This should be fabulous. We went to a preview reception, with a few of the songs and one of the speeches, in someone's loft a few nights ago and it was amazing. It's being presented by The Civilians, who did The Ladies.

Paris Commune is a workshop production of a new piece using the cabaret form and actual songs from the period to stage the 1871 revolution of Paris - the first socialist revolution in Europe. On March 18, 1871, a sudden uprising propels the Commune into power, sending the government fleeing to Versailles. During the brief 73 days of its existence, the Commune attempts to radically restructure society. Everything is brought into question - the rights of women, religion, and even whether or not bakers should be forced to labor at night. There are many different opinions on the merits of the Commune. The army's repression of the Commune remains one of the most ruthless and horrific episodes of modern history.

It's a workshop with only a few performances. Go here to get tickets before they sell out. We're going with Glenn on the 6th.

I went to see John Adams's El Niño at BAM tonight. Ugh. I think living in California has ruined his mind. Given the current state of the world, the last thing I want to hear is a religious work about Mary and the birth of Jesus. I live in a country whose president says he is a man of faith and God wants him to bomb Iraq to make us safe. Soaking in the most anti-woman, anti-human aspects of Christianity isn't something I want to make time for. Let's think about it: the only woman suitable to bear Jesus is a virgin, so the only really holy woman in Christianity does something no human woman can do: bear a child while remaining a virgin.

The music isn't even particulary interesting, with a few exceptions, and I love a lot of Adams's work -- especially Nixon in China and Death of Klinghoffer.

For a better written take on the whole thing, go read James.

Speaking of queer culture, while getting the demo photos from my camera, I realized I had two good photos of Kiki from the March 3 performance. She really is a performance goddess.

Yahoo has a nice photo of colored powders, ready for the Holi festival. Stephen Dean had a beautiful video from the festival at Henry Urbach in 2001.

I didn't realize she had a web page. Fabulous! Thanks to Mr. Trinity for letting me know. I first met her through Paul Schmidt -- a genius we lost before we should have.

It's probably American -- possibly named after an Albany chef named Joseph French.

The newspapers won't even print the title, but Suzan-Lori Parks' new play Fucking A, is the hottest ticket in New York.

My mother is coming to New York at the end of the month, and we already have tickets to take her. We're also taking her to see a real musical instead of the crap that Broadway produces these days: People Are Wrong at P.S.122.

Busy art weekend! If I'm not too feverish -- still have my cold -- I will be at the Friday and Saturday Scope Art Fair parties, and possibly head to Williamsburg on Saturday for some of their festivities. I'll probably go to the Armory Show during the day on Saturday.

Colin de Land, gallerist/art lover extraordinaire, has died.

I'm going to the 7:30 show of Kiki and Herb at Knitting Factory tonight.

I note that Knitting Factory Hollywood has Ellen Degeneres while the NYC one is putting on people like Kiki and Herb. That rather sums it all up, doesn't it?

Courtesy of Chris, here is an MP3 of Kiki and Herb's "People Die". It's high quality, so it's rather big (10.9 MB).

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Yes, I know I should really be going to a performance of Lysistrata. There is one at Barracuda at 4pm...

Williamsburg galleries will be open until midnight this Saturday, March 8 -- followed by an afterparty at northsideBank. More details may be found here.

In honor of France's pro-peace stance, Plus Ultra Gallery will be holding a wine tasting featuring French wines from 9-midnight.