Sunday, May 19, 2013

Shameless Sunday Camp Explosion: Birthday Diva


As a taste in persons, Camp responds particularly to the markedly attenuated and to the strongly exaggerated... What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.
- Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

We're a day late with this week's Camp Explosion, I know, but while it's no excuse, the birthday of no less than the great Grace Jones makes it entirely appropriate to mark the day today instead.

Here we see her in surprisingly cozy form - perhaps something in the sheer surreality of the setting brings out the lady in her.  Certainly, sandwiched between Dame Edna and late-period Tony Curtis, she seems by far the most conventional person on stage.  A snippet of her 1989 hit, "Love on Top of Love" reminds us of what alluring fun her mainstream (comparatively) pop era was, while her anecdotes of wild Paris nights with Jerry Hall now have something of the air of Innocents Abroad.  Who else would show up for a talk show - even a semi-spoof one - dressed as Delilah ("I brought my scissors along - anyone for a haircut?")?

Today, by the bye, this fierce creature is (are you sitting down?) - 65.  I suddenly feel entirely better about my own recent milestone...

1 comment:

  1. Ooo-oo-ooh, Miss Grace... Sixty-five and still hula-hooping! There's hope for us all yet! Jx

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