Weekend Review: The Ballet, Red Dresses, and Mr. Joshua
Saturday: Red Dress Seattle
Watch a slideshow of Seattle Red Dress. All photos by Renee McMahon.
The only rule at the First Annual Seattle Red Dress Party, Saturday at South Lake Union's Naval Reserve Center, was that everyone had to wear a red dress. And the ladies did their best to keep up with the gentlemen. The event featured DJs The Perry Twins, and with proceeds going to HIV/AIDS benefits.
Saturday in the Streets
Saturday I spent the day on the streets of Seattle, participating in the Join the Impact march to protest the passing of California's Prop 8, which repealed same-sex marriage and left 18,000 couples uncertain of their marital status. However, without the very personal sense of deep outrage and loss that drove the rally my friends back in San Francisco attended, Seattle's march felt jubilant.
When we crossed the Pine Street I-5 overpass, I jumped out of line to run up to Ladro to grab some water -- it's been so long since I've protested that I'd forgotten the essentials. The sale took five minutes. By the time I descended to the street again, I still couldn't see the end of the column of marchers. Six thousand people felt much, much bigger.
It took my friends and I quite a while to remember the last time we participated in an LGBT civil rights demonstration. For me, it was the million-'mo march on Washington, D.C. -- in 1993. Too young to join up with ACT UP and Queer Nation in their prime, relieved of a sense of mortal urgency by the invention of the anti-retroviral cocktail, we blue staters became the first gays in American history to wallow in the luxury of living a normal, hate-light life. It took a moment of simultaneous political empowerment and disenfranchisement to remind us that we had larger responsibilities.
One of the most exciting parts of the march was to watch LGBT protesters in their late teens and twenties. It may have been their first political gathering outside overly corporate, unfocused, clichéd Pride (TM) parades. I could see them discovering the heady mix of self-righteousness, universal camraderie, and cruisiness that made the LGBT rights movement so exciting back in the day.
-- Jonathan Kauffman
Sunday: Run to Target Right Now!
"That's hardly important, but if it matters you may call me Mr. Joshua."
Last Christmas I found one of the best Christmas presents ever for my little brother: a single DVD with all four Lethal Weapons on it. It wasn't until after he took it home that I realized I wouldn't be gettin' too old for their shit anytime soon. But, of course, when I returned to the big box to pick myself up a late Christmas present, all copies were gone. I've been keeping my eyes out for it all year and have been out of luck until last night. Yes, it's back at Target. But, I already bought two copies. Hopefully, it's not too late for you.
-- Chris Kornelis
Sunday Night on Capitol Hill
Spindrift
Who: Spindrift, Black Nite Crash, Midday Veil
Where: Comet Tavern
When: Sunday, November 16
Capitol Hill on Sunday night is a sad show. The hot dog stand isn't around, the streets are empty, sad-eyed bums are out in force, the gutters are filled with trash and dried vomit, empty bars close before 2...it's a strange experience. But you wouldn't know it from looking at the Comet. The place was probably three-quarters full by the end of the night.
-- Read Sara Brickner's entire post on Reverb
Ballet's Worth a Second Chance
I've done very little ballet-watching in my lifetime. I sat in the balcony of the Spokane Opera House for the Nutcracker in junior high. That space is so vacuous all sound is pretty much nothing but echo past the fifteenth row. I fell asleep during the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. And a few years ago I caught a dress rehearsal of, I think, A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. I remember it being very cool, but we were in the nosebleed final rows at McCaw Hall and someone on a speaker would occasionally interrupt to tell a performer holding a flag to lift it a little more, which kind of diminishes the effect.
But I had a friend in town and after waltzing around with one of the dancers and another of the choreographers from the performance, it seemed like a good time to check it out. So we splurged on tickets to PNB's New Works. We weren't disappointed.
-- Read Laura Onstot's entire post
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Cover Story: Critical Mass
