I've been pretty busy lately and part of that business is keeping my eyes and my mind stimulated. After not being able to actively attend movies and performances, I've found myself attending several different events lately.

Last weekend I attended the Local Shorts offering at the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I was mostly interested in the short by Armando Mu�oz, called Mime After Midnight, because I've come to know him casually as a denizen of the Capital Hill District in Seattle. It is a very humorous homage to slasher films with a fairly obvious twist suggested by the title. Perhaps most interesting were the special effects which enhanced the action. The other shorts were all excellent. I'm pleased and inspired to know that excellent talent is based here in Seattle.

Afterward I attended Eric Todd's art opening at Gargoyles in the University District and purchased a sketch. Then Bruce and I got a ride downtown with friends to attend another event sponsered by the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Paradise Hotel. This event which was a combination dance/art installation, a la haunted house, that met with much success last year. This year they expanded from Vain Hair Studio to the Commadore Hotel, taking over an entire floor. Various rooms featured interactive installations and performances ranging from "nineteen forties" styled lounge hosted by androgynous Lesbians in tuxedos and cocktail dresses to a Gay Porno shoot in progress.

I also attended a screening of UnderWorld that Sunday with Bruce and Chris, which is an action movie featuring vampires and werewolves. Despite the fairly predictable plot (werewolves were once slaves of vampires attempting to emancipate themselves by breeding hybrid were-vampires) I found it entirely engrossing and entertaining.

Last Friday I was invited to attend Flower Drum Song which showed at the Fifth Avenue Theater. My friend and co-worker, Casstina and I ate beforehand at a small cafe, Cafe Fortuna, in the International District where I once had Dimsum many years ago. Flower Drum Song features a new book that not only presents an entirely new story to audiences, connecting the tradition of Chinese Opera to American musical theater, but also manages to transform outmoded and "opressive" aspects of the original script while still revelling in the stereotyping that it and America of the 1950s and 1960s is remembered for. Oddly the crazyness of those stereotypes is pointed up in much the same way German and Jewish stereotyping is pointed up in "The Producers", so to my mind it works.