NPR: Behind The Spangles, Weir Is A Man In Full

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124121023&sc=fb&cc=fp

He's not just that overused adjective, "flamboyant." He's not merely some attention-seeking oddball with a flair for outre fashion. He's more dangerous than that: He's Oscar Wilde. And Quentin Crisp, and Harvey Fierstein and David Bowie and Adam Lambert. He's Lady Gaga, and I'm sure he'll understand that I mean that as a compliment.

Like all of them, he's deliberately confounding. And like all of them, he's a figure whose sexuality — whatever it is — and playful sense of gender are ultimately much less interesting, to anyone who's willing to pay attention for more than a few minutes, than his sense of aesthetics.

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I couldn't say it any better. :thumbsup:

this is why i love johnny. he is both an artist and an amazing person.

I remember reading in one of the skating magazines an editor's defense of Johnny Weir. He's out there and says outrageous things, she wrote, but he's always unfailingly polite and obliging to skating reporters and fans. I've had a good impression of him since then.

I'm not going to stoop to arguing with those announcers (or whatever they are) about Weir's nature. He is himself, and he owes them nothing. But if they're going to evaluate his skating, they're way off base. His costumes may be spangly, but his skating is very unadorned. His jumps are strong and clean, and though he doesn't have a quad, neither did Lysacek this Olympics. His triple axel is as good as anyone's (and better than Lambiel's). How this qualifies him to "skate with girls," I don't know. And have they watched the ladies skate lately, anyway? No fluffy skating there, either. He's smallish and spindly in physique. Well, so is most of the Japanese team. They all manage to get off the ground just fine.

Go for it, Johnny! I wish you many years of skating splendor.

JW, didn't he used to have a quad?

I've seen a youtube video of him doing a perfect quad, triple, double (in warmup before 2004 Nationals, I think, judging by his costume).

It was perfect and he needs to get it back before Worlds.