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Post by momtomany on Mar 20, 2011 0:07:58 GMT -5
Love you, Aloha.
Aloha!
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aloha
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Post by aloha on Mar 20, 2011 0:11:43 GMT -5
Aloha!! To you and dear, sweet Penelope. Love. |
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lynne
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Post by lynne on Mar 20, 2011 0:18:30 GMT -5
Great discussions tonight. I love the way you all make me think.
Adding good wishes for Penelope!
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Post by rihannsu on Mar 20, 2011 0:35:10 GMT -5
Rihannsu, I love your post. I do, however, disagree with this: I also found that red carpet interview from Rupaul's Drag Race with both he and Sutan very interesting. When the drag queen interviewing them asked Adam what his Drag name was or would be he says "Adam Lambert" with a perfectly straight face and waits for them to "get it". That to me was a hint that his stage act for Glam Nation was in many ways a kind of Drag. I have a feeling that if the interviewer had questioned him about it instead of laughing that he would have had a perfectly convincing explanation of what made it drag and I really would love to hear that. I think that there are often deeper meanings to things that he may just never reveal and allows those that get it to revel in that depth without making those that don't get it feel left out or stupid. He did finally acknowledge very late in the tour that the red A on the top hat was in fact a reference to "The Scarlett Letter" but he didn't belabor the point. Adam has said, often and quite firmly, that he does not do drag. If you take the accepted definition of drag in this particular cultural usage then it actually means dressing like a woman, and taking on the personna of a woman. To me, Glam Nation WAS camp, it WAS glam, but in no way was it drag. I think he said his drag name would be "Adam Lambert" because he was saying-- I am myself, no one else. I do not take on a drag personna. We see it differently which is why I said "to me" as I realize not everyone will see it the way I do. I think either interpretation is possible because I don't see Adam's previous statement as contradictory to my point. When he said "I don't do drag" he then clarified that by saying "I don't tuck and wear breasts" however after watching Sutan on Drag Race and hearing some of his comments and knowing that Adam named Alan Lewis as a mentor (even calling him his Drag Mother I believe) I think that within Adam's circle of friends is a more evolved version of Drag that is not so dependant on female impersonation. One of the complaints about Raja is that she is not being feminine enough. I think however that Sutan's comments about not padding and wearing breasts indicate that he doesn't see that as a necessity to the idea of Drag. I think Sutan's Drag is sophisticated in much the same way that Adam's camp is sophisticated. Both challenge the preconceived ideas of what those mediums are. Sutan even stated that he is more about genderfuck than impersonation. Drag has always been about much more than female impersonation. There is a difference between someone who is a female impersonator and someone who is a Drag Queen and that difference is not simply the performer's sexuality. The general public's surface impression of Drag may be simply the female impersonator thing but that's no different than the public's very limited idea of what Punk encompasses. I think there is room for both our interpretations as unless Adam decides to elaborate we can never know for sure. It sure is fun to play with the ideas though.  |
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mirages
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Post by mirages on Mar 20, 2011 1:05:21 GMT -5
Now, all that said, I love Leonard Cohen. Love Bruce Cockburn, Ferron, Antony and the Johnsons, Indigo Girls, Lou Reed. Love earnest, heartfelt, poetic. Love depth. I'm looking forward to seeing what Adam can do on that level ... Broken Open, I think, bodes well. Hey, I remember you said you serenaded your guests with Yeats, yes? You're my hero and I want to come to your house:) I hope there's a bee-loud glade. More poetry please!!! Are you on twitter? I ask because I follow Leonard Cohen Quotes and it often makes me smile. Indeed, I've never understood the need to box 'relevant music' into one genre. Doesn't art give voice to the range of human experience and vision. Sometimes that's arch and/or theatrical, sometimes it's a guy/girl with a guitar and a mic, or Placido Domingo or Iggy rolling around on broken glass. Do I really have to decide one is more authentic? As a member of the great audience, I think not. Still, for current (new) artists, it is a difficult time because so many trends are played out for the moment. Even the 'vocabulary' has become inadequate, as is regularly demonstrated. David Foster Wallace wrestled greatly with (for lack of better words) finding the heart in the postmodern (or post postmodern) world. He leaned towards some form of sincerity being the new rebellion. The last para of something he said/wrote reminded of the criticisms leveled at Adam - that' he's not a real rock star or (for some) a genuine artist b/c he's too polite, accessible, smooth (both in vocals and personality), sentimental, etc. I think one of the reviews or blogs even said something about his being too nice (or similar adjective) as a criticism. This is the conclusion of one of Foster's musings on this topic: "Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today’s risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the “Oh how banal.” To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows." thisdrivesmostpeoplecrazy.com/2010/09/28/david-foster-wallace-on-irony/www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ft4YT80XgHgAw, you're sweet to remember. Yup, that was me with Yeats -- I don't get invited out much. I'd love to have you over, but the only "bee-loud glade" hereabouts is buzzing between my ears. Saint Leonard's on Twitter? Damn, that could almost make me sign up. I love what you quoted and the essays themselves -- thank you! I love this from the first one: Once everybody knows that equality of opportunity is bunk and Mike Brady’s bunk and Just Say No is bunk, now what do we do? All we seem to want to do is keep ridiculing the stuff. Postmodern irony and cynicism’s become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what’s wrong, because they’ll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. I loved the lead, too -- "irony tyrannizes us". Actually, I misread it initially as "irony hypnotizes us". That, too. One of the bravest things I think Adam has done (and they are Legion) was NOT to buckle under when reviewers (and fans) pointed out how Oprah/self-help/sentimental his between-song patter was, especially after Soaked and before Aftermath. As one of the "cool kids" in his artsy group, the hardest thing is to risk that kind of dismissal as banal, soft, un-edgy. But it was what he wanted to say, and dammit, he just went on saying it. Same way he wanted to give a hand-job to a microphone stand and dammit, he did it on American Idol and just smiled when they shot around it. |
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mirages
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Post by mirages on Mar 20, 2011 1:38:55 GMT -5
Tonight's discussion had me doing a little searching. Really for myself and not to comment on the discussion going on here. When I came across this I just had to bring it over. It's an excerpt built into the dictionary app that came with my computer. Look at the first name on the list of celebrities: CelebritiesRuPaul regularly capitalizes on his camp appeal through TV and movie cameo appearances. Many celebrities have camp personae, although some tend to possess these traits unintentionally. Some celebrities even capitalize on their camp appeal through commercials and in TV and movie cameo appearances (for example, TV commercials for Old Navy clothing stores). Celebrities with camp personae include:
Adam LambertAndy Bell (of the band Erasure) Alan Carr Boy George Elvira Cher Christina Aguilera Chuck Knipp Cyndi Lauper Courtney Love Dame Edna David Bowie Divine (t/n Glen Milstead) Elton John Fabio Frankie Howerd Freddie Mercury (of the band Queen) Gerard Way Graham Norton John Barrowman John Waters Julian Clary Kathy Griffin Kenneth Williams Kylie Minogue Lady Gaga Liberace Lionel Blair Little Richard Madonna Mika Pee-wee Herman RuPaul Richard Simmons Sophie Ellis-Bextor You know who's inexplicably missing from this list? Bette Midler! Who's campier than that? |
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Zinnia
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Post by Zinnia on Mar 20, 2011 1:55:16 GMT -5
There are so many of these around that I've lost count  . But just adding this one here anyway, as it is made to one of my very favourite songs by Jenni Vartiainen. Thank you so very much for posting this! I see you mentioned many of these videos around, I have not watched any except this one and I loved it! Guess I had better check youTube for more. This song is beautiful and I loved the video. Long day at work, just getting home to check in, had to stop on this page to send you  , I wish you would post more of these videos. I truly enjoyed watching it. Happy you liked it and Jenni's song suits the vid too. I've posted a couple of these fanvids here when I've come across them somewhere else. One of my favourites is the one that darling from France (also here at Atop) has made. Youtube is full of the fanvids. Here is darling's vid  , listen to the lyrics, also the very end: |
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aloha
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Post by aloha on Mar 20, 2011 2:12:09 GMT -5
Rihannsu, I love your post. I do, however, disagree with this: I also found that red carpet interview from Rupaul's Drag Race with both he and Sutan very interesting. When the drag queen interviewing them asked Adam what his Drag name was or would be he says "Adam Lambert" with a perfectly straight face and waits for them to "get it". That to me was a hint that his stage act for Glam Nation was in many ways a kind of Drag. I have a feeling that if the interviewer had questioned him about it instead of laughing that he would have had a perfectly convincing explanation of what made it drag and I really would love to hear that. I think that there are often deeper meanings to things that he may just never reveal and allows those that get it to revel in that depth without making those that don't get it feel left out or stupid. He did finally acknowledge very late in the tour that the red A on the top hat was in fact a reference to "The Scarlett Letter" but he didn't belabor the point. Adam has said, often and quite firmly, that he does not do drag. If you take the accepted definition of drag in this particular cultural usage then it actually means dressing like a woman, and taking on the personna of a woman. To me, Glam Nation WAS camp, it WAS glam, but in no way was it drag. I think he said his drag name would be "Adam Lambert" because he was saying-- I am myself, no one else. I do not take on a drag personna. We see it differently which is why I said "to me" as I realize not everyone will see it the way I do. I think either interpretation is possible because I don't see Adam's previous statement as contradictory to my point. When he said "I don't do drag" he then clarified that by saying "I don't tuck and wear breasts" however after watching Sutan on Drag Race and hearing some of his comments and knowing that Adam named Alan Lewis as a mentor (even calling him his Drag Mother I believe) I think that within Adam's circle of friends is a more evolved version of Drag that is not so dependant on female impersonation. One of the complaints about Raja is that she is not being feminine enough. I think however that Sutan's comments about not padding and wearing breasts indicate that he doesn't see that as a necessity to the idea of Drag. I think Sutan's Drag is sophisticated in much the same way that Adam's camp is sophisticated. Both challenge the preconceived ideas of what those mediums are. Sutan even stated that he is more about genderfuck than impersonation. Drag has always been about much more than female impersonation. There is a difference between someone who is a female impersonator and someone who is a Drag Queen and that difference is not simply the performer's sexuality. The general public's surface impression of Drag may be simply the female impersonator thing but that's no different than the public's very limited idea of what Punk encompasses. I think there is room for both our interpretations as unless Adam decides to elaborate we can never know for sure. It sure is fun to play with the ideas though. It is. And I love the exchange of ideas and opinions. Thank you!! |
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mika
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Post by mika on Mar 20, 2011 2:21:53 GMT -5
You know who's inexplicably missing from this list? Bette Midler! Who's campier than that? Great catch! The Divine Miss M was rolling around 'mainstream' stages (in other words she made it out of the bath houses) in a wheelchair wearing a sequined mermaid outfit and singing like nobody's business back in the day while still laughing at herself. I've become so accustomed to Bette's respectable current self, I'd never thought but I would love to see her on a show with Adam. I think they have a similar sense of humor and I would love a duet - but something fun - at least not any of Bette's best selling soapy ballads please. |
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mika
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Post by mika on Mar 20, 2011 2:38:27 GMT -5
This isn't connected to our earlier discussions and I'll stop after this and skulk away but I am putting together something for a reading group and decided to work on the Yeats portion (as inspired by mirages).
I have the multiset bio (leave me alone) but I found this online (Louise Bogan, 1938) and was struck by it. (Remembering Adam saying that esp in his early twenties he deliberately did things that intimidated or scared him.)
"William Butler Yeats first appears, in the memories of his contemporaries, as a rarefied human being: a tall, dark-visaged young man who walked the streets of Dublin and London in a poetic hat, cloak, and flowing tie, intoning verses. The young man's more solid qualities were not then apparent to the casual observer. But it was during these early years that Yeats was building himself, step by step, into a person who could not only cope with reality but bend it to his will. He tells, in one of his autobiographies, of his determination to overcome his young diffidence. Realizing that he was "only self-possessed with people he knew intimately," he would go to a strange house "for a wretched hour for schooling's sake." And because he wished "to be able to play with hostile minds" he trained out of himself, in the midst of harsh discussion, the sensitive tendency to become silent at rudeness.'
The result of this training began to be apparent before Yeats was thirty. George Moore has recorded how, on meeting him in London (having been badly impressed by his "excessive" getup at a casual meeting some years before), he thought to worst Yeats easily in argument. The real metal of his opponent soon came into view. "Yeats parried a blow on which I had counted, and he did this so quickly and with so much ease that he threw me on the defensive in a moment. 'A dialectician,' I muttered, 'of the very first order'; one of a different kind from any I had met before."
This intellectual energy, this "whirling" yet deeply intuitive and ordered mind, with its balancing streak of common sense, had come to Yeats through a mixed inheritance..."
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. But just adding this one here anyway, as it is made to one of my very favourite songs by Jenni Vartiainen. 
, listen to the lyrics, also the very end: