HAVE A GREATER WEEKEND: GODDESSES, PAGEANTS AND REGRETS

The Art Theatre truly lives up to its name—no disrespect to The Rum Diary, now playing—with this exhibit of black & white photographs by D. W. Gastelum, aka El Imagenero, which is inspired by “Come Sweet Death,” a 1967 poem by B. Davie Napier, who perhaps coincidently is recently deceased. Napier was a theologian and educator, and in “Come Sweet Death” he casts the “human history” of the biblical book of Genesis in concrete terms. In the example relevant to this project, Napier has Adam complaining about the garden, about the lack of opportunity for growth in understanding and adventure—until he finds Eve, which he decides that the garden is “tolerably fair” after all, because “Eve is a fecund goddess.” Fecund? Productive or fruitful, intellectually or in the ability to produce offspring; prolific. In the poem, Eve represents perspective and human community. The photographs in the exhibit are of the human figure, sometimes featured as a small element in a larger context, other times as the dominant or only image. This sounds good.

EVE IS A FECUND GODDESS: A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION BY D.W. GASTELUM/EL IMAGENERO ART THEATRE• 2025 E 4TH STREET• LONG BEACH 90804 • 562.435.5435 ARTTHEATRELONGBEACH.COM • ARTIST’S RECEPTION NOV 13, 5PM-6PM • OTHERWISE OPEN DURING REGULAR THEATRE HOURS THRU DEC. 9 • FREE

GREGGORY MOORE READING HIS NOVEL WITH THE GREAT TITLE AT GATSBY’S

What I like most about Greggory Moore’s novel, The Use of Regret, is the title—and not merely because it’s still the only part of the book I’ve read … despite the fact that Greggory is a good friend of mine, the theatre critic for GreaterLongBeach.com, and has twice patiently indulged my ill-informed questions about his novel-I’ve-never-read in interviews for a GreaterLongBeach.com story and the Greater Long Beach Radio show, while never mentioning how lame that is, considering the book has been out since March.

On the other hand, I bet I’ve read the title more than most people, and I’ve never gotten tired of it. Go ahead, give it a read, yourself: The Use of Regret. You see what I mean? That’s just a bottom-line-great title. See?

Greggory does. He definitely sees. It took him eight years to complete The Use of Regret, and admits it probably would have taken much longer if he hadn’t hit upon such a cool title. “That title came to me about five years ago,” he told me. “Ever since, I’ve been telling myself, ‘I’ve got to hurry and get this book finished before somebody else publishes something called The Use of Regret.”

I have paged through The Use of Regret, and can see that it consists of more than 100 intricately interconnected sections that form a recollection of a man’s life—formed by the man, himself—from truths and fictions and fantasies that have given him a version of reality. Sounds good. Wish I would have read it, although I guess you could say that not reading it has given me a use for regret.

THE USE OF REGRET GATSBY BOOKS • 5535 E SPRING ST • LONG BEACH 90808 • 562.208.9783 GATSBYBOOKS.COM • SATURDAY • 7 PM • FREE

THIS LONG BEACH MISS HAS US RECONSIDERING BEAUTY AND PAGEANTS

This year’s search for Miss Long Beach is the most-interesting in the pageant’s 61-year history. Unfortunately, saying that about a beauty pageant probably isn’t saying much. Besides, in the breathlessly hyberbolic atmosphere of such pageants, somebody says it every year … except, of course, those six years in the late 1970s when the Miss Long Beach pageant was cancelled for lack of interest.

But since word began getting around that Jennelle Hutcherson—a magnetic 25-year-old hair stylist with bright eyes, a non-stop smile, clear skin, a wild pompadour … and a hot, belly-dancing girlfriend—would be the event’s first openly lesbian contestant, the Miss Long Beach Pageant has become the talk of the … well, no, you really can’t say the town … but the conversation does extend beyond the contestants and their families.

Hutcherson’s participation has provoked some heavy thinking about such pageants—such whether a cultural event widely categorized as passé and shallow becomes current and significant when it becomes more inclusive … or whether, perhaps, those whose knee-jerk reaction is to categorize and dismiss might be just as passé and shallow. Meanwhile, we’re rooting for Jenelle—you’re the best, like, ever!!!

MISS LONG BEACH PAGEANT THE GRAND EVENT CENTER • 4101 E WILLOW ST • LONG BEACH 90814 • 562.426.0555 • JUSTINRUDD.COM/PAGEANTS • THEGRAND.NET  • $55-$20 • SUNDAY • 6PM