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...