I don’t know how I managed to forget about posting this until now, but better late, etc.

Anyway, if you’re in New Orleans, please join us tonight and/or tomorrow for HOW I LEARNED ABOUT SEX, featuring readings and performances by seven local authors and one stray Yankee. My friend, Blaise (aka the Yankee), has organized it, and based on the pieces I’ve read, it is going to be positively high-larious:

Writers & performers from New Orleans & New York explain
HOW I LEARNED ABOUT SEX
March 26 & 27, 2010 at 8pm • Le Chat Noir, 715 St. Charles

Seven New Orleans authors and performers join New York writer Blaise Allysen Kearsley for a hilarious, outrageous, touching evening of literature and music called HOW I LEARNED ABOUT SEX. From childhood stories of curiosity to adult tales of lovemaking gone very, very awry, audiences will reel through eight tales told from eight very different perspectives — male, female, straight, gay, young, and…less young. It’s blue enough to please the prurient, but silly enough for the straightlaced, too. Featured among the group: our own Dorian Rush and Jack Long!

HOW I LEARNED ABOUT SEX runs for two nights only: Friday and Saturday, March 26 and 27, 2010 at 8pm at Le Chat Noir, 715 St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans.

• Friday night’s performance will be a fundraiser for the Mystic Krewe of Satyricon. For tickets to Friday’s show only, please call 504 525 4498 or visit www.MysticKreweOfSatyricon.com.

• For tickets to Saturday night’s show, please call Le Chat Noir at 504 581 5812, or visit www.CabaretLeChatNoir.com. Tickets are $21.

Want more info? Right this way…

Judging from my other posts today, spring has clearly sprung:

Two sex toys thought to be more than 200 years old fetched £3,600 at a sale.

The wooden phalluses – one measuring 10 inches and the other 11 inches – were bought by an anonymous bidder at an auction in Brentwood, Essex.

Staff at Brentwood Antiques Auction described the sex toys as ”extraordinary and exceptionally rare” and said they were probably French and dated back to the late 1700s.

”You might laugh but it’s a good opportunity for investment,” auctioneer Wendy Wood told bidders. ”You won’t see another one in a long time.”

[emphasis totes mine; via TheTelegraph]

Ribald!

Unfortunately, it’s not quite what some of you are hoping for:

Don’t let the release date fool you: it’s far hotter and sexier than you’d expect from something that debuted in 1950. It is not what I’d call safe for work — unless maybe you work for Athletic Model Guild.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2191169673913401693&hl=en&fs=true

Of course, this film and a smattering of Jean Genet’s written work inspired the “Homo” section of Todd Haynes’ also-wonderful Poison. Unfortunately, the only relevant clip I could find on YouTube is this terribly converted monstrosity. Still, it features Scott Renderer having his way with the late, great James Lyons — who went on to edit Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven, and of course, The Virgin Suicides — so that oughta count for something.

[via the boyfriend]

I’ve never met Flickr user Brother O’Mara, but he’s easily one of the best photogs in New Orleans (along with a certain boyfriend, of course). I mean, anyone who can make Jackson Square look new and exciting after two centuries of snapshots, postcards, etchings, and watercolors deserves serious credit.

Also: his recent “Owlman” series? Scary-licious.

I am not a ginormous fan of Glee. I mean, it’s cute and funny, but so was Ally McBeal, once upon a time, you know?

That said, Jane Lynch is a crazyawesome lady:

I know this is a couple of days late and several dollars short, but just for the record: I didn’t do my homework on the healthcare bill. I don’t know the ins and outs of the president’s controversial plan, despite the fact that every news agency in the country has picked the bill apart, line by line. I’ve had ample time and opportunity to get informed, but like many of my fellow Americans, I’m lazy that way.

Here’s what I do know, though:

1. Smart people — people I trust, like our president, some of my nonpartisan friends, and even my moderate Republican father — support the bill.

2. Stupid people — people I most definitely do not trust, like, say, David Vitter — are adamantly opposed to it.

3. The one thing that I do know about the bill is this:

The massive healthcare reform bill passed by Congress and headed for President Obama’s signature includes language requiring restaurant chains with 20 or more outlets to provide calorie labeling on menus, menu boards, drive-through displays and vending machines, reports the Center for Science in the Public Interest. [MediaPost]

And I love that. If you’ve been to New York in the past year or two, you know what a difference seeing nutritional values right on the menu can make in your eating choices.

Add all that up, and I’m inclined to support the healthcare bill. Not like my opinion matters, not like I get a vote, but whatever. I’m just thinking out loud.

Everybody admits that the current system isn’t working, and conservatives — by definition, those who wish to uphold tradition and avoid radical change — are never going to address it. As a progressive, I think someone has to make the first step, and as a liberal, I think it ought to be the government. It may not be perfect, but I’m not a perfectionist. That’s what amendments are for.

As for the wingnuts and their various lawsuits over the legislation…well, despite the protestations of Ken Cuccinelli and his sour-grapes buddies, I think there’s precedent for federal law trumping state law. In fact, I believe there’s a clause in the constitution that insists upon it. Then again, the Supremes are weighted slightly to the right, so who can say? Except the Supremes, I mean.

The only downside, as far as I can see, is Obama’s signature on the bill. Is that the way he signs everything? Looks like someone’s been practicing that one since second grade.

Last week, a commenter by the name of Will mentioned the Upstairs Lounge. For those who don’t know, the Upstairs Lounge was a gay bar in French Quarter, and on June 24, 1973, it became the site of one of the deadliest fires in New Orleans’ history. In all, 32 people died — most in the blaze itself, a few others from injuries sustained while trying to escape. Among that number were many members of the city’s MCC congregation.

There’s been a good bit written about the Upstairs Lounge (though it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page of its own yet). There’s been a lot of debate about the cause of the blaze that engulfed the second-story bar. (It’s generally believed to have been set by an angry hustler who was thrown out of the place earlier that night.) And there’s been much discussion about media coverage of the event, which was pretty minimal. (I’d like to think that was an act of compassion, sparing grief-stricken family and friends the additional trauma of having their loved ones’ names and faces dragged through the news at a time when it was not terribly cool to be gay in most of America.)

There’s also been a good bit written about the what-ifs of the Upstairs Lounge: what if there hadn’t been bars on the windows, what if people had known about the emergency exit, and so on. That’s the morbid stuff I tend to dwell on. As a child, I was always replaying tragic news stories in my head, working out ways for victims to go back in time and come out alive. At one point, I think I’d even sketched out a map of tunnels that the kids of Jonestown could’ve used to escape into the jungle.

But despite all that discussion and coverage and debate, it took artist Skylar Fein’s installation at the Prospect.1 biennial to put the Upstairs Lounge in context for me. Yes, he made use of camp elements, bits of art and inference: his work was not direct, it was not a documentary. And yet somehow, Skylar — who wasn’t there, who was barely alive at the time of the fire, if he was alive at all — managed to evoke the bar and the tragedy in a way that straight (and straightforward) news stories never could.

For those who missed it, here’s a clip of the installation, followed by archival footage of what may have been the only national news coverage of the fire. There are also stills of the installation at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, which represents Skylar.

I’d heard rumors about a new fragrance called “Vulva”, but I hadn’t given it much thought (for obvious reasons). But now there’s a video for it, which raises a couple of questions:

• Are people supposed to wear this junk or just huff it?

• If it’s wearable, who’s doing the wearing?

• Women? Why would they shell out for such a thing? As the ad clearly demonstrates, ladies who want to smell of eau de nether region can just hit the stationary bike for ten minutes and dab the seat behind their ears.

• Men? Maybe, but do guys really want to reek of reverse-gangbang when they sit down with Bob from Human Resources to hear about changes to the company’s 401(k) plan?

Then again, if SJP can launch a fragrance modeled after body odor, I suppose anything goes. This is just one more skid down the slippery slope that ultimately ends with all of humanity cannonballing into a sweaty puddle of non-bathing.

[via Copyranter]