Surviving the pandemic XI: Christmas Spice, Naked Heart, Send in the Clowns & gay romance

19 Dec 2020 - photos courtesy of publicist

This is a Christmas like no other as we struggle to celebrate under the ominous shadow of a pandemic. Finding the traditional warmth and magic is difficult, the shopping is even worse. Fortunately, though malls and many stores are closed, Paul Petro Contemporary Art's 24th annual Christmas Spice is still going strong with online ordering and curbside pick-up. The premise of Christmas Spice is to give that special someone the ultimate gift that shows you care: their first work of art. The beginnings of a collection or at least less drabness in their domicile. The number of choices, though many have already sold out, is staggering and includes incredible artists working in a variety of formats to fit a variety of budgets. Every year there are a specific artist's Christmas tree ornaments featured, and this year Andre Ethier has created a school of lively dangling fishes to swim on any fir or synthetic.

There are also a variety of pieces from superstar Keith Cole ranging from his tribute to the late, great and much missed RM Vaughn who loved Christmas almost as much as Halloween and Krampusnacht. The 4" x 6" photos "For Jubal Brown, 'The Dark Prince of Canadian Art'" are haunting and Cole says "These photos were taken during the days when RMV was missing - darkness and the void of it all." More whimsical are Cole's ornaments "Security Balls" and a selection of his "Untitled" vivid penis sketches, from his whimsical and disturbing show Three Bad Words (I am the proud owner of three of Cole's penises and they are almost as magnificent as Cole's own). There are also works by FASTWURMS, Robert Flack,  Jubal Brown himself, Dennis Day, Robin Fry, Vera Frenkel, Luis Jacob, Barbara Klunder, Will Munro and many more, creating the proverbial something for everyone on your list. You have until Wednesday, December 23 to order at multiplesandsmallworks.com

If you need to stimulate the brain and the nether regions after the frenetic frenzy of shopping, decorating and day drinking, Naked Heart: An LGBTQ Festival of Words offers a dizzying array of literary treats. Usually centred at community hub Glad Day Bookshop, this year's 40 authors and 12 specific events have moved online and are free (meaning that one can afford to buy the authors' books as either Christmas gifts or to savour oneself) though there is a request to donate to Glad Day Lit (gladdaylit.ca) the emergency survival fund for LGBTQ2S artists, performers, tip-based workers and Glad Day. There is a reading by "Smut Peddlers" and a panel titled "INSTABILITY, INSECURITY, INSANITY – Mental Health and the Writer" featuring David Kingston Yeh (Tales from the Bottom of My Sole, A Boy at the Edge of the World). There is an "In-Conversation with David Ramadan" on the topic of hiding memoir in fiction.

The legendary Patricia Wilson (Musing from the Bunker & Slouching Towards Womanhood) reads as part of "What Is? An Evening of Memoir and Nonfiction" with a Q&A that follows (word to the wise, ask her to read her new "Cunt" poem, it is extraordinary). Survivors of the Q&A, Wilson and her fellow readers including Rae Spoon do not sugar coat, can participate in "Salve & Balm - readings that soothe, mend or heal." Chris Tsujiuchi, whose Chris-terical Christmas Cabaret is still running online, headlines a conversation with music writers entitled "Behind the Music" which just may, knowing Tsujiuchi, be as sordid and titillating as the title implies. Alas there is not a Naked Boys Reading event this year but there is "Fuego Latinx: Burlesque & Readings" featuring the erotic, political and intellectual talents of Augusto Bitter (Chico, Iphigenia and the Furies, Lear, The Monument), El Toro (A Streetcar Named Desire, Blood Weddings, Boylympics, Class Dismissed), the one and only Gay Jesus (Shove It Down My Throat, The Wolves, Suitcases) and many more who will provide enough heat to melt your monitor. The festival runs from Sunday, December 20 to Thursday, December 31 with the full schedule at nakedheart.ca.

What to do when times are bleak? Send in the clowns! Morro & Jasp (Stupefaction, Morro and Jasp: 9 - 5 , A Christmas Carol, Bright Lights, James and the Giant Peach) have created the fascinating and hilarious "Send in the Clowns" as part of their website. Clowns temporarily without live audiences are featured with bios, gags and videos that showcase just how uproarious and spectacular clowning can be. Just having so much talent catalogued and preserved is crucial work but the entertainment is off the charts. Familiar faces and red noses like Rebecca Northan of Blind Date fame (hopefully David Benjamin-Tomlinson of the gay version of Blind Date is upcoming) and Derek Kwan's Biscuit are prominently featured. But there are new faces smeared with greasepaint and I am particularly intrigued by The Creepy Boys who bring an outrageous queer sensibility to their frivolity and satire. Until the theatres, fringe festivals and circuses re-open, "Send in the Clowns" is an incredible resource for reconnecting with favourite clowns, meeting new favourites, and getting a few laughs. The clowns can be found at morroandjasp.com

In my relentless quest to squeeze some Christmas spirit out of this lemon of a year, I have to admit that I also watched both gay Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies. Yes, both The Christmas House and The Christmas Setup. Both are sheer wish fulfilment and fantasy and it mainly depends on whether your tastes run towards a stoic Treat Williams father figure (The Christmas House) still as sexy as he was in The Ritz or the fabulous Fran Drescher (The Christmas Setup) playing Fran Drescher as a meddling uber mother. The romantic leads are good looking but disposable (except for Blake Lee who smoulders despite a beard in The Christmas Setup) and the plots and dilemmas are predictable and laughable. The other half rolled his eyes so far back in his head that he was looking up his ass, but by the time the past collided with the present in The Christmas Setup and true love was found and the - spoiler alert! - train station was saved, I had gone through half a box of kleenex. It was cathartic. 

The gays are a side dish to the main romance of The Christmas House (their dilemma is whether or not a pending adoption will come through, these are gays for mainstream consumption) and even subordinate to the Treat Williams storyline. But add a subplot about performing magic and conquering one's fears and The Christmas House is palatable. The Christmas Setup is all about the gays and will they or won't they? I guess that makes it revolutionary - that's certainly how both films are being promoted - but to me it just seems like fair play. If Mariah Carey can be in a bad Christmas rom com, so can some hot gay men. The Christmas Setup gets bonus points for casting out Canadian actor Chad Connell, who is a veteran of these kinds of films, as the hunky straight brother home from the army.

From the high art of Christmas Spice to the low camp of queer Christmas rom coms with a detour through literary hijinks and a divine selection of clowns, there are ways to survive the pandemic.