Letters to the Editor
amspeck
Published Letters: 357 Editor's Choice: 50
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I think there's something missing here...
[Read the article: Global warming conference, take two]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While burlesque has become conflated with "stripping" in the English lexicon for good reason, it would help this discussion if we separate terms a bit. Burlesque is the grandmother of the current strip club. Other relatives in the family include drag performers, their campy variations,and side shows.
Once you put the family tree back together, you realize that all the relatives have one thing in common -- using apperance as a prop. And most of the relatives have another thing in common -- humor as part of the act. Stripping is separated from burlesque because it is humorless and solely about the presentation of bodies as sexual objects.
Burlesque, on the other hand, uses "clothing" loosely and uses the act of changing from one kind of clothing to another to draw attention and to promote humor and insight perhaps along with sexual attention. The destination clothing is often something along the lines of a skimpy bathing suit, but it doesn't have to be.
For example, I once saw a piece where Mother Nature, dressed as summer, shed the flowers and leaves and ended up as winter, in a shinny, shimmery gown that had been hidden by under the greenery. Another piece featured a woman shedding prosthetic devices and becoming able-bodied.
My point is: we don't know enough from the reports about the conference to know what the performers were doing. We know that a burlesque troop showed up at a global warming conference and a number of people walked out. Was it simply repulsion toward the name? Were the performances smart and informed art pieces commenting on the effects of global warming? Did the audience walk out when the first article of clothing came off, refusing to entertain the bigger idea?
For more information: http://www.exoticworldusa.org/frame_whatis.html
http://www.amazon.com/Burlesque-New-Bump-n-Grind-Michelle-Baldwin/dp/0972577629/
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Be aware...
[Read the article: The long way home]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I anticipate the Bush machine rolling out language about how we have fewer troops in Iraq than we did at the beginning of the year... without the footnote that the decrease happened through attrition, and that the attrition is really the number of deaths and serious injuries happening to our troops.
As we race toward sending as many young men and women to death in Iraq as died in the attacks of 9/11, I expect to see more and more funny business with the numbers.
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The Comma quote -- again
[Read the article: At war, in denial]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]An earlier poster clarified the source of the comma quote and I'll leave it to the reader to find that.
The extension of that quote *not* being a common saying among the religious right is that in this case, Bush was *not* speaking in code to the religious right.
Bush does speak in code to the religious right all the time... by insisting that he is the authoritarian father with omnipotent knowledge and that his "children" (us) should just shut up and trust him.
Oh, and my personal take on the difference between the report excerpt and Bush's comments about it is that Bush doesn't actually understand what "cause célèbre" means.