Arts & Entertainment
Calendar through May 23
A packed trans pride weekend has concerts, parties and more
Comedian Vicki Lawrence comes to Ram’s Head On Stage with her show ‘Vicki Lawrence & Mama’ this weekend. (Photo courtesy the Brokaw Company)
Friday, May 17
Washington Blade hosts its seventh annual Rehoboth Summer Kickoff Party at the Blue Moon (35 Baltimore Ave., Rehoboth Beach, Del.) today at 5 p.m. A $5 donation is suggested and will go toward the Washington Blade Foundation. For more information, visit the Facebook event or washingtonblade.com.
Friends of the Library, Montgomery County and the Latino Gay Lesbian and Transgender History Project host inaugural poet Richard Blanco this evening at 7:30 p.m. at the Rockville Memorial Library (21 Maryland Ave.). Blanco is a Cuban-born writer whose family emigrated to Spain, New York and then eventually settled in Florida. He is the author of three books and a bilingual triptych of poems that were submitted for the inauguration. Tickets are $30-$100. Attendees can buy packages that include a signed book. Visit folmc.org for more information.
Whitman-Walker provides free HIV Testing at Town (2009 8th St., NW) starting at 8 p.m. For more information, visit whitman-walker.org.
Saturday, May 18
The Hagerstown Hopes Pride & Diversity Celebration takes place today from noon-4 p.m. at Doubs Woods Park (1307 South Potomac St., Hagerstown, MD). The event’s goal is to educate, enlighten and entertain the LGBT community. For details, visit pflagcentralmd.org.
Emmy-winning comedian Vicki Lawrence comes to Rams Head On Stage (33 West St., Annapolis, Md.) bringing her show “Vicki Lawrence & Mama, A Two Woman Show” tonight at 8 p.m. One of her most endearing and famous characters, Thelma Harper, also known as “Mama,” was created in the seventh season on “The Carol Burnett Show.” Tickets are $75. For more information, visit ramsheadonstage.com.
The fourth Gaithersburg Book Festival takes place from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on the grounds of City Hall in Old Towne (31 S Summit Ave.). This year coordinators are trying a new format to bring more authors and greater diversity. There will be pairings of authors, panel discussions and one-on-one conversations between authors and critics and industry insiders. Food, drink and ice cream is provided. Admission is free. Visit gaithersburgbookfestival.org for more information.
MOVA (2204 14th St., NW) holds its “Blast from the Past ‘80s Night” tonight hosted by Stormy Vain and music by VJ Tre. There will be drink specials for ‘80s themed drinks all night. For details, visit movalounge.com or the Facebook event.
Burgundy Crescent, a gay volunteer organization, volunteers today for the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation at Falls Church PetSmart (6100 Arlington Blvd., Falls Church, Va.) starting at 11:45 a.m. For more information, visit burgundycrescent.org.
Whitman-Walker provides HIV Testing at Capital Trans Pride today from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at National City Christian Church (5 Thomas Circle, NW). The clinic provides testing again at the D.C. Eagle (639 New York Ave., NW). For more information, visit whitman-walker.org.
The Green Spring Garden (4603 Green Spring Rd, Alexandria Va.) hosts its Spring Garden Day on today at 9 a.m. The even features 40 vendors of rare and unusual plants. For more information, visit fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/greenspring.
A new New Balance shop opens today in Fairfax’s Mosaic District (2910 District Ave., Fairfax) and will carry the entire collection of athletic shoes, casual shoes and athletic apparel. Several discounts, prizes and raffles will be available today and Sunday. The shop is just steps away from the Dunn Loring/Merrifield Metro stop. Store hours today are 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Visit nbretail.com for more information.
Sunday, May 19
The D.C. Center and Professionals in the City host Women’s Speed Dating tonight at 7 p.m. at Finn and Porter in the Embassy Suites Hotel (900 10th St., NW). This event is for bisexual and lesbian women in their 20s and 30s. Admission is $30. For more information, visit thedccenter.com.
Monday, May 20
The Shakespeare Theatre Company hosts an installment of its Classic Conversations with Michael Kahn featuring Audra McDonald and Christopher Plummer tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Sidney Harman Hall (610 F St., NW). The series of discussions covers the topics of classical theater and the craft of acting. McDonald is both and actor and opera singer, while Plummer is a classical actor who is known for his role in “The Sound of Music.” Tickets are $20-$35. Visit shakespearetheatre.org for more information.
The D.C. Center (1318 U St., NW) holds coffee drop-in for the senior LGBT community today at 10 a.m.-noon. The Center will provide complimentary coffee and a community to chat with. For more information, visit thedccenter.org.
Bears do Yoga takes place this evening 6:30 p.m. as part of a series at the Green Lantern (1335 Green Court, NW). This is part of a basic yoga series that takes place every Monday and is open to people of varying body types and experience. There is no charge. For more information, visit thedccenter.org.
Whitman-Walker Health (1701 14th St., NW) holds its HIV+ Newly Diagnosed Support Group tonight at 7. It is a confidential support group for anyone recently diagnosed with HIV and the group welcomes all genders and sexual orientations. Registration is required and attendees must call 202-797-3580 or email [email protected]. For details, visit whitman-walker.org.
Tuesday, May 21
The Stephen Sondheim production “Company” opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Signature Theatre (4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington, Va.). The show is about Bobby, a commitment-phobic bachelor, who searches for the answers to love and life in New York City. He observes the joys and pitfalls of marriage from his five couple friends while enjoying the company of the ladies. Sondheim’s award-winning score includes “Being Alive,” “Side By Side,” “Little Things You Do Together,” “Another Hundred People” and “Ladies Who Lunch.” The show runs until June 30. Tickets are $25-$80. For more information, visit signature-theatre.org.
Wednesday, May 22
Whitman-Walker Health (1701 14th St., NW) holds its HIV+ Newly Diagnosed Support Group tonight at 7. It is a confidential support group for anyone recently diagnosed with HIV and the group welcomes all genders and sexual orientations. Registration is required and attendees must call 202-797-3580 or email [email protected]. For details, visit whitman-walker.org.
Thursday, May 23
Lambda Sci-fi has its book discussion tonight at 7:30 p.m. at 1425 S St., N. Tonight the group will be discussing the book “Kindred” by Octavia Butler. For more information, visit lambdascifi.org.
Photos
PHOTOS: Remove the Regime rally and march
Dropkick Murphys, Earth to Eve perform on steps of Lincoln Memorial
The Remove the Regime rally and march was held on Saturday, Nov. 22.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Transgender Day of Remembrance was observed at the Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Nov. 20. The event was emceed by Rayceen Pendarvis and Dwight Venson. Musical selections were provided by Agape Praise and Dynamic Praise. Proclamations from the D.C. Council and the D.C. Office of the Mayor were presented. The Pouring of the Libation was conducted by Rev. Elder Akousa McCray and Rev. Paul Fulton-Woods of Unity Fellowship Church.
Remarks were given by trans survivors of violence. Family members of slain trans woman Dream Johnson were featured speakers. Prayers were given by Rev. Cathy Alexander and Rev. Dwayne Johnson of Metropolitan Community Church of Washington, D.C. Yael Shafritz gave a Jewish prayer through a video presentation. Closing remarks were given by community leader, Earline Budd.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Books
Pioneering gay journalist takes on Trump 2.0 in new book
Nick Benton’s essays appeared in Fall Church News-Press
Nicholas Benton is a well-known local LGBTQ advocate and journalist and the longtime owner and editor of the Falls Church News-Press, a weekly newspaper.
In his eighth book out now, Benton offers a new set of remarkable essays all crafted in the first eight months of Trump 2.0 and its wholesale effort at dismantling democracy and the rule of law. Most were published in the Falls Church News-Press, but he adds a new piece to this volume, as an addendum to his “Cult Century” series, revealing for the first time his experiences from decades ago in the political cult of Lyndon LaRouche, aimed at providing a clearer grasp of today’s Cult of Trump.
His “Please Don’t Eat Your Children” set takes off from the satire of Jonathan Swift to explore society’s critical role of drumming creativity out of the young.
Below is an excerpt from “Please Don’t Eat Your Children, Cult Century, and other 2025 Essays.”
Please Don’t Eat Your Children
In his famous short essay, “A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public,” author and Anglican priest Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) uses cutting satire to suggest that cannibalism of the young might help solve a battery of social ills.
As we examine our broken society today, it seems to me that reflecting on Swift’s social critique can be quite useful. Now we face a nation filled with anger and division and there is little to suggest any real solutions other than insisting people “don’t do that!” We can start out with the observation that young children, left to their own, are neither hateful nor cruel. How do they get that way later on in their lives? What drives them toward such emotional states and behaviors? It is not a problem only for the margins of society, for the extreme misfits or troubled. It is defining the very center of our culture today. Our divisions are not the cause, but the result of something, and nobody is saying what that is.
Swift doesn’t say what it is in his biting little essay. But it is implied by a context of a lack of bounty, or poverty, on the one hand, and an approach to it characterized by obscenely cruel indifference, on the other. He coined the phrase “useless eaters” in defining his radical solution. In Hitler’s Germany, that term resonated through the death camps and some in our present situation are daring to evoke it again as the current administration pushes radical cuts in Medicaid funding.
But while that refers to the old and infirm, mostly, it is the young we are talking about here. The problem is that our society is structured to devour our young and as they begin to find that out, they rebel. Not in all cases is this the practice, of course. Where there is little or no lack, things are different. We nurture our young, as we should, and we love them. Lucky is the child who is born to parents who are of means, and in a community where nurture is possible and valued. But even such children are ultimately not immune from facing a destiny of pale conformity battered by tightly delimited social expectations and debt slavery. If they have enough ambition, education and doors opened for them, some can run the gauntlet with relative effectiveness. Otherwise, our young are raised to die on battlefields, or to struggle in myriad other painful social conflicts aimed at advancing the world of their elders. In the Bible, there is a great admonition against this process that comes at the very precondition for the tradition it represents that begins with Abraham.
It is in the book of Genesis at the beginning of the Biblical story when, as that story goes, God commanded Abraham to kill his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice. As Abraham is about to obey, God steps in and says no. The entire subsequent eons-long struggle to realize Abraham’s commission by God to make a great nation that would be a light to the world would have been cut short right then if Abraham had slain his own son. The message is that all of the Abrahamic traditions, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, owe their source, and in fact are rooted, in God’s command to reject the sacrifice of children to the whims of their elders. The last thousands of years can be best defined in these terms, where nurture is pitted against exploitation of our young with, at best, vastly mixed results. Scenes like that at the opening of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the World War I novel and film where a teacher rallies a classroom full of boys to enlist in the war, is bone chilling. Or, the lyric in Pink Floyd’s iconic song, Comfortably Numb, “When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone. I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone.”
Nick Benton’s new book is available now at Amazon.
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