Yesterday - Yesterday - Today

Yesterday morning at a coffee shop there was this older woman in her early 40s discussing her dissertation chapters very loudly with two of her similar-aged friends while her young son sullenly read a book at the next table, and she talked a lot about theory, and once said something that was like, "...the creation of colonial space-time..."

Yesterday evening I went to a drag show with a friend, and the whole thing was kind of joyless and perfunctory, as if everyone was just going through the motions. Like I told my friend after the show, so many pieces lacked creative energy, since you could pretty much expect everything in the performance from the song and knowing what kind of shit drag queens go in for. The show felt over-long, and even every time this one fabled younger drag queen came on, we'd roll our eyes since we both thought she was kind of a talentless hack, but then towards the end of the show all of a sudden these giant organ chords rang out, and at the side of the audience a wedding party led by a cupid started slowly slowly marching towards the softly lit stage, and as the song slowly became distinct as a majestic instrumental arrangement of the opening to ABBA's "Dancing Queen" apropos for a wedding, the shirtless cupid who led the party dashed ahead and danced ballet on stage for a bit before dashing off just as the wedding party ascended the steps to the stage and the bride remained on the left facing the audience as the rest of the party processed to the right, and as she stood there, somehow the song changed to the standard version of Alicia Keys's "No One" that everyone knows, and instead of doing all this froofy and out-of-control drag queen shit, she just stood there pretty much the whole time holding her bouquet and she lip-synched very genuinely to the song.

I think what I found very affecting is that the drag queen was really tall and had these huge shoulders, so in the way that drag queen's are over-the-top femininity, that quality synched up with the oversize stature of a bride at her wedding, and this was underscored by how much shorter everyone else was in the wedding party.

Also, it was cool since the groom was always facing away from her, so she would always stand facing towards him saying how they'd always be together, and sometimes the bridesmaids would come and straighten out her dress or something like in wedding preparations and she would nod and smile at them while she kept lip-synching the song.

The whole song, too, really works in a wedding setting, with its idea of "I'll always love, nothing will tear us apart," and that last sentiment was even made stronger, because when the bride sang that part of the bridge where it goes

people will try
try to divide
something so real

the verse took on this whole quality of the couple having overcome adversity through her sheer willpower and now she was solemnizing their bond forever, and they'd make it.

After that, though, the groom progressed forward and they danced, and the spell was broken for the song, saddly.

Interestingly, later when we looked at the program, we found out that the singer was actually the drag queen we thought was a hack, and that made me think twice from doing a jerk-off motion the next time I hear someone talk about the transformative power of drag and the creation of identity through performance. Somehow, without her knowing how she did it, that bride got stage presence and worked the heck out of it. But, miracles do happen, and if I ever went to go see this particular drag queen again, I think it would fuck up my memories of this happy coincidence.

On another note, I am going down to the local convention center tonight to try to sneak into a free Lionel Richie concert that's part of a human resources conference. Wish me luck. I will be wearing a polo shirt and trying my best like someone who does human resources -- which I'm not sure is drag or prostitution.