Jo Weldon's New York School of Burlesque

I can't believe I hadn't seen this book until recently! A friend posted it on my FB page and I immediately hunted it down, found it at Powell's Books, and snapped it up. Published by Simon and Schuster on their Parallax imprint in 1967, this neat little book breezes through basic principles of striptease in about 50 pages. (Though 80 pages long, the last 30 pages are devoted to beauty.) It's a great way for beginners to grasp that striptease is process of intention and presentation worthy of mastery. It's adorable, and it reminded me that a lot of the principles of striptease I teach are actually universal. The more I teach, the more I find that I describe steps and principles the way I do not because I'm inventive, but because I'm observant, and that other burlesque instructors observe and teach some of the same things. It's very reassuring! For instance, I often point out to my students that the Stripteaser, as a category of performe...

I often wonder where, as a child, I got this idea of glamour. Yes, the Dean Martini show; yes, the old gentlemen's magazines I found where I wasn't supposed to be looking; but where did I get this idea of fashion so fierce it could barely exist in real life? The answer is here in this book: Frederick's of Hollywood catalogues. The cute? You can't handle the cute! I got my first pair of stockings and real garter belt when I was in high school in the 1970's, inspired partly by Rocky Horror and primarily by the fact that real stockings even existed. Though I love a pair of fishnet tights, you'd be hard-pressed to get me into pantyhose, which I have always associated with all the least desirable qualities of being "ladylike." I wanted a little more freedom than that, and since I went to a high school where leg coverings were required, stockings it was. Remind me to tell you sometime about how those garters and stockings caused a ruckus in 1979! I'm...

Girl Show: Into the Canvas World of Bump and Grind By A. W. Stencell ECW Press, 2000 This is one of my favorite books about exotic dancing. It isn't strictly about burlesque--remember, both Little Egypt and Sally Rand started out a fairs!--but there is plenty of burlesque in it. Stencell describes the evolution of traveling carnivals from World Fairs and circuses. You'll love the photos and stories of Blaze Fury and Ricki Covette, and you'll get to see Gypsy Rose Lee, Sally Rand, and Carrie Finnell in this fabulous carnival environment. You'll get to see the hoochie choochie girls of the early 20th century, as well as the graphic chooch dancers of the late twentieth century. You'll be dazzled by Tirza, the Wine Bath Girl, whose act is still tributed in Coney Island. You'll get the inside scoop on girl show female impersonators from Jaydee Easton. You'll fall in love with Bambi Lane, "The Last of the Tassel Twirlers," who says, "I was the l...

A Pictorial History of Striptease: 100 Years of Undressing to Music By Richard Wortley, 1976 Click images to view larger. I am a huge fan of striptease--not just burlesque striptease as it developed on the burlesque circuit in the mid-twentieth century, but all striptease, stripping, and exotic dance. It's my favorite, favorite thing. In the title of this book, Richard Wortly defines striptease as "Undressing to Music," and while he certainly shows what that can look like, he also shows a parade of other public representations of creatively unclothed women. While this isn't the strongest resource for burlesque research, it's a very entertaining look at women undressing, or simply appearing undressed, in glamourous and playful ways. I love this book and have given it to other students of burlesque (I consider myself a student as well as a teacher) who have already seen books more familiar to burlesque aficianados. It's a fun addition to a stripteas...

"The exciting strippers, the great baggy-pants comics, the shabby straight men, the off-key tenors, the fast-talking candy butchers and the chaotic chorus lines--all of the great moments of america's most colorful theatrical art." So reads the back cover of Ann Corio's history of burlesque, published in 1968. Corio herself was a star in the 1930s and 40s, beginning when she was 15, and her self-deprecating autobiographical chapter is one of my favorite parts of the book. Of her first encounter with burlesque, she said, "Stripteasing was already in full swing when I arrived, and my eyes opened wide. What kind of show business was this? Girls were taking off their clothes and making gestures never seen in church plays....Then I noticed something...I was wearing less clothes in the chorus than the featured stripper at the end of her act....I wrestled with my conscience and my pocketbook and you know who always wins that match." In the opening, titled ...

The American Burlesque Show Irving Zeidman Hawthorne Books, New York, Ny 1967 "The trouble with the American burlesque show, from beginning to end, is either that is has been too dirty--or else that it hasn't been dirty enough." The first sentence of Irving Zeidman's history of burlesque in the United States (primarily New York) cites a dilemma that continues to haunt burlesque even now, when burlesque is serving in most venues as a couples' or women's alternative to the more commercial, more directly sexual environment of strip clubs (although in New York we have a few venues that are decidedly more hardcore than any burlesque shows of the past--and my story on that is upcoming). Zeidman quotes Sime Silverman saying, "Were there no women in burlesque, how many men would attend?" in 1909. He describes the history of American burlesque as "the history of its producers' endless efforts to please both the censors and the audience." ...

All photos in this review are the intellectual property of Lisa Kereszi. I first became aware of Lisa's work when I saw this beautiful image of Julie Atlas Muz, taken in 2000, in BUST magazine in 2002: At that time I was photographing shows in a sort of impressionistic fashion, trying to give a sense of what it was like to attend a show without concentrating on the quality of the individual photographs. There was no flickr.com and it was difficult to describe the shows to people, so I ran several galleries on my website . Don Spiro and Laure Leber creating beautiful art images, and Norman Blake was taking journalistic shots, but at that time there weren't as many places to see images of burlesque shows. It was thrilling to see Lisa's images. The above image is from Show World , where the Va Va Voom Room played for awhile, and where Deb DeSalvo made her video for "Take It Off," the song she recorded for Jill Morley's documentary Stripped . I'm in the...

I am pretty lame about my hair, seriously. When I was in high school--I had curly hair in the 70s, not a good thing--I hated my hair as only a high-schooler can. It took me years to learn to just tolerate it, and when I worked in strip joints I was constantly flinging it around so no one could really tell what it looked like. Now I rely mostly on hairpieces, and if I'm not wearing one, my hair is usually what I call "put away," in a ponytail or bun. However, if that continues, I have no one to blame but myself, because now there's this book: It is AMAZING. Oh boy, does it deliver. There is a section on tools and products that no self-styled diva should be without. If you've ever wondered what some of those clips in the hairstyling aisle of the beauty supply store can do for you, wonder no more! There are tips on using curling tools that anyone, whether or not they're into retro hairstyles, would be grateful to have. It features page after page of beautif...

Minsky's Burlesque: A Fast and Funny Look at America's Bawdiest Era. By Morton Minsky and Milt Machlin. Arbor House, New York, 1986. From the first sentence: "I was only fifteen and still wearing knickers when I got my first look at the bouncing, bawdy, and often stimulating world of burlesque..." to the edifying appendices at the end, this book is completely engaging. It is such a favorite of mine. Sure, today's New York burlesque shows are as different from Minsky's as Lili St. Cyr's were from Lydia Thompson's, but a huge part of the attraction to burlesque has always been the fierce brazen energy of live enertainment made with adults in mind, and this book portrays it beautifully. Each chapter is headed by a terrible joke, such as: STRAIGHT MAN: (running his hand over the bald comic's head): Ya know, Charlie, your head feels exactly like my wife's backside! COMIC: (running his hand over his own head): Ya know, you're right! But...

Seattle has some kickass burlesque. Every time I go I see incredible, gorgeous shows full of fantastic ideas, brilliant costumes, and fierce dancing. If you aren't lucky enough to catch the scene, however, know that you are still some good bit of lucky, because in addition to having amazing performers, Seattle has its own amazing chronicler of the Seattle burlesque scene, Chris Blakeley . A Polaroid of Chris with Babette LaFave, Paula the Swedish Housewife, Miss Indigo Blue, and Tamara the Trapeze Lady. He's taken thousands of photos at hundreds of shows, and has published is own book, the beautiful and substantial Tassels and Emeralds: A journey through Seattle Burlesque . It features descriptions and delicious photos of many of the performers I love, including Miss Indigo Blue, Paula the Swedish Housewife, Babette La Fave, Waxie Moon, the astonishing Atomic Bombshells, and the beloved Von Foxies, and too many more spectacular performers to list here. The book leaves...

The American Burlesque Show Irving Zeidman Hawthorne Books, New York, Ny 1967 "The trouble with the American burlesque show, from beginning to end, is either that is has been too dirty--or else that it hasn't been dirty enough." The first sentence of Irving Zeidman's history of burlesque in the United States (primarily New York) cites a dilemma that continues to haunt burlesque even now, when burlesque is serving in most venues as a couples' or women's alternative to the more commercial, more directly sexual environment of strip clubs (although in New York we have a few venues that are decidedly more hardcore than any burlesque shows of the past--and my story on that is upcoming). Zeidman quotes Sime Silverman saying, "Were there no women in burlesque, how many men would attend?" in 1909. He descibes the history of American burlesque as "the history of its producers' endless efforts to please both the censors and the audience." ...

Honey: The life and loves of Lenny's shady lady by Honey Bruce Playboy Press, Los Angeles, 1976. In my late teens I became obsessed with the First Amendment and its protection of adult material, about which I had very strong (ahem) feelings. Once I became adult material myself, I was even more passionate about defending adults' rights to uncensored media, and Lenny Bruce was one of my idols. As soon as I read her autobiography, his wife, Hot Honey Harlow, became one of my idols as well. Hot Honey Harlow, known also as Honey Bruce, produced one of my favorite books by a burlesque legend. She published her autobiography two years after much of her life had already been revealed in Bob Fosse's film "Lenny" (which I highly recommend to burlesque students for Valerine Perrine's depiction of Honey Harlow's routine, and for First Amendments students for the depiction of Lenny's arrests and responses). However, I suspect she would have been open a...