With mainstream culture threatening to strangle us all in our tracks, we Good Samaritans at Bright Lights thought it was time to pry off America's cultural claws and take notice of what's going on in the fevered world of the avant-garde and the indie, with a special focus (as always) on queer, camp, and literally cutting-edge sensibilities. Ever the internationalists, we look at work by three Americans (Sadie Benning, Everett Lewis, Ron Athey), a couple of Canadians (Mike Hoolboom, John Greyson), a zany Austrian (the late Kurt Kren), a couple of crazy French art fags (Pierre et Gilles), along with stalwarts Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey. Vicky Funari's Paulina is indie filmmaking at its finest, and we're happy to add our voices of approval to the chorus. Recent revivals gave us a chance to renew our acquaintance with two fave directors: Robert Bresson and William Friedkin (with a satisfied glance at the latter's recently refurbished queer masterpiece The Boys in the Band). And presiding over it all (if unwittingly) are two classy Hollywood blondes: the happy harridan Sylvia Miles, who took time off from her reading of the complete works of Henry James to speak with us; and the legendary Miss Doris Day, whose collaborations with Rock Hudson goaded Bright Lights perennial Alan Vanneman into conjuring one of his campiest screeds.