We have to get it done
twice a week
down the broken wooden stairs
past the meth hotel alley
under the stripper's jewel-box.
Surveilled by the determined eye
of Nixon knocking back
a 7-10 split,
the Golden Age of Larry King
is electrified,
examined,
and affirmed.
Up the stairs
the strippers are geishas
in undertaker makeup
and monster movie platforms.
They don't wanna dance
to our aircraft engine two-step.
They're here to "break all the rules",
shake their junior varsity tail feathers,
package cellulite in fisherman's nets,
exhibit their symptom,
and tell us to shut it.
9 comments:
Rendezvouz burlesque my hoo-haw. You tell those posing can-can(not) ding dongs that their "vintage" roadshow is tired like dudes in gas station attendant shirts. Or, better yet, run up to them madly waving a calendar and telling them that it'not the mid-nineties anymore! It's ok for them to stop. You should say this in a very helpful tone.
Did I tell you about the time Nick and I met a burlesque dancer at the Comet and, when she introduced herself as such a dancer, Nick responded (knowing full well what burlesque is about) with:
"So, your kinda like a striper?"
"No! I do burlesque."
"But, you dance around, take off some of your clothes like a stripper, right?"
"What I do is more artful and blah, blah, costumes, blah, skits blah."
"Hmm. I like strippers..."
Burlesque is a tradition, kinda like vaudeville. It comes with a certain oral and written history. Personally, not anything I'd thumb my nose at. Sure on one level they're strippers, but not in the modern sense; hence, the distinction between the two.
I have great respect for anyone who devotedly applies their life to reviving it and handing off the baton with heart. It's an art form.
Some people give us fine examples of the burlesque tradition; others, just a poor substitute.
"Without question, however, burlesque's principal legacy as a cultural form was its establishment of patterns of gender representation that forever changed the role of the woman on the American stage and later influenced her role on the screen. . . The very sight of a female body not covered by the accepted costume of bourgeois respectability forcefully if playfully called attention to the entire question of the "place" of woman in American society."
- Robert G. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Univ. of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1991), pp. 258-259.
Learn more at: http://www.musicals101.com/burlesque.htm
Thank you so much for the cutting and pasting of general, easy to google information on burlesque.
I was simply making a comment on the silly dancers at this particular bar where Scott practices and Nick and I had our wedding reception. I was making fun of pretensious, poorly executed revivalism as well.
Thanks!
Heather
No, ain't like she said it was at all. Just B.O. and boy angst looking for a starman waiting it the sky.
Great fiesty kick to kick here on all things fesminist and non. Personally I don't know why people get down on strippers - yes I do, it's the same reason they get down on pros. It's safe for them to mouth superior plats because the bulk of the mob of sheep agree that these are the dogs it's safe to kick. After all, women shouldn't be sexy in public, right? They should keep their clothes on for everyone except the bloke that owns 'em, right? Regardless of this delightful discourse, your writing is succor Scaught. And thanks for listing my blog, how very kind of you.
Love eternally,
Jen
http://flaminghoop.blogspot.com/
Just wanna Sister Ray and they tell me to get outta the way.
While information is easy to google, my opinion and respect comes from the heart, as does my respect for others' opinions.
When I point out that I personally wouldn't thumb my nose, that's not a way of indirectly insinuating that you are or that anyone else for that matter is. It's merely a statement indicating that I'm not cynical or pessimistic when it comes to the revival and continuation and appropriation of tradition like some people I've encountered. And when I say some people, I mean no one in particular, but do bear in mind the words of many I've met over the span of my life who have indicated that they are purists. So these purists and their outright panning of and total disinterest in anything revisionist or new, along with their idea that nothing retro deserves even a once over baffles me. 'Tis all. However, despite personally feeling this way, I openly recognize that history, tradition and art in all its forms need the purists too. We'd be lost without them.
Overall, on many levels and in many ways, I'm nothing remotely close to being an elitist or an exclusionist. I love any form of art that is worked with a tried and true heart and sense of self. In fact, this generally is my only essential requirement: that someone approaches their art, performance, music etc. with true wonder, or desire, or heart. If this spirit is present, then I come to the piece with appreciation if not pure delight and excitement. I often appreciate something on the merits of its experimental spirit alone, but I'm a fairly easy audience I suppose.
Dialogue, criticism, appreciation -- it requires a full spectrum. All thoughts and opinions are necessary for creating a texturally rich, thought provoking discourse. So again, I would hope no one thinks my position or approach is a personal commentary on theirs. I only take ownership of myself, thanks. I have no desire to set a prescriptive agenda for others.
:)
Lovin' the sea... wheeeee!
" Personally I don't know why people get down on strippers"
Neither do I, Jen, nor prostitutes. I think the whole sex trade should be legalized.
" I was making fun of pretensious, poorly executed revivalism as well."
Hence, my note in my first comment: "Some people give us fine examples of the burlesque tradition; others, just a poor substitute"
So, I do understand. M'sympathies go to you, H, especially on the weddin' day!
It ain't no thing unless it is a thing and none of it is my thang. I just wanna play my blooze, that's all. What's a malchick ta dae?
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