Thursday, October 04, 2007

Close To You


Before the Marc in the Park show on Saturday, Justin Bond performed a full album tribute to The Carpenter's Close To You. It was an end-of-summer-camp affair with dancing drag-queens and lush orchestrations and enough heart and soul to make a Conservative sniffle and turn away.

Sara and I were especially excited to see Rufus Wainwright in the crowd. Also, we had a front-row seat when he came up to Joyce DeWitt, sitting in front of us, and politely introduced himself to her. "I love him," Sara sighed.

Later that night--or early the next morning, depending on how you look at it--we found out that we had just missed Rufus at the after-party. With Kevin, we stared up at the mirrored ceiling in the bedroom and cursed the fates. Well, Sara did. Then she took a picture of us looking down at ourselves from above. In this picture, Sara looks like a big bright flash.

Justin and I bonded because during his set, he went out into the crowd and, with his hand on a shoulder, sang a verse or two directly to a few select audience members and I happened to be one of the lucky ones. It must have been a little surprising because I had my drawing pad in my lap, having just finished up the sketch. "I sang to you and you were drawing me!" he said later as we looked out over the pre-dawn Upper West side. It was as good a way to meet him as any; I gave him a copy of my drawing of Kiki and Herb and he disappeared into the night.

Also--and almost completely unrelated--if you've ever wondered what it looks like to see a six foot six drag queen covered in glitter scooping fistfuls of leftover catered pasta into his mouth ("I need the carbs for the bike ride to Brooklyn. Also, I am drunk," he explained), I assure you you're not missing anything.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

very hirschfeld-esque for some reason...i like it

6:23 PM  
Blogger Michael Arthur said...

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say it's because it looks like a Hirschfeld imitation. But, if you ain't stealing from the best, you're doing something wrong.

12:10 AM  

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