Charles Rammelkamp
The Trapeze of Your Flesh
BlazeVOX
Reviewer: Robert Cooperman
Charles Rammelkamp has lived in Baltimore long enough to know all about “The Block,” that regal, or infamous, stretch of real estate that was once home to some of the best-known burlesque houses and strip tease artists who ever strutted their less than fully-clad glory for the delight and titillation of rowdy college kids, randy out-of-town businessmen with cheating and cheap thrills on their mind, and lonely guys nursing a beer or a cheap bottle of something called Champagne by the establishment while fantasizing about being wafted to paradise by the lovelies on stage.
But now, Rammelkamp has given us something better than a parade of strip-teasing ladies performing in dimly lit, sweaty rooms. In The Trapeze of Your Flesh, he’s presented us, in their own words, with a history of that noble art from its early days in the 19th Century, when in the wake of the Civil War, Lydia Thompson and the British Blondes launched “The Original British Invasion.” They toured America, starting in New York City which as Ms. Thompson tells it, they “took by storm” with their “risqué jokes and saucy costumes.” From that opening act, which lasted for over a decade in various venues in the States, Rammelkamp traces the history of burlesque from the first American born artiste, Mabel Santley (nee Lida Gardner), who appeared on stages following the end of the Civil War. Back then, burlesque was far more sedate than the raunchy brand of our era. To hear Mabel tell it:
They thronged to see me at the Casino Theater,
in New York; we also toured the country—
a chance for me to wear elegant outfits,
show a little bit of skin.
And finally, the ultimate acclaim for Ms. Santley: her face on a trading card! Just like the Say Hey Kid and the Mick. It doesn’t get much more famous than that in the U.S.
From there, The Trapeze of Your Flesh is part celebration of the triumphs of a group of free-wheeling spirits who rejected the puritanism engrained in the American ethos, but also partly a litany of the price these women paid for breaking the rules and norms of conventionality. They didn’t set out to be rebels, just to earn an honest buck and have some fun along the way. But in a society in which men and boys ogled and still ogle women’s more obvious attributes, some women found a natural, if offensive, career path, as portrayed in “The Great 48” (and you can guess what “48” stands for):
I performed for about fifteen years,
mainly Hawaii and Australia,
but I finally gave it up—
I know I’m a sex symbol,
but I’m also a person.
It finally got to me, having to bare my body
in front of that whooping vulgar audience.
Far from the bump and grind, some practitioners reveled in the sophistication of their performances, like Velma Fern Worden, whose stage name was April March. Not a bump and grind and peeling off of layers of skimpy clothing, March’s act was far more refined:
By the time I was eighteen?
I got the nickname “The First Lady of Burlesque”
because I looked so much like Jackie Kennedy.
Didn’t hurt I was always so ladylike on stage.
And then there was Gypsy Rose Lee, for decades the undisputed queen of burlesque and, as they say, a student of the “game.” She also had literary aspirations, having penned a murder mystery or two and sparred against critics like The American Mercury’s John Richmond, who sniffed derision that all it took was seven minutes for Lee to get down to the basics, and H.L. Mencken, who tried, and failed, to use the full force of his intellectual elitism to shoot down Lee’s novel The G-String Murders. I’ll let Gypsy tell it in her own words, or actually the words Rammelkamp gifts her with:
Maybe I failed to convince the skeptics
I had mental talents as well as physical,
when I sparred with the oh-so-full-of-themselves essayists,
but it was good publicity,
which in the end was much more valuable.
It took me more than seven minutes, by the way,
to shed my clothing—
remember, it was all about the “tease.”
No collection about the world of striptease would be complete without a poem about Blaze Starr, “The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque.” Rammelkamp describes her signature “Exploding Couch” routine, in which she stretched out on a couch. Smoke then “drifted out from between my legs, / like I was really getting worked up, / burning with lust” (“The Hottest Blaze in Baltimore”). Of course, like all art, Starr’s act is just that, an act, a simulation, and we the punters, as the British would say, fall for it every time when it’s done right. Apparently Blaze did it better than anyone.
Rammelkamp treats us to the highlights, stars, and superstars of this world, more akin to the risqué entertainment of burlesque before the advent of movies. He brings to life its off-color jokes, musical combos, and novelty acts, as well as women teasing men into believing that just one more piece of discarded clothing would reveal the gateway to paradise. Lord what fools we mortals be!
