i’ve just, amazingly, had my first BATH since late december (not to say i haven’t showered, but a bath… mmm…).  a small cosmetic surgery on my left knee gone awry meant open wound and bandaging.  still does, but it has developed a new fresh skin finally and seemed ok for bathing.  wow that felt great.  and now i’m up to putting down my thoughts on the burlesque party matt and i attended in berlin.

La Fete Fatale had beautiful ads and a great theme:  The House of Haunted Hollywood.  they wanted people to dress up, if possible, as a dead celebrity.  nice idea.

for our trip to berlin, i had to pack professional clothes, bar/adventure/drinking clothes, goth clubbing clothes, and finally, burlesque party clothes (in all cases with different shoes!).  so i didn’t really have the energy and suitcase space to deal with serious costuming.  instead, i packed good general classy/fancy clothes:  black spangled ankle-length sleeveless sheath dress, red/black boa, feathers for hair, full makeup kit, dangly earrings and long beaded necklace, stockings and beaded black heeled slippers.  matt wore his awesome knights templar jacket, red shiny button-down shirt, leather pants, and various jewelry. we looked pretty great!  we took a cab to the place around 9, and got ourselves situated in a nice sofa they had ringing the dance floor.  a middle-aged couple danced around the floor to the various swing and ballroom music that was being played.

synthetic chris showed up eventually (something to do with his email addy – every time i see matt texting him, i think "synthetic chris" with the sound of "synthetic flesh"…  i can’t think what song that is right now.  did a little search but it didn’t help. 

anyway, in the meantime, we watched people come in while we drank champagne.  many were dressed up – some looked fantastic.  others were in normal street clothes.  it was a pretty random mix.  the music continued to be good.

eventually, sometime close to 11pm, i think, the show started.  and this is where the disappointment starts.  they had this elaborate but not very interesting STORYLINE they wanted to do, making it more lame play than burlesque cabaret.  it started with 3 actresses gathering to have a seance to try to make contact with dead stars of the past.  the ghostly stars wandered around on stage.  the hostess introduced the band. 

the band was awesome:  the bolshoi bandits society.  very balkan/slavic/gypsy punk, reminiscent of red elvises mixed with gogol bordello, etc.  personally, i LOVE this style of music, and so even if the musicians had been bad, i would have liked it.  but they were really really good.  so big hurrah for live band!

then there was a performance by Lady Ane Angel & Lalla Morte, but they were entirely covered in sheets, so even though they took off some clothes inside there, you couldn’t see anything.  Like seeing a burqa-clad strip.  right.  a bit dull.

next up: Tara la Lune & Ardor de Ville.  Ardor de Ville was singing and Tara la Lune came walking around him in a fantastic red and black costume then did a pretty cute classical strip, with a cute little fake gun that she pointed at him.  whatever "story" they were trying to tell wasn’t entirely clear, but it was a nice strip, and she had a great body!  and i loved the costume.

then the hosts came out and did a drawing for a prize, then a pause, then lady ane angel and lalla morte again.  lady ane angel: boring, lalla morte: cute this time.

then empress shah – all covered in gold glitter, did a very weird and more overtly sexual act than i’ve usually seen at a burlesque show.  i see this type of performance (sans glitter) when i’ve gone to strip shows that didn’t have a burlesque theme.  she put things in her cunt, pretended to masturbate, etc.  it definitely had everyone’s attention, but didn’t really seem to fit.

another prize drawing, then one of the hostesses, lady lou, did a cute strip tease about a young woman marrying a rich old guy for his money, then celebrating when he has a heart attack while she strips for him.  sounds silly, but it was really good.  i like the ones with stories, and besides, her stripping was excellent.  good timing, etc.

then another pause, that was supposed to be 10 minutes, but stretched much much longer, and during which the 3 of us retreated back to the sofas in the back. then the band, then more pause, then eventually Coco Clownesse – which was a strip/clown act.  i can’t remember it in detail – my note only says "cute". 

next was a costume contest, nothing particularly interesting here, then a boring act by lady ane angel and lalla morte again.  seriously, i don’t know why they performed so much – lady ane angel was the worst act in the night, and lalla morte was almost entirely paired with her (i hope i’ve got which one was which right). 

the last act was Empress Stah again, and this time she was FANTASTIC – one of the best aerialist performances i’ve yet seen at a burlesque show.  i kind of suspected it from the muscles on that girl, but WOW… she was really amazing.  no story or anything, just a very sexy and athletic performance on the ribbon.  yay!

by now we were tired, so whether the party continued or not, i can’t say.  we went home, and were in bed by 4am or so.