I Heart Sufjan Stevens

There are three I's in Illinois [ArtistDirect.com]

I am developing a small obsession with a folk musician from Michigan. I hear him all the time. But the problem is I just don't like his music.

I want to like it. I really do. Critics roundly praise him. Public radio certainly loves him. (Find him on WNYC.org or NPR.org or MPR.org.) And I love public radio. So, there's something, right?

But I'm just not feeling it. So I must be a joyless freak for not adoring him, I guess.

I bought Jeff his album Greetings from Michigan for Christmas. The best thing about it is the cover art and the song titles — clever, promising numbers any Michigan nerd would love such as "Flint (For The Unemployed And Underpaid)," "For The Windows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypsilanti," "Say Yes! To M!ch!gan!," "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head!," "They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For The Homeless In Muskegon)," and "Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)." But listening to it in the car driving from Detroit to Saginaw was a rather depressing experience.

	More than a pretty picture [www.musichallsf.com]

I like his guitar playing. I like his 50-state idea — the album after Michigan is Come on Bring the Illinoise. (I hope he makes it through all 50.) And he's a total cutie-pie.

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But his music always leaves me with the feeling of having been at a high school music recital. There's always a weird, unconnected brass arrangement or xylophone or something. His voice is cute but ... shall we say unadorned. A whisper. A shadow. He uses layer upon layer of instruments and noise, but somehow it comes off sounding as flat as the Michigan sugar beet fields. It all adds up to a unique, very specific, practiced amateurish sound.

A sound I just can't love.

Sufjan Stevens and the Michigan Militia [Sufjan.com]

But I will continue to try to love it. He's more than a pretty picture; he's clearly talented and prolific and musically versatile. Whatever he's doing is deliberate, and that's very cool. He is unique. I wouldn't deny that I respect him. And I'm delighted that he's getting so much attention.

The bottom line, I guess is: He's a fellow Michigander — born in Detroit, raised up north. So I remain loyal to him. I wish him boundless success. I hope that I will begin to like his work very soon. And above all, I dream of the day he shows up at my doorstep, having been caught in a sudden rainstorm, his steaming t-shirt clinging to his lean, lithe body, asking me for a towel.

Let's get you out of those wet clothes, shall we, Mr. Stevens?

Putting on Your Face

There's a kiosk shop at Manhattan Mall for Vera Moore Cosmetics. I see it every time I walk through the mall to get to my gym. I wonder if there's any relation to Benjamin Moore, the paint company.

Benjamin Moore covers the interiors and exteriors of buildings. Vera Moore covers the exteriors of people. Seems like a natural, marvelous connection. What if the companies merged? They could make everything pretty. But only on the surface. There's nothing they could do about the interiors of people.

Reminds me of one of my favorite Sandra Bernhard routines. She's talking about a fictional friendship with Courtney Love — "... a tear, a bruise. So tender; so fragile" — and she closes the monologue with "Courtney, what plastic surgeon is going to go in there and fix all of the scars in your heart?"

Oscar: The Grouch

I thought for sure Felicity Huffman and Heath Ledger were going to win last night. My only Oscar predictions that came true were that Jake Gyllenhaal would not win Best Supporting Actor and that Brokeback Mountain would win either Best Picture or Best Director but not both.

It was supposed to be a great year for the Gay Film, right? No one can deny that the nominations of Huffman, Ledger, Gyllenhaal, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ang Lee and Brokeback Mountain are important. It's excellent company. But as selfish filmgoers, we want wins, of course.

I didn't see Walk the Line, so I don't know anything about Reese Witherspoon's performance. She gave a great acceptance speech. And I loved her in Legally Blonde. So, OK... Give her the Oscar. (That's a joke, btw.) Sorry, Felicity. Go home and polish your Emmy. But take heart: A lot of Desperate Housewives watchers — from cities without art-house theaters — probably would never have known you played a transsexual if not for the Oscar broadcast.

I didn't see Capote, but Hoffman is amazing in everything he does, so it's entirely possible that he deserved the Best Actor win as much as Ledger. I'm similarly disappointed, but it's still a gay role — albeit I think a more "standard," less provocative, less interesting and safer gay role. So... chalk one up, I guess, eh?

And even though I didn't expect Brokeback to get Best Picture after Ang Lee won Best Director, I still can't believe that Crash won! OK, the "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp" win was kinda cool — even though a second Oscar loss for Dolly Parton tears at the fabric of my gay soul. But Best Picture? Considering what it was up against? I can't fathom how they pulled that one off. Crash was a good movie. I like the questions it raised. But it was obvious, too full of coincidence, and a little overbearing.

It's almost like the Academy wanted to throw a bone to all the nominated films — no film goes home empty-handed! And as a result, the wins don't seem quite so golden.

Maybe it's not such a surprise that the gay-themed work didn't sweep. There are other good movies in the world. But what the hell is this quotation in an Associated Press article from an Exodus International goon supposed to mean?

"I think America sent a message to those in the industry that this isn't something that they're interested in, and hopefully this was something that weighed heavily on them as they voted for these pictures," said Alan Chambers, president of Orlando, Fla.-based Exodus International, a Christian organization that promotes "freedom from homosexuality."

First of all, I object to his inclusion in the article as a balance to GLAAD. They are not equal and opposite. Maybe if there were a group that was out there to turn straights into gays, this Chambers would have something to say worth listening to. But to set someone who wants to convert gay people into straight people against someone who merely wants to make sure gays are treated fairly in the media is idiocy.

Besides that, though, "America sent a message"? What a dumbass. America doesn't vote for the Oscars. America went to the movies in hordes and droves and ate these movies up. And what kind of message does he suppose "America" sent with the gay nominations in the first place? Oh yeah ... Clearly a lack of interest.

I read another article that cited the show's "gay cowboy" montage as being in poor taste, which also bothered me.

If the insinuation of being gay were an insult, i.e., a bad thing, of course it would be bad taste. The trouble is, it's not. The comment stands in sharp contrast to the opening sequence where John Stewart wakes up in bed with a grinning George Clooney, which was hilarious. It's OK to insinuate a same-sex attraction in John Stewart but not in John Wayne? When it's clearly a joke? What is this double standard? Again, the cowboy — honestly, a minuscule piece of American identity — is held up as some gold standard of masculinity. The writer shows that he clearly didn't get the joke — or the significance of Brokeback Mountain.

Unless these "real men" can roll with the joke, until they can realize that their masculinity, their lifestyle and their image (certainly their marriage) are not being threatened, I will not believe that they are real men at all.

Brokeback or "the gays" didn't need to sweep last night. But it would have been nice. It would have been fun. Truly, I don't like it when one movie wins everything. It seems myopic, lazy, unimaginative. And the Oscars don't need to score points for the Gay Rights movement. And even if they did, I'm not sure it would really be speaking to the core of middle-American thought. Far more important, I think, is the work that was done to bring these roles and these films closer to the mainstream. Far more important is the nomination, the attention and the discussion.

And, of course, the image of John Stewart waking up in bed next to George Clooney.

"Ain't Got No Money, Ain't Got No Honey."

Down in the subway station at 74th and Broadway in Jackson Heights, where you can get the E, V, F, G, R and 7, there's a terribly depressing man who pops up from time to time. He wanders up and down the platform trying to sell a piece of jewelry to commuters. It's a "gold" necklace with one of those charms on it, usually a woman's name in scripty lettering, or something like "love" or "precious." I never get close enough to read the thing.

The guy is old and evidently in poor health. Missing teeth. Crackling skin. If he were a fishmonger or a butcher, in my simple, little world, he might be considered haggared in a charming, story-book way, if not for one thing. His right lower eyelid sags drastically, looking like it's turned inside-out to reveal pink, moist, swollen flesh that surrounds and obscures the eye itself and leaks fluid down his cheek. It looks like an infection that's been split open and spread wider. I find it horrifying.

He dangles his trinket out in front of himself, stopping people as they descend the stairs or walk past on their way to the platform edge.

"Ain't got on money, ain't got no honey," he calls out.

Not quite "Feed the birds. Tuppence a bag." But I guess you gotta have a gimmick.

Apparently he's appealing to the more shallow part of ourselves that is willing to believe that a flash piece of jewelry will be enough to win the affection (or at least the attention) of our dearest.

People do their best to ignore or avoid him. And, to his credit, he doesn't press the sale.

I can't imagine anyone buying this thing from him. It's tacky. And he's scary. Assuming he has held onto his sanity through his difficult years, I don't imagine he expects anyone to buy it. It might just be a pretense for getting some spare change. Or maybe he's just crazy, after all. I want to give him some Visine and an eye patch. I wonder if he'd get more attention that way.