I’d like to work for a circus, but I’m not going to grow a beard.  I’d like to have thicker eyebrows and more armpit hair, even if it didn’t involve a circus job. More realistically, women my age should be busy signing up their best friends to care for their chin hair should they end up incapacitated in a nursing home.

Mariam probably knows that Alice B. Toklas was known for her luxuriant mustache.

I happen to love bearded ladies. I didn’t know they still existed, although I remember seeing a bearded lady in line at Toys R Us around thirty years ago. If only cell phones had been invented!

It’s easy to accept a woman’s mustache when she is Frida Kahlo. Other women might want to think twice. Even my Special Sister feels a personal bond with Frida, as she states so eloquently in her own blog: “I have always felt a strong connection to Frida Kahlo. She embraced her natural hairiness and even broke her pelvis…whadda coincidence! As much as a painter, I look to Frida as a style icon. “

Alas, I see no resemblance.

Many of the famous bearded Ladies who toured with circuses in the late 19th century look suspiciously like men wearing dresses. And that’s okay with me, because I love a man in a dress.

Ladies, are you ready to grow a beard, or will they bury you with a tweezer in your cold dead hands?

I’m embarrassed that I didn’t know anything about The Rake’s Progress until I read an article about the fascinating Robert Lepage. I googled around to learn more about the opera, composed by Stravinsky in 1947.

It’s a three act opera featuring several elements that I count among my many obsessions.

A man is tempted by The Devil to leave his country-bred sweetheart to seek fortune in the big city. There, he is seduced into marrying a Bearded Lady and invests all his money in an invention that proves to be a sham. He wins a final bet with the Devil, who then curses him with Insanity. The hero dies in Bedlam.

What more could one ask for in an opera? I need to get Lepage’s production of it, recorded in Brussels.

If you’re interested in mental asylums, I wrote about Cane Hill here. If you’re interested in Bearded Ladies, you can go here.

If you’re not interested in any of that, how about this Pvc Bustle Skirt? It’s only $150 and with the matching top, it looks like something Vivienne Westwood might have designed, doesn’t it?