With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
October 29, 2009 - 11:35 a.m.
This is a tough entry for me. I'm going to right about something I feel strongly about but have written about many times. Can I find something new to say? No matter, I'm saying it anyway. 
Last night I did one of the things that defines me; I saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch. A "musical about a ''slip of a girlyboy'' from East Berlin who grew up to become an ''internationally ignored song stylist'' and, thanks to a botched sex-change operation, someone of unclassifiable gender, is not something that sounds like it should be one of my touchstones but it is. As I said in my last entry this was my eighth time seeing the play. I've seen the film many times too. So what is that connects with me?
One friend said it was too gay. I don't think she saw the play, just the film, and probably walked in with that prejudice. Yes it's about someone gay but that doesn't make it a story just for gays. Does the fact that I'm not Italian mean I can't appreciate Romeo and Juliet?
Hedwig isn't a story of gay life, it's a story of someone overcoming adversity while searching for love and discovering who he(she?) is. Unless you're life has been perfect you can relate to Hedwig. With the possible exception of Woody Allen's best work I can't think of anything else that explores real emotions while being hysterically funny. It gives you all that plus an amazing rock and roll score. It succeeds on all levels.
I saw the original production late in its first run. I heard about it, Vin Scelsa raved over it. Male Carey (there are two Careys in the story, Let's call them Male Carey and Female Carey) recommended it, but it just sounded too gay to me. I went to see it when my friend Jena came to visit. Without seeing it I knew it was meant for her. The first night she visited we saw Rent. The second we saw Hedwig. The fourth we saw Hedwig again. It had me hooked in the first minute.
I decided that I had to get everyone I knew to see it. I was able to go with Lisa and Anita before it ended it's run. I was upset I couldn't bring some other friends in particular Gella and Female Carey (. I knew they'd love it.
Then a year later the film came out, just about on my birthday. Female Carey came to visit and we saw it. A year after that there was a production out on Long Island on the weekend of my birthday and Carey came up to see that. A few years ago there was a one day performance of it shortly before Gella was leaving for Israel and I was able to take her. Sometimes things just work out.
The original NY Times review of the show is unavailable but here is the review from when it was announced the show was closing: The Last-Double Entendre of a Gender Bender
Last night was another special one day performance, a fund raiser for AIDS. Male Carey owed me a birthday present and this was it. We went with his friend Barbara. I keep expecting the magic to wear off but it never does. Every time my excitement fell for a moment a song would begin and kick it back up to the heights. I suspect that there were technical issues with the show. Every other production I've seen has used a projected images, there were screens by the stage but they were never used. No matter. Hedwig doesn't depend on the details. It still had ad libs and jokes specific to the time and place. That's true Marx Brothers. It still had the marvelous music. I noticed something new today. One of the themes of the show is dual natures. As it says in the show Hedwig embodies, east and west, male and female, top and bottom. The songs embody the duality too. Most of them are in two parts with an abrupt mood change. That also mirrors the emotional roller coaster of the show. It is a series of triumphs and disasters.
I want to include a video from the film version starring John Cameron Mitchell, the creator of the show and original star. The question is which song? In a way each and every one of them is a favorite. If you put a gun to my head and made me choose one I'd pick The Origin of Love but I think I posted that once. If I had to pick a favorite moment in the show it is the finale, Midnight Radio when the audience is asked to "Lift up your hands." So that's when I'll show you. You might know the song because Dar Williams covered it on her last album. I thought she might be in the audience but I didn't see her. Promise me that you'll see the film. Then go see a live production at the first opportunity, there is nothing like it. The film is great but live it is transcendental.
Reading and Writing but no Rithmatic - November 03, 2009
Dark Shadows - November 02, 2009
A Met Fan's Halloween - November 01, 2009
Northeastern Comfort - October 31, 2009
Colbert Report Report - October 30, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile October 29, 2009
