I found my thrill

My Twitter feed this morning delivered this insane bit of earnest surreality that only French television could produce: Vladimir Putin playing the piano and singing Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill to a crowd of global celebrities, including plasticized Goldie Hawn, still raunchy Sharon Stone, stoned looking Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Kal Penn, and a muy gordo Gerard Depardieu. Pooty Poot's voice is weirdly roboticized, like some cyborg variation on Tuvan throat singing, which makes sense. About the only thing this clip is missing is a Siberian white tiger on a leash, or in Putin's lap.

I am quite convinced that Leggy Starlitz is behind this, developing material for a new cabaret show for RT5's Saturday night lineup, in which the great Hegelian figures of the 21st century perform pop standards of the postwar era.

((Understand that one of the lodestones of French television is Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde with Patrick Sebastien, kind of French answer to Don Francisco's Sabado Gigante, in which a crowd of French celebrities sit around tables drinking and smoking in evening attire watching weird magic, talking dogs, crooners, and, of course, mimes. The missing ingredient, clearly, is a dark geopolitical edge. Charles Taylor saws Tyra Banks in half!))



In other video news, I am will be reading tonight at the latest installment of Teleportal Readings from Monofonus Press, which livens up the tired format of the literary reading by integrating it with brilliant video art by Scott Gelber and bringing out the performance implicit in the words themselves. The selections of material by the curator, Jess Sauer, are wonderful, as you can see in this piece by poet Dean Young (who, sadly, needs a heart transplant).

Dean Young from Monofonus Press on Vimeo.

I am delighted to be included, especially as a denizen of the ghetto of sf. I will be reading "Nomadology," which appeared last year at Strange Horizons.

Teleportal 2.2

Featuring Chris Nakashima-Brown, Andy Devine,
Eileen Myles, and Ed Hirsch

Videos by Scott Gelber

8pm, Saturday, December 11, 2010

The ND at 501 Studios
5th and Brushy
Austin, TX