Miss Saturn!

My delightful inamorato is posting a series of pieces on modern vaudevillians he has featured on the stage of his American Vaudeville Theatre in honor of its 15th anniversary and the attendant FringeNYC show celebrating this occasion.

Today's post is all about the lovely Miss Saturn, so I decided to pull a sketch I did a few years ago out of the archives.

Mermaids of New York

Mermaids of New York is a new short film making the rounds which features the legendary and lovely Bambi the Mermaid, Dame Darcy (who will have an entire post devoted all to her, soon!) and other glitterey, finned cohorts. See a clip, below, featuring Bambi:



Dame Darcy sings a sea chanty, of which she has an entire album, which you can purchase here:



As an added bonus, Dame Darcy's lovely illustration, "Dolls plunder and pillage the ship. Then drown the pretty sailor lad." From her book Dollerium which can be purchased (totally worth it) here.

The Coney Island Mermaid Parade

Today is the day!

Out on the fair shores of Coney Island, along Surf Avenue and down the boardwalk is the yearly Mermaid Parade. As always brought to you by the lovely folk at Coney Island USA.

The yearly Mermaid Parade is pretty much alone in combining both family fun and toplessness (though, as my inamorato pointed out, there's also breastfeeding). It signifies and celebrates the official opening of the beach.

My first time out there it was a small, local affair. Now, it's grown to fairly gargantuan proportions and I think the best way of enjoying is is by participating. So, fair citizens, sew on some gils and attach those pasties firmly and enjoy next year's brouhaha, if it is too late to enjoy this one's. Did I mention that something like half a million people are projected to show up?

Of particular interest this year is one of the judges. You can see him below, pith helmet firmly on head, glasses at the ready.

Ten Minutes

And she held this pose for ten freaking minutes. Anyone who has ever modeled knows that ten minutes can seem like a long, long time. Also, that isn't some comfy settee she's draped over, but a stool turned on its side with a wrap thrown over it. Art modeling is physically taxing work, and those who do it well deserve celebration and praise!

Incipient Mermaid-hood

The above is a very quickly painted portrait that is definitely headed in a mermaid sort of direction. My watercolor skills are primitive, to say the least, so I need to just paint all the freaking time. Right? I have just so many ideas in terms of larger projects I have brewing and I can't wait until I am able to unleash them

Soon, I'll be writing about my newest obsession, Rebecca West and her extraordinary novel The Fountain Overflows. Which, honestly, you all should read.

Really. I've been rereading it for my post and what I previously thought of as one of my favorite novels has lept in my estimation into being possibly one of the greatest novels ever written. More on that later.though.

For now I need to find time to paint.

Sex! (Museum of, I mean)

Let's see what google search terms bring people here!

The last step of me and my inamorato's gallery hopping odyssey this past Saturday landed us at The Museum of Sex where we viewed (after elbowing our way though the lobby gift shop, jam packed with tourists) two exhibits: The Nudie Artist: Burlesque Revealed and Comics Stripped. I mostly want to talk about Comics Stripped, so more about the Burley-Q exhibit in a moment.

Their comics exhibit is curated by Craig Yoe, an extremely interesting and knowledgeable personage. He's a former Creative Director of The Muppets and over the years has had his fingers in many, many comics and animation pies. He now runs his own design studio and occasionally writes books on the history of comics. Most recently, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster (with an introduction penned by Stan Lee). I was lucky enough to be at the Dr. Sketchy's event promoting the release of the book about a year and a half ago. You can find some of the pictures I drew that day (of the lovely Darenzia) here.

Yoe charts the history of dirty comics from the Tijuana bibles of the '20s and '30s, through the cartoons that appeared in Playboy in the '50s and early '60s through the work of Italian comic artist Guido Crepax (who also has a Louise Brooks inspired book) on to R. Crumb (more about him this week, too!) and on to modern innovators like Alison Bechdel. The show is comprehensive and well curated and well worth a look.

Sadly, I can't really say the same for The Nudie Artist. I think this is where the Museum of Sex's for-profit status really shows. I have a feeling they don't have the access or resources to put together an exhibit worthy of the subject matter (I think they need curators with the access that someone like Yoe brings to the table). The exhibit mostly consists of a gallery of photographs taken by Leland Bobbé of current burlesque performers which are, you know, fine. But not all that thrilling, especially considering the gigantic and interesting personalities of his subjects. An odd thing: I liked his photographs far more at a smaller size when I was looking at the on line gallery on his web site.

The Nudie Artist also included a room of drawings by sketch artist/illustrator Luma Rouge. I like her work very much, but I thought the exhibit as a whole could have benefited from far more (ironically) variety. It's such a rich and interesting subject matter and with all this renewed interest in burlesque past and present there is so much more that could have been done. I wonder if anyone contacted Liz Goldwyn who has been collecting vintage burlesque costumes for years, or thought about raiding some photo and newspaper archives. There was a small section that did look at Burlesque as it existed in the earlier part of the 20th century, with some (few) photos and a costume that had been worn by Blaze Starr, and to my mind the most exciting thing in the exhibit, a recreation (or preservation - I'm not certain) of Mara Gaye's vanity: but I wanted more, dammit, more!

The main problem with this Museum is likely its for-profit status. It has to pay for itself somehow, so far more attention and care seem to have been taken over the gift shop and the cafe. I don't know that its mission is particularly scholarly, but I would be curious to find out exactly what its mission is. The comics exhibit was extremely well curated and thoughtful, but the people wandering around the Nudie Show exhibit didn't really know what they were looking at. If you didn't know already, you would not learn who Jo Boobs or Dirty Martini are, you would just know that their pictures are on the wall. Which is really kind of a shame.

Mother Finds A Body (What a Mother! What a Body!)

You really can have no idea how distraught I am that Gypsy Rose Lee (and whoever her collaborators may have been), penned only two mystery novels and now I've read both. Ever since my reckless youth, when I swallowed the oeuvres of both Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers whole, I promised myself I would be more careful in the future. But what can one do with only two books except read them? Nothing, that's what.

I adored her first The G-String Murders, and this one was almost as good. It's set during Gypsy and Biff's (her comedian boyfriend, now husband) very peculiar Honeymoon. Seemingly half the burlesque population of New York has hitched a ride with the newlyweds in their vacation trailer: burlesque dancers, comics, Gypsy's mother, and one corpse hidden in a bathtub.

Of particular interest, of course, is Gypsy's mother. As portrayed in the musical Gypsy she's an overbearing nightmare of a stage parent. Here, well, she's more subtle in her methods. She's a champion emotional blackmailer who manages to charm her way out of anything. When she exhibits a shocking level of callousness and fearlessness, Gypsy tells a remarkable story about her being a direct descendent of the Donners. Yes, those Donners. It's kind of amazing.

The setting is a vacation trailer park outside of a honky-tonk Texas town. The description of the floor show in the local saloon is alone worth the read. In it, Gypsy has just started to make a little money in movies, but she is still pretty much ensconced in the world of burlesque: dancers and comics and sleazy management and booze. It's both honestly hard-boiled and light hearted which is a pretty neat trick to pull off. The setting is gritty and down at the heel and makes you think twice about any thought of being a burlesque queen in the 30s and 40s. But the people are funny and the writing is kind of great in its pulpy way.

I wish she'd written more.

Crow's Nest and... Added Bonus Video!

Don't misunderstand me. I love my little gentrified corner of Brooklyn. We have freaking awesome pastries, a giant park and a blog covering it all. We also have the freakiest weather this side of Dorothy's Kansas, but that's a blog post for another day. What we don't have much of are performance venues. I mean, if you have a band, there's Southpaw. But if you happen to be more of a performance/theater/ burlesque person, you're getting on the F Train and going to Manhattan, or getting in the infernal G and heading to Williamsburg. Yeah, I know. First world problems. But you (unless you happen to be Trav S.D.) weren't with me the night it took FOUR FUCKING TRAINS to get home from Williamsburg, which is just completely outrageous.

Which brings me to Wednesday night, and my first time at Zora Art Space on 4th Avenue. They sell coffee and wine and snacks, there's art on the wall, and a nice little performance space in the back. And best of all, there was Esther Crow, debuting her variety night, Crow's Nest. I'm just going with the idea that it's the first of many, as there really should be more. She hosted in the guise of her hilarious Mrs. Goldblatt (see left) who reminds me of the lady that used to run the multi-purpose room in my elementary school in West Egg. It was a particularly well curated night, and completely entertaining. Amongst the acts were Anna Copa Cabanna who played her xylophone and sang a cover of Enter Sandman and a song about Ludlow Street. I've been wanting to catch her act for a while, so I'm glad I finally got to see her, as she was great. Charming and sweet and ditsy wearing a tiger-striped one-strap leotard (or body-suit as we used to call them in elementary school in West Egg). I also got to see Roger Nasser's (of Crispie Treat fame) ten minute, one man A Streetcar Named Desire (finally. Roger's the best), some hilarious sock puppet improv from Afternoon Playland (really, really funny), burlesque performer Foxxx Trot (after whose act the only word that popped into my head was "forceps". Catch her act, and you'll understand why), and most wonderfully, the inimitable Trav S.D. (okay. I'm totally biased). My always charming companion told two surreal and brilliant stories with the indefinable charm of the Great and Wonderful Oz, if the GaWO hailed from Williamsburg via Rhode Island, instead of Omaha. I mean that in the most exceedingly complementary way possible. It was a completely enjoyable evening, and for once, I could simply walk home.

Esther Crow also fronts The Electric Mess whose newest video was posted today. It was directed by Piper McKenzie (who were in the Crow's Nest audience in their Hope Cartelli and Jeff Lewonczyk disguises). You will likely recognize some special guests.



(Photo Credit: Angela Wieland Photography)

Lady of Burlesque

On Sunday, my charming inamorato and I had a complete day of sloth, watching a stack of Universal horror movies and the adaptation of Gypsy Rose Lee's The G-String Murders, Lady of Burlesque which stars the greatest of all movie stars, Barbara Stanwyck. The adaptation differs from the source in that the story is pretty truncated, and the burlesque performers keep all their clothes on (but the audiences in the film seem okay about it). The film is in the public domain, so I've embedded the whole thing below!

Pasties, G-Strings and Death, Oh My!

Once, I almost performed an actual burlesque routine in front of actual people, but I totally chickened out. Mainly, because I was Not In A Good Place and felt way too hideous and self-conscious to perform my Coney Island themed flapper act on stage at Dixon Place. Which I actually kind of regret. I mean, when did I become so self-conscious? Twenty-five years in life drawing classes as both artist and model have made me more than blasé about disrobing in public, but I guess here's the thing: As I once told a singing teacher in acting school, I would be perfectly happy standing naked in front of an audience but the thought of singing fully clothed in front of one made me want to die. Which brings me to the crux of the matter, i.e. performing and dying, which are delightfully written about in two murder mysteries penned almost 70 years apart.

Gypsy Rose Lee's The G-String Murders appeared in 1942 amidst assumptions that she did not write it. I don't buy it. The book is so deeply insider-y about the world of burlesque and is so clearly written from a woman's point of view, I can't really see it having been written by some editor from Harper's. In a New Yorker Talk of the Town piece (sorry, subscription required) from 1940 when she was in the middle of writing the book, she admits that her grammar and spelling are wretched and had an editor friend helping her out. What of it? So does everybody, and everyone concerned is dead now, and wouldn't you rather she wrote it? So, that's the story we're going with.

I loved this book. Chorus girls, burlesque dancers and aspiring starlets appear in all kinds of hard boiled crime fiction, vintage and modern, from S.S. Van Dine to Raymond Chandler to James Ellroy to Megan Abbott. They appear as shady dames, victims and comic relief, but only in The G-String Murders are they both author and heroine. I actually found it kind of thrilling. She very effectively creates a backstage world that simply no longer exists. The nuts and bolts explanations of how a burlesque house was run in the 1930s are fascinating, her dialogue is funny and gritty. It's a plot point that she makes her own costumes (oh, the story is told in first person by a burlesque star named "Gypsy Rose Lee"), and in the 1940 New Yorker piece she shows off her thrift store finds that she will be using to make new outfits - something many a modern burlesque performer has done. It's gritty and bawdy and charming.

The mystery itself is a little simple and wraps up far too quickly, but honestly, that can be said for nearly all first time mystery writers, and unless we're in the realm of the hard core mystery pros - Christie, Sayers, Grimes, Hill, Chandler et al, the plotting rarely impresses me. What is the most important thing in most mysteries, something Lee really gets, is the setting and the characters. She said in an interview that "I think there is no sense having people killed before the reader is acquainted with them" and she is as good as her word. The first murder happens about 100 pages in, but the lead up is a doozy, full of busts by the vice squad and backstage jealousies and intrigue and clues.

A little under seventy years after Gypsy Rose Lee wrote her first book, the second burlesque themed mystery to be penned by an actual burlesque performer was published by Hard Case Crime. The Corpse Wore Pasties, is by Jonny Porkpie, the self-styled Burlesque Mayor of NYC. Again, in the spirit of full disclosure, I became acquainted with Mr. Porkpie under another name, when he was wearing a hat other than Porkpie (that of Tiny Ninja producer). I found his book to be a very enjoyable read, and much like with Miss Lee's offering, its pleasures come more from the world in which it was set than from the mystery aspect. That said, the murder itself is fantastic, as it happens on stage in front of a cheering (and hooting) audience. It's both a burlesque of a death by poisoning and an actual poisoning.

There's a delightful economy in the telling of his murderous tale, which methinks betrays another hat Mr. Porkpie has worn, that of playwright. His exposition is breezy and organic. Most impressively, he uses an interrogation scene in the 9th Precinct (the story is told in first person by a burlesque presenter and performer named "Jonny Porkpie") to explain to both the cops and his readers what burlesque is. No, it's not stripping. Yes, they take off their clothes. But it's art, I tell you, art! He explains it very well, I promise you. And because I'm all about shameless plugs, a certain former burlesque presenter has lots to say on the subject - I mean of course my always dashing inamorato, the man most often known as Trav S.D.. Click on the babes & burlesque tag on his blog, or search up The New Yorker article on the New Burlesque in which he was featured.

The differences between the old burlesque and the new are massive. New burlesque is more of a sexually charged performance art. There's a long sequence where Mr. Porkpie visits his various suspects, burlesque dancers all, at their various day jobs which is quite telling - and very funny. In Miss Lee's book, burlesque was their day job. Porkpie's novel is funny and over the top, as much a burlesque of the mystery genre as it is a tour through the downtown performance world of burlesque. If you take my meaning. I looked at the Amazon reviews before writing this, and there were a few negative ones which I think missed the point of his book entirely, i.e. that it's a comedy, not an actual hard boiled detective novel. It reminded me a little of the very funny Robin Hudson mysteries by Sparkle Hayter (which are really, really worth reading and, I'm horrified to discover, are out of print) in that they riff on the hard boiled while set in a modern (mostly downtown) New York in a very specific milieu (in Hayter's case, cable news) which the writer knows top to bottom. Porkpie's book is sexy, silly fun and it's nice to know that 70 years from now, whatever version of burlesque is making its third or fourth or fifth comeback in the year 2080 will have a delightful mystery novel to show them what it was like back in the (no doubt) misunderstood aughts.

FringeNYC 14: Picking Palin, Shine: A Burlesque Musical and The Ghost of Dracula

I tagged along to see Picking Palin as the date of my always charming constant escort as I was pretty sure it was Not My Thing, and thus it wasn't on my list of shows to see. Okay. I was right. It isn't My Thing, but the Thing They Do is very well done. Playwright Stephen Padilla's one act shows the behind the scenes machinations that led to the picking of Sarah Palin as the GOP vice-presidential candidate. Just typing that name makes my skin crawl as I've been participating in my own, personal Sarah Palin media blackout since the election ended. I don't post or comment on clips or articles about her on facebook. I don't mention her (until now) on my blog. It bugs me when people post about her, and then shout "Why won't she just go away?!", because I feel like responding, "Stop posting about her! THAT's why!". That outburst out of the way, back to my review. Picking Palin is well acted and well directed. It's nice to see grown up actors playing grown up characters on a FringeNYC stage. It's smartly written, with the more moderate Republican characters make useful points, which should be of no surprise to anyone who read Peggy Noonan or Kathleen Parker during the past election season, or who witnessed Christopher Buckley's volte face. For me, it did lack some stakes and suspense. I mean, we all know how it's going to end, and the final decision was made by someone off stage (McCain), so it felt a little inert to me. But, again, it is not My Thing (it was a little light on robots and talking animals).

Picking Palin
written and directed by Stephen Pedilla
The Connolly Theater, 220 East 4th Street
remaining performances: Wed 18 @ 1:30, Sat 21 @ 9:45, Wed 25 @ 9:30, Sat 28 @ NOON

Shine, which subtitles itself a "a burlesque musical" is the sort of FringeNYC offering that always gives me pause. It appears to be slick enough and expensive enough that I inevitably wonder, "Why here?". The piece was conceived by and around the talents of singer, Cass King, and her songwriter partner, John Woods, who have dubbed themselves "The Wet Spots". The songs are well-written, but their book is negligible. The burlesque musical has a proud tradition in American musical theater, as two of the greatest of all American theatrical works, Gypsy and Cabaret, are among their number. But I'm awfully confused by what I saw on the stage of the lovely Ellen Stewart Theatre at LaMaMa the other night. The story is that hoariest of old chestnuts: Let's put on a show to raise the funds to save _____! In this case a burlesque house. As I stated above, the book is a mess. It introduces an ingenue couple and then does nearly nothing with them. The female ingenue is introduced as a gender studies major who is writing her thesis on burlesque, a point that is completely dropped after its initial introduction. There is also a subplot about a larger sized singer whom the money bags who is producing the theater-saving show doesn't want in the lead. This is (rightly) painted as narrow and wrong, but the thing is: she's not the lead of Shine either, so the protests felt a little hollow to me. There is also a lot of talk about the downtown versus uptown sensibility which was a little tough for me to swallow as the whole show seemed pure uptown to me from tip to tail. There were some very, very good dancers on that stage, and I would have liked to see them do a little more. It felt weirdly safe and staid and unsexy. The upshot is, they really need a lot of help with the book. Their note in the program is delightful, and their intentions are good: but the show they talk about is not apparent on stage.

SHINE: A Burlesque Musical
The Wet Spots
Writer: Cass King, John Woods (The Wet Spots) and Sam Dulmage
Director: Roger Benington
The Ellen Stewart Theatre @LaMaMa, 66-68 East 4th Street
remaining performances: Mon 23 @ 9:45, Thu 26 @ 2, Sat 28 @ 2

Oh, Ghost of Dracula. Everyone involved in it is so very, very obviously young. I feel like I'm an awful curmudgeon saying anything awful about them. Their show is shouty, underbaked and there is a series of slide projections of questionable taste. They indulge in the kind of racial humor that Dave Chappelle gets away with beautifully, but is much more problematic when being attempted by a bunch of white recent college grads. The cast, and the audience plants who are later revealed to be cast, look like they're having fun. Is it any good? Well, no. It's dreadful. But, as I said, they are so very, very young.

Ghost of Dracula
Colby Day Productions
Writer: Kenneth Molloy, based on characters created by Bram Stoker
Director: Daniel Johnsen
Connelly Theater, 220 East 4th Street
remaining performances: Wed 18 @ 10:45, Tue 24 @ 8:30, Sun 29 @ 2

(photo: pictured: Cass King Photographer: Frank Roberts)