A REAL DRAG RACE

On Thursday I went to "Get Drag Racy," a little benefit the Imperial Court ran for God's Love We Deliver (GLWD). This was the "kickoff event" for the Race to Deliver, the November 20 New York Road Runners fundraising event for GLWD.

Before I went though, I had a problem--what to wear. I knew that there was no way I could come close to what the queens of the Court would be wearing, so I settled for classy--well, sexy classy, with a hint fabulosity: a cleavage-highlighting top and a leather skirt, both black, with a wide silver belt made up of those big studded segments they're wearing these days--except my segments were hearts, not the usual circles. But the real fabulosity was my pantyhose--rainbow fishnets.

The event was supposed to be at Home, but for some reason they moved it across the street to Crobar. So now I can say I've been to Crobar--which seemed to be a pretty nice place. I'm not to sure how easy it would be to get served at the bar if the place were really crowded, but at $13 for an apple martini, I'm not sure I'd want to be served all that quickly. (That was before I discovered that Absolut was a sponsor of the event, and drinks with their vodka were free.)

The Crobar decor is nothing special. (Someone told me the VIP room is very nice, but I'm not a VIP, so I can't really say.) The three story height makes the place seem more spacious than it actually is. The music volume was kept at a reasonable level, though I suspect on a regular night it is a lot louder--sitting at the edge of the dancefloor is the largest subwoofer I've ever seen indoors.

I knew no one there (outside of the drag performers participating, which I'll get to.) I recognized some of the Imperial Court big wigs (figuratively and literally). None of the few people on the Court that I know personally showed up. I did have a nice conversation with one guy though, who did know all of my friends on the Court.

But basically I just walked around, drinking the free drinks, one after another (Absolut Apeach and tonic is great!), waiting for the real festivities to begin. I saw one guy in a skirt. It was a little like a "utilikilt," but he said it was custom-made. It was completely pleated, and featured an external pocket of the same red tartan material in the center at the front.

Eventually things did get going. The e-mail invitation I received described the event as "celebrity drag queens race the clock - and good taste - to turn brawn into beauty." The idea was to assign one drag queen to each of the "brawns" and dress them as drag queens. They started with the make-up, at a table supplied by MAC cosmetics (curiously, all of the make-up artists they had to assist the queens were men). Then a table for bras, and bra stuffing. Then dresses, then wigs, then accessories.

The drag queens I knew: Candis Cayne, Flotilla DeBarge, Ariel Sinclair (whom I had talked to briefly at Lips on Monday), Sweetie, Sherry Vine and Gusty Winds. I had never actually seen Candis before. She is as beautiful as her pictures--only thinner. But I've seen all the rest of them performing, and all but Sweetie know me at least by sight.

The "brawn," though, was another matter. I think most were DJs. There was one woman, a "personal trainer to the stars" named Kacy Duke. A couple of them had beards, which didn't help their chances of winning.

They started off two at a time, and in 10 minutes or so, it was all over. They handed out some prizes, but I have no idea who won what. Did I mention there were free drinks? By the time the race started I was smashed.

I didn't linger afterwards. I managed to reclaim my jacket from the coatcheck, go out and jump in a cab, and go up to Lips, as the alcohol continued to do its thing. I had a grilled asparagus appetizer, and a diet coke, and said something very stupid to Frankie Cocktail, the bartender. Did I mention I was smashed? Ariel Sinclair arrived from Crobar, and we sat at a table for the show. I must have slept though it--I have almost no recollection, other than that Jason did something as Liza Minelli, and Jesse Volt came to our table after it was over, to show off her new Cher outfit, which did look great. I presume Ginger and Frankie performed also, but I really have no memory.

I hung out for a while, as they started to close up. By then I was sober enough to find another cab to go back to CDI to change back to male mode ("de-Caprice," as I call it).

I'm really going to have to watch those Absolut Apeach and tonics.

SPAM OF THE DAY

"You shall appear even more hotter with a dazzling chronometer!"

MERCI BEAUCOUP

I have just returned from a cocktail party at the French Consulate. I'd like to thank the taxpayers of France for the excellent champagne and hors d'oeuvres.

BUSY WEEKEND II

Sunday afternoon I was back at Lincoln Center, this time for a performance of Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Bluebeard) at the New York City Opera. The City Opera is the "other" opera company at Lincoln Center, number two to the great Metropolitan Opera. It often does operas, such as this, that would fail to find a large enough audience at the Met--which needs 3800 backsides to fill all the seats in its hall. The tickets are half the price of the Met's. Usually, though, you only get what you pay for--if you're that lucky.

The music was by Paul Dukas, the French composer of the most famous piece of cartoon music not associated with Bugs Bunny: The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Walt Disney cast Mickey Mouse as the apprentice in Fantasia, and Dukas' music will live therefore forever. It probably would have lived on anyway, at least at pops concerts, because it is a cute little piece.

But, the 1907 Ariane et Barbe-bleue is not. Richard Wagner was a great enough composer to write operas where there really aren't any melodies, but Dukas was not. It also helped Wagner to have characters whose motivations were clear. Ariane's was not. I've read all kinds of things about her--it was curiosity and/or greed that moved her to disobey her husband and use the forbidden key, or that she wanted to liberate his earlier wives whom she thought (correctly) were still alive. As far as I can tell in this opera it's all of the above. (The libretto was written by Maurice Maeterlinck, the winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize for Literature. I am not surprised that this work was not listed on his official Nobel biography.)

Instead of fleeing after Ariane frees them, the earlier wives stay. They've been locked up in a dungeon, but they do not run at the earliest opportunity. They even tend to the wounds of Bluebeard, the man who imprisoned them.

So it boils down to one of your stupider opera plots. People do things for a bunch of conflicting reasons, or for no good reason. Even the scenery started acting for no good reason--a rotating wall, used to shift from scene to scene, started turning continuously at the end. Stupid plot plus tuneless music does not equal a good time at the opera for me.

It wasn't helped by the performances. The key role, of course, is Ariane, who is on stage singing for almost the entire opera. (Despite being a title character, Bluebeard is a minor role.) The Austrian Renate Behle belted out Ariane, as someone put it, as if she were Brunhilde. Perhaps Carol Vaness would have done better--this was to be her role before she got in a car accident last summer. But she would still have had to contend with the conducting of Leon Botstein, the music director of the American Symphony. More than one person said his interpretation was Wagnerian, when it should have been French.

But I survived. There was some time left before dinner, so we braved the wind and walked over to the New-York Historical Society, to see the new "Slavery in New York" exhibition. It was the last day they would be showing an original manuscript of the Emancipation Proclamation--not that it really had anything to do with slavery in New York. Slavery had been abolished here nearly 40 years previously, and the Proclamation only covered the slaves in states that had seceded anyhow.

But the manuscript was there, on loan for a few days from the New York State Library in Albany. Protected by thick glass and a pistol-toting woman state trooper (Nobody looks good in one of those Smokey-the-Bear hats), Abraham Lincoln's clear handwriting, with Secretary of State William Seward 's penciled modifications, could be seen for half a minute or so by each of the many people lined up. It was interesting that Lincoln used the cut-and-paste method. There were two sections of previous laws dealing with the freeing of slaves, that he had cut out from somewhere and pasted into his manuscript.

There wasn't much time left to see the real exhibition. I barely finished the first two rooms. Fortunately it will be there until March, because I do want to go back to finish it. It is filled with a lot of multi-media works, and seemed to be very well done, from what I saw.

Eventually it was time to go, as we had dinner reservations at Nice Matin. We were lucky enough to get a table at the far end, because it can get very noisy near the bar. I had about the best sweetbread appetizer I've ever eaten. It came with a very spicy sausage, which complemented the bland meat. The whole thing was served over a bed of lentils. My grilled halibut was good, but nothing out of the ordinary. The berries and cream, as well as the coffee, were excellent. And instead of wine, I had a bottle of Lindeman's Lambic Pêche beer. This was the first time I ever had the peach-flavored one, and I found it even better than the raspberry flavor.

Then it was home to watch the second episode of "The Murder Room," the detective Adam Dalgliesh story by P.D. James, part of the PBS Mystery! series on Channel 13. I'll never be able to watch Siân Phillips in any role without seeing Livia from "I, Claudius," though.

BUSY WEEKEND I

A busy weekend it was. It started Saturday evening with a concert of the New York Philharmonic, led by Marin Alsop. She is the controversial "first woman music director of a major American orchestra," as I keep reading. I'm not sure what qualifies the Baltimore Symphony as a major orchestra (possibly that it employs its musicians year-round). It's certainly not one of the "Big 5"--New York, Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and I've never heard it included even among the second tier, like Los Angeles, Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Atlanta.

But she was appointed music director there a few weeks ago, and the musicians immediately put out a statement saying they didn't want her, she wasn't qualified, etc., etc. I think they were miffed at least as much about not being consulted as by any real concerns. She held a meeting with them before accepting the appointment, worked things out.

Her program here started with James MacMillan's The Confession of Isobel Gowdie, a 1990 work that is based on story of the torture, confession and execution of a woman accused of witchcraft in 1662 Scotland. Alsop is known for bringing a lot of new music to audiences, not always what the more traditional listeners are happy with--and I'm one of them.

She preceded the performance with a brief explanation the work. It's rather unusual, but not unheard of, for a conductor to do this (Leonard Slatkin does it quite a bit). But what I've never heard of was having the orchestra play excerpts to illustrate the conductor's comments at any concert aimed at adults.

Alsop's comments did help me understand the piece. It combines both the old (early church hymns) with modern dissonance--simultaneously, as she illustrated beforehand. The dissonance almost totally obscures the hymns. As a whole, the work does effectively convey the horrors of religious intolerance and persecution. But it's not something I'd care to hear again. It's not a pretty piece of music. Once is enough.

Next on the program was Prokofiev's First Violin Concerto, with Midori as soloist. I may have heard the concerto before, but I don't particularly remember it--and Prokofiev is one of my favorite composers. It wasn't one of his better pieces, and Midori's playing didn't help it any--it almost seems like she was just going though the motions.

She wore a muted sleeveless print dress that neither added nor detracted. But at least she seems to have found something really adult--she stayed in girlish dresses far too long after she left her teens. On the subject of clothes, Alsop wore a black pantsuit. The only color was the red of her blouse, extending beyond the jacket sleeves--the neckline of the jacket was so high the blouse was otherwise completely covered. It seemed a bit informal, but not jarring. The only problem was when she leaned forward when conducting--the outline of her bra was clearly visible through the thin material, which was distracting.

After intermission (they've installed additional stands to sell just wine and champagne, which speeded things up for everyone. They also have a nice new chime recording to summon the audience back into the auditorium.) they did Brahms' First Symphony. It's a popular work I've heard a number of times. Brahms wrote it as a tribute to Beethoven--one of the themes is quite similar to one in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Some people have even called it Beethoven's Tenth, but it's not that similar. For one thing, I don't get the feeling of tension that I do from Beethoven's work. Beethoven's music seems to be pushing the envelope of something most of the time. It frequently seems about to be going out of control (though it never does). Brahms' seems to be content to stay within the envelope--usually with great beauty to be sure, but nevertheless always well in control.

Alsop has a recording contract (which might explain part of the reason the Baltimore board wanted her), and is doing all four of the Brahms symphonies (with the London Philharmonic), so she is quite familiar with the music. I thought she did a pretty standard interpretation, except a couple of times a wind solo seemed significantly louder than necessary.

Alsop was the student of Leonard Bernstein, though she does not exhibit any of his excessive movement on the podium. Her feet never leave the ground. Her conducting style is clear and precise. No musicians should ever have cause to complain that they couldn't figure out what she wanted from them.

It was an OK concert, all-in-all. Then it was off home, because we'd be back at Lincoln Center for the next installment of the weekend's activities a mere 15 hours later.

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

"disposable choir robe costumes"

This blog was the top of the list!

Runner-up: "doubled sided tape for evening dress"

HEADLINE OF THE DAY

"Stallone to Star in Sixth 'Rocky' Movie"

(Oy. He's 59 years old.)

SPAM OF THE DAY

Every man must have a sex! MUST!!!

AN INSPIRING HOUR AT HMI

Tuesday afternoon I had an inspiring hour speaking to, and listening to, some LGBTQ teenagers trying to find their way to adulthood. I took part in a panel discussion at the Hetrick-Martin Institute (HMI), part of its "Trans* in the City" program. HMI is a Greenwich Village organization dedicated to helping LGBTQ youth.

I had been invited by Veronica Vera, the head of Miss Vera's Finishing School For Boys Who Want To Be Girls. Veronica had been asked to put together the panel. She decided to ask a variety of transgender people who have been involved with her academy. With me on the panel were Patti Harrington and Dwayne/Milan. Patti is a woman of transsexual experience. "Milan" is the drag persona of the actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, songwriter, show producer, etc., etc., Dwayne, who has been playing in high heels since he was a child. And I am a male-bodied person of mixed gender--a straight crossdresser. Accompanying us was Mariette Pathy Allen, the photographer/author of The Gender Frontier.

We were asked to arrive a half-hour early, so we could hang out in the lounge area, being a living advertisement for the panel. The "youths," as they're called by the HMI staff, were talking, playing, snacking, acting their age. A boombox was blasting, and sometimes one would do a solo dance for a few seconds. The four of us (Patti was late) tried as best we could to talk to the kids (as I'm going to call them) around us. Well, the other three did. It wasn't just that I'm shy around strangers. Despite the fact that I'm basically old enough to be their grandparent, I was totally intimidated, because in my eyes these were the cool kids--the same kind of kids that I could never approach when I was a teenager. Some things never change.

We were ushered into the room where our talk was to be held, and we rearranged the chairs into a circle. Several kids, along with some adult HMI staffers, drifted in--though even the staffers looked pretty young to me. Patti finally arrived. I thought the turnout was rather small, but it was explained that a lot of the kids have paid internships after school. Later we were told this was the biggest turnout they had had for any of these.

Veronica gave a brief introduction and shared some of her personal history. I was the next to speak. I told them a little about myself for a few minutes. One of the older kids asked a great question about something I had neglected to mention: was my wife a man or a woman? Veronica had asked us to think of three turning points in our lives to talk about, and I listed these: my realization that my crossdressing was motivated by gender identity as well as by sexuality; my presentation as a woman outside of my home for the first time; and my decision that there was nobody in the world from whom I absolutely had to keep my crossdressing a secret. The last was necessary for me to appear in a TV documentary about Miss Vera's school that we did in 2000.

Milan (as he is more familiar to me) spoke next, talking about his origins in South Carolina, walking around in his mother's shoes and wigs when she went off to work. He then went on to detail his college experience (MFA, minor in African-American studies), and his career in show business. Among many other things, he's played Thad in a touring company of Hairspray. He explained how he started doing drag on stage, and passed around a small portfolio of his pictures in various personae, including his one as a member of DaLipstyxx.

Lastly Patti told a bit about her journey to womanhood, and surprised me by saying that she now also wants to change her career--she wants to go to law school and become a lawyer! This is just the opposite of my journey, from the law to computers.

Then the floor was opened up for the kids to talk. There really wasn't time for more than a couple of them, and both were looking for career advice. One very sweet young woman said she wanted to be a photographer, but was worried that being trans would hold her back. Mariette was right there to give her advice--she told the young hopeful that she knows a number of photographers who are trans, and being trans will not keep her from success, if she has the skills.

A young man then told how he wanted to do modeling, but a photographer rejected him, saying he was too feminine. Milan, who had had a little experience in the area, told him that male models of all types were being used, not just the super-masculine ones. He also advised him to get a friend to photograph him with a more masculine image, to show that he could do this when required.

I said before it was inspiring, and it really was. These kids were trying to integrate the trans-ness, or at least their questioning gender identity and/or sexual orientation, into their lives. When I was their age I suppressed all such ideas. I had to--such things were unheard of back in the 60's. There was nobody to talk to, no internet to provide information, and certainly nothing like HMI. I walked out feeling very happy for these kids. The road ahead for them won't be easy (and we told them that), but at least they do have a road.

RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY

When is it going to stop raining??? (Obligatory Noah's Ark joke:) I think I saw pairs of animals going into Central Park, lining up to get into this big boat thing.

BLOND, JAMES BLOND

The producers of the James Bond films have announced the next actor to play the super-suave British Secret Service spy--coincidentally(?) with the introduction of the real Secret Services's website.


He is Daniel Craig, an English actor whom I have seen in only one film (Road to Perdition)--but I don't really remember him.

I've gotten used to the succession of actors taking on this role, though it's always difficult for them to get close to Sean Connery's original portrayal. Lately Pierce Brosnan has done a pretty good job of bringing the character back to the one in author Ian Fleming's books, which were a big feature of my teen years.

What I'm excited about with this announcement is that Craig's first Bond film will be Casino Royale. This was Fleming's first book in the series, and second in quality only to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" in my view. Fleming, then an unknown author, let the film rights go, and what eventually came out was the 1967 spoof, starring Peter Sellers. It was done to capitalize on the tremendous James Bond craze of the time, and bore almost no resemblance to the novel. It was a big budget mess (with 5 directors!), though at times it was quite funny--particularly Woody Allen's portrayal of Bond's nephew, Little Jimmy Bond. It also had fantastic music by Burt Bacharach, including "The Look of Love." But it wasn't a real James Bond movie.

Fleming's novel deserves a serious film treatment, which is what the producers say they are going to do this time. I hope so. I've been hoping for this for a very long time.

WEB SEARCH OF THE DAY

Somebody found this blog searching for "caprice prunes."

It seems that Caprice Bourret is said to eat 10 prunes a day. I guess that means that a supermodel can also be a regular woman.

ONE PROJECT COMPLETED!

I finally have finished setting up my wife's new computer. Her old one was underpowered and overwhelmed, terribly slow, frequently giving "out of memory" messages, when it wasn't completely crashing. She took it to a PC expert guy in the neighborhood, but he wanted nearly $500 to unclog it and add a little memory--and it still would be underpowered. So we decided to buy her a new one.

I had two main problems setting up the new one. The first was connecting it to the internet. Both the old and the new computers are notebooks, and the way I connected up the old one originally was to use a NetBlaster and Cable Free PC card from Sohoware, which I connected to a router from the same company.

When we moved to our new apartment I had the electrician run a Cat5 cable between our offices, but I never got around to actually using it. That would have meant getting a NIC PC card for her computer. Since my wife never complained about the connection speed (probably because the whole computer was so slow), it never got very high on my priority list.

Her new computer has a built-in NIC, so all I needed to do was to connect the router to the wall socket in my office, and the computer to the wall socket in her office. But when I did this it didn't work. I had already tested the NIC in my office and it's fine. I tested both cables. They're fine. Something in the wall isn't right, apparently. Maybe I'll call in our new electrician to look at it, one of these days.

So I went back to using the wireless connection. First I had to find the driver software for the PC card--which, to my amazement, I actually could. I installed it, but got an error message. Fortunately I could take the computer into my office and connect it directly to the router. I went to the Sohoware website, where I found there was a new driver for Windows XP--with all kinds of warnings that they didn't guarantee it would work. Wonderful. I downloaded and installed it. No go. Then I guessed there might be a conflict between the old and the new drivers, so I uninstalled both of them, and reinstalled the new one. Success!

The other main problem was transferring all of the old files to the new computer. The last time I got a new computer I used the PC Replicator software from Alohabob. But I couldn't use it this time, because the new computer does not have a parallel port or a serial port. I had a null modem serial cable, so I tried using it with a USB-serial adaptor, but that didn't work. Finally I went out and bought a new version of the Replicator (Ultra Control), which comes with a USB bridge cable.

I still wasn't out of the woods, though. I installed the software on both machines, checked to see if there were any updates (there weren't), and plugged in the cable. I followed the instructions, shutting down all the other programs running. Then I started the Replicator's scan of the old PC, and got the blue screen of death. Great. I restarted the machine and tried it again (this is not as crazy as it sounds--there might have been something clogging things up from when I installed the program). This time it did start to scan, but after a few minutes it crashed again.

Well, it was some progress, but I decided to try something a little different. This time after I rebooted I did not shut down the other programs running. I just launched the Replicator, and it worked! It completed its scan. It found 10,431 files (1.68 GB) to transfer. I went through the list (it was well organized, I didn't have to look at every single file name), and eliminated a few I knew shouldn't go.

But there was another problem. There was incompatibility of user names. On the old machine, running Windows 98, no user name was ever specified, so it was "Default." But on the new PC, running XP, a user name was required. It said that it wasn't necessary to have the same user names, but that some things wouldn't work right on the new computer because of it. So I went back to old PC, and after all this time, created a user, with the same name as the one on the new PC. Then I transferred all of the "Default" things to the new user name.

Then I had to rerun the scan of the old computer. This time no incompatibilities were found. It estimated an hour and 13 minutes would be needed.

It actually took a little less than that. Everything transferred. Suddenly the wallpaper from the old machine appeared on the new one. I checked everything I could. The only problem I could find was that the e-mail was put under a different identity from what had come in during the last few days. I figured out how to merge them.

So unless my wife finds anything else wrong, I think I'm done there (well I do have to take the empty carton down to the basement). Now on to the next project: updating the Crossdressers International website.

CAPRICE NAKED?

I can see what search terms people use to find this blog. One of the most frequent ones is "caprice naked"--presumably people looking for nude pictures of the supermodel Caprice Bourret, whom I, unfortunately, do not resemble in the least. (Aside: what is the dividing line between model and supermodel?) I'm sure those people are quite disappointed--though I'm sure they'd be even more disappointed if I actually had nude pictures of myself here.

Of course, I also get a lot of searches from people looking for Chevrolet parts.

I'm still trying to figure out what the person who did a search for "house carpet caprice" was looking for.

THE CONSTANT BORER

Last night we braved the rain and finally saw The Constant Gardener. I usually find John le Carré's characters to be cold and uninviting, and this film was no different. Ralph Fiennes' Justin Quayle, the amateur horticulturalist-British diplomat protagonist here is as boring as hell. Yet Rachel Weisz's Tessa, a rich social activist, jumps right into bed with him, right into marriage with him, right into Africa with him. She's not cold, just unbelievably impulsive.

What I usually look for with le Carré is the story. His Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was a great one, as the (boring) George Smiley searches for the mole embedded in the British Secret Service. But the Cold War is over, and le Carré has had to move on from espionage for his plots. So now the enemy is an evil pharmaceutical company. Yawn.

There is not much of a plot, because it's clear almost from the beginning who the bad guys are. So, with no interesting characters, little plot, why bother? If you've got nothing better to do, go see it for the cinematography. César Charlone's depiction of Africa is stunning. He should easily get another Oscar nomination, to follow up the one for his City of God. But I don't think director Fernando Meirelles, who also was nominated for that movie, will fare as well with this one.

LEAVING THE LEAVES ALONE

We're cancelling our leaf-peeping trip to Vermont that we had planned for this weekend. The forecast is for rain almost the entire time, and the leaf season is late this year, so we'd have to drive at least a hundred miles further north to see the really good stuff. Maybe next year.

EVEN LATER

Yesterday I noted that the Nobel Prize for Medicine went for work done more than 20 years ago. Apparently this is a competition among the various Nobel areas, because they just awarded a share of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physics for work published in 1963.

Maybe they should just call them the Nobel Lifetime Achievement Prizes.

A LOVESICK SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR?

After exiting the Breakfast on Pluto Q&A on Sunday afternoon, we headed up Broadway. It was a little strange being there in the middle of the day, with the stores all open--usually I'm only in the Lincoln Center neighborhood for evening performances. We stopped at a coffee shop, where I had a nice bison burger for lunch.

There was still over an hour until our next event, so we strolled into Central Park, enjoying the beautiful early fall weather. We skirted Sheep Meadow, where there were lots of people, but no sheep, unlike at Falstaff the night before. Eventually we got to the Central Park Zoo, or whatever they're calling it these days. We did manage to catch the end of the 4 o'clock performance of the Delacorte Clock, and then proceeded to the Children's Zoo. We saw turtles and ducks and goats and (yes) sheep--and lots of kids watching the turtles and ducks and goats and sheep. We watched some of the kids feeding the goats and the sheep, and we read the sign about the spitting alpaca (if it spits on you, contact any zoo employee). Then we went back to the main zoo area. There we saw sea lions sunning and swimming, viewed penguins mostly just standing, and traversed an obstacle course of empty strollers parked in front of the puffin exhibit, the view of which was obscured by the former occupants of said strollers.

Time was running out, so we left the park and went to Florence Gould Hall of the French Institute/Alliance Française (FIAF) on E. 59th St. We settled into our seats for Liaison Transatlantique: Letters of Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren. This is a one-woman show based on Fabrice Rozié's play Transatlantic Liaison.

I can't say I was really looking forward to this. It is a reading of French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir's love letters to American author Nelson Algren, whom she met while on a trip to America in 1947. She was having a long-distance affair with Algren, who wrote The Man With the Golden Arm. This affair was concurrent with her life-long relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. De Beauvoir would not marry Algren out of respect to her relationship with Sartre. She ended up being buried next to Sartre--wearing Algren's ring.

In and of themselves, the letters are not particularly interesting, at least to me. De Beauvoir wrote them in English, and this was clearly not her mother tongue. What is interesting, though, is that at the same time she was pouring her heart out in these love letters, she was also writing The Second Sex, the book that basically founded modern feminism. The contrast of the conventional love letters with the revolutionary book is jarring.

Nevertheless, the reading of the letters by themselves quickly put me to sleep. I awoke just in time to hear the one line in particular that I remember. De Beauvoir explained that she was calling her book "The Second Sex" because "pansies" were called "the third sex" in France, but no one ever referred to the second (or to the first, I presume).

The performance was by Marie-France Pisier (left), who seemed very under-rehearsed. I can't believe she's 61 years old, though. I'd sure like to know the name of her plastic surgeon.

The Q&A afterwards was not terribly illuminating, other than Pisier saying that she knew de Beauvoir. We left in the middle, and went and had a nice dinner at Fig & Olive.

It was the end of a very busy week. I was out 7 days in a row. I need a rest.

NYFF: BREAKFAST ON PLUTO

Sunday, less than 13 hours after I got out of Falstaff, it was back to Lincoln Center for my last film at the New York Film Festival, its "centerpiece," Breakfast on Pluto. The schedule said it started at noon, but the ticket said 11:59 a.m. Maybe it was Brunch on Pluto.

Director Neil Jordan adapted Patrick McCabe's 1998 novel for this film (the film's website has an incorrect date). It's the story of Patrick "Kitten" Braden, a crossdressing orphan in Ireland in the 60's, who grows up to search for his mother in London in the 70's. I haven't read it, though I don't know how much it would have added. In the Q&A after the screening Jordan said that when he does use a book as his source his first allegience is to the film, not the book. He specifically said he entirely made up the ending of the film, having thought the novel didn't really have much of one.

Jordan had previously made The Crying Game, which he said McCabe was influenced by in writing Breakfast on Pluto. Both share the themes of transgenderism and Ireland's political violence. He was unsure whether he wanted to do so similar a film. While exploring the possibilities, he had Cillian Murphy do a screen test as Kitten, using the peep show scene. He was amazed at how much Murphy was able to get out of the character, he said--much more than he actually had envisioned.

Still, he was undecided. This went on for a while, until one night when he was having dinner with Murphy. Murphy wanted to do the film very badly, later calling Kitten "a once in a lifetime role for me." He told Jordan that if they were going to make the film that they had better get started, before he got too old to play the part. Indeed, he was into his late 20's when it was shot, and the early scenes of Kitten's teenage years are a stretch.

But the film did get made, and it is a lot of fun. (My only quibble is that the Irish accented dialogue was difficult to understand sometimes, especially in the early scenes.) Jordan said he had Candide in the back of his mind, and Kitten certainly was a youth who naively flits from one peril to the next, as did Voltaire's character. Breakfast on Pluto is not nearly as serious a film as The Crying Game. If you can't believe Kitten, or some of the things she gets into (and out of), it doesn't really matter. It's just a fun movie--the whole tone is set by a couple of wise-cracking computer-generated birds that open the film. Jordan said he was worried that audiences wouldn't get the humor. They did no audience testing, they just threw it into the film festivals, first Telluride, then Toronto, then here. He worried for nothing.

Murphy was gorgeous. The Q&A moderator, Lisa Schwarzbaum, was really taken by his cheekbones. I was taken by his eyes. His performance was great. I've heard mention of an Oscar nomination, but I doubt it. Crossdressing actors aren't favored: Philip Seymour Hoffman didn't get a nomination for his drag role. In fact, the entire cast was wonderful. And this time Stephen Rea got to play a character that can recognize a tranny.

It's opening in November. See it.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

I see they awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize for Medicine to the two Australians who discovered that most stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, not stress. They made this discovery in 1982! I guess it takes a long time for news to get all the way from Australia to Stockholm.

SUPREME HAIRSTYLES?

President Bush has nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court. I don't know anything about her judicial philosophy (she's never been a judge), but judging from her pictures she's definitely a swing vote on hairstyles.

MORE VERDI

Following up Wednesday evening's hearing of the Verdi Requiem, Saturday we went next door to see the Metropolitan Opera's production of Verdi's last opera, Falstaff, which I had never seen before. It featured my favorite current baritone, Bryn Terfel, in the title role. I heard him in an excellent recital at Tanglewood last year and I was looking to seeing him on stage. I was not disappointed.

Falstaff was Giuseppe Verdi's last opera, and his first comedy in 52 years! His librettist, Arrigo Boito, managed to extract a fairly reasonable story from Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor and King Henry IV--reasonable by opera standards, which isn't saying all that much. The aging and enormously fat Sir John Falstaff finds himself nearly broke. He decides to replenish his purse through the use of his romantic power over women--a power long gone, if it ever existed. He decides to woo Alice Ford, the wife of a rich man. Just to make sure, he decides to woo a second such woman, and that is his undoing.

He sends both of them love letters, but the two women happen to be friends, and compare notes--literally. They find Falstaff's missives to be identical, except for their names. Together with another friend, Mrs. Quickly, and Ford's daughter, they plot their revenge. It's not quite that simple. The daughter is in love with with a young man, but Mr. Ford wants to marry her off to an old doctor. And he suspects his wife of being unfaithful, so he disguises himself and sets a trap to catch her--paying Falstaff to woo her!

It takes half the opera to set all this up, and it would have been just a series of static scenes of people singing, except for the slapstick of Falstaff and his henchmen. Terfel, with Jean-Paul Fouchécourt and Mikhail Petrenko, play it for all it's worth, and manage to keep the audience laughing. Fouchécourt and Petrenko are a great comedy team--the former is at least a foot shorter than the latter.

Eventually Falstaff goes off to visit Mrs. Ford, and after a bit they are interrupted. She has him hide in a hamper of dirty laundry, which she has thrown into the Thames River, ending the second act.

The third act starts with Falstaff dragging himslf out of the water--Terfel climbs a ladder out of the orchestra pit onto the stage. The plot gets a little incredulous here, because he then falls for another trap set by the women. Briefly, he is lured out to a park, where half the town comes out in costume to torment him. It is this scene that makes the whole 3+ hour opera worth it. Verdi was a master of choral music, even greater than his small ensemble composition, if that is possible. The scene gives the Met chorus a chance to show off, not to mention its costume department. There's a big bunch of kids in the scene, who get to have a great time on stage, way past their bedtime. Oh yes, there was a horse. There are plenty of operas there where they bring a live horse out onto the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one disguised as a unicorn. And I've certainly never seen live sheep on the stage before.

Anyhow, Falstaff learns his lesson, Ford learns his lesson (his wife is faithful), and even his daughter gets to marry her beloved. All is forgiven, and the opera ends with everyone singing that the world is but a jest.

Terfel is a very good comic, besides being a great singer. He obviously relishes being the clown--he even stayed in character a little when taking his bows. The other standout of the evening, at least vocally, was Stephanie Blythe as Mrs. Quickly. And for once a very large opera singer had a role where her size seemed appropriate. Franco Zeffirelli's 1964 sets, while certainly not his most spectacular, have been well-refurbished--and he did manage to include a couple of his signature staircases. It took a while to get going, but Falstaff was an enjoyable evening.

NYFF: MANDERLAY

My third film at the New York Film Festival was Manderlay. This ia a film, not a movie, if you get the distinction. Even before it began the producer warned us that we would not "enjoy" it. At the end, a couple of people actually booed. A lot more walked out in the middle.

It certainly is weird. But I should not have been surprised, given that is a Danish/Swedish/French exploration of race relations set on an Alabama cotton plantation worked by slaves who were freed by a passing gangster's daughter in 1934.

It is the second film of a trilogy by the Danish director-screenwriter Lars von Trier. The first film was Dogville, which I hadn't heard of, let alone seen. But I had seen von Trier's strange Breaking the Waves, which should have been warning enough.

Is it good? Is it bad? There's quite a bit of both, though for a 139 minute film it did hold my attention pretty well. The performances were excellent, especially Bryce Dallas Howard as Grace, the gangster's daughter, and Danny Glover as the house slave/butler. But the plot does take a leap in logic now and then--for instance, why didn't someone tell Grace what would happen if they cut down the trees?

My advice, though: unless you are really interested in this kind of film, don't bother.

GenderPAC RECEPTION

Last night I went to the 10th Anniversary Reception of GenderPAC down at the Jeht Foundation offices in SoHo.

The evening actually started out with a conference call meeting of the New York State GENDA Coalition Steering Committee. I would put in a link to the Coalition's website, but it isn't up yet. My job today is to contact the person on charge of it and see what's going on--it was supposed to be running months ago. The Coalition is dedicated to the adoption of the Gender Non-Discrimination Act by New York State, which would extend to the entire state the protections achieved here in New York City in 2002.

Getting back to the reception, GenderPAC, the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition, "works to end discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes by changing public attitudes, educating elected officials and expanding human rights," or so it says on its website. That's its current goal, but it wasn't always. Originally it was dedicated to transgender rights. But five or six years ago it abruptly changed direction. It was very controversial, and most of its transgender board members quit.

I still support GenderPAC, if for no other reason than it helps foster good relations between the transgender community and the straights and gays that are the current major supporters. They have sharpened up the focus of their activities in the last couple years, and I think their efforts at providing parents with materials to help combat gender stereotyping will prove most useful.

But I think that too often they shoot themselves in the foot with little things like the invitation to this reception. It said the "Suggested Minimum Donation" was $75, but if you went to the webpage to get a ticket, the $75 minimum was not suggested, it was required. After I sent an e-mail to complain about this, they said they had a few "slots" for people who couldn't afford $75, and offered me one. I told them to save the slot for someone who really needed it.

Back to the reception itself, there were about 50 people there. Even before I arrived I spotted Mariette Pathy Allen, the Lammy-winning photographer of transgender people. My cab passed her as she was getting out of a car, and I waited at the street entrance to say hello. State Sen. Tom Duane, the Senate's first openly-gay and first openly HIV-positive member, showed up for a little while. But the guest of honor was Doug Wright, the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning playwright of I Am My Own Wife. (Wright was a much better choice than Brini Maxwell, whom GenderPAC presented at one of its earlier fundraisers. Maxwell's portrayal of the typical 50's housewife is at least a borderline gender stereotype--another shot in the foot.)

Anyhow, when I arrived I was immediately ushered into a photo with Wright. I guess the photographer liked me.

After a bit of mingling, wine and hors d'oeuvres, a short program began. There were a couple of speeches by the president of the host Jeht Foundation, and GenderPAC Executive Riki Wilchens. Then it was Doug Wright's turn. He made a nice speech, trying to relate the work of GenderPAC to an "outtake" of his conversations with Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, the subject of his play. She was a German transvestite who survived the Nazi regime and its replacement in East Germany, the Soviet-dominated Communist dictatorship. I'm not sure the two things had much in common, but the story was interesting.

They also showed a short film, GenderPAC at 10: A New Vision for Human Rights. It was very well done, though it was hardly as it was described on the little printed program they handed out: "A documentary film chronicling GenderPAC's first 10 years of work and growth." While it did an excellent job of showing its current efforts, not much of the past was covered. There was certainly no mention of GenderPAC'a naissance as a transgender rights group. (I don't think it's found anywhere on their website either.) I'm not sure, but I think there may have been one small error. It went by very fast, but I thought I saw a picture of Gwen Araujo captioned as Amanda somebody. I'm going to e-mail them to ask them to double check that.

The program ended with a solicitation for more donations. They had already gotten $9100 from the evening, and wanted to reach $15,000, half the cost of an additional staff-person that they wanted. They said that the person who donated the most would get a trip to Starbucks with Doug Wright following the reception. They did achieve their goal.

There was some more mingling afterwards. I had a nice talk with Michelle Miles, an old friend from Crossdressers International, who is now the treasurer of GenderPAC. Then I went off to Lips for the rest of my dinner and to see Jesse Volt's "Dining With the Divas" show. She portrayed Nancy Sinatra this week, while Ginger did Britney Spears (Who told Britney Spears that "I Love Rock & Roll" needed her interpretation?), and Spanky did a make-up-smeared Courtney Love. Bartender Frankie Cocktail did her usual Dolly Parton.

WEDNESDAY EVENING: RECEPTION AND REQUIEM

This week I departed from my usual Wednesday Crossdressers International open house for a couple of other events. First was the Public Service Awards Reception of the New York County Lawyers' Association. The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, of which I have been a member three or four years (the first TG one), received the award for the best committee report of the past year. It was for Making Progress: How New York’s Top Twenty-Five Law Firms Address Issues of Concern to the LGBT Community. I worked on the Report subcommittee, concentrating on the TG areas, of course. I suggested most of the questions concerning TG's, and wrote most of that part of the summary.

The award was accepted by the current and immediate past Committee chairs, the immediate past one also being the head of the Report subcommittee. The current chair was surprised to hear that the award was actually $500. The Committee has always operated on a zero budget, so now we have to figure out how to spend it.

I would have liked to go to the reception as Caprice--I always like to show the TG flag at events like this--but I was meeting my wife afterwards, and I respected her desire that I present as a man.

After the ceremony there was a very nice refreshment spread, and I had just enough time for a light dinner. Then I hopped on the subway uptown, for Verdi's Requiem Mass, the opening night concert of Lincoln Center's Great Performers series.

It was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under the baton of Sir Colin Davis, with soloists soprano Anne Schwanewilms, mezzo-soprano Ildiko Komlosi, tenor Stuart Neill, and bass Orlin Anastassov (in his New York debut).

It was my second opening night event at Avery Fisher Hall in the last week, with another gala dinner occupying most of the upstairs lobby, but unlike last time there was no red carpet. And while there were a fair amount of nicely dressed people, it wasn't black tie. Since there wasn't an intermission, I really didn't get a good chance to see exactly what people were wearing, but my business suit fit right in.

As luck would have it I was sitting next to a couple of musicians of some sort. If I overheard correctly, the man two seats away was an orchestra conductor, though I certainly didn't recognize him. One or two others in the audience did, though, and came over to talk.
The concert was very good. Verdi was primarily an opera composer, and this Requiem was certainly on the "operatic" end of the scale. The orchestra was there to accompany the vocalists--and except for the work's signature phrase (repeated three times at various points), you really don't notice it. Sir Colin, three days past his 78th birthday, was in total control. He had performed the Verdi Requiem with the LSO in July, as a memorial to the victims of the London bombings, in St. Paul's Cathedral. Everyone was well prepared.

The chorus was superb--large enough to easily sing over the full orchestra, but nimble enough to sing quietly when required. The sopranos were not at all shrill even at their highest notes, a frequent problem with large choruses. The lower voices balanced the higher ones completely--there seemed to be an equal number of men and women, often not the case, at least with U.S. choruses.

Three of the four soloists were excellent--though tenor Stuart Neill could easily drop a hundred pounds and still not look thin. Bass Orlin Anastassov looked scrawny standing next to him, and it was a bit disconcerting hearing the high notes from the bigger man and the lower ones from the smaller.

As for the women, mezzo Ildiko Komlosi sang with a strong, rich tone at even her lowest notes, yet never wavered at the high end. Only soprano Anne Schwanewilms disappointed. Everything seemed to be a little bit off. A couple of times the pitch of her high notes was a tiny bit off for just a fraction of a second--eliciting groans from the musician sitting next to me. She just didn't have a pretty sound to my ears, unlike the other three soloists.

At least everyone was properly dressed. The men, including Sir Colin, were in white tie and tails, and the women wore nice, appropriate gowns that did not distract. No Viet Cong outfits or busboy jackets here.

NYFF: CAPOTE

The second film of the New York Film Festival for me was Capote, which has been getting almost as much hype as Good Night, and Good Luck. This time the screening was in Alice Tully Hall, a much better venue for films than the larger Avery Fisher.

I don't know if there was actually a red carpet on this gauntlet of paparazzi that the celebrities had to survive, because this time there was a separate entrance for us common folks. Even being in the third row wasn't a deterrent--after a couple minutes I had completely forgotten about my proximity to the screen.

I was really looking forward to this one, because I think there is no finer actor than Philip Seymour Hoffman these days. I knew that if anyone could pull off the portrayal of Truman Capote, both in the physical/voice and the psychological spheres, it would be Hoffman. Beyond being a pivotal figure in American literary history, Capote was a well-known celebrity, with repeated appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Everyone knew what he looked like, and what he sounded like.

I wasn't disappointed. The Oscars can print up Hoffman's nomination for best actor right now. I'm sure there are plenty of impressionists who could have done a little closer rendition of Capote's signature high-pitched lisp, but Hoffman's was more than sufficient. As he explained in the Q&A following the showing of the film, his aim was to show Capote as a "fish out of water"--a gay New Yorker plopped down in a small western Kansas town to write on the murders of a farm family. The film is the story of the creation of Capote's resulting book, "In Cold Blood," the "non-fiction novel" that suddenly made it OK for serious writers to do non-fiction. The film concentrates on the conflicted relationship of a journalist and his murderer subject.

Only towards the end did the film drag even slightly, as we wait, as did Capote, for the murderers to exhaust their appeals. Hoffman was great, as was Clifton Collins, Jr., who portrayed the murderer Perry Smith. In fact, they can probably print up his nomination for best supporting actor right now also.

It's opening this weekend. See it.

SPAM, A LOT III

Final count for yesterday, 69 spam messages, 1 of which made it to my inbox.

SPAM, A LOT II

The spammers have started working overtime. I got 73 of them at my main e-mail address yesterday, mostly touting penny stocks that are part of the homeland security boom. But none of them made it to my inbox. My home-made filters caught every single one of them.

So far today I'm 35 of 35. Oops, another one just arrived. Make that 36 of 36.

MOVIE QUICKIE

Last night we watched Mar adentro (The Sea Inside), which won the 2005 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It's the true story of Ramón Sampedro, the Spanish quadiplegic who fought for 30 years for the right to die. It's strangely uplifting, more about his effect on those around him than Sampedro himself.

Javier Bardem's portrayal of Sampedro was amazing, as he could use nothing but his head and his voice to evoke the character. So too was the make-up job they did on him, as he was only 35 at the time. The flashback to his accident showed his true age. In fact the make-up garnered an Oscar nomination also.

Highly recommended.

NYFF: GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK

Friday we went to the opening night of the New York Film Festival, to see the much-touted Good Night, and Good Luck. This is the story of CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's 1953 challenge of the U.S. Air Force's dismissal of an officer who refused to denounce his allegedly communist father and sister--without any sort of trial, merely on the basis of a sealed envelope of "evidence." This quickly escalates into a challenge to the previously untouchable Sen. Joseph McCarthy's tactics in his witchhunt of alleged communists and communist sympathizers in the government.

The film uses actual footage of McCarthy, and is highly evocative of the time. It is shot in black and white, just like television of the day. Actual 1953 commercials are seen. Everyone smokes, office attire is rather formal (particularly for the women), and unthinking sexism is ubiquitous even among the most thoughtful.

The whole thing is riveting, even though we know exactly how it comes out. The performances are superb. David Strathairn is Murrow--the voice is perfect. George Clooney, who also directed and co-wrote the 93-minute film, portrays Fred Friendly, Murrow's co-producer (and later president of CBS News). Frank Langella plays William Paley, chairman of the board of CBS. They, and the rest of the cast, are excellent--helped by the fact that a few of the people actually involved were still around to advise them. Clooney and Grant Heslov, who plays Don Hewitt, (later the executive producer of 60 Minutes) as well as being co-writer, both spoke before the screening. The rest trooped across the stage, and everyone took a bow from a first-tier box at the conclusion.

The cinematography and filmscore were first rate. The only things I can really complain about are the opening and closing scenes, which were a 1958 tribute dinner for Murrow, making the real action all a flashback. The 1953 story was enough.

As I said at the beginning, this was the opening film of the festival (not counting a 6-minute short that preceded it). We hadn't gone to opening night before, so we were not prepared for what awaited us at Avery Fisher Hall--a red carpet, complete with photographers and screaming fans. When we got out of the cab I looked for another way in, but when I showed our tickets we were immediately directed down the carpet by security. Meanwhile the photographers were concentrating on the formally attired celebrities, as we marched by in our sports clothes. It was a bit surreal.

We were early, and the lobby was full of people in tuxedos and beautiful dresses. We waited by the ticket-takers with a few others of the hoi polloi. The red carpet was directly outside, though the celebrities turned away from us to pose for the photographers. I think I saw Edie Falco's back. Eventually they started admitting people, and we climbed to our seats. They were in the rear of the third tier. In 31 years of going to Avery Fisher Hall I don't think I've ever been in the third tier before.

It's not that bad for a movie, though, at least visually. The apparent size of the screen is still sufficient, even at that distance. But the sound was another matter. We had trouble hearing some of the dialogue, and someone in the row in front of us said the same thing: we'll have to see it again to get everything. Fortunately that's the only film in the festival being shown in Avery Fisher Hall.

The next film for us will be Tuesday: Capote, with the wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role.

FALL FLING & SLUMBER PARTY

To celebrate the end of summer (a time when many crossdressers find crossdressing to be inconvenient and/or uncomfortable), Crossdressers International (CDI) had its Fall Fling Dinner Thursday night. This is a name we blatantly stole from the Tiffany Club of New England. And for several of the attendees, this was indeed the first time they had been en femme since last spring--the summer being a time when they can't let their shaven legs be seen, or it's too hot for the wig, pantyhose and make-up.

So sixteen of us went to Le Beaujolais up on Restaurant Row. It's a nice 6-block walk from the CDI apartment--at least if your heels aren't too high. Mine weren't.

Like many of the restaurants there, the place is usually empty by 8:00pm, when the theaters in the nearby Times Square area raise their curtains. So a group the size of ours was a nice bit of extra business for them--when we arrived at 7:50 the only patrons were a couple of guys sitting at the bar.


The food was unremarkable, the service very accomodating, and we had a good time. The evening developed into a joke competition, led by Rita Knight (left), who looked like she had just come from an audition for the role of the mother in Hairspray. Or maybe Dame Edna's understudy. She thoroughly ascribes to the motto of Lady Bunny: "The higher the hair, the closer to God."

Rita is our resident jokester--at least in her own mind. I think the others started telling jokes just in self-defense.

Eventually it was time to leave, and people started discussing where to go next. Most decided to call it a night, but three of us headed down to a club in the Flatiron District where burlesque performer Dirty Martini was to appear. I guess this is a hot place for clubs--there were four of them just on the single block of our destination.

It was a place called Duvet. We had to wait outside for a few minutes, so the club could give the impression it was difficult to get into. When there were enough people lined up behind us, we were admitted.

I must say the decor was very impressive. The bar area was spacious, with beautiful, internally-lit, glass-topped tables attached to the floor. The bar itself was also glass-topped, and lit from below. We bought some rather expensive drinks, and wandered over to the most impressive decoration of all--a large tank filled with dozens of baby jellyfish, gently and gracefully propelling themselves around. The light in the tank changed hue every 15 seconds or so, tinting the all-white creatures. It was mesmerizing.

After staring at the jellyfish for a bit we started looking for the stage, so we could see Dirty Martini. We found it in an entirely separate room--the place is very large, at least by NYC standards. Most of the rest of the room, though, was occupied by beds!

I had read about such places, where you don't sit at tables, you lie on mattresses and pillows. Something like in ancient Rome, I guess. Earlier in the evening they serve food, and that is where people ate. Now people were just lying on them, drinking, and cuddling, or dancing, or rolling around simulating sex.

It was quite clear we were what I call "OITP"--Oldest In The Place. It's a situation I regularly find myself in, sometimes even when I'm just out with my wife. Here, I was probably twice the age of a good majority of the people there. But nobody seemed to care--it's amazing how putting on a dress changes things.

We stood around, not really knowing what to do, when a 20-something woman came over and introduced herself--Lauren. She had a disposable camera and asked if she could take our picture. We agreed, and she took a couple of shots. Then she said she was there with some people "from her agency," and invited us to join them on their bed.

When in Rome...

We followed her, and found ourselves at a very large bed right behind the stage (which doubled as a dance area). Off went our shoes, and up on the bed we went. We sat and talked to Lauren for a bit, as well as we could over the thumping music. Then one of her friends came over, and we all started dancing.

Dancing on a foam mattress is not easy, at least not for me. I noticed that the bed was made of several mattresses, and I had to be careful not to step between them (everything is covered with very nice, very smooth sheets). I also noticed that the mattresses were of widely differing firmness. It was the softer ones that made dancing more difficult.

Eventually Lauren and her friends left. Still no Dirty Martini. We sat for a bit and waited. A somewhat older guy, maybe over 40, came over, trying to convince me to join the Imperial Court. He left, and another twenty-something woman came over with a camera, and asked to take our picture. I talked with her for while, then she left. I put my shoes on and went to get more drinks.

Of course, that was when Dirty Martini showed up. I was told she did her striptease. By the time I returned all I saw was the tail end--of her tail end (I said our bed was behind the stage).

We were hoping she'd do more, but that was it. We did see Amanda Lepore, wearing her surgery and lingerie. We finished our drinks, and called it a night.

SPAMS OF THE DAY

Abandon the morals you live in!
Fertility essay : deal with your wife now

I'M STILL HERE

In case anyone is wondering, I'm still here. I've been busy with some other things, and I am in the middle of writing a long, serious post. I don't know whether it will be done before Friday--right now I have to go and figure out what I'm going to wear to the Crossdressers International Fall Fling Dinner tomorrow.

I AM NOT HE

I have renamed my blog. It turns out there is a another "glob." It hasn't been updated in over a year, and the owner said he didn't care, but I do. So now it's "caprice's glob."

SPAM OF THE DAY

uhniversity D?poloma for sale here

I AM YOU AND YOU ARE HE AND HE IS ME

Yesterday in the mail an envelope arrived with a set of tickets to the New York Film Festival. This was rather puzzling, since we had already received our tickets. A close examination of the address showed that the first and last names were right, and the street was right, but the middle initial was wrong (I seldom use mine anyway), the street number had an extra digit, and the apartment number was wrong.

There is no listing in the phone book for that name and address, but a call to the New York Film Society produced the number. My wife called him, and he happily agreed to come over and pick up his tickets. It seems that the Film Society has completely screwed up both of our addresses. We are both listed as at his street number, my street (which is one less than his), and his apartment number. I think the reason I haven't had any problems before is that I always include a self-addressed envelope with my ticket order.

This kind of confusion happens from time to time. My male name is not unique, even in Manhattan. There are three of us in the current phone book. Years ago I remember there were six. Back then there was a lot of confusion. When I first moved to New York I got quite a bit of mail meant for one of the others, who lived in the same neighborhood. Apparently he was a book editor. Once I even got a manuscript someone sent. I marked "Return to Sender: Wrong Xxxxx Xxxxx" on everything and dumped them in a mailbox.

There were also a lot of phone calls meant for him. I usually knew it immediately, because thay'd say "Hi, Xxxxx," which was a nickname I never use. What really got me, though, were these messages left on my answering machine. Every couple months or so I'd come home from work and find a message that went, "Hi, [nickname]. This is Bill. I'm going to be in New York next week. Can we get together and talk? Please call me at home." This went on, year after year after year. I really felt sorry for him, but he never left a phone number, and I didn't have caller ID (if it even existed back then), so there wasn't anything I could do to end his frustration. Not to mention mine.

One day, though, I was at home sick when he called.
"Hello."
"Hi, [nickname]. I'm so glad I caught you at home."
"I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong [first name] [last name]."
Momentary silence.
"You're not my brother?"
"No."
A little more silence.
"But, but, I've been calling you and leaving messages for years."
"I know, but you never left your number, so I couldn't call and tell you that you were making a mistake."
"Oh my God. All this time I thought he was still mad at me."

APPIAN UNAPPETIZING

Richard Greenberg scored a Tony Award and a Pulitzer nomination for his 2003 play Take Me Out. His latest work to hit Broadway, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way, won't get him any such awards. I realize that the show is still in previews, but what I saw last night has no potential for significant improvement.

The characters vary from the mildly eccentric to just plain nuts--and some of them wander back and forth across that range through the course of the show. I can't believe either of the sons could grow to adulthood and still act so immaturely. Also, while I'm not an expert in the area, I believe the whole plot is based on a total misreading of family law.

There are some good lines here and there. The play is not really boring--just don't try to make any sense out of it.

This marks the return of Jill Clayburgh to Broadway, after a 20 year stint at child-rearing. Her portrayal of the cookbook author mother was the most believable--though it was too reminiscent of Martha Stewart for my taste. I look forward to her seeing her in her next role, as the mother in a revival of Barefoot in the Park.

The rest of the cast did well, considering what they had to work with. But no matter how good the actors are, when the characters they play are unbelievable then their efforts will be futile. Give this one a miss.

CAN'T SLEEP

So what am I doing up at this hour? I can't sleep. I did go to bed, but an hour later I was still wide awake. So I'm up, getting a head start on tomorrow's stuff.
But I have to get some sleep sometime--I'm seeing a play tomorrow evening. Well, I guess that's really this evening.

OY VEY!

Liz Smith writes in today's column

JENNIFER ANISTON has mended from the tzimmes surrounding her divorce from Brad Pitt

I'm certainly no Yiddish expert, but even I know that she means "tsouris," not "tzimmes." "Tsouris" means troubles. "Tzimmes" is something you eat, made up of things like stewed carrots, honey, raisins, and prunes.

This reminds me of a former colleague of my wife's who made an even worse mistake. She meant to say "futz around" (meaning to mess or fool around--it's not really Yiddish). But she said "putz around." "Putz" is a very offensive, almost obscene word for penis.

Liz, everyone, leave the Yiddish to people who really know it.

WHAT THE L.L.?

Yesterday's mail brought us the L.L. Bean Christmas catalog, with a nice, snowy scene of people skating on a frozen pond on the cover. But, yesterday it was 82° in New York. Well, maybe we're having a late fall warm spell. Let me check my calendar. No, it's September 16.

It's still summer AND THEY'RE SENDING OUT CHRISTMAS CATALOGS???!!!! UN-F'ING-BELIEVABLE!!!

GOOGLE ME II

A couple days ago I noted how proud I was that this blog was coming up in Google searches. Now Google has come up with a search engine specifically for blogs: http://blogsearch.google.com. I'm there, too, as I expected.

Blog on!

CDI KATRINA FUNDRAISER YIELDS $1200+!

Crossdressers International, of which I am treasurer, held its fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Katrina last night. The 20-odd (not 20 odd) members and guests contributed over $700. With the contribution from CDI itself, we will be delivering over $1200 for hurricane relief.

We were saddened to hear that one of our guests had lost two relatives to Katrina, one a litle baby. I think there will be a lot of people with dead relatives, when they finish identifying all the bodies. There was also a phone call during the evening from the friend of another guest. The friend is safe in Brooklyn, but escaped with little more than the clothes on his back. Now he has no home, no job, and no idea what is coming next.

On a brighter note, the highlight of the evening was the cooking of Michael, a professional chef who is the friend of our president. His pasta bolognese was first rate. I was amazed he could come up with something so good in the limited cooking facilities of the CDI apartment--a tiny galley kitchen with two electric burners and no real oven, just a microwave. That's a pro for you.

WALK (⅔ OF) A MILE IN MY SHOES

I recently managed to walk from Ninth Avenue and W. 14th St. to the Monster Bar at the corner of Grove St. and W. 4th, in 3½ inch heels. It's about ⅔ of a mile, judging from Mapquest (I didn't walk per the driving directions). I only got one blister on each foot.

I think if you can do a full mile you get a merit badge from the Drag Scouts.

GOOGLE ME!

Google has found me! If you do a search for glob mostly mozart, for instance, I'm on the third page.

I've been on MSN Search almost from the beginning. But Google! Now I know I've arrived. I'm so proud!

MARCH OF THE MONOGAMISTS?

An article in today's New York Times says that conservatives are rallying around the film March of the Penguins. They think it promotes monogamy and the intelligent design pseudo-theory.

Monogamy? Sure. Except what the movie and its conservative fans fail to point out is that every year the penguins choose new mates. It's temporary monogamy--an automatic annulment every spring. Is this what the conservatives want to promote?

Intelligent design? Pul-eeze! It's just the opposite. The penguins that figured out where it was safest to do their breeding (as far from the predator-filled sea as possible) and were strong enough to withstand the journeys back and forth, were the ones that survived. Evolution does not yield species that take the easy road.

MATISSE AT THE MET

Yesterday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams--His Art and His Textiles exhibition. I was blown away, particularly by his use of color. I think he might displace Van Gogh as my favorite "modern" artist.

It was amazing to see the actual textiles and garments that Henri Matisse used on his models and for his backgounds. Matisse's family had been in the textile industry in northeastern France for generations, and he grew up with fabrics, not fine art. It was said that he probably never saw an oil painting until he was 20 years old. He collected fabrics and garments all his life. When he died in 1955 the collection was packed away, not to see the light of day until last year.

But it was even more amazing to see how he presented them in his pictures. They were never literal representations, and sometimes were very much different. For instance, the Ottoman robe on the left became the one on the right. In fact there was another painting of the robe that had even wider stripes.

At the end of his life and mostly bed-ridden, Matisse found a different medium with which to use color: he took a pair of scissors and made cut-outs of paper that had been painted with solid hues, and then attached them to similarly colored backgrounds. He found great freedom in not having to use a brush to invoke a color. At the left is his "Acrobatic Dancer." While the relationship to fabrics is more distant here, this medium did resemble some of the fabrics he had collected from Africa and the South Pacific, where layering was used.

The exhibition will be there through the 25th. Catch it if you can, especially if you love colors. If you're watching your pennies you can skip the audio guide. It only adds a few things to the posted explanations, and probably everything is in the catalogue. There are many copies to view in the reading room.

FEMA DIRECTOR RESIGNS! ABOUT TIME!

The AP reports Mike Brown, the idiot FEMA director, has resigned. It's about time. This guy was clueless.

Go into the private sector indeed. I pity any company that hires him. In fact, I'm wondering if I'm still eligible to buy put options at my stock broker's.

DRAG QUEENS IN MUFTI

I recently had the pleasure of attending the going-away dinner for the manager of Lips, the Greenwich Village eatery which features drag performers as waitresses and bartenders. Edwin is going off to California, and is considering an offer to manage a clothing-optional men's (i.e. gay) resort there. (Does anyone besides me see a certain, um, symmetry, between running a place where people dress up, and one where they, uh, dress down, all the way down?)

I've been a regular customer at Lips for several years, and I've gotten to know some of the people who work there. No deep friendships, but enough to occasionally hang out with them after they get off work. They were nice enough to invite me to this dinner for Edwin, also.

The thing was, I had never seen most of them out of drag before. A couple of them present as women full time, and two more were quite recognizable as men. But there were these other two...

One was the last to arrive, so I knew who it was by process of elimination. But I don't think I would have recognized him otherwise. (The funny thing was, he didn't recognize us! The restaurant staff had to show him to the table. He said it was because he was looking for a table of drag queens--and I was the only one there even wearing a wig.)

The other one I would never have recognized in a million years, despite all the hours I've spent looking at, er, her. Then he opened his mouth. As soon as he started talking I knew who it was.

We talked (and laughed) a bit about it. One said it's common for them to do a performance, return to male-mode, go out to the bar, and be totally unrecognized by people who had just seen them up on the stage.

The late arrival told a story on himself. One night he wasn't working he went to a bar, hoping to meet someone. He saw a guy he liked. He went over, and started "cruising" him, showing his interest. The guy gave him a puzzled look, but he continued giving him the eye. The guy started laughing, and said, "Xxxx, it's me, Edie!"--someone he had worked with, in drag, many, many times. Even drag queens don't always recognize each other out of uniform.

BILL V. ARNOLD?

There's a rumor going around they're trying to get Bill Clinton to run for governor of California, against Schwarzenegger. I wonder what the residency requirement there is.

I also wonder what Hillary would have to say about it.

9/11

It's 9/11--a day of sadness and anger and horrible memories for me. I was there. My office was across the street, right behind 7 World Trade Center. I saw some things no one should ever have to see, things I want to forget. But I can't.

I was lucky. I wasn't hurt. I didn't even have to breathe any of the dust--unlike the 1993 bombing of the Trade Center. At that time I had a job in 2 World Trade, and I had to walk down from the 68th floor in a smoke-filled, crowded, unlit stairwell. I was fortunate that I had a tiny flashlight in my briefcase. To this day I always have one in my pocket or purse, just in case.

I was also lucky that no one I knew personally was killed on 9/11. All of my former colleagues still working there got out, as did everyone else I knew who worked in the Trade Center. There were a couple of friends of friends, and a cousin of a friend, but no one closer.

But I still have the horrible memories. It didn't help that my company did eventually re-occupy its offices down there, and I spent a year and a half trying not to look at where the towers had been.

I want to forget. But I can't.

THERE'S NO MERCY IN FOOTBALL

My college team, the University of Wisconsin-Madison Badgers, is winning its football game against the Temple Owls, 51-0. At halftime. With the second string in.

I kinda feel sorry for the Owls. But unlike softball, there's no mercy rule in football. They'll have to play this out until the end.

Maybe we should suit up the band and send them in. Or the cheerleaders.

POOR MARKTING

I was invited by a couple friends to join them for dinner. They said they were going to the Market Restaurant at Ninth Ave. and 14th St. So I wanted to find out a little about the place beforehand, and I Googled it. Nothing. I found Spice Market and Chelsea Market in the neighborhood, but no Market. Could it be that new?

Nevertheless at the appointed time I took a cab and went to Ninth and 14th, and sure enough, there it was, right on the corner--except it was Markt, not Market. It's a Belgian restaurant, and they used the Flemish spelling. Not a really great marketing ploy. But the food was very good, and the service was excellent.

YOU CAN'T BE SERIAL

My wife's new laptop (excuse me, notebook) computer arrived today. It has no parallel, serial or mouse ports. Everything is USB today--except our old peripherals. We already ordered a replacement for her old HP Laserjet 4L, which sounds like it's going to spit out pieces with every page it prints. And I happen to have a cordless USB mouse I've never gotten around installing on my computer, so I can use that.

The computer also has no floppy drive. My wife likes to immediately back up all her documents on floppies, so I ordered a USB floppy drive also. That will fill all three USB ports, so if we get anything else I'll have to get a USB hub.

It is kind of amazing about the serial port, though. I remember my first real computer back in 1982 (not counting the VIC-20 toy), the original Compaq. It didn't have a serial port either. It was portable, though--if you consider a 30 lb. suitcase portable.

GO MARTINA!

Martina Navratilova has made it into the doubles semi-finals of the U.S. Open, at the age of 48! She just keeps going and going and going.

OH MY GOODNESS! I AGREE WITH NEWT GINGRICH!

Liz Smith reports:

FOX NEWS emperor Bill O'Reilly tells us in Katrina's wake that if we — Americans — depend on the United States government for any reason, we are certain to be disappointed. Always. The government of the United States cannot help you. Bill's advice to America (to the poor of New Orleans, especially) is educate yourself and get a well-paying job. Only then can you avoid standing on a "metaphorical rooftop" when the next disaster rolls around. Bill did not give the poor any advice on how one finds a proper education or a job. Remember, the government can't help.

Oh, Newt Gingrich told Bill — in the nicest possible way, because they are friends — that his government theory was, well . . . "un-American."

BOB DENVER IS DEAD

Bob Denver has died at the age of 70. While most people remember him as the Gilligan of "Gilligan's Island," I always liked him better in his earlier role of Maynard G. Krebs, the bearded beatnik in "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis," so workophobic that even hearing the word "work" would cause him to react in horror. Thanks for all the laughs, Maynard,Gilligan, Bob.

A CD ON THE SUPREMES?

Over on the Myhusbandbetty boards Michelle wrote:

[A] close friend of mine (a partner in a large Phoenix law firm) who knows Justice O'Connor well related to me yesterday that she likes Roberts well enough but wishes, in her words, "that he wore a skirt".

She wants a crossdresser on the Court?
Seriously, I'm crossing my fingers and holding my breath on Roberts. He does seem to have an open mind, unlike Scalia and his wannabe sidekick. Supreme Court justices frequently do migrate toward the center, or even further--Earl Warren was considered to be a conservative judge when he was appointed.

As for O'Connor's next replacement, I also think a woman is quite possible. But I think Bush's first priority will be to find someone similar to Roberts.

And who knows? Maybe Roberts will wear a skirt under his robes. I'll send him one. Does anyone know his size?

CDI FUNDRAISER FOR HURRICANE VICTIMS

We're (Crossdressers International) putting together a fundraiser barbecue for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, on Wednesday, September 14. CDI will be matching individual contributions up to $20 (with a $500 total limit I think--we're not the richest TG group in the world). See the CDI website for details as they develop.

VERY LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA

I saw The Light in the Piazza last night. From the bit they performed at the Tony Awards I didn't expect that much, and I wasn't disappointed. The music was totally forgettable. The story was weak to start with, and degenerated almost to nonsense--in the second act characters changed their minds for no apparent reason.

The performances were good. Victoria Clark deserved her Tony for Actress in a Musical. The best part, though, were the costumes--the early 50's dresses worn by the younger actresses were to die for. Catherine Zuber deserved her Tony for them.

SISTER V. SISTER: UNAPPEALING UNPLEASANTNESS

One of the television sportscasters opined that everyone likes a Serena Williams versus Venus Williams match, except Serena and Venus. Piffle! I doubt their family likes it. I certainly don't. They generally play relatively poorly against each other--it's hard to exhibit a killer instinct when it's someone you love across the net.

At least the matches are not all one-sided. I rememeber when Andrea Jaeger had to play her older sister many years ago. Despite being ranked in the top 10, much higher than her sister, she kept losing to big sis. It took Andrea a number of tries before she was able to conquer her sibling.