From the sublime to the ... sublime

On Sunday night I was imersed, amazed and blown away by the MQFF closing night film, XXY, an haunting, magnificent Argentinian intersex feature that said so much by saying so little.

Tonight I saw one of my favourite bands in the world, Múm, from Iceland, in the company of my very dear friend Lisa, who joined me at the last minute for what proved to be a rapturous, transcendent experience.

And last week I saw an awesome precursor to Comedy@Trades, personified by The Boy With Tape On His Face.

Details on all shortly. But for now, I am happy. So very, very happy. I expect to have pleasant dreams tonight. I wish them for you, also, whoever and wherever you are.

Queer media discussion

I'm speaking on a panel about GLBT media tonight at Collingwood's Glasshouse Hotel at 7pm if you feel like coming along. It's a free event, and is being recorded for broadcast later this week on JOY 94.9 FM. Bring your friends!

Festival Roundup

It's been a mad month, with Fringe segueing straight into the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and not enough time to blog about it all. As well as the shows I've already detailed on this here blog, I also managed to catch:

• an array of visual arts, from oribotics to Riceboy Sleeps.
  

• Barrie Kosky's The Tell Tale Heart, which I admired for its attempt to convey the heightened senses of the insane narrator of the original Poe story in a theatrical setting, but whose - dramatic - pauses - began to pall for me after the first half hour. Nonetheless an exquisite aesthetic experience, even though I wasn't always fully engaged.
  
  
• Laurie Anderson's Homeland, a festival commission, which washed over me in waves of haunting electronica as I struggled to stay awake in my seat. Loved her evocation of 'the Underwear Gods' - the idea of the photos of giant billboard models striding around the city - but was less enamored of her more polemic pieces, which struck me as unnecessarily strident (though I did appreciate their increased tempo, which helped me stay awake on a particularly low-energy night).

• Kinky, a band from Mexico who played at the Meat Market, bored me - sounding too much like the Red Hot Chili Peppers in their opening songs, so I left; going instead to the Arthouse to see a new punk band before pushing on to a debauched and dissolute warehouse party in Abbotsford, hurrah!

• And closing the festival with Merce Cunningham's Program B, which featured as part of its program the long-awaited Split Sides, featuring vivid, beautiful dancing; a Radiohead score for half the work, and also a live score by Sigur Ros. Oh bliss! Oh joy! Oh rapture! I'm not going to go into a long and detailed review here, as sadly I don't have time, being at work and all (and also because I have to juggle several other committments today, including my Fringe hat, RRR and a few other things into the bargain) but god it was good, from the costumes and set, through to the palpable buzz in the audience the moment Cunningham himself and guests appeared on stage to randomise the presentation of the post-interval performances.

It's been an extremely enjoyable festival for me; though coming hot on the heels of Fringe means I'm always a little art-ed out by this time of year; too much of a rich diet can sometimes spoil your appetite (which is why I've been sitting at home the last couple of nights watching Hollywood action-trash as an antidote; the Transformers movie and the first Resident Evil if you must know - both of which don't translate well to the small screen, it must be said).

I also managed to catch the opening night show by La Clique at The Famous Spiegeltent on Sunday night, in the company of a Hibernian mate who'd never seen them before, which was an added thrill - there's something about glancing sideways at someone's wide-eyed delight which I find quite inspiring: a vicarious thrill which adds to my own already delighted enjoyment of proceedings.

The new acts to join the show this year aren't especially memorable, though there was some utterly sublime aerial work on show, some clever puppetry, and an amusing spot of juggling; and of course, bathtub boy David O'Mer (pictured above) is still as hot as ever... but La Clique is still a great night out, even if you have seen it before: it's fast, funny, risky and risque; and above all, damn entertaining.

But now it's back to my usual routine, and my normal life, in the absence of Melbourne Fringe and the Melbourne International Arts Centre. Not that my normal life is at all drab and grey, of course: coming up in the next few days I'm going to try and see the latest production from Red Stitch, a Hollywood farce called The Little Dog Laughed; and also Melburnalia, five short plays by Melbourne writers including Lally Katz and Tee O'Neil about life in different aspects of Melbourne, staged at 45 Downstairs by White Whale.

Then there's the Festival of Jewish Cinema opening next week, with a live score for the silent 1920 masterpiece The Golem...

It never stops - for which, of course, I am utterly thankful. Here's to art!!

Leaping for joy

That's what I was just doing - well, bouncing around my loungeroom grinning delightedly - within a minute of putting the new The Polyphonic Spree album, The Fragile Army, in my CD player. The opening track, 'Section 21 [Together We're Heavy]' brought a gap-toothed grin to my face and had me literally dancing/bouncing/pogoing around my cluttered loungeroom, swept up by a sudden outpouring of euphoria and delight.

"It's like running away with the wind in our faces, like flying,
And you and I are open wide."

A self-described 'choral symphonic rock group' from Texas, the 20-plus strong band are best known for performing in flowing robes (which they've swaped for black uniforms on this new release), and performing songs which some consider twee and articifically happy; but which hit me all the impact of love at first sight, to which I respond with a gasp of joy and tears of happiness welling up in my eyes (and yes, I am foolishly romantic and a fool for love, when I'm lucky enough to find it from time to time). I've even heard the band described as cult-like. Wow, cynical much?

Their gig at The Palace a couple of years ago remains a delightful memory for me; especially their encore, when the band emerged from the back of the room and wended their way through the crowd, singing as they went; I'm smiling again just thinking about it, actually.

I'm going to go back to listening to The Fragile Army again now. Expect to hear it played fairly regularly in the coming weeks on SmartArts!