leahrayrotten asked: I was wondering if I could please use your adventure time drawing as a reference for a tattoo. I've been looking for something just like it, and would like permission from the artist
Yes, you may. Just bear in mind it’s a sold image and will be used in show advertisements - if you are cool with that, so am I and the producer of the evening. Also, if you get the tattoo done and find yourself near NYC at the end of August, we’d love to see you at the show! If not, send me pictures of it anyway when it’s done.
DONE! Record time, baby. Now on to more poster work! Sleep first, though. Maybe. I already almost forgot to eat.
Don’t forget to mark your calendars for D20 Burlesque’s OH MY GLOB Mathematical Burlesque show, August 24th! I’ll post the finished flyer with more details soon.
loyaltyofvillains asked: Hi, friend! I just wanted to say "thank you" for your response to my comment because I got super enthusiastic about your art and really should have clarified myself: your ladies (and guys, too!) always looks like real people. Skinny ladies are real ladies, and so are fat and curvy and trans, too, and it's really nice to see people with wrinkles, differently shaped chins, noses, etc. who don't fit the fit the however-many-hands-high proportions and ethnic diversity(!). I hope that makes sense!!
Thank you for sending me this, and for your compliments and clarification. I’m going to publish this because this response is lovely and you’re lovely. And here’s a gif of Stephen Fry petting a puppy:
dasharaptor-deactivated20130518 asked: After seeing so many videos, I am completely awed by burlesque and everything to do with it. It seems so fun and I would love to see some someday in the flesh or be a part! What got you guys first interested in burlesque? :)
Speaking only for myself, I always wanted to be a Toulouse Lautrec. I encountered burlesque for the first time many years ago when Weimar New York was still doing its runs at the Spiegeltent in South Street Seaport. It wasn’t only a burlesque show, but a truly eclectic and very political cabaret that encompassed a spectrum of performances. It was my first introduction to the geniuses - Tigger!, Dirty Martini, Meow Meow, Amber Ray, Justin Bond, Daniel Isengart, Tangerine Jones. I came back twice in the first year it ran, and then every year that I could manage it since. Something clicked - I realized the world I imafined in my head actually existed and I just found it.
kloee asked: Even though I live nowhere near New York (or indeed even in the country), I am curious as to whether you or your husband will be performing in the NY Burlesque Festival this year?
No, but Lewd Alfred Douglas (well, and technically I am too, though I’m just assisting in the act) is performing at the New York Boylesque Festival on April 26th!
This got sent to my moika-palace account, but I’ll answer it here instead.
1. Though I’m married to Lawrence and he is my primary partner, I’m bisexual (as is he), and our marriage is happily non-monogamous. I have yet to figure out a non-creepy and non-awkward way to bring this up in conversation with people I’m potentially interested in. I have had instances when I’d be in bed with a girl and mid-make out she’d exclaim, “Wow, so you really did mean it when you were flirting with me!”
2. When I was little, I had a lazy left eye. It was surgically corrected when I was 8-9, but no amount of glasses and therapy could correct my vision, so I only have 20% of it left. My left eye is basically glorified peripheral vision. Also, if you look closely, you can see a gross scar on the white of that eyeball.
3. I was born and raised in Moscow, Russia, and moved to the US when I was 13.
4. Thus, I’m bilingual in Russian and English. My French and Spanish were at a conversational level at some point as well, but I haven’t had any practice in ages, so I fear they’ve suffered.
5. I’m weirdly attached to the color marigold (and I will correct you if you call that shade yellow or mustard, because no), and get bizarrely possessive of it.
6. I. love. redheads.
7. I think I appear as a very social person, but I’m actually very introverted and have very limited patience with people. I go through very active social periods, and I adore throwing parties, but afterwards I turn into a hermit for months on end.
8. I prefer the effect hard liquor has on me to that of wine (which just makes me sleepy, cranky and gives me a headache), but the one big exception to that rule is giggle juice. Sparkling dry white wines are my favorite.
9. My grandfather on my father’s side was an archivist for Stalin and later an aide to Gorbachev. My mother’s side of the family comes from wealthy merchants who lost everything in the Revolution, and have leaned left ever since (with my grandfather having worked in the UN and ardently supported democracy in Russia). Amusingly enough, this wasn’t actually the reason my parents divorced.
10. On top of rigorous Russian schooling, my mother also sent me to art, piano and ballroom dancing lessons. Piano didn’t stick.
I won’t tag, anyone who wants to do this can feel free.
Yes, of course it is. But there are ways of doing so positively and neutrally, without shaming someone else in the process. Even when it’s not intentional, it’s good to pause and think about the way we phrase things.
Comic by Jo B.
But, really. I understand that you meant this as a compliment and that you didn’t mean to say anything that could be interpreted as hurtful, but body shaming is body shaming. All women are real women independently of body size and shape.
