Oh, The Glamourous Life!

Dear Constant Reader,

This book has been hanging about on my “to be reviewed shelf” for a while.

Burlesque Dancer 101: A Professional Burlesque Dancer’s Quick Guide on How to Learn, Grow, Perform, and Succeed at the Art of Burlesque Dancing From A to Z by HowExpert with Emilie Declaron, n.d. 

Well, that seems like a lot to promise in one slim paperback (about 100 pages). From looking at other HowExpert offerings the titles are similar, offering guides on how to “Learn, Grow, and Succeed” at something “From A to Z”, so I won’t blame the author for that. 

In the introduction it states that the book will give you “all the tools necessary to launch and develop your burlesque career” whether you’ve just started out in the art or even never been to a burlesque show. That’s a tall order.

The book’s six chapters contain an introduction to the world of burlesque (a little history, some notable performers, some burlesque styles, a few “traditional” routines, &c.), routine creation, costuming, hair and makeup, performing, and developing your career. 

Not surprisingly, the book is very superficial. The information and advice isn’t bad per se*, but trying to cover every topic one would need to become a professional burlesque performer means this book is just skimming the surface. It’s more bullet points than in-depth tutorials. That’s not awful if you want to use this as a jumping-off point, but it shouldn’t be the only source.

There are no illustrations in the book, which it really could have used. Trying to figure out poses or make pasties or style victory rolls without drawings or photographs, especially for completely novices, is very difficult, if not impossible. I understand that image rights are a whole issue and increase the cost of a book, but line drawings would have made some sections a lot clearer.

The author is from the UK, so some of the vocabulary and spelling isn’t US standard. I’m fine with that, but I’m not okay with errors. Gypsy Rose Lee’s name is spelled correctly in place and spelled “Gipsy” (the UK spelling) in others. Now that might just be an autocorrect error, but there are also typos, misplaced words, and punctuation issues that indicate a lack of editing. That’s probably not the author’s fault so much as that of the publisher (which also claims authorship).

The part that really aggravated me was in last section on next steps after you’ve become a performer, which suggests producing shows, selling burlesque costumes, running “hen dos” (girls’ nights out), doing corporate gigs, and “start teaching other future burlesque dancers and create your own school”. While these are aspirations, they’re not things I would recommend to brand-new performers with only a little experience. Personally, I get very frustrated with the suggestion that anyone who performs burlesque is qualified to teach. But that is a rant for another time.

Although the table of contents lists recommended resources, it’s just a list of other HowExpert books. There’s a small section of burlesque related websites at the end, mostly for places to buy costumes. The industrious reader could pick out names of performers mentioned throughout the book and look them up, since there are many mentions of performers for examples of acts or personal style.

It’s not a terrible guide, but by trying to be too much, it becomes very little.  The Burlesque Handbook is still my recommendation.

These writings and other creative projects are supported by my 19 Patrons. Thank you so much! To become a Patron, go to my Patreon page. Or you can just tip me if you liked this.

*But recommending hot glue for Swarovski crystals is terrible advice. Don’t do it.

Dear Constant Reader,

 I cannot believe I haven’t reviewed this book until now…

The Burlesque Handbook by Jo Weldon, 2010.

The Burlesque Handbook was published over ten years ago, but it has never been out of print. It was the first practical guide to being a burlesque performer and remains the best. As Headmistress of The New York School of Burlesque, Jo has been teaching burlesque to all levels from beginners to professionals. Her classes and related material over the years became the foundations of this book. I still have her 12-page pink “Burlesque for Beginners” handout from 2005, which grew up to become this wonderful resource.

The book is packed with useful information from classic moves to music to backstage etiquette to creating a character. There are even templates and illustrated directions for making pasties. There’s an entire chapter on fan dancing! I found the worksheets in the appendix to be incredibly valuable. Even someone who has been doing this for a while can find it useful to stop and question their own creative process.

Besides drawing on her personal experiences, Jo quotes from the “Council of Ecdysiasts” — veteran performers — for varying perspectives on a topic. She also draws upon the wisdom of Burlesque Legends, sharing their words and their stories. It’s great to have advice from a range of performers both present and past.

Jo is also a photographer, so it’s no surprise that the book is peppered with photos (black and white, occasionally with red accents). Some are of Jo and some were taken by her over her many years on the scene. The burlesque moves she describes are illustrated by clarifying step by step photos. Other performers are featured along with appropriate topics. There are even a couple of photos taken at The Expo.

The book is focused on burlesque performance — how to get ready for the stage and look great once you’re there. You’ll have to look elsewhere for information and advice on bookings, producing, hosting or promotion. I don’t have a problem with that. Trying to cover absolutely everything would made for a less focused book. Besides, Jo covers some of those topics in articles and essays elsewhere. 

To give you an idea of just how useful it is, I have a copy on our library bookshelf (thanks, Scratch! I know it’s really your book) and one on my Kindle, so I’ll always have it on hand for reference. I’ve been recommending The Burlesque Handbook to every burlesque performer for more than a decade and I’ll continue to do so.

These writings and other creative projects are supported by my 12 Patrons. Thank you so much! To become a Patron, go to my Patreon page. Or you can just tip me if you liked this.

Dear Constant Reader,

I’m winnowing down my to-be-reviewed pile! Here’s a book about a controversial figure in burlesque, who was responsible for launching one of the great careers.

Mama Rose’s Turn: The True Story of America’s Most Notorious Stage Mother by Carolyn Quinn, 2013

Rose Thompson Hovick, the mother of Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc, has been portrayed as an amusing eccentric (Gypsy Rose Lee), a brash, overbearing stage mother (Gypsy: A Musical Fable), an abusive narcissist (June Havoc), and even a remorseless murderer (Karen Abbott). Most sources agree that she was beautiful, petite, charming, manipulative, and needy. But who was she really? This book attempts to answer that

The story begins with Rose’s paternal great-grandparents arriving in the midwest from Germany. The generations before Rose was born were full of independent women. Her maternal grandmother ran businesses after her husband (and both her young sons) died. Rose’s mother had a talent for millinery and would frequently leave her daughters (her only son also died young) to head north and sell her fancy hats in the Yukon. This probably shaped Rose’s unconventional views of how to raise her children.

Rose married Jack Hovick when she was a pregnant teenager. That baby, Rose Louise, would grow up to be Gypsy Rose Lee. The painful delivery of a very large infant in a half-finished house in the middle of winter put Rose off the idea of more children. When she found herself pregnant again, she tried various ways to make herself miscarry, but her second daughter, Ellen June, was tenacious, although very small at birth. It was the unwanted daughter who proved to have incredible talent and Rose pushed for a performance career for the dancing prodigy, despite that June was barely a toddler. She filed for divorce and created a vaudeville act around her girls.

I’m not going to rehash the careers of Baby/Dainty June and Rose Louise/Gypsy Rose Lee. You can read Early Havoc and Gypsy for that, which is what the author of this book appears to have done. She also cites newspaper articles or  letters from the GRL Collection at the NY Public Library or emails from someone’s descendant, but mostly she relies on those books, especially for this part of Rose’s life

After Gypsy hit it big in burlesque, and later June on Broadway, they supported their mother (as well as her mother and sister in Seattle), but it was never enough for Rose — she wanted more money and more attention. When Gypsy set her mother up in a 10-room apartment, Rose opened a speakeasy where lesbians could safely socialize and buy overpriced bathtub gin and spaghetti. Later she moved to Gypsy’s country estate and turned it into a sort of resort. Scandal erupted when a young woman was killed with a rifle there. It’s still unclear if it was suicide or murder, although Quinn is firmly in the suicide camp. 

After that, the rift between mother and daughters grew larger, although they continued to support her financially, if not emotionally. Despite the money from her daughters, she was constantly coming up with business ventures — raising chickens, running a children’s summer camp, planning a restaurant with her sister, and more. For the rest of her life Rose tried to be a part of her daughters’ lives, often by threatening them, demanding more money, trying to disrupt their careers, and even suing them for lack of support. Gypsy would have periods of closeness with her mother and then Rose would do something that would alienate her again. 

Near the end of her life, suffering from cancer, she found a surrogate family with the local plumber.  He and his wife helped care for her and their daughter called her “Aunt Rose”. Despite being ill and frail, Rose took pleasure in being able to create a lovely Christmas celebration for the girl, like she did on the road with her vaudeville children.

In death, Rose took revenge on her daughters by leaving her entire estate to her sister, including the house Gypsy had paid for. Gypsy countered by publishing the memoir she never would have released while her mother was still alive. 

The author makes her biases clear from the prologue. She was captivated by the character of Rose in the musical Gypsy, as the ball-busting stage mother. She dislikes June Havoc and repeatedly dismisses June’s version of events. Despite using June’s two books as source material, she considers June an unreliable narrator and frequently calls her a liar. She calls a few other people liars as well, when their recollections don’t match up with her narrative.

Quinn glosses over Rose’s outrageous actions, like thefts, scams, threats, and sabotaging other performers’ acts, as “games” and “stunts”. Neither girl had a valid birth certificate or even knew exactly how old they were, but that was just part of Rose’s cleverness in marketing and evading child labour laws. There’s always an excuse for her behavior — she was emotionally distraught, hormonal, drinking too much, etc. — and that her daughters should have been more sympathetic and loving. After all, they had been the center of her life for years, why shouldn’t she be the same to them?

Keeping that bias in mind, it is still the only biography of Rose Thompson Hovick out there (that I know of). It looks not only at Rose, but her family, back a couple of generations, and how their lives may have shaped her view of the world. Rose was a complicated woman and more than just her brassy alter-ego, belting out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses”.

These writings and other creative projects are supported by my 12 Patrons. Thank you so much! To become a Patron, go to my Patreon page. Or you can just tip me if you liked this.

Dear Constant Reader,

Pulp novels and burlesque shows have a lot in common — they were inexpensive, guilty pleasures, rather racy, a little silly, a lot over the top, entertaining in an expected way.

Grizzly Pulp is bringing back the pulp novels staring confidential investigator Tokey Wedge! Who? That’s what I asked too. The good folks at Grizzly Pulp sent me a copy of their first offering (and some cool barware) to check out and I thought I’d share my review with you. Do not expect high art.

Nympho Lodge (Grizzly Pulp #1) by Jack Lynn, originally published 1959.

Janice Bradley is afraid. Her husband is about to divorce her, but she won’t give up The Wagon Wheel, a resort they own jointly. Now she’s received a threatening note hinting at arson. She fears her husband might kill her to get control of the property, so she hires Tokey to be her bodyguard. The contested resort is full of gorgeous women with hot bodies and soon it’s also full of cold bodies… the dead kind. Everyone is a suspect, including Tokey. In the tradition of pulp novels, do not expect a happy ending.

Tokey is short and scrawny, but a tough fighter and a good shot.  Almost all the women are tall, busty, lusty and desperate for Tokey. He spends the entire book fending off their advances, except when he doesn’t. The plot is full of twists and turns, but if you know the pulp formula, you’ll probably figure out the murderer.

This book is ridiculous. It’s a parody of the hard-boiled detective novel. Do note that on the cover it’s not a “Case” or an “Adventure”; it’s a “Swinger”. That should tell you all you need to know. It’s full of lurid violence and sex described in overblown prose. Wild similes abound, as do sentence fragments and the occasional 50 cent word. The prologue has nothing to do with the main plot. The writing is absolutely of its era (late 1950s) in terms of language and attitudes. 

That’s not to say it’s not fun. It’s a quick read with constant action. I love the fact that Grizzly Pulp has printed it on, well, pulp paper. They’ve also been kind enough to wrap the book in a plain black dust jacket, marked only “Grizzly Pulp #1”. That saves some embarrassment, if you’re perusing Nympho Lodge in public — maybe on the beach or poolside. It would be a fine vacation read. Just be warned that you can whip through it in no time, like a bag of potato chips.

The original plan was to sell the first six books in the series at dive bars (how fun!), but the pandemic screwed that up. You can read a sample from Nympho Lodge and buy the book at Grizzly Pulp’s store. If you know an indie bookstore that would like to carry these, drop Grizzly Pulp a line! Nympho Lodge is currently the only book available, but the next ones should be coming out soon. Keep your eyes peeled for Mad for Kicks — “Tokey takes on a GANG of thrill-mad BEATNKS on a shocking binge of MURDER AND PERVERSITY!”

These writings and other creative projects are supported by my 14 Patrons. Thank you so much! To become a Patron, go to my Patreon page. Or you can just tip me if you liked this. 

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