Lots more going on this week, my friends.

Tonight, the July edition of The Beautiful and the Damned will take place at Glad Day Bookshop (598 Yonge St., Toronto – just north of Wellesley on the west side of Yonge). Here’s the scoop from my pal, the lovely and talented Lizzie Violet:

It’s officially summer and the best way to celebrate, in a room full of amazing poets, and inspiring music. Come dressed in your best Hawaiian Luau outfit or grass skirt! Join our fabulous host DM Moore, as she gives this month’s dead celeb, Tura Santana, a run for her money. This month’s features are:

Marcy Rogers’ first incarnation as a writer was as a playwright. Her play Nocturnal Emissions was nominated for a Dora award in 1993. She was also commissioned by Young People’s Theatre to write a play about hard of hearing children called The Secret of…

Fringe adventures began this afternoon at the George Ignatieff Theatre (GIT) when I met up with pals Kat, Lizzie, Janis, Laurie and playwright Brandon Pitts to see One Night  – co-written by Pitts and actor Angela Brown.

To say that One Night is just a romcom would be missing the point, but wouldn’t be entirely untrue either. Directed by Shaista Latif, One Night tells the story of a plus-sized woman’s journey to overcome low self-esteem and make her own way in the world despite societal and familial pressures and expectations.

Latif has assembled an amazing, funny cast for this story of Penny (Angela Brown), a smart, good-humoured single plus-sized woman who works transcribing medical notes but longs to be a chef. Barraged by invasive, sabotaging phone calls from her mother and pestered by her crazy cat lady co-worker Cassandra (Tanya Filipopoulos), and bolstered by her pals Julie (Sangeeta Wylie)…

Tonight’s Fringe adventure took Lizzie and I to the Randolph Theatre, where we bumped into Philip and Darren from The Judy Monologues – like us, there to see Lynne Kamm’s Mum and the Big C.

Written and directed by Kamm, this is the story of Ripley (Elvira Kurt), a single under-employed lesbian with commitment issues who comes to stay with her family therapist mum Donna (Janet-Laine Green), who’s been diagnosed with stage one breast cancer and due to have surgery. Mum is a busy lady – having an affair with married co-worker James and receiving the unwanted attentions of her sweet Italian widower neighbour Tony (both played by Trevor Hayes, who plays all the male characters) – while Ripley manages to hook up with single mom Maddie (Megan Fahlenbock) at a local bar. And we’re talking the suburbs here – Mississauga, to be exact.

Turns out, Maddie is Donna’s…

I have to confess that though I love Pride and the community progress it stands for, I also hate Pride and the massive opportunity to be ignored by more men at one time than my ego can take. Trying to stop and take in booths is nearly impossible with so many people wanting to do the same, or with booth operators more focused on their particular, & usually much younger, demographic.

The Beautiful & The Damed at Pride2012 gave a great show under standard, but taxing circumstances – we were on at 3 p.m. during the hight of the Parade – the audience was sizeable and responsive. Taxing included the sweltering heat, the unshaded stage, and for Amoeba Starfish – electronic equipment that ‘wilted’ under that intense heat.

They opened the show with a cooling ambient piece that Lizzie Violet,s words slipped into easily. I always enjoy being reminded…

While I was performing my ode to disco “Oogie Inferno” I realized that disco is truly the music of revolution – it was pop music that fearlessly opted to ignore the macho stance of rock’n’roll, c&w and even r&b. When the ‘disco sucks’ movement was burning Bee Gees albums before baseball games it seems like a futile gesture – today I realized that what the statement really was/is ‘disco sucks cock.’

As I read I saw the ode as a protest piece and that charged it with a different energy. Protest songs are usually strident and angry, this piece isn’t. Like much of disco music it extolled the sheer joy of dance, of being alive – which in a culture that sees pessimism as realistic and that pleasure is shallow plus its its intrenched sexophobia, disco joy is a subtle defiance. While protest music (& most r’n’r)  is heterosexist in…