Weimar Poetry Cycle: all 4 Parts

 

Bowie, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop all had their Berlin phases - and I think I've just concluded mine. Or at least one of mine. The concept has hung around for quite some time, although it has only been realised (and realisable) in recent months*.

This is the 'movie' edition incorporating the pieces 'Berliner Girlz', 'Marlene and Me' and 'Die Freudlosse Gass', with extra opening footage to give the whole work a cyclical feel, and the fourth 'satyr' segment, 'Weimar, Schmeimar...' which concludes the story on a bittersweet, but still light-hearted, note. I'm still seeking the opportunity to perform the whole sequence live some day, somewhere...though probably not on a smoky backlit stage.

There's a nice physical (as well as the obvious thematic) link to an earlier live work, my Brexit-inspired take on a couple of 'Cabaret' classics - in that both this and 'Berliner Girlz' uses the same prop chair.

*The first segment, 'Berlin Girlz', was actually first written some years ago, and incorporated as part of a one-act play within the text of my one professionally-published novel to date - whose very title shows that my Berlin phase has been in progress for some time, as well as its inescapable connection to retro erotica, as the novel is set in an establishment which dates from the Weimar period.

'Weimar, Schmeimar...'

Fell in love with a Berlin girl so many years ago

Strange to think how many things since then have come and quickly gone.

As Mr Hitler warred, and went,

and everyone was left quite bent

so out of shape, we thought we’d never

even write poetry again.

Yet, here we are.

A people scattered – we refugees.

We left the city on its knees

and fled, like all the lucky ones

Across the sea – all hail Manhattan.

Then one day, some day

I saw her, somewhere

Standing on a smoky backlit stage

She was on the path to self destruct,

I mean, man – she was really fucked

I grabbed her and I took her home with me.

She told me of the path she’d wandered

Prostitution, drugs, time squandered

How she almost ended up impaled

or, so she says...in vague detail

like a butterfly, in some entomologist’s case.

But it’s 1952, and – hey!

We’re in the land of opportunity

And every night, we dance together

To those old songs that brought us hither

And knock back whiskey, telling tales

of the nymphs and satyrs of the Domino house

Just down the road from the old White Mouse.

But all those days have gone, my friend

And while I hate to come across as picky -

The fun has fizzled, liberty’s been redefined -

The only mouse around here is Mickey.

Prosit.

(MB, September 2022)

Writer's note: while the Domino is a fictional establishment, the White Mouse is not, and was a hive of extremely liberal performance art in its day. I first found it referenced in Donald Spoto's biography of Marlene Dietrich back in the late 90s, and the reference has kicked around my head for all that time. Maybe my next Berlin-themed venture will be to try to replicate some of the more risqué acts from that period, like those made notorious by Anita Berber.

Stripping and Teasing: Or, Whatever Happened to Suspense?

 A few thoughts and observations on striptease not only as a "well-known rite" (R. Barthes, Striptease, in 'Mythologies', Cape 1972) but also a foundation of the work which this very blog documents. Why has the element of tease all but disappeared from the bulk of adult material - or, am I simply looking in the wrong place?

Modern hard porn tends to skip what I always call the most interesting part of any scene or sequence – whereby the female actor engages the viewer (whether alone or with others in the scene) from a passive to an active state, of expectation and growing arousal, that something will soon happen: the most obvious illustration being the classic (and now almost extinct) artform of striptease*. Building tension by gradual revelation and seduction, a process of unveiling whose potency was known to the ancients but which has recently been discarded for today’s jumpy generations to simply ‘get stuck in’ without any build-up, tease or visual ‘foreplay’. It’s adult visual fast-food now, as compared to a five-course meal, which might be balanced out with specific ingredients, each satisfying in itself but building to an overall (and of course thoroughly expected) conclusion. The return of the burlesque form in recent years has gone some way towards restoring some of this classical tradition, but interestingly it is often women (in my experience), as much as men, who buy into this as viewers/voyeurs of the performers – who have found a means to empower themselves, to present their bodies in ways they find positive and meaningful, and to enjoy sharing the experience of doing so. I have the sneaking feeling that modern burlesque audiences may be more gender-diverse than traditional adult live entertainment for this reason, that burlesque’s gradual repackaging as an empowering, feminist action where the performer is in total control has enticed viewers who enjoy seeing this kind of naked emancipation. The queer aspect of early cabaret has perhaps managed to come full circle here, and I’ve seen the same kind of performances presented very well at drag shows and in LGBTQIA+ venues, by all genders, but most tellingly perhaps, quite often by males, too: therein, queer men or ‘pretty boys’ appropriate the biological woman’s potential for their audiences (again, of mixed gender) and are more than capable of holding viewers’ attention with tried-and-tested techniques of traditional (perhaps even clichéd) seduction.

 On a practical and personal performance level, my last (to date) public stage appearance was in November 2019, as part of a variety bill of final year undergrad performance artists, staged at a venue well-known for its drag shows and support of the LGBTQIA+ community. I opened the night with a lip-sync ofthe ‘Cabaret’ standard ‘Mein Herr’, which was “sexed-up” to the limits of the original Liza Minelli movie performance – two other acts later in the night, both relevant to this discussion, included the organizer herself, who did an ‘aerobic dancing’ routine, and another classmate who pulled off (literally) a traditional burlesque striptease – as part of her project celebrating female pubic hair and promoting its positive profile, an act which brought the house down. And as very well-received as my turn was, I was also glad I didn’t have to follow either of my colleagues – that might have inspired me to inject some additional, unwanted and unrequired, level of eroticism into the performance. I had already planned part of the routine to take me off the stage and into the audience, for an up-close-and-personal moment of teasing. This was directly influenced by the performances of British pub strippers who would mingle with the drinking crowd, chatting to the audience and even inviting them to get ‘hands-on’ to help with garment removal (habits well-documented in a couple of the 1980s ‘Stripper of the Year’ VHS tapes I used to own), my way of referencing the early influences upon my own meandering and still rather retro path through adult entertainment.

*I’ve noted this tendency both in hardcore scenes and short films (and even in longer movies), as well as the latter-day bastardization of striptease in what’s termed ‘pole-dancing’: the heroine spends almost no time disrobing, seducing or deliberately enticing the (anticipated, if not obligatory) male gaze, or otherwise demonstrating her erotic power and control of the scene; but, in film, the scenes often cut from her fully or mostly-clothed, to already stripped and in the act of being fucked (subjugated), thereby lowering her status and diminishing her power and control, often through persistent and lingering close-ups, being ultimately reduced to a predictable series of orifices to be penetrated (vagina, anus, mouth – often in that general order). Pole-dancing performers often choose to get rid of their costumes well before the half-way mark, spending most of the time exhibiting athletic prowess in gynaecological detail rather than delivering the rewards of patient appreciation. The gaze is not manipulated, toyed with, in these examples, but delivers everything on a plate, thereby actually weakening the performer’s potential for sexual arousal: that which is gained too easily is often not very much appreciated (or not as much as it would be if some effort was required). Men of a certain vintage may recall how more interesting the softcore women within the pages of a bravely-won or illicitly-smuggled magazine turned out to be, back in the old ‘top shelf/under the counter’ days, when compared with the almost infinite quantity of freely-available examples on the contemporary Internet. They may have had staples through their bellies, but I think their power was far more potent, their representations far less disposable.

There now follows my own tribute to the traditional artform...