SO VERY PRIDEFUL Watch out, Austin, the deadliest of the seven deadlies is coming next week. Pride is dual-edged indeed. Pride: There’s self-respect, and then there’s out and out hubris, a pride like a Spinal Tap amp turned to 11, distorting perspective and humility, empowering neither community nor kindness but pettiness, avarice, self-aggrandizement, and blatant disregard for what built the fragile rubble on which our rainbow flag is pitched. Will the leaders most egregious with the latter consider the damage they wreak? Nah. Will they even read this? Hell no. They’re too busy sniffing the cavities of the next prospect, smug in their rationalizations (ends) to cover some truly bad behaviors (means). Why consider how others feel? Pride way or the highway. Fortunately, this week, we had a few moments away from the hot mess of all that and enjoyed reading the advance copy of interviews that will appear in next week’s Austin Chronicle Pride Guide. Within these conversations are words wise and well-worn, concepts fresh, intellectually challenging, and in some cases, even sassy. We’d share them with you here, but then, what’s the fun in that? We’d rather you enjoy (as we sincerely hope you do) the juicy fruit salad all at once. However, two interviews connect to events that occur the very night the supplement comes out (Thursday, June 3), so we’d like to give you a heads-up and recommend that you consider one if not both of these stellar gigs: Artist, archivist, historian, and social commentator Leah DeVun will be on hand for the opening of her new show at Women & Their Work, “Our Hands on Each Other,” while across town at the Unity Church of the Hills, visiting Bishop Yvette Flunder comes all the way from Frisco to rattle the walls and shake souls with her spiritual mandate of radical inclusivity. Radical. Listen up, ponder, she’s talking to you. And to me. And to we. (See Pride Listings.)
This article appears in May 28 • 2010.