Ladies and gentleman, meet your new chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Broadway producer Rocco Landesman, who was confirmed in that position by Congress last month. In an interview with The New York Times, Landesman admitted that the NEA chairmanship can often be a hot seat. "The arts are a little bit of a target. The subtext is that it [sic] is elitist, left wing, maybe even a little gay."
Right on all three points, Mr. Chairman! That is, because: Elitist = Educated; Left Wing = Politically Awake; and Maybe Even a Little Gay = Most men after a few beers and "my girlfriend's out of town." So this week we look at a few upcoming arts items that pull us right back into the political world.
Flight path
Sometimes we just have to spotlight a press release we’ve received with the understanding that we’re not necessarily endorsing the cultural product it touts, but still we’re fascinated by the mere fact that it exists. This is one of those cases.
"The feature-length animated musical Bye-Bye Bin Laden, a satire about war, TV, and religious fanaticism in the US and the Middle East, will release on DVD on Sept. 22. Named Best Feature at the 2009 South Beach International Animation Film Festival, it is ’narrated’ by the ’ghost’ of Mark Bingham, the openly gay hero who helped lead the brave passengers wresting control of Flight 93 from terrorists before the plane crashed outside of Shanksville, PA.
"It’s not exactly a ’gay movie’ - it’s a mainstream movie with many missions, one of them being to make sure that people don’t forget Mark Bingham," said writer-director Scott Sublett, a professor at San Jose State University.
"The cast of characters includes bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and Jenna and George Bush. It’s narrated by the ghost of Mark Bingham for the edification of the post-apocalyptic roach-boy Josh, who’s been assigned to do a term paper on the end of the human race."
Coincidentally, Bingham also figures as a fictionalized character in "Dietmar Lutz mon Amour," one of an upcoming collection of short stories, Impossible Princess, by beloved San Francisco author Kevin Killian (City Lights; in bookstores by November). Killian imagines what the gay rugby champ must have been thinking as the doomed flight took off on 9/11. "Suddenly Mark was very aware of how quiet everything was. And Todd’s talking at him about the World Trade Center - the what? Partly he was thinking, those damn stewards, who seem so cruisy when they greet you on the way in, all disappear to the back and rank the talent. And partly he was taking in Todd’s white, drained face, the World what? World Trade what?"
An advance copy of Princess captivated us from start to end. Killian will read from the book at City Lights Bookstore in North Beach on Thurs., Dec. 3, at 7 p.m. His books include two previous story collections, the PEN award-winning Little Men (1996) and I Cry Like a Baby (2001). His latest novel, Spreadeagle, will be published next year by Alyson Books.
Spook fest
Still don’t believe us about how world affairs and the arts converge? Then read this announcement of an upcoming new opera:
"Merging local politics with murder and mayhem, the Lesbian/Gay Chorus of San Francisco, under the direction of Stephanie Lynne Smith, presents Jack Curtis Dubowsky’s horror opera Halloween in the Castro, a biting, in-your-face social commentary about what has gone wrong with Castro Halloween.
"In this world-premiere opera, horrors past and present haunt San Francisco’s iconic street. As Halloween approaches, neighborhood residents, suburbanite tourists, city politicians and local business owners have conflicting ideas of how the evening should unfold. But will they all survive to see the dawn?"
Suburbanite tourists? City politicos? Why, that’s what we call a horror show!
Halloween in the Castro will play Fri. & Sat., Oct. 23-24, 30-31, 8 p.m. at MCC/SF, 150 Eureka St., SF. Call 1 (800) 838-3006 or go to www.lgcsf.org.