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Burlesque Surreal Sergio Martinez, Socal.com Editor

I’m meeting Bataille and Artaud at Club Seduce tonight. Dali, Picasso –and his personal doctor, a young psychiatrist by the name of Jacques Lacan- might also show up. So might Elluard, Tanguy and Ray. Breton of course, has already a table reserved and is here, I can see him 3 tables afar. Tzara wouldn’t miss it for the world, and he’s already here with Ernst and I. Max looks at me puzzled: “Where’s Duchamp… I’m about ready to begin the exquisite corpse of the night…” He writes a line of text on top of a napkin, passes it around and repeats what he wrote on it out loud:   “Who will be seduced tonight?” Ernst then looks at Breton, who’s grabbed the napkin and is already writing its next line… Breton playfully, inquisitively replies:   “The breasts of Notre Dame?”   Club Seduce’s entire crowd laughs out loud… and almost as if by queue, the entire night starts: as the napkin gets passed around and the guests of the club write their own poetic lines, the lights go totally out. And stars and starlets all show up: the gowns mother, the gowns gosh, so decadent and plush. Did I mention the stockings, the fish nets? Almighty where are my baggy pants? Is there anything more arousing that silky legs, breasts, eyelashes, moans, groans and well, here and there a fight?   The men on trapeze are neither bad to look at.   I grab the waitress passing by me and order me another glass –I actually ordered a bottle- of wine. Let the night unfold and as an aerial artist curls down from a translucent fabric, unfold it does… A semi-naked man spins at ungodly speeds just above my head –perhaps at the same speed that my head would spin later that night-, the girls are all going crazy, the strippers are going wild… apparently, there’s no MC in the house.   The gossip makes it all even more morbid. It adds a ‘behind the velvet rope’ feel to it all… so I obliged… Bursts of the many night’s ‘acts’ are still, somewhat gelatinously stuck to my mind. Bodies were graciously contorting above me. Can-Can dresses were oceans overflowing oh so nearby. Stockings everywhere. Laughs mother, lots of cheerful, spontaneous, giggling laughs. There was I remember clearly, an ongoing issue with the mysterious disappearance of the House MC… They told me I got a little rowdy toward the end and that my cheers were the loudest in the house. They said that Bataille came, left, came and left again and that I was nowhere to be found. By the look of my bill, I guessed I continued with the bottle-ordering habit quite into the night. They said someone paid for my taxi and that one of the burlesque dancers, like all Mademoiselles do in France, tucked me safely in the rear seat and gave instructions to the patient driver regarding my whereabouts… I know that next morning I woke up in the coach. Glasses smashed against my face, still fully dressed up, the light from the nearby window cutting my face straight in half. Damn. I look at the piles of surrealist themed books near the couch,  The Tears of Eros, Bataille’s most moving work, lies on top… as I get up to wash up before heading out again, I realize that after all, Bataille and I did meet each other last night…