and yet more girls!
First, a rather exhibitionistic one: local hottie queer artist Val Desjardins has a new show, Coming Home, at Galerie Espace (4844 St-Laurent), featuring images of her in all her considerably genderfucked sartorial splendour. It’s only on for this week, until the 27th I believe, so git your ass down and check it out while you can. I hit the vernissage this evening with my friend n*q and enjoyed it thoroughly - and no, it wasn’t just the free wine. (Hic.)
If you want an idea of what the show’s all about, you can check out n*q’s interview with Val here, along with a few photos of the work. I was going to say "her work" except it sort of is and sort of isn’t - it’s actually the work of nine artists with her as the subject. Very interesting concept. I don’t know what I’d do if someone chose to interpret me via pale pink stuffed-satin-pillow renditions of seaweed and jellyfish suspended from the cieling with bra straps… but I doubt I’ll ever be asking nine artists to use me as their inspiration, either, so I guess I will never find out!
(Tidbit: Val officially confirms that the greenish-white substance sprayed on her face in her self-portrait is not, in fact, alien jizz, but rather milk mixed with dirt. Thank goodness. Apparently she and her collaborator didn’t even realize it might look like come. Don’t ask me, that’s what she says.)
Post-vernissage, having stuffed n*q with chocolate cupcakes (free at PreLoved in honour of their new collection launch - hot damn, who knew you could get so much free chow on St-Laurent?) and burritos (not free, but cheap), and buttered her up with all sorts of outrageous flattery (I swear, honey, I meant every word!) I managed to convince her she wanted to be my date for tonight’s Oscar-marathon flick Dreamgirls.
Which was, well, a whole lot of girl. Plus a whole lot of guys in really flashy outfits - I lost track of how many times I exclaimed "Oh, what a great tie!"
And yet… despite all the fantastic outfits and the great music… I did not find the film to be even the least bit sexy. It’s downright chaste, really - not a single make-out scene. The best we get is a couple of kisses here and there, and not even hot ‘n’ heavy romantic ones. I mean really… when there’s more of Eddie Murphy tapping out lines of coke than there is Beyoncé getting her freak on with her hubby… they must be missing the point.
Okay, okay, so watching movies is not all about the sex, and yes, a film can be good without sex. I haven’t got a completely one-track mind. But this one’s so very much not about the sex that there’s no edge to it. It’s a lot of fun, but I’d hardly say Oscar-calibre. Too fluffy.
I contented myself by appreciating the film’s many good wardrobe moments. I came out with a serious hankering for a menswear department (glittery diva gowns aren’t really my thing), and happily, I got home to a wonderful phone message from my fag friend M, who has decided he’d rather see his tie collection in circulation than gathering dust in his closet, and has thus offered me the opportunity to peruse it and pick whatever I please. Never mind the incompatible orientations… we’re truly a match made in heaven!
I guess sometimes it really isn’t about the sex. But the next best thing is when it’s all about the clothes.
