Emma's Mixtape

Justin Bond has my favourite line in Shortbus

"As my dearly departed friend Lotus Weinstock used to say 'I used to want to change the world, now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity...'"

Sorry to have missed him when he was in London.
 

Oh that's so brilliant! I guess I need to see that film.
 

If you haven't seen John Cameron Mitchell's 'Hedwig and the angry inch' that should be your priority.

Hedwig's character the epitome of 'It's weird how a performance so over the top can have this real undercurrent of melancholy and kernel of truth'
 

Hedwig live in the theatre was brilliant. The film didn't do it for me. Agree though, John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig is one of the most honest, brilliant, beautiful characters ever written.
 

Also, thank you for making this engagement malarky more interesting. William could use a bit of lipstick
 

Total Eclipse of The Heart is one of the greatest power ballads of all time!!! (Next to anything and everything Belinda Carlisle ever sang). There is no version of this song that does not unhinge me. I cried watching this. I'm not sure why. Transvestism as performance or as art or as real-life or as whatever just always seems to encompass the best, most intense, type of melancholy. Self-reflexive or something. Maybe that's just in the films I watch. Bad Education, anyone?
 

As a segue- my party piece is singing Total Eclipse of the Heart in French (It was number one when I lived in France a few years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtVCyXaY6Q4

I came back to see what you ladies thought of this article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/lionel-shriver-lets-up-our-game-not-exclude-men-2136940.html

reminded me of what Emma said about Flannery O Connor and how she was one of the few writers who didn't write about relationships...