Trans Cinema Arts screened ‘SIR: Just a Normal Guy,’ Melanie La Rosa’s documentary following transman Jay Snider as he transitions from female to male over a two year period.
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By Rachel Kramer Bussel
Friday, December 26, 2003
Before officially starting my last column of 2003, I just wanted to thank everyone
who’s been reading me — I look forward to many more in 2004!
On the eve of World AIDS Day, author and activist Sarah Schulman hosted a
party to celebrate the launch of the ACT UP Oral History Project (www.actuporalhistory.org),
which captures 20 years of AIDS activism by this pioneering group, spotlighting
the various people and actions behind the movement with one eye on the past
and one on the future.
As assorted members of the queer political community sampled delicious vegetarian
nibbles, we were reminded that the AIDS crisis is nowhere near over, with ACT
UP still meeting every week at the Center and urgently needing your thoughts,
ideas and enthusiasm.
I hit up Janine Avril’s Girlsalon to catch a mix of performers — poets,
storytellers, and truthtellers — who made me laugh and inspired me. Even
if you’ve heard a particular performer or read a certain piece before,
there’s always something new to be gained by hearing the author read
it in her own voice.
Case in point, my friend Khadijah Caturani, who read a piece about a lesbian
who acts out a very special scene in her porn acting job. She brought all of
her dramatic skills to bear on her reading, wowing the crowd and whetting their
appetites by stopping just before the climactic sex scene.
Also be on the lookout for a Girlsalon greatest hits CD coming soon, featuring
favorites Rachael Sage, Tammy Faye Starlite, Jenn Lindsay, Athena Reich and
others.
Next, I made a rare foray into Park Slope for bi dyke Melody Henry’s
private birthday party and to check out her gorgeous new bar, Lucky 13, which
will soon be open to the public. The goth hottie herself was bartending for
a mixed crowd in her rock-poster-studded new home. Don’t miss her First
Annual New Year’s Eve Deathrock Pirate Bash, where all are encouraged
to get gussied up pirate-style and tell your favorite swashbuckling stories.
For another kind of dyke Brooklyn New Year’s, hit the Landing Strip,
the free weekly lesbian soiree at Patio Lounge, which promises free Cham-pagne
and “Soju shots and a Japanese Anime mural with tranny scenes.” The
Champagne you’d get anywhere, but for the rest you have to go to Brooklyn!
The dyke community is small enough that the woman who directed “SIR:
Just a Normal Guy,” Melanie La Rosa, is the girlfriend of a friend of
my girlfriend’s. Otherwise, I might have missed this wonderful screening,
part of the Center’s Trans Cinema Arts night.
The documentary follows Jay Snider as he transitions from female to male over
a two year period, interviewing him, his friends and his partner and showing
the changes brought about by hormones. As Melanie told the crowd, the film
now has an educational distributor. It has been bought by colleges and libraries
everywhere from Maine to Louisiana to help educate professionals about the
needs of trans people.
The next Trans Cinema Arts screening takes place January 30th and will be
a compilation night called Transploitation, showing the ways that film has
portrayed transpeople up till now — the good, the bad, the ugly.
On New Year’s Day, if you’re looking for a place to go after nursing
your hangover, head on over to Bowery Poetry Club for their 10th Annual Alternative
New Year’s Day Spoken Word/Performance Extravaganza. A plethora of performers
will each read for three minutes from 2 p.m. to midnight. I’ll be reading
along with Cheryl B., Janine Avril and a host of other readers; see bowerypoetry.com
for the full schedule.
You can warm up your winter by joining me, Kyle Walker, editor Tristan Taormino
and other contributors to “Best Lesbian Erotica 2004” at Bluestockings
for a special reading from this latest collection of the most fabulous dyke
smut around.
Rachel Kramer Bussel can be reached at blade@rachelkramerbussel.com
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