Freaks and geeks?

I've been keenly awaiting this piece, which I knew was in the offing: at the Times Magazine, Mark Oppenheimer on Stephen Burt as poetry's cross-dressing kingmaker!  (Which gives the whole thing a Game of Thrones flavor...)

"The 'cool' space of numbered propositions"

At the New Haven Review, Stephen Burt on growing up between genders. 

"My grandmother wore a wig"

I am sorry it has been so quiet round here - too much running, not enough time at home frivolled away on the internet! Hoping to have a bit of blog-intensive down-time over the next few days, but in the meantime, a few tidbits...

Soliloquies in the bath!

Amanda Craig has a nice piece on Neil Gaiman at the Times Online.

If you are in New York and have a few dollars to spare (or even if you do not), go and see Wig Out! at the Vineyard Theater (through November 16). It is quite, quite lovely, a magical evening of theater - it gave me cause to reflect that though it and Cato could hardly be more different, they do have that thing in common that is something elusive and transformative that happens in theater alone and not in novels or poems or essays however delightful they may be. (Here is Ben Brantley's review for the Times.

(NB this show also gave me cause to reflect that the vampire balls in novels by Anne Rice and Laurell K. Hamilton could not exist without the culture of drag balls having been in place first. This play takes you into a richer alternate universe than any but the very best fantasy novels - interesting, it is a thing I rarely think about a play...)