![\"Miss](\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/cam\/kiki_reindeer.jpg\")
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Now that I\u2019ve been lucky enough<\/strong> to catch Kiki & Herb<\/a>, it finally feels like Christmas. It was a fantastic show, naturally, but it was interesting to see how the crowd reacted to it. In some ways, it felt like the run they had in the West Village<\/a> a few years, where a lot of the crowd didn\u2019t quite understand what they were getting themselves into. Like then, there were people in the audience this past Friday that seemed to think this would be just another campy drag show for the gays. As I\u2019ve said many times, calling Kiki and Herb a drag act misses the point entirely: they are a dark, cathartic emotional roller-coaster ride. I\u2019m not sure exactly when the first people walked out of the show on Friday night, but it may have been during the big cancer medley<\/a> (but definitely before the eco-disaster\/suicide<\/a> medley). Obviously, the theater\u2019s favorite aging, monstrous, heartbreaking showgirl is still doing something right if she\u2019s making people that uncomfortable.<\/p>\n Much to my delight, London felt like a small town this weekend, in a way that New York often did at the times I loved it the most. At Friday night\u2019s show and then walking around on Saturday, I saw a bunch of familiar faces (and considering why they looked familiar, it just goes to show that I look for portraits instead of cock shots on the internet) here and there in the crowds. I saw Herb\/Kenny Mellman himself strolling at one point, although I didn\u2019t get a chance to compliment him on the previous night\u2019s success. At the Design Museum<\/a> on Sunday I ran into my pal Dan<\/a> from Germany, who I\u2019d also seen earlier int he week when he was in Reading to check out the MATD<\/a> program for next year. As I learn my way around town, it\u2019s very comforting to feel myself becoming a thread in its fabric a bit.<\/p>\n I also finally got to see Shortbus<\/a><\/i>, and was again surprised to see people walk out in the middle. So are people in London just more squeamish than in New York, or are they just less likely to read about what they\u2019re about to see? Seriously. This is supposed<\/i> to be a challenging movie, but I guess some folks were just there for the sex but not the emotional one-two punch.<\/p>\n Shortbus<\/i> was fantastic, and reminded me an awful lot of the small-town vibe I often felt in New York, not in the least because it was littered with people I\u2019d met, performers I\u2019d seen, and streets I\u2019d walked along over the years. It was a fantasy version of the Bohemian life in New York, granted, but still one I\u2019d tasted from time to time over the years. The last few years in New York were often frustrating because so much more of my energy had to go toward surviving in New York rather than living in it, so it made me a little sad think about how much community and fun had come to feel like a fantasy for me there, instead of the reality it had once been. But there I was, sitting with old friends<\/a> in a new place, working on another stage of my eclectic, adventurous life once again. So who knows?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Now that I\u2019ve been lucky enough to catch Kiki & Herb, it finally feels like Christmas. It was a fantastic show, naturally, but it was interesting to see how the crowd reacted to it. In some ways, it felt like the run they had in the West Village a few years, where a lot of … Continue reading “If It\u2019s Kiki It Must Be Christmas”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultracultural","category-ultrapersonal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71892,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/71892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Justin](\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/img\/justin_bond_shortbus.jpg\")
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