So holy shit, did you guys hear about how Madonna made a bunch of decent, hard-working TIFF volunteers turn to face a wall so they wouldn't look upon her with their filthy peasant eyes? Because she totally did that. She totally made people stare at a wall because she wouldn't deign to let them look upon her untainted natural beauty.

Now, before you jump down Madonna's throat and call her a self-important bitch with delusions of otherworldly power, I think it's about time you all learned the truth: Madonna is actually the Ark of the Covenant.

What, you thought her freakish gargoyle arms or pitbull jowls were normal? Pshaw. Clearly, Madonna is a sacred mystical artifact of such religious importance that to simply gaze upon her harpy form would cause your face to melt off like the Nazis in that one Indiana Jones movie. You know, the good one. 

Last night, I got a chance to catch The Bubble at TIFF. It's an excellent film about a gay Israeli and a gay Palestinian who fall in love in Tel Aviv, which also presents a strong message against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, and it was presented as part of TIFF's inaugural "City to City" program, which this year spotlights filmmakers from Tel Aviv.

You may have heard of the City to City program, which is the target of a denunciation campaign led by filmmakers and intellectuals who are opposed to the Israeli occupation. They see in City to City a nefarious Israeli propaganda plot to use the festival to rebrand Israel as a modern, progressive country and a land of great artists. Read their declaration here, and TIFF's response here. This is kind of a queer issue because queer filmmaker John Greyson pulled his film out of the festival in protest of the program.

Before the screening, TIFF Staffer Kate Lawrie read a page-long statement from the director of The Bubble, Eytan Fox, denouncing the occupation and pointing out that many of the film's Israeli fans are part of the Israeli peace movement. After watching the film, I was even more vexed at the purpose of this denunciation campaign. Putting the spotlight on Israel made it possible for a film like this -- which completely supports the anti-occupation effort -- to get a pestige slot at a major festival. Even if Israel paid for the screening, it surely can't be considered propaganda.

By that logic, these people should be protesting China's recent donation of lion statues to adorn the new Chinatown East gate that opened this week, over that country's persecution of Tibetans, Falon Gong practitioners, gays, and um, everybody else.

So what else is going on in Toronto? Well, Buddies finally announced who the new artistic director is going to be -- so what if it was the worst-kept secret in the theatre community? Brendan Healy takes the reins at Buddies this fall, and you heard it in my story here at Xtra first. More on this in next week's issue. Until then...

Being a gay columnist for a Toronto newspaper has its perks. In my case, I get called out on Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's new blog for, um, doing my job. It's actually kind of cool to see Buddies using social media to reach out to people, and the new blog promises ticket giveaways and special promotions coming up, too.

Or, if you're gay Toronto Sun columnist Sue-Ann Levy, you get to be the token queer and one of multiple crazies in the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario. She's running for by-election on a platform of crazy in the Toronto riding of St. Paul's, but in this Xtra article, she seems hard-pressed to name an item that falls under provincial jurisdiction that she's concerned about. Levy suffers from a common affliction among Toronto conservatives, which is Miller-related apoplectic blindness.

I shouldn't criticise too heavily, though. Not when former members of the Common Sense Revolution are vigourously defending their records as champions in the fight against homophobia. From now on, Tony Clement is my favourite gay icon.

Meanwhile, a pair of queer parties related to the ongoing Film Festival duked it out for the queer dollar Sunday night, and Toronto Life has the bemused reports from each: the Inside Out Gay Flambe party and the annual TIFF party at Remington's. It's so cute when straight writers are "befuddl[ed]" by the existence of gay people in the real world and their habit of enjoying parties where people, you know, do gay things openly.

And some people are buzzing about this YouTube video of a "spontaneous" performance of "Seasons of Love" from the musical Rent in Yorkville. Nice try, "bellhopmedia" but I'm with the commenters who complain that this is obviously staged. "Spontaneous" events don't usually have boom mics waiting for them. And the sound is clearly not recorded on those booms, since there's no ambient noise. They're just there for the benefit of whoever's filming. I'm assuming this is meant to promote something or other since the poster sounds like a production company. My guess is something AIDS-related. Like a charity event. Or something Rent-related. But probably an AIDS-related charity event. For future reference, the trick to selling an event like this is to not hide the artifice -- see U2's great video for "Where The Streets Have No Name" for a good example.