The Antisocial Socialist

So much walking up hills. So worth it.

First up: Hampstead Heath. For someone who walked up multiple mountains last year, I am awful at hills. But I am going to be so fit when I get back home, omg.

Then Bucket List Item #1: Highgate Cemetery.

If I had to come up with the names of two men who are among the reasons I turned out this way, you would find both of those people buried here.



Note: No other gravestone has a lot number. Someone just put it there.

Douglas Adams sparked my love of sci-fi and British humour and as a wee tiny child of 8, I had most of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy memorized, even though at 8 there was no way I could have gotten all the references. But it was my favourite book for years and years.



I left a pen on his grave. It’s my only pen, so I guess I’ll have to get another one on the way home.

And of course, the big man himself, and I imagine I don’t need to explain why visiting his grave was the top thing I wanted to see in London:



(I have many other photos; I am sparing you b/c I am nice.)



Bonus Malcolm McLaren as he’s there too:



Then we went on a Hidden London tour of the abandoned station at Highgate. It was meant to be a Big Deal but war and economics interfered, and it was decommissioned. Now nature is reclaiming it and the city has decided to just leave it alone and let it be a sanctuary for endangered bats.



I have a lot of other pictures of it too, but for some reason Flickr isn’t allowing me to upload anything horizontal, so you’ll have to wait to see those after I edit them.

Then we went to Manuelita, a play about Manuela Saenz, a Latin American revolutionary and lover of Simón Bolívar, which was excellent and surprisingly entertaining.

Now I am off to bed.

I went to see Tanya Tagaq and Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory perform at CanStage. This is the third time I've seen Tagaq perform and every time I think it's the most groundbreaking and brilliant show I've seen. It's not that I don't love the music that she's released with a near-evangelical zeal, because I absolutely do, but her live performance is even better, if such a thing is possible. It's a miracle watching this tiny woman somehow sound like 12 different people, several musical instruments, a handful of birds, and one of those armoured polar bears from His Dark Materials.

Conversely, I've never seen Bathory perform and had no clue what to expect. I've seen pictures of what uaajeerneq (Greenlandic mask dancing) looks like, but had no idea how it was done. I guess I assumed that it was an actual mask, but nope, the dancer transforms her face with inks and sticks and it is unreal.

The show was gorgeous, funny, erotic, and terrifying in equal measure. It's difficult to put into words; I normally have a hard time shutting off the running monologue in my head, but this put me into a sensory trance. I can only imagine these art forms in the context in which they originated, in the frozen Arctic, where the nights are so long that you'd think the sun will never rise again, the only light your campfire, and emerging from the darkness, unearthly music and distorted faces.

It was also hot as hell. At one point, I thought that it was like watching two people have sex except with their voices. But then it was just like watching two people have sex. Bathory moved through the audience, climbing over people, at one point throwing a man out of his seat, yanking off his toque, dry-humping him on the steps, and then shoving the toque back over his face. Note that the event page did warn for intense physical contact, but I'm pretty sure that the many older white folks who presumably had CanStage season passes did not read this warning, because watching them be shocked and horrified was nearly as much fun as the show itself. At least one woman literally fled in terror. Naturally I found it Punk As Fuck and loved it. Western art and music has largely lost the ability or desire to shock or move anyone; indigenous art and music still absolutely has it.

A small, (sanitized and very much toned down) taste of what they're like together:



At the end—as I leapt to my feet for a standing ovation—when one have expected some man in the audience to shout out, "Bravo!" I heard some guy yell out, "Fuuuuuck!" Seems apropos, really.

Yesterday I managed three things in one day: gaming, Against the Grain Theatre's production of Seven Deadly Sins and Holier Fare, and a midnight MRI. Guess which one of those three was not remotely fun?

Anyway, I was really impressed by the performance. You can read chickenfeet2003's more detailed review here, but basically, I'm going to have to go on another mad music hunt for Exciting Music (other than the Reich piece, it was all new to me). And I'm going to have to attend their production of Britten's Turn of the Screw because they are quite an impressive little theatre company.

The MRI was less exciting. They put me in a tube and blasted loud beeps and clangs at me. It was nowhere near as beautiful sounding as anything by Kurt Weill. Sorry cyborg_kitty100, they did not allow me to bring a tape recorder in the machine, but I'm pretty sure I can reproduce the noises if need be.

In other news, misslynx's alcoholic cupcakes are a thing of wonder.

The murder of Juliano Mer-Khamis, which was probably a political assassination, represents an overwhelming loss to humanity. He was an incredible artist who devoted his life to art's highest possible purpose: creating a better future.

Here he is talking about the Jenin Freedom Theatre:



Mother Jones has a tribute. And here's the story of one of the lives he helped change.

I saw Frost/Nixon last night (thanks to the lovely brownfist, who had an extra ticket). I thought it was great, despite the mixed reviews it's been getting, but then, I've been a bit Nixon-obsessed lately. The more I think about him, the more I think that he was an actual clinical sociopath—the play is quite lovely in that, in parts, you really feel a bit sorry for the guy, and then you realize that he's manipulating you, and then you almost respect him for being a master manipulator because that does take talent, and then you remember that he's among the most evil men to ever live. So I really enjoyed it on that level.

Also, it's interesting to see a story about a confrontation between an ideologue and someone who is basically in it for the lulz, where the former is a right-wing bastard and the latter is the protagonist. I may have been on the internet for too long, but I kept thinking that what Frost was trying to do, and almost succeeded at, was simply the ultimate PWN.

Except—and this is where I think the play is really a tragedy—he didn't succeed. He won the battle—the interview, which was this amazing moment where you saw the true potential of the media and particularly that of television—and ultimately lost the war. Because where are journalists like that now? (And Frost was a bloody talk-show host!) What real consequences did Nixon face after his "trial"? In the end, it's the same thing that makes all of those stories where The Truth Is Exposed To The World completely fall apart—he got Nixon to admit wrongdoing on a lesser crime (the larger crimes, Vietnam and Cambodia, he didn't take any sort of fall at all), and then, nothing. Retirement and long-postponed death.

I like it when I come out of a play feeling really angsty. Go figure.

I just came back from seeing The Black Rider at Tarragon Theatre. I am somewhat incoherent with joy and squee. It's my favourite musical (I mean, Tom Waits and William S. Burroughs—how completely awesome can you get?) and the cast and director did an utterly perfect job of it. I imagine that it's a fairly hard production to mount, and they did it splendidly. And it looked like they were having a blast. I am tempted to go see it again, and if you're in Toronto, you should go see it too.


Evil is hot.

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My bio-grandmother just sent me this piece of drivel. Why do they let old people use HTML-coded e-mail?

( Cut for drivel )

So I'm sending her back:

Actually, it *is* racist. (And it's grammatically atrocious. People who tell others to learn a language ought to learn it themselves first.)

Descendants of European invaders who plundered this country ought to be ashamed of themselves for believing in the claptrap of Mr. Allen and his ilk. Did *his* ancestors bother learning the language of the people from whom they stole this land?

Feel free to pass my comments along if you agree!

My parents, lovely people that they are, dragged my wretchedly ill ass to see My Name Is Rachel Corrie at the Tarragon. It was quite good. My reservations* aside, it was well-written, well-acted, and managed to convey the horrors of the occupation without feeling particularly like propaganda.

Anyway, so while we were waiting, we saw the list of upcoming plays at the Tarragon. They all look pretty awesome, to the point where I'm thinking of getting season tickets, but the highlight?

They are OMG doing The Black Rider, which is my favourite musical of all time that I've never seen on stage because hardly anyone does it.

*squeal*

Is it can it be time to get excited about going to the theatre in Toronto again?

* I would like it if instead of making a play about the one photogenic American killed in Palestine, they would maybe, for once, make a play about the thousands of Palestinians who have been killed in Palestine. It's like white people won't watch a play or movie that doesn't have a white main character. Not to diminish Rachel Corrie's heroism or the tragedy of her death, but she understood, and it's made very clear in the play, that it wasn't all about her.

Public Notice of Awesomeness to rohmie again. What can I say? He's just that awesome. And Tony Kushner is as well. ;)

Speaking of theatre, does anyone want to see Antigone: Insurgency with me? Because it will either be a fine mess or the coolest thing ever. Before I decided not to have kids, I always figured I'd name my daughter Antigone because that was my favourite play for a really long time.

In other news, I went to this tonight, which was amazing. It's always nice to go to a friend's art opening, but even better when the opening goes really well and everyone walks out of it saying, "wow, that rocked."

P.S. Do not go reading the Best of Craigslist without a copy of my Evolutionary Psychology Bingo Card. Otherwise, you will never want to date men again. Or be friends with them, for that matter. Present company excluded, of course.

Sore throat? Check.
Fever? Check.
Urge to be home on a Saturday night even though my meeting wrapped up early? Check.

Oh fuck. I'm sick, aren't I?

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In weird news, I got a mass e-mail about boycotting France from my mom's friend. I didn't even know she had my address, let alone that she'd be so stupid as to fall for chain letters. It was rather offensive, containing a gratuitous diss against "the Arab countries" who export "just oil and hatred," and I did consider responding, but I figured it wasn't worth my while.

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I also feel the need to mention that Marinetti was meowing in his sleep—so loudly that he woke himself up—and that his breath smells like centipede.

Speaking of the devil:



( More cats )

(I do have a life, by the way. I was doing culture all day—I saw Hosanna and checked out an old friend's art show. I'd recommend seeing both, but Heather's show is over tomorrow, so you're out of luck there.)

CUTE WARNING!

Below this cut are pictures of kitties, puppies, rainbows, and hippies. Your head may explode from cute.

No, I'm not kidding.

( Don't say I didn't warn you! )