I just had
a wonderful 24 hours of planned craziness. See, Titi had this conference in
London a couple of weeks ago. I tagged along, bought some books – Jaqueline
Rose’s The Question of Zion and her partner Adam Phillips’s Going
Sane have already been thoroughly enjoyed, and I’m almost all the way
through Juan Goytisolo’s destabilizing imagining of the siege of Sarajevo in
the streets around Strasbourg-Saint Denis, part of several interlocking plots around a sodomist poet's lyrics in State of Siege – saw a bit
of colorful art, drank a couple pints, took in the view from our friend Dr.
Econ’s lovely sixth-floor Soho abode, ate curry and fish and chips… But I also
had a cold, and then the chilling realization that Justin Bond was going to
open a show in London some two or three days after we left.
For anyone
who doesn’t know, Justin Bond has spent the last several years of his life
incarnating Kiki DuRane, a brilliantly violent lounge singer eternally on a
come-back. Until this weekend, I had only seen her and her partner Herb perform
once, in New York, at the Fez, but since that vision I’ve been a faithful
listener of Kiki’s CDs with Herb and various sundry NYC more or less celebs.
Last Fall, they sold out Carnegie Hall under the title Kiki and Herb Will Die
For You.
I've become more than a fervent fan. When I found out that Justin Bond was going to be doing a show in London, I was actually already in the midst of beginning an attempt to write something serious and academic about them whose first line might end up being: "Kiki DuRane has a terrible memory. Luckily for her, and especially for us, she has Herb to carry her melody line."
So, upon my
return, I was sighing about this conundrum to my dear friend K, who has already
intervened in innumerable, sometimes even oracular
ways in my life. And she said, “This is just stupid. I haven’t given you a
birthday present in years. Get a Eurostar ticket. I’ll pay.” Gifts like these
are not easy to accept, so it took a little bit of effort for me to suck up my
pride and say, several times over the next several days, “Do you really mean
it?” She kept saying that she did, with the hint of hesitation in her voice that
accompanies any grand gesture. Titi, who has never seen Kiki or Herb or Justin
perform, decided his meager salary as a civil servant could nonetheless take
this little blow to its budget, and so on Saturday morning, we left on a
pilgrimage to the Soho Theatre in London to see Justin Bond and the Freudian
Slippers do Glamour damage.
Recent Comments