Sex and Various Degrees of Societal Acceptance and Rock and Roll

The Nomi Song (2004), Andrew Horn. April 26, 8pm. View count: One.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), John Cameron Mitchell. April 27, 8:30pm. View count: Two.

The Nomi Song was a documentary-style thing about how Klaus Nomi was, although an impressive performer, too weird for the scene at the time, and therefore died alone of AIDS. The detail and color from the period that was imparted by people who were involved with his act in some way or another were interesting, but I feel like I spent the last fifteen minutes of the movie thinking 'But... this is terrible! This poor lonely man died at like 35, and none of these fuckers would even go to see him!' None of them even really knew him; this came across clearly between the lines. The movie didn't quite acknowledge the seriousness of this. Some interesting footage, and great costumes, but sad in a sort of insidious way.

Hedwig. I last saw it when it came out in Seattle, alone, because no one wanted to see it with me (maybe people were just busy). I've only ever seen one other movie (Ghost World, about a month later) alone in the theatre. Anyway, it held up just fine; the animations (which I enjoyed the concept behind, but not the actual style itself) were not as pervasive as I remembered, which is just as well. The songs, which I remember being apprehensive about initially, still got the job done without being amazingly wonderful. I think that this is one of those movies where I appreciate all the little touches; all the personal and cultural iconography, all the characters carefully costumed and placed. It's a brightly-colored movie, without a lot of complex concepts, but it seems so lovingly created.

Who brought the cat?

I've been reading some mass-market kinda stuff lately, which is weird for me (I mean, I could be rereading Dune for the ninth time! Christ!).

Firstly, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which was in a box of free books by the side of the road (I also got a medical dictionary from 1937 and a cheesy pre-The-Onion-books satirical book about Spam). I think I'm glad I read this, but I was also fighting the annoyance to a not-inconsiderable extent. I identify with the difficulty in creating things and behaving unselfconsciously, but good lord, the self-absorption.

Secondly, The Blind Assassin, which I paid fifty cents for at the Salvation Army. (It is obvious that I am not that confident in the goodness of books by people I've never read.) This is turning out to be really interesting. I am not done yet, but I am enjoying it a lot so far. It reminds me a bit of Mr. Velocipede, although she may or may not actually enjoy it herself.
I would also like to note that I've seen the cover for this a fair number of times, and only now have I realized that the girl depicted is not missing her right arm. Somehow I'd always read it as a little scarf hiding a stump, rather than a dress detail. Oh well! (In my defense, the edition I've seen the most of is zoomed in a bit and cuts off her right hand nearly entirely. And her dress is featureless black.)

Oh, and then I guess I also was reading The Flamingo's Smile, which is another book of Stephen Jay Gould's collected essays. Some fun stuff in there, although one of the most fun was the titular one (Flamingos, since they filter feed by dipping their beaks into water upside-down, have morphologically upside-down beak structures. This is neato).