This sounds great – and just a block up the street from me.

From their website “Busboys & Poets is Washington’s newest gathering place, with a full service bar, restaurant, Free WiFi coffee house, bookstore and a fully equipped performance stage. Busboys & Poets serves American cuisine with an eclectic twist, including many vegetarian and vegan options.”

I first read about this on Metrocurean. Amanda puts up some great info about new places opening up the around DC area.

Lenny over at DC Art News wrote a nice piece about Allegory of a Gay Bashing – check it out here

James W. Bailey features art from Seven’s Nude room on his blog Black Cat Bone. He included his photographs – as well as the work of Samantha Wolov and myself. Check it out.

As I wrote earlier, I painted Allegory of a Gay Bashing back around 2000 for an exhibit called “Too Queer”. There is much speculation about the painting, and the puppy and the kitten – and why such trite characters appear in such a horrific tableau.

The puppy and the kitten represent many things. The painting itself is a take on a crucifixion, which I use on occasion. In most paintings of the event, there are several supporting characters – mainly being Mary Magdalene, and Jesus’ mother, so on a compositional level, the animals take their place.

At the time I did the painting, the death of Matthew Sheppard was fresh in everyone’s mind, it was a shock to us in the gay community, a horrific beating and death at the hands of brutal, dumbshit rednecks. In the photographs he appeared so young, cute, and sweet looking, and so delicate and vulnerable. He was so unprepared and unable to protect himself against his attackers. Hmmm…

I did not want this to be a painting of Matthew – and went to great lengths so that no one could mistake it for his face. It was an allegory of all gay bashings and hate crimes. At the time I recall thinking that the republicans, and Christians, and dumbshit rednecks (Oh My!), would like our sexuality removed – not just kill us or make us disappear, but to completely and cleanly make our sexuality disappear. This is why it’s so neatly sewn back together, forming a heart. You can read more into all of this of course. Remove the sexuality – solve the problems – love the sinner – hate the sin. And since the genitals are the center of all this – just cleanly remove them – voila.

This is just a small part of the thought process that went on behind the scenes. I spent at least a couple weeks on the painting and thought about it from many angles. There isn’t room here to elaborate fully, so these few highlights will hopefully suffice. Ideally, the viewers should decide what they are feeling–and contemplate what this and other art means to them–rather than trying to figure out what the artist is trying to say.

Fringe Happy Hour at The Warehouse Cafe & Bar

August 17th from 6 – 8pm at The Warehouse Cafe & Bar – talk Fringe, meet new people and drink $2 Yuenglings.
This is the first in a monthly Happy Hour at The Warehouse Cafe & Bar that will take place on the 3rd Wednesday of the month.

Tracing its roots back more than fifty years to Scotland’s famed Edinburgh International Festival in 1947, “fringe” was the name taken by performance groups excluded from this prestigious event. Undaunted and determined, these companies created makeshift theatres on the outskirts – or “fringe” – of the established festival. Soon the Fringe Festival gained a large and loyal following, outstripping the mainstream festival. The Fringe Festival concept migrated to Canada in the 1980s and today that country boasts Fringe Festivals from coast to coast – including the Edmonton Festival, the largest in North America, which annually draws more than a half million people. In the early 1990s, the fringe concept was embraced in the United States, and today Fringe Festivals are annual events in Orlando, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York.

Emphasizing the edgy, the offbeat, and the uncategorizable, the Fringe cultivates experimental work of extraordinary merit while remaining open to all.

The Capital Fringe Festival will be the Washington area’s contribution to the Fringe phenomenon. The need is clear. Local artists need an outlet to produce and provoke, while local audiences are craving the energy and excitement that a Fringe Festival brings.

For 10 days in late July of 2006, downtown DC will come alive with hundreds of performances by adventurous and innovative artists from Washington DC, Baltimore, the United States and overseas. Performances will take place in more than 20 traditional and non traditional performance venues and will include performing artists producing in theater, dance, music, poetry, spoken word, puppetry and art forms that are simply unclassifiable. Each venue will be filled with multiple performances everyday, creating one of the cities busiest and most exciting outlets for the performing arts.

sounds interesting – more information here…

So THAT explains it…

from www.livescience.com

Men whose masculinity is challenged become more inclined to support war or buy an SUV, a new study finds.

Their attitudes against gays change, too.

Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine.

The women had no discernable reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey.

But the guys’ reactions were “strongly affected,” Willer said today.

“I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle,” said Willer said. “There were no increases [in desire] for other types of cars.”

Those who had their masculinity threatened also said they felt more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than those whose masculinity was confirmed, he said.

There will be a gallery/curator talk by Lenny Campello this Sunday.

Gallery Talk: Sunday, July 31, 2005, 2:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Saturdays 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Sundays 12:00 – 6:00 PM, or by appointment
Warehouse:
1021 7th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Metro:
Gallery Place/Chine Town (Red Line) or Mt. Vernon Square/Convention Center (Yellow and Green Lines)