La Goulue and the CanCan at Le Moulin Rouge - Louise Weber (1866-1929)

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec - Poster for Le Moulin Rouge and La Goulue (1891)

YouTube is truly an amazing resource!

I was playing round with things like 'Le Moulin Rouge' and 'cancan' and up came three clips (from andrasmblack, arbrerouge7 and gazabo) about Louise Weber - the famed La Goulue. Each with footage of this famed identity in middle age, executing a few dance steps.

La Goulue c1910

Dubbed 'La Goulue' (The Glutton) for her habit of downing the drinks off tables as she danced past, Louise Weber was THE cancan dancer of Le Moulin Rouge, and the highest-paid performer of her day.


Perhaps Jewish and from L'Alsace, Louise Weber settled into the Paris suburb of Clichy, and began working in a laundry with her mother. Even at 16 she revealed her daring - borrowing clothes put in for cleaning to go to the dance halls at night.

There she met Auguste Renoir, who introduced her to nude modeling for artists and for photographers such as Achille Delmaet ...




... and from there she found her way into the dance clubs and halls of Montmartre.

Immortalized by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec ...

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec 'La Goulue arriving at Le Moulin Rouge' (1892)

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec 'La Goulue and Valentin' 1895


Henri Toulouse-Lautrec 'La Goulue'

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and la Goulue at Le Moulin de la Galette

... this vibrant, audacious and gutsy sensualist would high-kick the hats off male customers' heads with a toe during her routine, ...


... dance on the table tops, and flash a red heart embroidered on her under garments.

She formed a dance partnership at Le Moulin Rouge' with Jacques Renaudin (1843–1907), a wine merchant who danced under the name of Valentin le Désossé or Valentin the Boneless. Doing the 'chalut', an early version of the cancan.



This footage of La Goulue around 1910 is touching for a number of reasons.

Determined to capitalize on her considerable fame, she broke with Le Moulin Rouge in 1895 to set up her own dance hall ...

Barraca de La Goulue, la nº 10 de la Feria del Trono de 1895

... and when this venture failed, she traveled about fairgrounds as a belly dancer, with her own booth ...


... only to fail again, and end her days in alcoholic destitution. Hinted at in the clips by her being reduced to a caravan home and torn and mended garments.

It's impossible not to respond to her efforts re-capture some of the vitality and abandon of her Moulin Rouge days. There is still some of the delicious and vigorous fluidity and the rhythmic abandon, but in the gentler mode of old age. And still the beautiful placement of body, arms and legs.

Like in a creaky old melodrama, La Goulue was finally reduced to support herself selling peanuts, cigarettes and matches - unrecognized and on a street corner near the Moulin Rouge!

Annual Migration of Golden or Cow Nose Rays

Two metres across, the Golden or Cow Nose rays circularly migrate: western Florida and the Yucatan Peninsular, Mexico. In schools of up to 10,000.

These images were taken by Sandra Critelli, an amateur photographer.

Peggy Lee - 'When the World Was Young'

Everyone knows Peggy Lee for 'Fever' and 'Boy from Ipanema' and whatever.

But in 'When the World Was Young', Peggy seems at her very best - reflective, self-aware, alive, intensely expressive and 'in the moment'.

A song about the wisdom that looking back can bring.

Good Fucking?

Just love the dreamy look on the guy's face as he's getting slowly fucked. And the colour it's bringing to his cheeks.

Maybe the top is THAT good at it - and, as we all know, a good 'technician' is hard to find, and good to find when they are hard (to paraphrase Mae West)!

Andre or Andrzej Ziehe - A Marienda

Just a marienda or afternoon snack - read 'no dick shot'.

But there's something in this Brazilian's lean muscularity that makes the summer feel as though it's less than 3-4 months away!





There's some footage of him prancing along a Milanese runway - if you can bear all the fashion hype. Maybe a small squiz?

He reminds me bit of Rafael Vega.




So we ended up with some dick after all! Surprise surprise!

A Flapper Wink

How often do you get a wink from a real 1920's flapper!

This experience has transcended time and space - courtesy of some footage of the period on YouTube from Aaron1912 ... and the vibrant personality of this archetypal flapper.

A larger portion of the clip reveals ...

... exactly what your grandmother might have really been doing in the second decade of last century!

Alla Nazimova (1879-1945) and 'Salome' (1923)

Born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon in 1879 in Yalt, the Crimea, Russia, Alla Nazimova played the central role in 'Salome' (1923), from which these stills are taken ....




... and of which the 'Veil Dance of Salome' clip below is part.

Having studied in the now famed Stanislavsky's Moscow Art Theater, Nazimova became a major star in Europe, before emigrating to the States where she was a huge hit on Broadway, and then a power in Hollywood from 1917 to 1922, as an actress, screenwriter and producer.

She had that great sense of creative purpose that drove Serge de Diaghilev in masterminding the Ballets Russes. And there is a parallel in the drawing together of so many important artistic elements, in the production of this daring film - from Natasha Rambova's designs from Aubrey Beardsley to the text of Oscar Wilde's play.

The acting and movement has a stylization and exaggeration that, while often typical of the period, is highly appropriate to this essentially aesthetic-movement-meets-German-expressionism material.

Great thanks must go to 'MaidMarian' for this upload to YouTube! Her choice of music is perfect - at times I imagine it as an original sound track!

Marco Vega - The Movie of the Brown Leather Belt

I must say that, after my Marco Vega post, I was quite keen to see the 'monster' in action, you know, living colour and movement.

Well, here are Part 1 ...



... and Part 2 ...



Enjoy!

No surprise the cameras flash like a Hollywood premier - when it gets yanked out of his jocks!

Bronze Medal at the Antsy Amateur Porn Olympics

Think this guy has the bronze for the Antsy Amateur Porn Event, bantam weight. Indoor, of course, rather than track and field.

Though I reckon the choreography could've been a little more elaborated and varied. And, in terms of technique, his jerking was altogether on too small a scale - just fiddly and fidgety. The cocky attitude needed more intensity and feeling. And, if I were being really honest, I think he ran out of steam a tad towards the end of the performance - the second 'Suck this cock' came out more as a whimper than a command not to be disobeyed.

But overall this 'athlete' would gain reasonably good marks in the five judgaeble categories:

• Attitude
• Posing
  
• Blokeyness
• Verbalization of commands
  
• General grunt

What's your view?

Marco Vega - Another Olympic Potential Gold Medal Winner?

I image Marco Vega would've won a gold medal at the Olympics ... if he'd been there.

Though I'm not quite sure what it would have been for. Superb and unparalleled modeling and twirling of a brown leather belt perhaps?













Yep, I think that was it! Haven't seen any better, anywhere.

BTW, not a bad dick! Pity there are no gold medal for that. Well, not at the Olympics.

Matthew Mitcham - Olympic Gold Medal Winning Diver and Proud Aussie Gay

I was browsing my Queerclique friend Kevin's page and, checking out his post on Matthew Mitcham, realized I couldn't resist doing something similar.

Matthew won a gold medal for diving at the Beijing Olympics.

Great to see a gay guy out, and out there doing so well!

Congratulations!!!