TransFabulous was both

I am not going to post at length about a weekend that was too full of amazing incident and stunning performance art to do justice to. I did my writing workshop and I also read some of my poems during an open mike session; I got to hang with a lot of friends, including some from Berlin and New York, and also met someone new and quite utterly charming. (Yes, that's you Alex if you keep your promise and read this.)

Perhaps the most important thing was the Beograd performers - Serbs and Bosnians doing standup, and music and just powerful riffs about everything from sexuality to war. And you have not lived until you have heard a bearded drag queen sing 'I Will Survive'. In Serbian. Who knew when we first saw Fawlty Towers that there would be an entirely new context in which people would say 'don't mention the war' and it have another layer of reference?

(All this reminds me of a wedding I went to at which a Trot friend conducted a passport marriage to a Serbian comrade - the mother of the bride got very drunk and kept referring to 'My new son-in-law, Mr. Atrocitywicz.' )

I was more impressed than I can readily say with singers like Bird LaBird - who is genuinely amazing and performance people like Jet Black and Josephine. My thanks to Serge and jasonelvis for organizing such an incredible series of days.

And tonight I went to TransLondon and then to Bar Wotever, where I met up with a surprising number of people I know given I had never actually been before.

And sometimes I refuse to choose

Cyd Charisse died, at 87. She was one of Astaire's best partners and certainly Kelly's, which means she did some of the best dancing in Hollywood films.

Here she is with Astaire in Band Wagon

and with Kelly in Singing in the Rain

Other dancers were witty and graceful; Charisse was both those things and pure sex as well.