Ask The Experts: David McCullough

--> "So here we are: commencement. Life's great forward-looking ceremony …

Commencement is life's great ceremonial beginning, with its own attendant and highly appropriate symbolism.  Fitting, for example, for this auspicious rite of passage, is where we find ourselves this afternoon, the venue.  Normally, I avoid clichés like the plague, wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole, but here we are on a literal level playing field.  That matters.  That says something.  And your ceremonial costume… shapeless, uniform, one-size-fits-all.  Whether male or female, tall or short, scholar or slacker, spray-tanned prom queen or intergalactic X-Box assassin, each of you is dressed, you'll notice, exactly the same.  And your diploma… but for your name, exactly the same.

All of this is as it should be, because none of you is special.

You are not special.  You are not exceptional.

Contrary to what your … soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you: you're nothing special.

Yes, you've been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped.  Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again.  You've been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored.  You've been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie.  Yes, you have.  And, certainly, we've been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs.  Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet … Now you've conquered high school - and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community …

But do not get the idea you're anything special.  Because you're not.

The empirical evidence is everywhere, numbers even an English teacher can't ignore … across the country no fewer than 3.2 million seniors are graduating about now from more than 37,000 high schools.  That's 37,000 valedictorians; 37,000 class presidents; 92,000 harmonizing altos; 340,000 swaggering jocks; 2,185,967 pairs of Uggs.  But why limit ourselves to high school?  After all, you're leaving it.  So think about this: even if you're one in a million, on a planet of 6.8 billion that means there are nearly 7,000 people just like you.  Imagine standing somewhere over there on Washington Street on Marathon Monday and watching sixty-eight hundred yous go running by …

"But, Dave," you cry, "Walt Whitman tells me I'm my own version of perfection!  Epictetus tells me I have the spark of Zeus!"  And I don't disagree.  So that makes 6.8 billion examples of perfection, 6.8 billion sparks of Zeus.  You see, if everyone is special, then no one is.  If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.  In our unspoken but not so subtle Darwinian competition with one another - which springs, I think, from our fear of our own insignificance, a subset of our dread of mortality - we have of late, we Americans, to our detriment, come to love accolades more than genuine achievement.  We have come to see them as the point - and we're happy to compromise standards, or ignore reality, if we suspect that's the quickest way, or only way, to have something to put on the mantelpiece, something to pose with, crow about, something with which to leverage ourselves into a better spot on the social totem pole.  No longer is it how you play the game, no longer is it even whether you win or lose, or learn or grow, or enjoy yourself doing it. Now it's "So what does this get me?" As a consequence, we cheapen worthy endeavors, and building a Guatemalan medical clinic becomes more about the application to Bowdoin than the well-being of Guatemalans.  It's an epidemic - and in its way, not even dear old Wellesley High is immune: one of the best of the 37,000 nationwide …  I said "one of the best" so we can feel better about ourselves, so we can bask in a little easy distinction, however vague and unverifiable, and count ourselves among the elite, whoever they might be, and enjoy a perceived leg up on the perceived competition.  But the phrase defies logic.  By definition there can be only one best.  You're it or you're not.

If you've learned anything in your years here I hope it's that education should be for, rather than material advantage, the exhilaration of learning.  You've learned, too, I hope, as Sophocles assured us, that wisdom is the chief element of happiness. (Second is ice cream - just an fyi.)  I also hope you've learned enough to recognize how little you know - how little you know now, at the moment, for today is just the beginning.  It's where you go from here that matters.

As you commence, then, and before you scatter to the winds, I urge you to do whatever you do for no reason other than you love it and believe in its importance.  Don't bother with work you don't believe in any more than you would a spouse you're not crazy about ...  Resist the easy comforts of complacency, the specious glitter of materialism, the narcotic paralysis of self-satisfaction.  Be worthy of your advantages.  And read - read all the time, read as a matter of principle, as a matter of self-respect.  Read as a nourishing staple of life.  Develop and protect a moral sensibility and demonstrate the character to apply it.  Dream big.  Work hard.  Think for yourself.  Love everything you love, everyone you love, with all your might.  And do so, please, with a sense of urgency, for every tick of the clock subtracts from fewer and fewer; and as surely as there are commencements there are cessations, and you'll be in no condition to enjoy the ceremony attendant to that eventuality no matter how delightful the afternoon.

The fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life, is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you're a nice person or mommy ordered it from the caterer.  You'll note the founding fathers took pains to secure your inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - quite an active verb, "pursuit" - which leaves, I should think, little time for lying around watching parrots roller skate on YouTube.  The first President Roosevelt, the old rough rider, advocated the strenuous life.  Mr. Thoreau wanted to drive life into a corner, to live deep and suck out all the marrow.  The poet Mary Oliver tells us to row, row into the swirl and roil … The point is the same: get busy, have at it.  Don't wait for inspiration or passion to find you.  Get up, get out, explore, find it yourself, and grab hold with both hands …

None of this day-seizing, though … should be interpreted as license for self-indulgence.  Like accolades ought to be, the fulfilled life is a consequence, a gratifying byproduct.  It's what happens when you're thinking about more important things.  Climb the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the air and behold the view.  Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.  Go to Paris to be in Paris, not to cross it off your list and congratulate yourself for being worldly.  Exercise free will and creative, independent thought not for the satisfactions they will bring you, but for the good they will do others, the rest of the 6.8 billion - and those who will follow them.  And then you too will discover the great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself.  The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you're not special.

Because everyone is.

Congratulations.  Good luck.  Make for yourselves, please, for your sake and for ours, extraordinary lives."

- David McCullough

2012 Commencement Speech, Wellesley High (Wellesley, MA)

Ask The Experts: Michael Chabon

--> “The pop artisan operates within the received formulas – gangster movie, radio-ready A-side, space opera – and then incorporates into the style, manner, and mood of the work bits and pieces derived from all the aesthetic moments he or she has ever fallen in love with, in other movies or songs or novels, whether hackwork or genius (without regard for and sometimes without consciousness of any difference between the two: the bridge in a song by the Moonglows, a James Wong Howe camera angle, a Sabatini cannonade, a Stan Getz solo, the climax of The Demolished Man, a locmotive design by Raymond Loewy, a Shecky Green routine). When it works, what you get is not a collection of references, quotes, allusions, and cribs but a whole, seamless thing, both familiar and new: a record of the consciousness that was busy falling in love with those moments in the first place. It’s that filtering consciousness, coupled with the physical ability (or whatever it is) to flat-out play or sing or write or draw, that transforms the fragments and jetsam and familiar pieces into something fresh and unheard of. If that sounds a lot like what flaming genius gods are supposed to be up to, then here’s a distinction: The pop artisan is always hoping that, in the end, the thing is going to be Huge. He is haunted by a vision of pop perfection: heartbreaking beauty that moves units.”

- Michael Chabon

Introduction: Chaykin and Flagg!

(2008)

2013: A Look Behind

--> Remember: Our job is terribly profound and meaningful and not at all silly or frivolous and it is vitally important to take every aspect of it very very seriously at all times.

2014 ain't gonna grab itself by the balls, people. Let's get on this thing.

An Experiment In Focus Adjustment

 --> My high school drama teacher had a sign on his bulletin board for years,* which read:

Theatre is Life;

Film is Art;

Television is Furniture.

To the half-dozen cranberry-haired teenagers fully immersed in the optimistically-named Drama Department of our predominantly Republican, sports-focused rural-suburban learning institution, this helped solidify our self-congratulatory youthful angst and firm commitment to getting beat up weekly by the gym teachers. These days (nearly a decade after having spent nearly a decade in Theatre-with-an-re) I might amend that sign somewhat, to read:

Theatre is full of actors;

Film is fine but I like movies;

Television is comforting;

Facebook ruined society.

Also I hardly ever wear Smiths t-shirts any more.

Nevertheless, although I’ve escaped Theatre for Wiseass Striptease I remain committed to live performance as my artistic medium of choice - for the simple fact that I am still fascinated by the variations from one performance to the next, and inspired by the constantly-changing interaction between performer and spectator. ** The liminal space in which live performance exists is one of quite literally infinite possibilities: it is where theatre, dance and ritual all find roots. ***

What you don’t so much find in that impermanent transitional space is digital cameras.

I’m a firm believer in the inherent social contract between performer and spectator: We’re here for and because of each other; this experience wouldn’t exist if either of us weren’t present. And “present” doesn’t mean “taking photos of the whole thing so you can status-update about what you did tonight.” If you leave with your own emotional response to my performance and feel moved to convey your impressions to others through your own words, it becomes our experience; if you take crappy cell-phone photos of my entire act, you have crappy photos of me on your phone and not much more.

Now, amidst all of my you-damn-kids-get-off-of-my-lawnery, I will readily acknowledge several things:

1. The average audience at any given titty show isn’t there to experience the ritualistic transformative possibilities of a shared liminal space. They’re there to get drunk and see some tits.

2. At any given titty show we are there primarily to entertain, and not necessarily to change the world. If we can sneak that in too, so much the better.

3. Get a grip, grandma, the world’s gone digital and everyone has phones and Photos or it didn’t happen! and that’s just the way the world works and if you’ll excuse me I have to go text my status location to Facesquare so I can be the mayor of my life.

4. Sometimes people want to take pictures because they think you’re awesome. Also it’s nice to have videos of your acts and stuff.

So I try to find a balance between kicking tourists in the f-stop and just giving up and mugging for the sea of screens and lenses. I’ll always prefer the live experience (years ago I stopped taking a camera with me on vacations, after I realized that I was getting so anxious about missing shots that I wasn’t actually noticing where I was or what I was seeing) and I will never put up with rude, inappropriate or disrespectful photographers at any show, be they professional or casual … but for the sake of my ulcers I realize I do have to chill a little and let people experience the performance in their own way.

Thinking about all this (and, occasionally, being driven to tears of rage by it) led to a variety of ideas about how to do something productive with the frustration. This January I had the chance to begin a hopefully-ongoing project through which I will a: make art out of anger and b: amuse the fuck out of myself. Transformative qualities of live performance aside, I’m pretty okay with that; so, then, here’s part one:

1.13.13 from Nasty Canasta on Vimeo.

* Specifically, several years that started with a “1” and a “9.”

** And not at all because I have the drawing skills of a concussed bee.

*** I just recently paid off my massive student-loan debts. Just as a matter of interest.

Part I: Unbridled Enthusiasm or, Things I Liked A Lot In 2012

--> Last night kind of sucked, for reasons that are none of your damn business. And so, as is my wont, in my consequent insomniac state I managed to transfer that suckiness to every aspect of my life, work, art and career, such that by 4:30 this morning I had retired from showbusiness, dyed my hair brown, adopted three cats, moved back to New England and gotten a job at a strip-mall Circuit City. And then I realized several things:

One, Circuit City went bankrupt years ago;

Two, I really, really dislike cats; and

Three, It’s up to me to choose to end this year on a positive note.

Complaining is easier than praise: that’s why the bad Yelp reviews run to sixteen paragraphs of ungrammatical vitriol, while the good ones are three words long (“That was awesome!!!”). And while we all love a good razor-sharp Dorothy Parker-style evisceration*, today - for once - before that magical transformation that happens at the stroke of midnight apparently, I choose to defy that instinct and talk about a few of the things that impressed, delighted and inspired me this past year.

In no particular order, and without anyone having had to solicit website votes to be included, here are Some Things I Liked A Lot This Year:

• Penny Wren’s ‘Horny Penguin’ act (Brooklyn)

I’ve seen a lot of stupid stuff in my time, and this might just be one of the most brilliantly stupidest: a spheniscid** striptease that combines the pathos of the lonely penguin traversing the arctic wastes (to Morgan Freeman’s March Of The Penguins narration) with some very happy tapdancing feet, all mixed with flirtatious and exuberant breakdance moves (I defy you to watch footage of penguins belly-sliding on the ice and not see a Deadman Float) to 2 Live Crew’s immortal classic, “Me So Horny.” This act was everything I love: silly, surprising, technically stunning, completely joyous, and utterly idiotic. ***

Photos: Mo Pitz

Also I don’t know if Penny already owned the full-body penguin suit before she created this act, and I don’t want to know. 

• Flirty Sanchez’s performance at rePRODUCTION (Seattle)

I don’t know if this act has a title, and I’m hesitant to attempt to describe it in detail as I don’t think I can do it any justice. It is an incredibly, almost devastatingly personal piece that to me (I can’t and won’t attempt to speak to whatever inspired Flirty to create the act, or what statement she might personally intend it to make) is a meditation on the physical and emotional effects of abuse, and the possibility of transcending those effects. Conceptually it was incredible, and beautifully executed: there was a tremendous strength and an almost deceptive calm to the performance that seemed exactly right to me. It pushed the boundaries of “burlesque” in an absolutely inspiring way - the word “stunning” applies all over the place in relation to this act.

Also I had to perform myself shortly after watching it … which meant completely re-doing my sobbed-off makeup on the fly. Thanks a lot, Sanchez.

• Bathtub Gin (Manhattan)

I’ve had the privilege of performing regularly at Bathtub Gin with Wasabassco for almost exactly a year now, and it has become one of my absolute favorite venues of, like, ever. Not a performance space per se, it’s rather an intimate, immaculately-decorated back-room speakeasy. (The entrance is through a coffee shop so deceptively perfect that it’s easy to miss the venue entirely.) (And the coffee is damn good, too.) The fancy-ass cocktails are delicious, there are big squooshy couches, you can order s’mores for dessert, and yes, there’s a bathtub - all of which is fantastic for the audience. From the performers’ and producer’s point of view, it has been an utter delight to work in such a lovely space with a staff that is across the board pleasant, thoughtful, and eager to work with us to create the best evening of entertainment possible.

And the fancy-ass cocktails are delicious.

• Mr. Gorgeous (NYC)

Another of the great joys of this past year was getting to perform more often with Mr. Gorgeous, who has become one of my absolute favorite people both to work with and to watch. His acts are splendid, from concept (often ‘masculinizing’ traditional elements of burlesque in wonderfully effective ways) to execution (he’s a fantastic prop- and costume-builder) to performance (not only a skilled acrobat, he also acts the hell out of every character he performs).

Also he’s lovely to share a backstage with and has an idiotic streak a mile wide. ***

Photo: Edgar Delacroix

• St. Stella & James and The Giant Pasty’s ‘Statue’ act (Toronto)

St. Stella is a delightfully dreamy art student and James is a (well-cast) Classical sculpture whose worlds collide … this act is smart, loving, wry, visually beautiful, and again tremendously joyous (as much as utter idiocy, I am eternally inspired and energized by performers who take the stage with such a radiant joy). I’ve seen James and St. Stella perform together and individually, I’ve shared several backstages (and, for a weekend, their lovely apartment) with these folks, and I can’t wait for more.

(… And while I’m on the subject, a brief bit of sloppy love to Boylesque T.O. and the Toronto burlesque scene in general. Holy crap is there some fabulous stuff happening up there.)

• Amanda Whip (NYC)

It is difficult to describe Amanda Whip without resorting to inarticulate drool … but it is a drool based on extreme professional respect, I assure you. To say that she is a fantastic “stage manager” or “stage kitten” doesn’t do justice to her amazing ability to pull just enough order from the surrounding chaos to make a show run smoothly, while still leaving room for the unexpected to happen. She is utterly fearless, truly gorgeous yet always willing to look like a complete idiot ***, amazingly bendy, and one of the most utterly warped and depraved souls I have ever met in such a deceptively sweet and innocent body.

Also she lets me bite her pasties off in a professional capacity on a monthly basis.

Also and in brief:

• I first met photographer Ben Trivett when I woke up to find him asleep on the floor of my Orlando hotel room a few years ago, but I didn’t get a chance to shoot with him until this summer. He’s incredible. Seriously: interweb-stalk him. 

• Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret made me want to move to Denver (and share a clubhouse with, among other people, Midnite Martini and Naughty Pierre). Rarely have I experienced such tremendous architectural envy.

• Polesque 's yearly pole-dancing-burlesque-hybrid competition is one of the most literally jaw-dropping shows I have ever seen. I look forward to the next one.

... I’m leaving it there, even though (happily) the list keeps expanding even as I write it. But I invite everyone to reflect on the people, performances, places (and other p-words) that inspired, surprised or delighted you this year – whether or not you choose to share it somewhere (and I hope you do), it’s helpful to take a minute at the end of what has been for many of us a professionally vexatious season and head into the next year with the good stuff close behind us.

* While forgetting that for all her vermouth-soaked snark, Dorothy Parker was both a genius and a skilled and thoughtful critic. Your average FaceTube comment-troll is neither.

** Look it up.

*** This is, for the record, pretty much my highest term of praise.

Ask The Experts: David Wong

--> "... Because that's the step that gets skipped -- it's always "How can I get a job?" and not "How can I become the type of person employers want?" It's "How can I get pretty girls to like me?" instead of "How can I become the type of person that pretty girls like?" See, because that second one could very well require giving up many of your favorite hobbies and paying more attention to your appearance, and God knows what else. You might even have to change your personality ...

"But I'm not good at anything!" Well, I have good news -- throw enough hours of repetition at it and you can get sort of good at anything. I was the world's shittiest writer when I was an infant. I was only slightly better at 25. But while I was failing miserably at my career, I wrote in my spare time for eight straight years, an article a week, before I ever made real money off it. It took 13 years for me to get good enough to make the New York Times best-seller list. It took me probably 20,000 hours of practice to sand the edges off my sucking.

Don't like the prospect of pouring all of that time into a skill? Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the sheer act of practicing will help you come out of your shell -- I got through years of tedious office work because I knew that I was learning a unique skill on the side. People quit because it takes too ling to see results, because they can't figure out that the process is the result. The bad news is that you have no other choice.

If you want to work here, close."

- David Wong, 6 Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Person

Striptease on Film: BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (1961)

--> To think of Breakfast At Tiffany's brings many things to mind, from the problematic (Mickey Rooney’s infamous yellowface performance*) to the sublime (that ridiculously perfect Oscar-worthy Cat**). But even if you’ve seen the movie a couple dozen times because it’s your home-alone, laundry-folding, fuzzy-slippers-glass-of-wine-and-ovaries treat (just for instance), you might still forget this scene every time until it’s suddenly upon you: 

The dancer is one Beverly Powers, also known by the stage name Miss Beverly Hills, and she was a for-real, honest-to-goodness burlesque stripper. From Tom Lisanti’s Glamour Girls Of Sixties Hollywood (2008):

Beverly Jean Powers was born in Southern California [in 1937 or ‘39] and graduated from Van Nuys High School … She wed a Los Angeles tree surgeon at a young age. The brunette beauty with the tantalizing 37-24-34 figure then became a striptease artist using the name Miss Beverly Hills. Working mainly in Las Vegas, her act entailed dancing glamorously, dressed in showgirl-type gowns, and gradually removing her clothes until she is clad in a two-piece bikini; during the final minutes on stage, she doffs her top (she always had pasties on underneath). Becoming well-known, Powers was provocatively photographed for a number of men's magazines of the time including The Dude and Knights before giving acting a try.

Elsewhere it’s reported that Miss Beverly Hills had a stormy affair with mobster Mickey Cohen; that her husband Bill Powers was actually a hairdresser rather than a tree surgeon (a completely understandable mixup, really); and that, in December of 1959, “discovered by Chuck Landis, she takes the place of stripper Candy Barr as featured performer in Los Angeles’s Club Largo when Candy goes to prison.” There’s more out there on the interweb about her film and TV performances than her burlesque career - though she does seem to have been cast as a showgirl, burlesquer or stripper fairly often (Viva Las Vegas, Kisses For My President, Angel In My Pocket and an episode of Fantasy Island, to name a few). Apparently she retired from both stripping and acting in the early 1980’s and is now a minister in Maui.

I love this scene for a few reasons, beyond getting to see even a Hollywood-approved slice of this classic performance.

• First: That cape; that dress. (Though Audrey Hepburn was dressed by Hubert de Givenchy, Edith Head was the costume supervisor for the movie … unless that was one of Beverly’s own burlesque costumes?)

• Second: By 1961 the First Golden Age of Burlesque was beginning its transition into the modern strip club; and although who ever knows how accurate the Hollywood Version is of anything? I like to think this is at least something like how it was at the time. I’d like to think that if I were having a bad day (say, tearfully sending my Texas daddy-husband home on a Greyhound bus) I could grab my gay-in-the-novel best friend, slap on some devastatingly glamorous sunglasses, have Nellie Manley pile up my coif as if it were accidentally that fabulous, and head off to a wood-paneled Manhattan lounge to watch a burlesque queen strip to a live band while I get wittily drunk at four o’clock in the afternoon.

• Third: The dialogue in this scene (which doesn’t appear in the novel) (which you should read if you haven’t, it’s heartbreaking and beautiful in a different way to the film) did make me prickly at first. ***  How dare these characters even imply that there’s anything remotely superficial about what I do? It is deep - it is important!

Well, yes. And yet … this is a thing to write about at greater length at some other time (or if you catch me drunk enough backstage on the right night, I’ll slur your ear off about it whether you like it or not and just see if I don’t) but I have been reminding myself a lot of late that being serious about your art and your job doesn’t mean taking yourself too seriously; or, Those Who Work As Giant Stripping Sandwiches Shouldn’t Throw Stones. What I do is, on balance, amusing and superficial - and that’s okay (see: the four-hundred-squillion-dollar, all-pervasive industry that is Pop Music), it’s what makes the transcendent moments of deep importance when they do occur (and they do) all the more resonant for me.

Anyway. Next time you have a laundry-folding, fuzzy-slipper-wearing night off, open up a bottle of wine and dial up Breakfast At Tiffany’s on the interweb – and be sure, when you do, to drink a toast to Miss Beverly Hills.

* Blake Edwards, on the film’s 45^th anniversary: “Looking back, I wish I had never done it...and I would give anything to be able to recast it, but it's there, and onward and upward.”

** Whose real name, it appears, was “Orangey .”

*** In case my video-of-the-TV-screen clip is somewhat inaudible, here it is:

Holly: Do you think she’s talented? Deeply and importantly talented?

Paul: No. Amusingly and superficially talented, yes. But deeply and importantly, no.

Holly: Gracious! … Do you think she’s handsomely paid?

Striptease on Film: THE SILENCERS (1966)

--> Take four and a half minutes out of your life to watch this (actually, you should take 102 minutes and watch the whole movie sometime because it's delightful, but in the meantime just the opening credits will do):

This is The Silencers, Columbia Pictures’ 1966 spy spoof featuring sexy secret agent Matt Helm (Dean Martin) and a whole lot of jet-set-fabulousness. I’ll leave the film trivia to Wikipedia and IMDb (although I will say, as a point of interest: Cyd Charisse’s singing was almost always dubbed on film, in this case by a young Vikki Carr*). A strange series of happy accidents fueled by out-of-date tech led me to this film, and needless to say I was pretty much hooked on the basis of the credits alone.

What I want to know is the story of this title sequence: Who were these women? Were they actors, dancers, or actual burlesque strippers? (I don't recognize any of them; and I'm pretty certain that any legend who appeared in a Dean Martin movie - even if it wasn't technically with Dino - would have mentioned it pretty significantly. I met Joel Grey at a party once and I haven't stopped talking about it for a decade. He was wearing a tie with bunnies on it, you know.) Also and of course, I will be eternally frustrated that we never get to see the end of any of these numbers, 1960's Hollywood being what it was, but I like to think they filmed it all. (It is a cherished dream that footage exists somewhere and someday the interweb will acquire it. Now you know what to get me for my birthday.)

I don't tend to draw a lot of direct and specific inspiration from classic performances - my aesthetic is very different, I don't really dance so much as try not to trip while in heels, and glamour as far as I'm concerned is a thing that happens to other people ... but something about this particular moment in striptease time (and Hollywood and fashion and advertising and all that) delights the hell out of me. There's a wonderful mix of high-glam and sex-kitten looseness: Sure, I'll spend two hours getting my hair done to go to the supper club, but if a few curls happen to tumble out when I take my shoes off and run through the fountain outside, well then rowr.

... also like the then-relatively-new Bond films, the Matt Helm series features its own bunch of fantastic character names: Lovey Kravezit, Coco Duquette, Yu-Rang ( *shudder*) and a crew of henchwomen known as the Slaygirls (wait, I've changed my mind: that's what I want for my birthday).

There is fortunately a lot of great classic striptease on film, from Teaserama to Christopher Walken's brilliant number in Pennies From Heaven (Go. Watch. NOW. It's manlesque circa 1981); as one of my own favorites, I'd like to add The Silencers to the list. **

* Who was born Florencia Bisenta de Casillas Martinez Cardona. Which is a fabulous name. That’s all.

** By the way, the second movie in the Matt Helm series, Murderer's Row (also 1966) co-stars a ridiculously sexy young Ann-Margret. Also Karl Malden, for whom I have a permanent soft spot.