Praised be to the gods of fashion and addictive reality television ... season three of Project Runway is here.

First challenge: create a look using only materials found in the designers' apartments (think IKEA ... lots of IKEA). Alas, San Francisco's own Stacy Estrella was OUT. Blame her creation, an ill-fitting shower-curtain gown, or blame her personality, which didn't seem quite hysterical enough to generate train-wreck television (for that, turn to C.C. DeVille-voiced Vincent Libretti, whose high-drama potential explains why he's still on the show after making a hat out of a fruit basket).

The early favorite, design-wise, is Barbie doll dress diva Robert Best -- but so much of this show is about the characters, not the occasionally alarming garments they turn out. Can't wait to see who'll be the Santino of Season 3 -- my money's on snooty Malan Breton. I'm also fond of Kayne Gallaspie, he of the Mommie Dearest -quoting, who makes pageant gowns for Midwestern beauty queens, and Jewel-esque Alison Kelly, the show's token hipster.

Needless to say, next Wednesday can't come soon enough. Now, where the hell is my chiffon?

club overload!!! ???? !!! here's a brief update. and yes, this is her royal pain in the assala Marke B.

ok so first is junk tonite at the stud -- yay! back after all these years, the ska-tinged queer living room you always wished your great aunt ida hung out in.

tomorrow is a bunch of fun shit I can't quite remember (oh yeah! THIS and THIS), then Saturday is Cookie Monster at Harvey's in the Castro hosted by the nicest drag queen in the world (also quite a Gladys Kravitz, I hear) AND one of my fave new joints ever, Frankie Sharp and Brontez's gig WORK ME GODDAMMIT at the Gangway in the Tenderloin, it costs like 5$ and has some great and random music. Lots of drunk ass ho's. and me.

all that stuff above is too queer and I'm too gay. I'll be into more straight stuff, like, Monday. Sunday I'll be at the symphony in Dolores Park (1812 Overture! how perfect while we're at war, again uselessly... ), and then Eagle Beer Bust (for the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence) and the Super Soul Sundays for DJ Spen.

you can comment to add in your own damn party planssss. I wanna k-now! ;)m.

By Cheryl Eddy

I'm in so much shock over this week's Project Runway elimination that it took me an extra day to post. How sad was saying goodbye to Malan -- who was edited to look like a potential villain in the casting special, a snob in episode one ... and a sob-story softie in episode two, his swan song? So sad even Miss USA looked a little choked up under all that spackle.

Ok, but that dress DID look like a log. Like one of those chocolate-covered yule logs, even.

Next week: the fall of neck tattoo? the comeuppance of artsy craftsy? the uncorked wrath of "I'm an architect"?

By Cheryl Eddy

Somehow I found myself in San Jose -- where temperatures broke 100 degrees yesterday -- bringing the average age way down at the San Jose Stage Company's final performance of Idols of the King. The show, which featured a cast of three including a mostly plausible (if vigorously spray-tanned) Elvis impersonator named Scot Bruce, managed to mix songs from all three EP eras (1950s hillbilly cat, 1960s Hollywood, 1970s jumpsuit) with a series of atonal vignettes, one of which actually included references to the Paul Lynde era of Hollywood Squares.

By Cheryl Eddy

1) Nicolas Cage to star in Liberace biopic. (Via TMZ via Hollywood Wiretap.) I can't decide if I'm excited or horrified, frankly.

2) A Barney Fife statue, set to be erected in Mount Airy, NC (basis for the fictional Mayberry, setting for The Andy Griffith Show) has been destroyed before it was finished. Why? Details are suspiciously sketchy, but money -- not interference from lovable lush Otis Campbell -- looks to be the cause. A few more deets on the "statue snafu" here. (Via Ohnotheydidnt.)

Image from The Shrine to Don Knotts

Francois Ozon’s new movie Time to Leave opens in Bay Area theaters this Friday, which means that it’s time to talk to him -- about his attractive lead actor, Melvil Poupaud, his legendary supporting actress, Jeanne Moreau, and potentially stupid but fuckable bit players. Oh yeah, there’s some gossipy stuff.

Bay Guardian: My favorite of Melvil Poupaud’s films might be Eric Rohmer’s A Summer’s Tale, where he has a Jeff Buckley quality. The beach scenes in your movie resonate off of that one, as well as the beach scenes in your past films -- would you agree? Had you admired other films of his?
Francois Ozon: I met Melvil a long time ago for Water Drops on Burning Rocks; I’d asked him to do the lead part, but he was afraid to play a gay character -- he wasn’t about to kiss a boy in front of the camera. But now he was ready, maybe because the fact the character is gay is not so important. He was touched by Romain’s relationship to his father.
He’s a great actor because he accepts his passivity, his femininity. To be directed by a man was not a problem for him -- in fact, at times, working with him is like working with an actress.

Today is as good a day as any to look at Luc Tuymans' much-debated 2005 oil-on-canvas portrait The Secretary of State.

In a 2005 top ten for Artforum, Studio Museum curator Thelma Golden noted that Condoleeza Rice's mouth is "resolutely shut" in this portrait. This image has also been interpreted as a political critique (in which case, Tuymans' viewpoint is usually the writer's), as proof that the painter is turned on by his subject, or simply as one of the latest in a long line of portraits of people who have had Rice's job. But what would Dave Chappelle's blind white supremacist character say?

Pardon the slow post, but last week's Project Runway was kinda on the ho-hum side. (Of course, it's still the best reality show currently on the airwaves, so a ho-hum Runway is still better than the greatest-ever Rock Star: Supernova, if in fact a greatest-ever ep of that show ever existed. Sorry, can't get past the weirdly sculpted facial hair of one Dave Navarro.)

Anyway, the challenge was to design for a woman and her purse-dog ... Uli made a slinky dress for her human model, and her canine model was a pug, so it was a no-brainer that she'd win (though Alison's pair o' ensembles were pretty cute too). There are still so many contestants that the editors have no choice but to highlight the folks who'll have the top and bottom scores. Basically, if you don't get a lot of airtime prior to the runway show, you're IN.

Despite the puppy presence, special Guardian correspondent Max the dog -- who would fit in no one's handbag, and would certainly not appreciate it if you tried to shove him in one, anyway -- snoozed through most of the episode. Well, there's always this week -- the promos hinted at the BIGGEST CONTROVERSY IN RUNWAY HISTORY. Tim Gunn is gonna bring the hammer down! (Could it be due to a certain alleged rip-off artist?) In your face, last season's motherfucking walk-off!

Except we're not mean drunks who hurl offensive slurs at the cops when they pull us over...

Nor are we holding up the production of our latest major motion picture with our underage shenanigans ...

We were, however, enticed into some unfortunate wedding reception dance-floor antics after tipping back multiple pints of the charmingly-named Polygamy Porter (pretty tasty, actually) during our recent visit to Salt Lake City. And by "we" I mean me. No use denying it. Photos were taken. How Star of me.