Tag Archives: The Sultanette

11/18/17

Adultery Goes Avant-Garde In Brooklyn

Brooklyn Bridge Black Tie, Avantgardemusicnyc.

“It’s a dance performance based on the seventeenth century diary of a philanderer!” said Dr. Zhivago (Male Harem member pseudonym). “Right up The Sultanette’s alley!”

I may have philandered in an alley or three but I’m skeptical of multi-media performances. Avant-garde by nature is a contrivance. A cheeky departure from the expected. To be boldly contrived and remain artistically honest is a fine balance and I’d seen enough avant flops to prove it.

But 17c – the latest offering from Big Dance Theater at BAM’s (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Next Wave Festival had my attention. The company has been described as genre-defying (New Yorker) and genre-exploding (The New York Times). You have to love a company that creates a piece called This Page Left Intentionally Blank (2016). Read more . . .

08/21/17
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The Art of Intimacy: The Sultanette Does Dallas

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The Kiss, Brancusi, c1908, Nasher Sculpture Ctr.

Can The Sultanette be a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader when she grows up? Wearing barely more than white boots and a smile as big as Texas they’re worth the price of admission to AT&T Stadium. (BTW there’s a football game there, too.) But news flash!

Next time you’re in Dallas, before you join that 100,000-plus crowd to watch those buxom babes on the biggest Jumbotron in the NFL, you might take a detour to the Nasher Sculpture Center. As The Sultanette learned on a recent trip, this temple of tranquility containing one of the finest collections of twentieth century sculpture in the world, offers food for the heart, soul and libido. Read more . . .

07/21/17
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A Place Called Home: Is It Where You’re From Or Who You Are?

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The Cabinet of Curiosities, Steffen Dam, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison.

The Sultanette revisited this pesky question last week upon returning to her hometown, Madison, Wisconsin. You’re shocked that such a worldly dame hails from the land of curds and corn fields? Not only that, yours truly cut a swath from Our Lady Queen of Peace Elementary and Edgewood High School of the Sacred Heart to the godless University of Wisconsin before loading up the U-Haul and hitting the road. Chicago, New York, Paris. Any place but home.

So I was especially interested to read the Janan Ganesh Lunch with the FT interview with writer Edna O’Brien upon my return [FTWeekend 15 July/16July]. Read more . . .

06/25/17

The Sultanette chases down France’s ‘enfant terrible’. Houellebecq who?

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The Sultanette takes Michel & Teddy to bed.

Clearly stated in The Male Harem bylaws: “All flattery welcome. False praise included. If you’re a liar just be a good one.” Who doesn’t love to be praised? Michel Houellebecq, it seems.

France’s persistent enfant terrible was recently described by Alexandra Wolfe in the Wall Street Journal as being “accused of misogyny, anti-Muslim bigotry and (more generally) nihilism, based in large part on the vulgar, resentful, unhappy characters in his novels.” At a surly sixty-one, he has done nothing to discourage that sentiment. Read more . . .

06/9/17

Hush, Hush, Sweet Scarlett! Hollywood Dominatrix Tells All!

Bazarre Honeymoon, Gregor, c1950.

A sex dungeon in Los Angeles! The aphrodisiac effect of licking a broom! A client who begs his mistress to ride a bicycle. Into him! Before you naughty people jump to the conclusion that The Sultanette engages in such behavior, blame it on Miss Scarlett.

I plead guilty only for reviewing her memoir, The Scarlett Letters (St. Martin’s Press) as reported in the revered British weekly, New Statesman, which boasts “enlightened thinking in dark times” since 1913. In fact I should be canonized for struggling through the shocking read solely for your education, dear followers. So let the enlightenment begin: Read more . . .