabin trailer. But we got to share the trailer with a mad, hilarious gang of performers from a beautiful cabaret show called A Company of Strangers. Here's a little clip hyping their event:
The MC of their night was a gruff, eccentric, songwriter and dancer named Martin Martini. Here he is performing at the Soho Theater in London:
The sensational Meow Meow joined their cast for several nights. Here she is doing her charming deconstruction of diva-hood...
In contrast, the mournful, mysterious Lady Carol sang Radiohead's Creep and Queen's The Show Must Go On. I love a woman in a hooded maroon velvet cape who plays ukulele. I mean, who doesn't. Right? Here she is doing Kate Bush. (Not like that. But that would be hot.)
One of my particular favourites was Gateau Chocolat - an enormous operatic talent from London UK. His warmth and energy illuminated the whole show, and his outrageous costumes were a visual delight. He's the fellow in the green unitard from the overview clip above. He is currently performing with those superfriends of Variety - La Clique . Here he is in a (frankly quite bizarre) little art film clip:
Another treat was the irrepressible Paul Capsis - an Australian legend. Fresh out of playing Riff Raff in a Rocky Horror revival, Paul delivered a stunning array of larger-than-life vocal interpretations, even out-Janis-ing Janis Joplin. And he split his trousers like PJ Proby. So Cass mended them. Here's a short clip that doesn't really do justice to his vocal chops, but gives a good idea of his stage presence.
Finally, we had the lovely Sveta and her dancing Russian Bears. Here she is doing her own demented diva take. She rounded out their show beautifully.
Sveta Dobranoch
This was the show we got to listen to night after night as we prepared for our own slot immediately following them. It never once got boring, and we snuck in many times to watch these unique talents from the wings. Theirs was a consistently sold-out show, and most deservedly so. But we still won the award for Best Cabaret, betches. Just saying... ;-)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
An Open Letter to Bill Maher
Howdy, Bill
Just Saw Religulous. You're sharp as ever. Which is maybe a bit too sharp. I think it would have served your cause better if you'd let more people finish their sentences, rather than cutting them off with some withering comment.
I know, I know. You don't suffer fools. And we love you for it. But I think you're stacking the deck in the same way my old intro philosophy prof did back in the day. As you put it so well, the story of Jonah living in the belly of the whale and the story of Jack climbing a beanstalk both seem equally fantastic. And otherwise intelligent people who believe either story as literal truth are fun to mock. They are soft targets.
But there are harder targets out there you might have addressed. A lot of folks go to church and see these stories as fables. I have a Minister friend who openly talks about "the creation myth" or "the flood myth" from the Bible. Now admittedly he is United Church and prone to whiskey binges, but you take my point. So why do these folks take part in religion? Because they get something out of it. Something you don't get. And it's OK you don't get it. But it doesn't mean they're all stupid or crazy.
I was happy to see you talking to the Jesuit astronomer who notes that 1500 years passed between the writing of the Bible and the birth of scientific method, so we should not expect to find any valid scientific info in either Testament, and instead search for it today with all tools at our disposal. But I thought it was a bit disingenious to portray him as some radical maverick. Those Jesuits are generally smart mofos, and they often have quite a sense of humour about the various saints and miracles that their religion portrays.
I was also happy to see you talking to Dr. Andrew Newberg - the neuroscientist who studies how human brain patterns change while in religious trance states (such as 'spirit posession', speaking in tongues or deep meditation). I was unhappy that he never got to explain his ideas because you were too busy saying that he had proved your theory that religion is a neurological disorder. Below are some vids of him addressing scientific panels and documentarians. In fact, he is quite sympathetic to the human need for spirituality, and sees it as completely divorced from the question of whether any sort of god exists. For anyone interested in spirituality and rationality, this is fun (if nerdy) stuff.
Your point that we would quickly resign from any social club that had committed the atrocities of most religions is a good one. And your concern that fanaticism will lead to the end of the world either through war or neglect is valid. I get your urgency. But you ignore a crucial question: Why are many rational, non-fundamentalist people religious?
Many people use meditation or religious ceremonies (gathering in contemplation, telling ancestral stories, taking part in ancient rituals) in order to transcend the ego. The ego is the center of our rational intellect. Which is good. It is also the part in each of us that sees ourselves as an entity separate from everyone and everything else. To many people this just seems like a given. It is not. We could also choose to see ourselves as part of a greater entity: Gaia, or a cultural tradition, or a collective consciousness. But the ego fights this. And it likes to think that it is the entirety of our minds. It is not. It has been repeatedly, scientifically proven that there is lots of brain activity going on that is unrelated to our immediate egoic consciousness. The ego is also constantly engaged in a futile struggle for more. More status, more money, more sensation. And it loves to be right. To dominate. Either physically, or intellectually, or morally, or emotionally. It feels good. For about a minute.
Spirituality can be the discipline of recognizing this hungry chatterbox and trying to turn it down for a while in order to allow other parts of our consciousness some breathing space. It's not that different from cognitive therapy - how we can train ourselves to recognize an anxiety attack or an angry rage or a depressive episode as just that - an episode and not the absolute reality of our condition.
I would have loved to have seen you talk more about how this worthwhile project to tame the ego has been repeatedly hijacked for various egocentric projects. As you put it "Does the Vatican look like anything Jesus had in mind?". You could also have presented some agnostic alternatives to religion (with its historical baggage and its curent crop of douchebags). There are plenty. Buddhist meditation is a practice that asks no belief in anything supernatural and welcomes all denominations. Some "new age" and neo-pagan practices are incredibly pro-queer and anti-patriarchal. But you didn't do this. You went for the easy argument against the extremists in order to be right. In order to win.
And you did. And you looked like it felt good. For about a minute. And then you looked pissed & pugilistic again. In contrast to some of the serene believers you mocked. Do you think this approach changed any minds? Or did it just flatter those who already agree with you? Religious leadership is clearly an ego trip for some of your interviewees. It's alarming how similar your own motivation looks.
A bad advertisment for a good cause...
Just Saw Religulous. You're sharp as ever. Which is maybe a bit too sharp. I think it would have served your cause better if you'd let more people finish their sentences, rather than cutting them off with some withering comment.
I know, I know. You don't suffer fools. And we love you for it. But I think you're stacking the deck in the same way my old intro philosophy prof did back in the day. As you put it so well, the story of Jonah living in the belly of the whale and the story of Jack climbing a beanstalk both seem equally fantastic. And otherwise intelligent people who believe either story as literal truth are fun to mock. They are soft targets.
But there are harder targets out there you might have addressed. A lot of folks go to church and see these stories as fables. I have a Minister friend who openly talks about "the creation myth" or "the flood myth" from the Bible. Now admittedly he is United Church and prone to whiskey binges, but you take my point. So why do these folks take part in religion? Because they get something out of it. Something you don't get. And it's OK you don't get it. But it doesn't mean they're all stupid or crazy.
I was happy to see you talking to the Jesuit astronomer who notes that 1500 years passed between the writing of the Bible and the birth of scientific method, so we should not expect to find any valid scientific info in either Testament, and instead search for it today with all tools at our disposal. But I thought it was a bit disingenious to portray him as some radical maverick. Those Jesuits are generally smart mofos, and they often have quite a sense of humour about the various saints and miracles that their religion portrays.
I was also happy to see you talking to Dr. Andrew Newberg - the neuroscientist who studies how human brain patterns change while in religious trance states (such as 'spirit posession', speaking in tongues or deep meditation). I was unhappy that he never got to explain his ideas because you were too busy saying that he had proved your theory that religion is a neurological disorder. Below are some vids of him addressing scientific panels and documentarians. In fact, he is quite sympathetic to the human need for spirituality, and sees it as completely divorced from the question of whether any sort of god exists. For anyone interested in spirituality and rationality, this is fun (if nerdy) stuff.
Your point that we would quickly resign from any social club that had committed the atrocities of most religions is a good one. And your concern that fanaticism will lead to the end of the world either through war or neglect is valid. I get your urgency. But you ignore a crucial question: Why are many rational, non-fundamentalist people religious?
Many people use meditation or religious ceremonies (gathering in contemplation, telling ancestral stories, taking part in ancient rituals) in order to transcend the ego. The ego is the center of our rational intellect. Which is good. It is also the part in each of us that sees ourselves as an entity separate from everyone and everything else. To many people this just seems like a given. It is not. We could also choose to see ourselves as part of a greater entity: Gaia, or a cultural tradition, or a collective consciousness. But the ego fights this. And it likes to think that it is the entirety of our minds. It is not. It has been repeatedly, scientifically proven that there is lots of brain activity going on that is unrelated to our immediate egoic consciousness. The ego is also constantly engaged in a futile struggle for more. More status, more money, more sensation. And it loves to be right. To dominate. Either physically, or intellectually, or morally, or emotionally. It feels good. For about a minute.
Spirituality can be the discipline of recognizing this hungry chatterbox and trying to turn it down for a while in order to allow other parts of our consciousness some breathing space. It's not that different from cognitive therapy - how we can train ourselves to recognize an anxiety attack or an angry rage or a depressive episode as just that - an episode and not the absolute reality of our condition.
I would have loved to have seen you talk more about how this worthwhile project to tame the ego has been repeatedly hijacked for various egocentric projects. As you put it "Does the Vatican look like anything Jesus had in mind?". You could also have presented some agnostic alternatives to religion (with its historical baggage and its curent crop of douchebags). There are plenty. Buddhist meditation is a practice that asks no belief in anything supernatural and welcomes all denominations. Some "new age" and neo-pagan practices are incredibly pro-queer and anti-patriarchal. But you didn't do this. You went for the easy argument against the extremists in order to be right. In order to win.
And you did. And you looked like it felt good. For about a minute. And then you looked pissed & pugilistic again. In contrast to some of the serene believers you mocked. Do you think this approach changed any minds? Or did it just flatter those who already agree with you? Religious leadership is clearly an ego trip for some of your interviewees. It's alarming how similar your own motivation looks.
A bad advertisment for a good cause...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)