Drizzling rain falls
The wet world is grey and green
Dark, yet refreshing.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
The Burlesque Diary, Part 2
Today was arts and crafts day. The lovely Lily put together little ziplock bags of materials, and brought plenty of scissors and glue for the class - pastie making. Not the meat pie pastie - think nipple covers.
Most public decency laws require an absence of complete nudity to be legal, hence, pasties and g-strings. According to Lily, Detroit strip artists are relatively modest, wearing full rear-coverage panties. In Grand Rapids, the center of the Dutch Reformed Church in Michigan, thongs rule (less restrictive ordinances.) Who'd have thought?
Any way, it's a very simple process. Take some cross-stitch canvas, and cut out a circle that covers your own nipple and aureola (I retired to the Ladies to be absolutely sure everything important was covered.) Cut to the center, make a judicious fold (pancakes vs party hats) and glue. After making this base, take a yard or so of sequins and the bottle of Fabri-tac glue, and glue the sequins around in overlapping rows.
It took on almost a Zen-like rhythm - tap on glue, tamp down sequins, mold with thumbs, discuss life. One adventurous lady went for the two-toned look - red and black spirals. At the end, they looked like luscious lollipops. One went with pewter gray - very sophisticated - and another snagged the holographic red ones - wow. They weren't merely sparkly red, they glowed. Note to self: holographic sequins rock.
Lily discussed variations as we tacked and pressed - she wanted to pass on a skill, not a party favor. If you cut a little hole in the middle and thread a tassel through before glueing and decorating, you will have tassel pasties. If you go to the fishing section of any big box store and find a lure thingy and attach it to the back of the tassel before threading through the base, you will have twirly tassels (hello, WalMart). We all brain-stormed on future pastie designs. Being highly-caffeineated, my taste ran toward Hello Kitty or skulls-and-crossbones for a pirate theme, but that was before I saw the holographic sequins.
Attaching the little darlings to les girls is actually easy - you can do double-sided Hollywood tape from Jo-Ann Fabrics, or toupee tape from Sally's Beauty Supply. Toupee tapes wins (it's cheaper!)
Moi? I went with a mauve pink. I took a photo, and they look like big buttons or tiny party hats (no, I can't get it into this post. Rats. No big deal - they were just laying in the palm of my hand.) And yes, I look BAD in my dainty mauve pasties. Very, very bad.
Next week - dresses and feather boas.
Most public decency laws require an absence of complete nudity to be legal, hence, pasties and g-strings. According to Lily, Detroit strip artists are relatively modest, wearing full rear-coverage panties. In Grand Rapids, the center of the Dutch Reformed Church in Michigan, thongs rule (less restrictive ordinances.) Who'd have thought?
Any way, it's a very simple process. Take some cross-stitch canvas, and cut out a circle that covers your own nipple and aureola (I retired to the Ladies to be absolutely sure everything important was covered.) Cut to the center, make a judicious fold (pancakes vs party hats) and glue. After making this base, take a yard or so of sequins and the bottle of Fabri-tac glue, and glue the sequins around in overlapping rows.
It took on almost a Zen-like rhythm - tap on glue, tamp down sequins, mold with thumbs, discuss life. One adventurous lady went for the two-toned look - red and black spirals. At the end, they looked like luscious lollipops. One went with pewter gray - very sophisticated - and another snagged the holographic red ones - wow. They weren't merely sparkly red, they glowed. Note to self: holographic sequins rock.
Lily discussed variations as we tacked and pressed - she wanted to pass on a skill, not a party favor. If you cut a little hole in the middle and thread a tassel through before glueing and decorating, you will have tassel pasties. If you go to the fishing section of any big box store and find a lure thingy and attach it to the back of the tassel before threading through the base, you will have twirly tassels (hello, WalMart). We all brain-stormed on future pastie designs. Being highly-caffeineated, my taste ran toward Hello Kitty or skulls-and-crossbones for a pirate theme, but that was before I saw the holographic sequins.
Attaching the little darlings to les girls is actually easy - you can do double-sided Hollywood tape from Jo-Ann Fabrics, or toupee tape from Sally's Beauty Supply. Toupee tapes wins (it's cheaper!)
Moi? I went with a mauve pink. I took a photo, and they look like big buttons or tiny party hats (no, I can't get it into this post. Rats. No big deal - they were just laying in the palm of my hand.) And yes, I look BAD in my dainty mauve pasties. Very, very bad.
Next week - dresses and feather boas.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
The Burlesque Diary, Pt. 1
I did it. I signed up for a series of burlesque lessons with the lovely and talented Lily LaRue, a local performance artist. Her Snowflake fan dance on YouTube caught my eye, and my fevered imagination conjured up my next life project: Fandancer by Fifty. Well, if you gotta turn 50, you might as well make it fun.
And burlesque is fun - it's artistic, expressive, and pretty. The fact that there's a sizeable burlesque underground in Detroit is a fitting yin to cyberporn's very unrealistic yang - slow, pretty, sparkly, and all about the process, not the goal.
So, this Saturday I showed up for my first class. There are four of us - me, an office manager/engineer (the economy sucks), a stay-at home mom, and a former female wrestler who believes burlesque is her true calling. All normal, all with hidden talents marinating below the surface. All had very nice legs, all were a bit conscious of our weight, and the the other three displayed very nice panties when we got to the skirts-off part. Me, I wore yoga pants. I'm not sure my derriere needs to see daylight yet - or my underwear. Somehow, I think shopping can fix this . . .
At any rate, after a nice history of burlesque and a stretch, we donned our heels, button down shirts, and skirts, and went to work. We strutted, we unbuttoned the buttons sloooooooooooowly, and we got out of the skirts without hurting ourselves. And we teased. Damn, teasing feels GOOD. Really good. And it was over much too soon. Can't wait for next week.
Next time: Pastie making workshop. (a. Pah-stee: a pot pie. b. Pay-stee: Sparkly nipple covers.) We're making (b).
And burlesque is fun - it's artistic, expressive, and pretty. The fact that there's a sizeable burlesque underground in Detroit is a fitting yin to cyberporn's very unrealistic yang - slow, pretty, sparkly, and all about the process, not the goal.
So, this Saturday I showed up for my first class. There are four of us - me, an office manager/engineer (the economy sucks), a stay-at home mom, and a former female wrestler who believes burlesque is her true calling. All normal, all with hidden talents marinating below the surface. All had very nice legs, all were a bit conscious of our weight, and the the other three displayed very nice panties when we got to the skirts-off part. Me, I wore yoga pants. I'm not sure my derriere needs to see daylight yet - or my underwear. Somehow, I think shopping can fix this . . .
At any rate, after a nice history of burlesque and a stretch, we donned our heels, button down shirts, and skirts, and went to work. We strutted, we unbuttoned the buttons sloooooooooooowly, and we got out of the skirts without hurting ourselves. And we teased. Damn, teasing feels GOOD. Really good. And it was over much too soon. Can't wait for next week.
Next time: Pastie making workshop. (a. Pah-stee: a pot pie. b. Pay-stee: Sparkly nipple covers.) We're making (b).
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Tanka du jour
A Heian lady
Would blacken her teeth, shave her
Eyebrows, drawing new ones in,
Arcing like black moths.
Would I follow suit
and be fashion's slave?
I've picked up my Genji Monogatari again, and I admire those tough Japanese heroines who had to work so piece together a life behind walls. I think I might be temperamentally unsuited to the time.
Would blacken her teeth, shave her
Eyebrows, drawing new ones in,
Arcing like black moths.
Would I follow suit
and be fashion's slave?
I've picked up my Genji Monogatari again, and I admire those tough Japanese heroines who had to work so piece together a life behind walls. I think I might be temperamentally unsuited to the time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)