Burlesque! 4-6-12

Continuing the tradition of have a Naked Girls Reading salon at The Great Burlesque Exposition, this year the theme was “burlesque”, a fitting choice.

Our readers were Miss Mina (me), Nasty Canasta producer of Naked Girls Reading NYC, and St. Stella from Toronto (filling in at the last minute for a Naked Girl trapped on the wrong coast).

We started with a group reading of the short story “The Price of Freedom” by Carmel Lockyer from Ultimate Burlesque, a collection of erotic stories. All London is celebrating the end of the War and the Blue Moon Burlesque is putting on a special show. Will Sylvia get her hands on a pair of scarce silk stockings and upstage her catty rival?

Next I read a selection from Gypsy Rose Lee’s autobiography, Gypsy: Memoirs of America’s Most Celebrated Stripper, about her first performance as a stripper. It’s marvelously descriptive and terribly funny.

Nasty Canasta read the reminiscences of Sunny Dare, who worked the carnival circuit, as told to Jane Briggeman in Burlesque: A Living History.

As I mentioned, St. Stella jumped in at the last minute (and we are so grateful to her!) and she didn’t know what to read. Ab Horance, saved the day by happening to have a copy of Burlesque West: Showgirls, Sex, and Sin in Postwar Vancouver by Becki Ross. Stella read a fascinating section on censorship.

Boston burlesque is very near to my heart, so I chose a section from

Banned in Boston: Memoirs of a Stripper by Lillian Kiernan Brown about the days when young Lily Ann Rose dreamed of stardom backstage at The Casino and saw Peaches, Queen of Shake, perform her famous dance.

We closed out the show with Nasty Canasta reading from Ann Corio’s This Was Burlesque. After she read the section about Carrie Finnell’s particular style of tassel twirling, we were all wishing we could have seen it. Our wishes were answered the next night by Donna Denise in The Main Event!

Thank you for coming out for a little unclothed literature at the Burlesque Expo! Our next salon will be in June.