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…and possibly future professional crossword puzzle constructor, I’ve just found truly turn-on lingerie. Sorta brings new meaning to “going down.”
APPARENTLY, MOST OF THE BIG Halloween shidigs were on Saturday.
I, of course, went out on Sunday.
But I still found some nattily-dressed creatures who graciously allowed me to show to you.
I want to receive party/costume reports from as many of you as feasible. I particularly want reports and/or digipix of anyone costumed as:
You should know by now where to send the stuff.
…the current Stranger cover story, depicting “2004’s Scariest Halloween Costumes” modeled by real children, is getting linked to from approximately coast to coast.
…was first sold, P-I cartoonist David Horsey depicted a rude businessman walking into a store and asking if there was a “WonderJock.” Well, now there is. (Viewer discretion advised.)
WE SHOT A LOTTA PIX this past weekend. Today, the Capitol Hill Block Party. Tomorrow, other scenes.
If there was an unofficial theme to this year’s heat-drenched Block Party, it was woman-power, in the retro-burlesque and other interpretations. Between the Rat City Rollergirls, the naughty T-shirts for sale, some righteous lady slam poets, and some slammin’ rock bands, the party offered a cornucopia of saucy, sassy femme-empowerment visions.
The party’s chief expression of masculine energy was the closing set by those 20-year veterans of slow metal, the Melvins. I didn’t get any good pictures of their set, partly because these three young aggressive stoners kept stalking me. (Note to our older readers: “Aggressive stoner” ceased to be an oxymoron several years ago.) They insisted that I’d taken pictures of them, which I hadn’t. They semi-incoherently threatened violence, even after I showed them I had no pictures of them.
Bodies have always been with us; so have body-revealing clothes, such as the 17th-century fad for breast-baring by prominent women— even queens.
ON THURS. NITE, we spent some pleasant, albeit quite warm, hours at the glorious Lower Level performance space on Capitol Hill.
There, the enterprising Francophile DJs known as La Boum! (one of whom’s also involved in the Cicada fashion boutique) presented a quite sprightly, defiantly girlie, and ultimately playful fashion show, featuring both vintage and new ensembles.
…and those of us who simply love old pop ephemera, can view entire issues of pre-1970 skin books (even the articles!) at Vintage Girlie Mags.
IT’S THE THIRD AND LAST PART of our look at the LGBT Pride rally/parade. Yesterday we saw the gents; today it’s the ladies.
The Pride festival’s officially all about forthrightly declaring one’s sexuality, no matter what people say.
So I’ll forthrightly declare: I mainly go to Pride to enjoy the presence of the women.
The fact that the women are mostly lesbians (with a few bis and post-op trannies mixed in) matters not one atom.
In my long life, I’ve viewed and adored thousands of women who didn’t want to have sex with me. From this point-O-view, lesbians are merely one subset.
Like a Medieval troubadour toward a lady of the court, my attraction to the Pride Parade lesbians is both defined and enhanced by knowing my desire probably won’t be physically consummated.
Rather, I can only express my admiration and my yearning as artistically as I can, and trust that, at least on some level, these strong women can gratefully accept my highest regard for their faces, their bodies, and their courageous hearts.
Of course, should any one of these women turn out to be bi (or het-curious), and find herself reading this, I would love the chance to channel this high adoration toward a lower plane.
IT’S PART 2 OF 3 of our documentin’ last Sunday’s LGBT Pride Parade.
Today, we separate the boys from the girls, since that’s what gaydom essentially does.
The prime contradiction of the “gender diversity” and gay-rights movements is that they (rightfully) demand society welcome a broader range of gender-types and relationship-types, yet the most common of these uncommon sexualities is that of men who prefer to smooch it up with their fellow men. William Burroughs and other commentators have noted over the years that male-gaydom isn’t a weaker or sissier masculinity but a more exclusive masculinity. It’s manhood uncompromised by the need to live with, or satisfy, women.
Given that, of course, there are still many, many types of man-loving men and man-and-man relationships. I predict that even when (not if) gay-tolerance finally spreads out to the vast suburban and rural stretches of this country, gays will still choose to congregate in the major cities, because only in a large population base (or via net-dating) will a pseudo-Eurotrash fashion victim in search of a leather-bondage cowboy be likely to discover his soulmate.
But then again, bifurcating and bisecting’s what U.S. society seems to be all about these days. We’re (including my own het-self) spinning out into ever-narrower subcultural niches. In this regard, it’s commendable that the Pride people have kept so many queer-culture subsectors involved all these years.
Among these subsectors: Drag afficianados. If we’re to believe the papers, drag-queen performance, on both pro and amateur levels, is significantly less popular than it had been in the ’90s. Still, for those who truly care for the art form, it’s never mattered whether it was considered “in” or “out.”
On his net-radio talk show Sex Life, local “sexpert” Dane Ballard recently discussed why the Pride Parade seems to have become passe to many local gays. You can hear it all here, once the archive file’s been placed online (which should be as early as today).
By the way, ’twas nice that the Seafair Pirates showed up. For some fifty years, the Pirates have represented a just slightly more acceptable image of rowdy male bonding, in a town that’s spent the past century trying to distance itself from its rough-hewn frontier past.
THIS WEEK, highlights from our sunburn-inducin’ trip to the Fremont Solstice Parade and street fair. Today, the beautiful costumery and skinosity. On Tuesday or Wednesday, the rest of the spectacle.
The “World Naked Bike Ride” the previous weekend was billed as a participant event, but seemed more like a spectator event. The unofficial bicycle nudes at the Fremont parade are often judged as a spectator event, but seemed this year more like a participant event.
By this, I mean the naked ladies & gents walking and biking, and the more or less clothed audience members standing and sitting, all behaved as if they were of one joyful whole. There was no public making-out, but there didn’t have to be.
Fremont Parade nudity isn’t about the mechanical or hydraulic aspects of sexuality. It’s about showing off yourself, seeing and being seen, just as you are. It’s about freedom and comfort, and togetherness. It’s about having your physical, mental, and emotional beings united. It’s about taking appropriate pride in the gifts with which we were created, and with which we may help create others. It’s about demystifying the female body, and un-demonizing the male body.
And, with or without paint, the nudity is ultimately just another costume choice. You can parade as a human, or as a flower or a bat, or as part of a team uniformly dressed for group unity.
The Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, Paul Allen’s latest vanity monument, opened Friday morning with a simple ceremony. Instead of the all-star weekend of free rock concerts that marked the opening of SFM’s parent organization, the Experience Music Project, SFM merely had some short speeches by the usual suspects (Allen, Mayor Nickels, author Neal Stephenson, etc.).
Nickels, bless him, turned out to be a geek at heart. He thanked the costumed “extraterrestrials” in the audience, and closed his remarks with “Live long and prosper.”
Several of the suspects then jointly pressed a button which set off metallic confetti showers, some steam spurting out of the robo-bug gizmo on the building, and “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (a.k.a. the 2001 theme) blared forth.
Among the costumed fans in attendance was our ol’ pal and Punk Lust zine editor Willum Pugmyr (above).
Management didn’t let me take pictures inside the museum. But I can tell you it’s a fanboy’s dream. For the (relatively costly) price of admission, you get to see dozens of real movie props (Captain Kirk’s chair, the Lost in Space robot), costumes, illustration-art pieces, fanzine pages, book covers, toys, and more. There are also many clever computer-based displays, including the “Hall of Fame” section (honoring some three dozen influential authors), and two impressive globular video-projection units.
And as a writer, I was pleased to see all the attention given to the written origins of sci-fi.
The space is smallish. But since the EMP’s vast Sky Church auditorium’s adjacent, it can be used for any SFM special events, which I hope will include author panels, film festivals, and other fan-convention favorites.
The place is fun, and the strolling experience through the small space is appropriately akin to traversing a cramped spaceship. I’m just disappointed at the $10 admission fee. Perhaps Mr. Allen needs to be reminded that some of us have less spending money than he does.
The “World Naked Bike Ride,” held Saturday in Seattle and various other burgs planet-wide, was supposed to be a political statement against foreign oil or car-culture or censorship or some combo of the above. Its local incarnation was more of a fun run.
Dozens of men, and six or seven women, pedaled their bare buns through Fremont, Westlake, Seattle Center, and downtown. At several stops along the way, cheering spectators and avid photographers expressed their vocal appreciation for those who dared to bare. (Though, unlike the body-paint bikers at the Fremont Solstice Parade, this was intended as a participatory, not a spectator, event.)
There were no arrests, and only the most formal of official disapprovals. That’s good.
Now if we can only get a legal public nude beach in this town….
I WAS ONCE one of those who scoffed at the Folklife Festival as the “Forklift Festival.” That was back during the apex/nadir of smug boomer culture, when I’d come to define myself by my rebellion against the hammered dulcimer and everything it stood for.
But in my own creeping middle age (birthday next Tuesday, hint-hint guys!), I’ve come to appreciate the festival’s broad range of acts. The costumed dancers, the bagpipe players, all the accordion players, the tile artists, the butoh and kabuki troupes.
Besides, folk culture is the original DIY culture. It’s by the people, of the people, and for the people. And it’s the original bastion of female creativity.
So let’s all be, as the cable show says, queer as folk.
