Whoa Nelly.

So, reading the Republic in my Phil. class.. again. I'm pretty sure this is the 3rd or fourth time that I've read it. Major problem with being a classics fan, they really don't put out a lot of new material, and all profs seem to think it will be THEIR take on The Republic (Meno, etc etc etc ad naseum) that will rock your world.

For a little dirty philosophy fun, I've been reading the Phaedrus. (Just the dirty parts, like the Fountain Head. It's about as wild as us Phil majors get I think. ) Alright. Your soul - made up of a chariot with a charioteer (reason), a black horse (simplified - your desires) and a white horse - (goodness and spirit). Dualing, of course. Given that the Greeks were fairly.. upfront..with their homosexual tendencies and whatnot, you can imagine how black horse leads when it comes to erotic love -

"The black horse of appetite immediately urges towards sexual intercourse. The white horse — “constrained then as always by shame” (254a2) — holds itself back. Eventually, however, the black horse forces both the charioteer and the white horse “to move towards the beloved and mention to him the delights of sex” (a5-7). Again they balk, “indignant at being forced to do terrible and improper things” (b1). But finally, “when there is no limit to their plight, they follow its lead, giving in and agreeing to do what it tells them” "

Wow. Hot damn.

Then I came home, and listened to that KT Tunstall song, "Black Horse and a Cherry Tree". And now.. now I'm a little wary of these innocent pop stars. Wary, and..excited..?

Heaven

I'm out of my last meeting.. I've done it. I have no more commitments for the next two weeks, save classes. I am so thrilled. I finished writing my analytical reasoning/symbolic logic midterm this afternoon, and I just feel..so...good. I'm going out with T. and S. tomorrow night for Halloween, and I am just.. happy.
It might be the fact that I actually ate fresh vegetables today. For the first time in a while. Hm. I think I have like, a vitamin rush going on. Contraband carrots. It's a scary thought.
Or maybe it's because I got rid of the T.V! It's now sitting in my spare bedroom, locked away, to be rolled out at specific times for specific shows. I put my beautiful antique chair in my room, and my record player in the kitchen. I have to tell you - it's a great deal more serene without the 24/7 natter of CNN. (I'm sorry Anderson.) I love it. I woke up this morning, and listened to the radio, and made myself breakfast, and had a shower, and was ready WAY ahead of time, all because of no T.V. Or, because I thought I'd be faster and better with no T.V. God bless the placebo effect.
At any rate.. I'm smiling. Well, more than I was last night. And now that I'm commitment free.. to anything, anyone... Damn it, Tuesday is looking pretty fine.

One Of Those Nights

Slip Reflected

A friend of mine recently sent me this link, to the paintings of William Utermohlen. Diagnosed with Alzheimers five years ago, Utermohlen began a series of self-portraits to document the progression of his illness. They are so incredibly haunting, in not only their stylistic/aesthetic change in spatial awareness and structure, but in the obvious shift of perception that Utermohlen experienced.

The drawings begin in such a refined and delicate manner, everything is well proportioned, spaced and delineated. Utermohlen creates standard, thought lovely, self portraits - as though he is simply looking in a mirror, in the age old grade school arts project we've all completed. But as they progress, it is almost as though.. as though the mirror gets dirty, mildewed, that what he can and can't see isn't clear anymore, the lines are thick and ragged, ill-proportioned, meandering. Clicking from picture to picture you can see him almost begin to slip off the page, drooping and sliding, trickling down the mirror like condensation.

Each painting seems to contain it's own personality, a stage in life, an age in life - each could have concievably, metaphorically, realistically - come from a different person. And perhaps they did. The paintings are all.. beautiful. Taken apart, they are stunning and sad and haunting, taken together - I suppose it shows how close our sanity and genius lay to each other, and how they mirror each other on brief and stunning occasions.

Snow Day!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.. and I'm so happy in my snow gear.

Sushi Special

Had some sushi tonight with Ian, before going on my 7pm - 4am shift. Urg. I'm so sleepy, but so awake.. What is it, wired but tired? My whole life is like that right now.

What I'm Doing, What I'm Not Doing..

Despite all my tawdry talk for 2 years, I guess I really haven't said what exactly I'm DOING at school. *laugh* I'm working towards a degree.. two majors.. On the days when I've been surrounded by drunken 18 year olds the night before and want nothing more than to crawl into a cave and hide... I'm doing a philosophy degree. And on the days when I drink with them.. I'm doing a sociology degree. So I figured I would be best off to just do the both of them. Which is what I'm working towards now, in between bouts of life.. depression, and pie making. *shrug* It could be worse. I could be in early childhood developement. Mentally or acedemically. Though they seldom seem to really differ..

School is busy - a midterm in french today (oui) and one in logic on Monday. Work tonight and tomorrow night, then hopefully a small break. I have to get my place in order - clean the spare bedroom out, and put the tv in there. I hate having it my room. Then I have a place to veg and read that ISN'T my bed, which I hear should only be used for one thing - sleeping. Since it is used for only one thing - insomnia - I thought I'd be ok.. but apparently getting rid of the constant barrage of CNN will help too. I find it highly ironic that ever since we started the sleep unit in my psych class I haven't been able to hardly sleep at all.

Yeeps.

Music To My Heart

I was so busy today, running everywhere, non-stop. Ty had his music cafe at the school for the arts today.. and I couldn't have enjoyed it more. It was the perfect antedote to all the stress and non-stop action.. To just sit, and listen to Ty, who is so amazingly, beautifully talented, and just listen. To breath in, and out, on a regular basis, so feel my muscles relax, to watch somebody enjoy something so much, to make such amazing sounds come out of just wood and strings.. It really blew me away. I can still feel the residual effects of it... it's getting me through my night.

Swamped.

I feel like I'm treading water with concrete shoes on.. I can't keep up! School, study groups, meetings, eating, laundry, homework, exams,work, reading, bathing (this one really is falling by the wayside..), sleeping.. So many meetings, so many committments! I only have a few days more of this. Tuesday and I'm done midterms and meetings.. I'm free, for a day, a day in which I'm going to go to art galleries and eat sushi and sleep and maybe even get some painting done. Then, it's back to the meetings on Wednesday, but at least no midterms until.. well.. we won't go there.

I Should Be Studying

I Give Up.

Boys, men, gentlemen - I give up. You are wretched and awful and you don't call and when you do you're wretched and awful. And I think I'm ok until you call or I see you and I feel like I'm not. So I give up. I'm going to be fabulous, single, lovely me, who smells good and has dirty feet and I don't look pretty at all hours of the day and I WILL NOT sleep with my makeup on, and when I cry I look horrible and have to put an icepack to my face the next morning for hours, and I fart. Oh yeah, and I hate when you slap my butt or point out pretty girls, and you know what? I am a jealous person. But I'm also very giving, and sweet, and I love cooking and cleaning and babies and laughter and getting drunk and all those stupid corny lovey-dovey things. And I LIKE making lunches and having parties and being in love, but goddamn it, you all just SUCK. And if that isn't a personal ad..

So there. I'm single. And I'm going to wreck you all with my dedication to it, because you all.. just.. hurt my heart.

*amendment - exceptions are as follows. Ian, my brother, my father, Sabrina's T, Matt, H, C, T downstairs. For all obvious, and not so obvious, reasons.

"The Ruthless Pursuit of Profit Creates a Criminogenic Society" - Or - "I'd Kill for the New iPod"

Fitting in nicely with my study of societal strain theories and illegitimate opportunity structures, Ken Skilling of Enron fame was sentenced to 24 years and 6 months in prison for his role in the pervasive fraud and conspiracy that bankrupted Enron.

And I really can't help but wonder... given all the theories, given all the opportunities.. Is it really his fault?

Popular, though static strain theory suggests that those in upper classes are just as likely to commit crimes (though white collar) as those in lower classes are, due not only because of the gap between prescribed aspirations and means for realizing.. but our unexamined acceptance of a primary goal of monetary and material success. The weak and dying emphasis on the means to achieve these goals, like honest hard work, is so far removed from somebody who can just point and click their way to an internet stock trading fortune via insider trading - without ever being personally invested in the work to elevate the company to a viable status. But are their goals any different from what we all aspire to? Or just their means of getting there?

Is this really all that different from a young person living in a lower class environment who's aspirations of money and fame and dare we say it - the American Dream - are so far removed from thier means that they too turn to illegitimate opportunity structures like robbery, drugs and violence? Is there really a difference between somebody cooking crack and cooking the books when the societal strain on the two is equal in most respects? Is the crack dealer a little more admirable in that at least he gets his hands dirty?

The only thing that differs is their relative deprivation - not an absolute standard of sustainability but in measurment to those around you. Mayhap Ken Skilling just hung out with somebody with THAT much bigger of a house, or THAT much nicer of a car. We all wonder - didn't he have enough?, but I think we all agree that it's never enough. We always want more. Material, monetary - it can just keep coming.

We've all agreed, unconsciously or wholeheartedly (I think it depends whether you're in oil or not..) that our common goals are material, are monetary, are newer and faster and smaller and sleeker, with 3 bedrooms and GPS.. the list goes on. Can we really blame somebody by not playing by the rules, or just blame them when they're caught? Selling crack or selling sugar as crack, the goals that they are attempting to attain are still the socially acceptable ones that we've all agreed upon.

Are they really that different? Skilling can ask his cellmate. He has a while to figure it out.

*quote by Merton

Bush Dreams

I had the strangest dream last night - any help on the interpretation would be.. um.. appreciated.

I dreamt that I was asked to go to Washington to give a speech at a dinner party held by President Bush, in his private residence. So I take a bus there, and I'm calling him, and he gets directly on the line to tell me to come to his house. As I'm walking there, I'm getting really nervous that they aren't going to have a clue who I am, and I can see that everything in my purse is in pure chaos, when all of a sudden this huge group of children run by, followed by President Bush. I call out to him, and he comes back to walk with me. We're walking down the tree lined street, everything is this green tinted light. We get to his residence, and he invites me into the library, which has this huge bed in it with the sheets all messed up. The walls are lined with hundreds of thousands of books, but a lot of them are box sets of romance novels. When I look up, there are actually shelves in the ceiling, with the books all kept in by ropes. So I go to start my speech, and realise that I don't have it with me in my stuffed purse, so I go to a computer and print it off, in a complete panic. Then Laura Bush walks in with her daughter, who is painfully thin and dressed in a tiny dress, and all I can think is " I want to party with the Bush daughters and be in the tabloids" when I should be focusing on my speech. And then Laura starts talking about how none of the books are ever there for more than 10 years, because that's how fast Bush reads. Then I try to give my speach, and Bush interupts me and tells me my speech is too good for the party, and could I hold off until another time. Then all of a sudden I'm outside shopping for brightly painted antique furniture.

Strange.

Dinner At the Towers

Ahhh.. Dinner parties are so risky. Enough food, enough guests, good entertainment.. S. my dear, you pulled it off perfectly. The food was so good, the company was amazing (though if you could find me a few single climbers next time I'd appreciate it.. *laugh* ) and I couldn't have been happier sitting watching a movie and drinking and attempting to play Tri-Bond. You're such a good friend - thank you for a perfect Sunday evening.

Clockwise from top.. Mr. W. Cooks.. Ms. H. stirs..Ms. Poshlust strangles Mr. W..Ms. Poshlust wants to be the next unibomber, the girls chat shop in the kitchen...Ms. H sits pretty...

Tick.

The gentleman that sits next to me in my psychology class sets his watch in front of him every class. The face of the watch actually has the numbers digitally advancing, so you can watch every second of every minute go by.

I finally understand that "inevitable march of time". I have been scrambling, misusing, underappreciating every second of every day. Sitting there, it causes my heart to clench, I get so frantic watching every second go by. No matter how I plan my time, no matter how efficient I want to be.. There is never time. For the dishes, for more sleep, to see everyone, to love anyone, to not be happy, to be anything but sad. It's overwhelming right now.

I can stay up until midnight, sacrifice sleep for productivity, for peace, until I wake up and drag my morning down with the fact that I'm tired, and late, and nothing I did the night before looks quite as good now as it did then.

I have no motivation. It seems like no matter how much, or how little, that I complete, it's never enough, it's never all, the list continues on to the next day, the next week. And it all seems so inconsequential. That whether or not I get a 4 GPA or a 2.. that it really doesn't matter, and never will. It's not like I'm looking at the bigger picture. I'm not worried that what I'm doing doesn't really have an impact.. I know it doesn't. Starving children can't eat my GPA.. and I really couldn't give less of a damn. My urge to help has evaporated.

I have revealing dreams about him, about me, about what was, what is.. I feel so incredibly alone. It's so passe and so not me. I had a date, and date wanted to know was I really ready to be with somebody else. I am so ready to be with anybody else than myself. Could it be possible that I've actually been alone all along? That we were both watching the same inevitable march of time? Scared? Why is hindsight 20/20? If I could look over all the seconds that passed between us, in days, in years, on continents.. how many of them would I really keep? A handful? An hour of smiles, 30 seconds of a phone conversation, a letter, an embrace at the airport? Is that what it will eventually disolve to in my memories? Why is this the only process that I can't speed up?

In the meantime, I'm left with dishes and pillows that smell like mascara and salt, everything half finished and 100% not cared about, trying so hard everytime I walk out the door to be so perfect.. and failing so miserably. My heart and my tummy hurts, I have a permanent blister from high heels and a callus from an eyelash curler, but my heel broke and my mascara has run out.

And my date? Let's hope his foresight is 20/20. Because he just smells so damn good, it would nice if he stuck around for a little bit and held my hand.

Recoup at Ians.

RedBull and Vodka, Red Wine.. by drunkenese color logic I should be ok...

On the Upswing to Wholesome..

Went for sushi with Susan and sushi virgin Holly.. So much fun. I love having people try sushi, and attempt the old chopstick tango. We had so much fun. Beef tataki, spider rolls, dynamite rolls, tuna sashimi, dragon eyes... *groan* it was amazing. And with a Kirin to top it off.. well, a little hair of the dog definately helps.

Not So Wholesome...

Urg.. went out with Jay last night.. May have drank a little too much... truth be told.. I think more than too much. A lot of fun, very great little black dress.. Fun dancing.. Red Bull and Vodka may be the devil. I've slept most of the day, and I think I just pee'd red wine. Save me....

So Wholesome!

I made beautiful Martha-ish cookies at Ian's today.. Prettier than they are tasty.. but that goes for a lot of my cooking.

Not Just for Chocolate.

Very strange news on CNN this morning - There is a small town in Belgium that has a law against women wearing burkas or veils in public; they can be fined or even arrested. It was the strangest thing to watch, all of these Belgium born Muslim women being told that they should "leave Belgium" or "just take it off".. to "be like them". It was somewhat like watching the inverse of the Vice and Virtue squads in Tehran operating.. it was something like.. The Sodom and Gomorrah Squads? I don't know.. It was upsetting. It made me love Canada.

Objects May Appear Prettier...

Dinner Party Wonderful

I went out with Ian and his sister Stacy tonight to THIER sister Alison's house.. She's leaving for Peru in a week, so we got together with her and some friends, which created this amazing 7 person party symbiosis that just.. worked. It was fantastic. I haven't had such a nice time, or such a beautiful meal, in a long time. Alison handmade butternut squash ravioli, a beautiful parmesan chicken, balsamic and strawberry salad... on and on and on. Two bottles of wine later, and nobody wanted to leave, but it was that perfect hour where everyone stands around in the kitchen, then in the doorway with shoes half on... I.. am.. happy.

My Pretty Babies!

My beautiful friend L. and her gorgeous little T. that I get to have twice a week... He's the best date of them all. He doesn't even care if I wear a bra.

Ms. P. Relaxes at Home

Atomism as Pieces of the Soul

" If the body were to bring suit against the soul for all the pains and ill-treatment it had received from her, and if I myself were the judge in the case, I would take pleasure in finding the soul guilty, on the ground that she had gravely injured the body by her heedlessness, had dissolved it with drunken revels, and corrupted and torn it apart by her lust for pleasure - in the same way that I would blame one who handled carelessly some valuable but fragile instrument."

Democritus

Blurry Sexies

Reaching for a Beer

Pretty Pretty Chan

I want to look like her. Damn it. I want to BE her.

Dear Leader

Ah, North Korea. You know they're replaying the CNN expose on you right now? Clips of "Team America" with your dear leader made a mockery of? They aren't even sure it was a real nuclear test.. maybe a "fizzle" or a dud. (Both, according to the news, highly technical terms.) Fizzle? That's gotta sting.

Regardless, word on the street is that they're going to sanction you. *Sigh* All those bicycles that China was going to send you? Not anymore. But you don't fear the paper tiger of the U.N., do you Dear Leader? So they take away your bicycles, then stop with the foreign aid for a little bit. All you have to do is allow a few shots of starving children to leak out, and the bleeding hearts will all be there, demanding aid be restored, fizzle or not.

Or, you could always pose that white elephant looming question. Why does the U.S. get to have nuclear weapons, and North Korea doesn't? Because their leader is mentally unstable and a little crazy? (That statement is left deliberately ambiguous.)

So fizzle away Dear Leader. What can they do now they've taken your bicycles? Economic sanctions just aren't what they were in the good 'ol days.

Head Smashed in College Jump

I have a headache that feels like there is a vice grip slowly tightening on my head, millimeter by millimeter, day by day - it just won't go away. I have midterms and work stuff and essays and assignments and.. and I have to sleep! And instead of grabbing lunch because I was on the go, I grabbed an Ensure, chugged it.. and promptly got the worst diarrhea I have ever had in my life. Which is saying a lot.

On the upside, this really handsome guy I met on Saturday called and asked for a date. Which is great. Mom, he's even just 26 years old!

God. I hope he never reads this. Especially the diarrhea part.

What Do Proletariats Give Thanks For? Well, Just About Anything.

Alright, so confession - I've never actually made a true Thanksgiving dinner. Ever. All the things I've cooked, baked, sauteed, steamed.. I've never made gravy, or roast a chicken.
It was a little rocky to start, when I tried stuffing the chicken through the neck, and couldn't figure out how I was going to get all that stuffing in that little hole, and when we had to carve it with a bread knife.. But it actually turned out really well. The stuffing was just like my mother makes, the potatoes were unlumpy due to my brothers consistent pounding and whipping, and well, the gravy sucked, but who's doesn't? It was nice to have my brother and Ian around the little table, even if we were talking about dogs being kicked and the origin of the term "bearded clam". It just wouldn't be a proper Thanksgiving with euphemisms for your petunia. Happy Turkey Day everyone, hope you're surrounded by good friends, family, and better gravy than mine.

My New Book

It gives me dreams of butterflies and squids and hummingbirds.

The Best Weekend of the Year

Dancing and dancing, and felt galloping horses and tiny rowboats with white wispy trees, French and sushi, soho and soda. The feeling of crying without crying, dreams of partying with Bukowski and Vonnegut, bottles of wine and kitten heels, a million pairs of shoes and shopping and sexy grey t-shirts that fit like a boyfriend you never knew. Bottles of Red Stripe and tales from the farm that make your belly hurt and your teeth ache, Chanel and Mythbusters and turkey and pumpkin pie, dancing and singing and hustling. Dragon eyes and lychees, slept on hair and long eyelashes and eyeliner and huge glasses of wine. Change the clothes and go again, to long lines and short waits and here and there and dangling earrings and being so perfectly young but not, with chapped lips and blisters, hitting the front door of your apartment with the newspaper and sleeping till noon and starting again, filled with bliss and happiness and sore feet.

We All Lose One Another.. Then We Get Found

The incredibly loneliness has been.. incredible. The feeling of living in this weird bubble where I'm not really being hugged, not really being touched, not really being with anybody. That nothing is coming into this bubble, that the lonliness inside and outside is equalized by being in this bubble, and if it burst I would explode. And I've been running from class to class, event to event, concert to concert, meeting to meeting.. trying to ignore the fact that I am so incredibly sad.
I went out last night with Ian, and who knew, but the combo of sushi, "The Science of Sleep", Jason Collett, Ridley Bent, and Red Stripe, disolves bubbles. Well, I'm sure the fact that I cried (into my Red Stripe) for one of the first times helped. Ian.. thank you. For being there, for wiping my tears, for making me laugh, for making me feel like all the reasons that I wasn't loved are all the reasons you love me.

Pain Pain Pain...

While it is true that I have willingly undergone pain - piercings, bleaching etc. - it has always been at the hands of another, far more experienced person. I would never attempt to do these things myself, as I have neither the training, nor the self control.

All of these things however, tend to become somewhat secondary to a students primary concern - money. Rest assured, I have not bleached my hair, I have not pierced my own ears. These are things that I can justify paying for.

I bought a home bikini waxing kit.

I assumed that as with most painful things, it is most important to ride the wave of adrenaline. Most of the pain must must must be completed while the adrenaline is high, or you're toast. Or in a lot of pain. Part of me must have forgotten this cardinal rule, as I took my own sweet sugary time ripping off various strips here and there, aiming for symmetry if nothing else.
To my chagrin, though in hindsight, without surprise, the pain set in far before I was completely..um.. shorn. I am nothing if not determined, so I continued on, jumping and wailing and getting wax all over the goddamn place until I yelped, jumped, and got stuck to my desk with wax.
I can now justify paying for a bikini wax. Student be damned.

Friday Night Lights

I Think I Had a Martini For Every Month

So, it's official, as of the 28th Poshlust Inc. is two years old! Thank you to everyone who came on Saturday to help me celebrate my singledom, my blog, and my propensity for martinis. The party was wonderful, Leo did at great job on the turntables, my brother was the best bartender I've ever seen, and you, my friends.. that you turned up on short notice from near and far - well, you're the icing on my proverbial cake. But now... for the part you all really want.. The recipes.

The Juicy Pear

1 oz. Smirnoff Apple vodka

1 oz. pineapple juice

1 dollop of pear puree

1 Juicy Pear jelly belly to garnish

Shake with ice, enjoy! (This one was a big hit, especially because it's pretty good even without the booze. Refreshing, and way too easy to drink!)

The Pominilla

1 oz. Stoli Vanilla Vodka

1 oz. pure pomegranate juice

pomegranate seeds for the bottom

Shake with ice, enjoy! (This one was voted the favorite at the end of the night - the sweet vanilla coupled with the tart pomegranate made for quite a drink. Plus, with the seeds at the bottom it looks pretty posh.)

White Chocolate Martini (this one needs a better name..)

1/2 oz. Stoli Vanilla vodka

1/2 oz. Godiva White Chocolate Truffle liquer

1 oz. milk

vanilla fudge to garnish

Shake with ice, enjoy! (very sweet, but VERY easy to drink. Though I think Sabine kept choosing this one so she could have more fudge. Definately my favorite.)

Well, I Cried at the Trailer.

The Science of Sleep. Buy stock in Kleenex.

Dear Jenny Feniak

From The Edmonton Sun - Sunday, October 1st, 2006
--------------------------------------------------------

The Suicide Girls are a collection of young women who love to show off their tattooed and pierced bodies.

Formed several years back as an Internet site, the concept of alternative pornography took off and the Suicide Girls decided to hit the road as a "burlesque" troupe that came through the Starlite Room last Monday.

Their show is far from theatrical burlesque, lacking creativity and infused by terrible canned mainstream music.

But nobody in the jam-packed club seemed to mind the glorified strip show featuring women with taped nipples skipping rope and hoola-hooping.

A highlight was three girls dressed as pop tarts Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton who proceeded to throw around fake babies and little dogs before taking their clothes off.

But it was nice to see a healthy balance of men and women in the crowd to witness this latest bout of sexploitation and, in some cases, simply release their inner animals with drool and howls.
- Jenny Feniak

Dear Ms. Feniak.

How delighted I was when I saw a picture of myself and my dear friends in your newspaper, under this endearing article! To tell the truth, when I looked at the picture by your little byline, I could barely remember if that was you or not, not because of the drool obscuring my eyes when you were there... You ducked in, took a few photos, ducked out, repeat. One actually wonders if your journalistic skills carry beyond your candid point and shoot shots, or if you actually spoke with any of the drooling howling crowd that you so cheerfully photographed.

First, to your obviously stunted knowledge of both burlesque, and sexploitation. Perhaps, and I will give you the benefit of the doubt here, you haven't frequented some of the delightful strip clubs here in Edmonton. Now, I believe that if you had, you would seriously recant your claims of a lack of theatrics at the Suicide show. Because compared with the standard tanned blonds at Diamonds or various others - well, I have yet to see them with hoola hoops.

Perhaps if you had done your research on burlesque before writing such an article, you'd know that the vaudvillian, poor cohesion, ridiculous music and electrical taped nipples were actually quite on par - Burlesque actually translates to "imitation", and was initially used to mock the upper classes with standard show tunes and gag acts. Perhaps they succeeded far more than they realise, when the Sun sends an uneducated writer who only exemplifies the echelons that they sought to mock.

As for the sexploitation aspect - Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. Again - your history, and your research skills - fail you. Burlesque is the kissing cousin of strippers yes, but more often than not it's an art where more time and money are put in than are given back. And if perhaps you had stayed and watched the show for a little bit, you would have noticed the big smiles from the dancers, the enjoyment they displayed after at having such an engaging crowd, and the genuine interest in what they did.

But heck, better an uneducated snob than a drooling howling pervert, right?