by Liz Goldwyn

Documentary filmmaker and writer Liz Goldwyn’s lifelong fascination with the inimitable glamour of classic burlesque inspired her to spend the eight years corresponding with, visiting, interviewing, receiving striptease lessons from, and forming close relationships with the last generation of the great American burlesque queens. In her book, Pretty Things: The Last Generation of American Burlesque Queens, Goldwyn steps back into an era when the hourglass figure was in vogue and striptease was a true art form.

Here in this SuicideGirls exclusive, Liz compiles a Top 10 list of Super Sexy Striptease Tips gleaned from studying and/or talking with the burlesque stars of the past and present, such as Zorita, Sherry Britton, Gypsy Rose Lee, Lois de Fee, and her close friend Dita Von Teese.

10 Tips For A Super Sexy Striptease

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by Nicole Powers

It was very possible to lose one’s mind…playing Catherine,” says Mena Suvari, referring to her role in the film Hemingway’s Garden of Eden, which opens in select US theaters this month. Indeed the character at the heart of the Ernest Hemingway book, upon which the movie is based, is considered to be one of the writer’s most complex.

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by Nicole Powers

“We’ve had 18 years of climate conferences…”
– Ondi Timoner

In her latest documentary, Cool It!, two-time Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning director Ondi Timoner (We Live In Public and Dig!) sets forth the case for lowering the temperature of the global warming debate, and offers pragmatic solutions to what former Vice President and preeminent environmentalist Al Gore considers a moral issue.

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by A.J. Focht

Today’s media is overrun with rehashed tales of old myths. It is nearly impossible to come across a fantasy story that doesn’t re-use mythical beings. Vampires, werewolves, and zombies all come from traditional myths and plague our airwaves and book stores; every author is looking for a way to put their own spin on this time tested material.

Some authors are very good at taking traditional myths and adapting them, whereas others should be hanged, drawn, and quartered for their crimes against them. Most myths have grey areas that can be adapted, but they all have their canon – lists of facts and pieces of the myth that cannot be changed without altering that which is intrinsic to it. When an author starts altering these facts they upset the status quo. They weaken not only the fabric of the mythological being – but our ability to suspend our disbelief. This leaves their final product looking like a cheap bastardization of the original.

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by Tamara Palmer

“From the heart and honest.”
– Vera Ramone King

Vera Ramone King’s book Poisoned Heart: I Married Dee Dee Ramone documents her 17-year marriage to the bassist and lead songwriter of seminal punk rockers The Ramones. In vivid and loving detail, she recounts the rise and demise of her lover and best friend, who succumbed to a heroin overdose in 2002. She offers the untold story of how she continually kept him alive even amidst bouts of terrifying abuse from her husband, illuminating a vital link in the band’s masterful and enduring legacy.

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by Brad Warner

I just read a horrendous news story about the Petit family in Connecticut who were murdered by a group of assholes.

According to CNN, “On July 23, 2007, men wearing ski masks attacked the family as they slept in their suburban Cheshire home. The father, a physician, was beaten with a bat and tied to a pole in his basement. His wife was raped and strangled. The girls were tortured for nearly seven hours, one sexually assaulted, then killed when the attackers set the house on fire.”

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by Brandon Perkins

In the last installment of our futuristic fiction series, Please Use Rear Exit, Mikhail, who’d just X’ed is GF Katya, had ridden the #720 to the Low bar. Having been absent from his “regular” libation center, and therefore a stranger to his “friends” Jayson and Chevy, when he’s confronted by the later (who’s a rapper, who rhymes, all the tymes) he considers his next move carefully. Of the four approaches that run through Mikhail’s mind, option D – awkwardly asking Chevy “What’s up” – could prove optimal.

D). Mikhail absent-mindedly chose (d).

But he told himself that such stumbling wasn’t all his fault. Katya called him the second that Chevy started to trail off. Mikhail instinctually paused to silence a phone that no one could hear vibrating, simultaneously losing his beat in the conversation and train of thought. Fortunately, all awkwardness was forgotten and forgiven en route to finding Jayson – who had posted up at one of the last empty standing tables – and simple small talk was okay enough.

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