94 Degrees

Seattle PrideFest 2008 took place this past weekend and I have to say that it was the best Pride festival I have ever experienced.

I had no set plans that weekend and really just went with the flow the whole time, which turned out to be perfect.

Saturday night I went out with Keith, Kyle and his friend Chris after pre-funking a bit over at Keith’s residence aka. “The Penthouse” with a couple rambunctious kittens named Smoky and Pueblo.

We first walked over to The Cuff and the line was about a block long and did not seem to be moving to rapidly so we headed off to the next bar on the agenda, Madison Pub . Apparently, Madison Pub is very strict about their “Maximum Capacity” policy so their line, albeit shorter, wasn’t going to get us in and drinking any sooner than The Cuff’s. We then made our way up the street even further to C.C. Attles which I had only been to once with Luke just a few days prior. No line to wait, however there were several substantial lines for drinks inside.

It didn’t take too long for us to get to the front of the line and procure some very strong drinks. A perennial favorite dance club of Seattle, Neighbours followed after that.

The next day featured the annual Pride Parade, which for a few years now has taken place in the downtown area and finished up at the Seattle Center. In prior years it was held on Broadway up on Capitol Hill with festivities continuing in Volunteer Park. That morning I woke up around 9:30 so I could get downtown as the parade was getting started around 11:00AM. One friend of mine texted me where he and his friends were at, however, when I got down in that area, getting across the street where he stood was not going to happen.

As I was texting some other friends, seeing where people were, what they were doing, I caught a glance of a guy I had met the night before, just in passing. It came out that we were both downtown with no plans and both by ourselves, so Jon and I ended up hanging out and just had a really great time. Started drinking around noon, went to the Seattle Center to check out all the fun going on there and realized that the Beer Gardens there just weren’t going to cut it. We proceeded to a local bar and sufficiently hydrated ourselves to further enjoy the afternoon. Between dancing with thousands of other people in the International Fountain-a giant fountain in a crater-like bowl-and dancing next to the DJ booth and walking around in the 94 degree, no-cloud-in-the-sky-weather, the day was an absolute blast.

Later in the afternoon, we stopped at my apartment to take a breather (ie. sitting and consuming additional libations) and get ready for the rest of the evening. Jon already had plans to dress up-or dress down as it may be, being Pride and all-and go to R Place so we mingled there and talked with a bunch of friendly folk.

Having partied hard the whole day, it was an early night for me, as I headed out around 10:30, but I wouldn’t have done the day any differently!

And the Pride season is not over yet, as I will be heading up to Vancouver Pride with a few friends in less than a month!

Querying the Buffy Queer-y

I am finally getting around to posting on some of my fantastic experiences and intellectual joyrides from Slayage 3: Conference on the Whedonverses which took place a couple weeks ago in good ol' Arkadelphia, Arkansas. I still want to write about some of my best moments at the conference, though so far, my musings after the fact, have been prompted by articles about Buffy that I've stumbled on since amidst the interwebs.

This post is in part, in honor of the beginning of Pride Season-I love that it happens during summer-and what better way to celebrate or illuminate any discourse than to tie it in to Buffy? One particular article is probably old news to some people as it was published in April of last year, but I found "What makes Buffy a gay icon?" on AfterElton.com to be a worthwhile pop culture article on the queer themes addressed in Buffy. Some of the talkbacks contain some interesting commentary as well.

In the same session as I mentioned in my last post, Sarah Thomas from the University of Nebraska , the only other undergraduate-though I was and still am, to an extent at one of these in between undergraduate/grad students since I just finished a four year degree-presented a paper called "'This is a witch symbol': Willow's Queer Identity." Sarah went in to how Willow's development of her witchcraft was a metaphor for queer identity, but what was even more interesting was her assertion regarding Buffy's closeted identity as a Slayer.

Buffy's confession to her mother during the episode "Becoming, Part Two", reminded me (as I saw it after the following) of Bobby Drake's own "coming out" as the mutant, Iceman in X2, which stands as an even more heavy handed approach to broaching the issue of queer identities-stay tuned for an upcoming post on the comic book series, Ultimate X-Men and its own treatment of gay characters and themes.



Buffy's masqued "coming out" is, of course, a matter that is further complicated by the events that take place in Season 8 of Buffy. *Spoiler Alert* Buffy wakes up in bed with a "naked Asian girl"-as Andrew puts it-a fellow Slayer named Satsu *End Spoiler*. The full implications of this happening have not yet been fully realized of course, as Season 8 continues onward, but the development is certainly stirring.