Naked Girls Reading is a live event
and, well, mostly self-explanatory. Essentially, there are naked girls and they're reading. The brainchild of burlesque
veteran Michelle L'amour and her husband Franky Vivid, the series
began in Chicago in March of 2009 and, after making waves all across
the United States, was staged internationally for the first time in
Toronto, Canada on March 7, 2010 at the Painted Lady bar on
Osgoode.
The Toronto show was performed by local
burlesque favourites Skin Tight Outta Sight. Franky Vivid and
Michelle L'amour were in attendence as special guests, Michelle even
taking the stage with the troupe as one of the readers.
It was... much less titilating than
expected. I went in thinking I'd see something performative:
memorized passages recited to slow, gyration-worthy jazz, say. This was, after all, burlesque, I
thought.
Not quite. The ladies, about six of
them, filed out from behind a Chinese screen, naked as billed, but rather than striking poses or launching
into an act they gathered on wooden stools and, taking up books, took
turns reading aloud. Naked Girls Reading is an almost ironically
literal title. "Shame on you if you thought we'd be doing
otherwise," is the implication. One of the girls did read Anais
Nin, but the fare was otherwise mostly children's stories. One Miss
Honey B. Hind, charmingly Southern in her affectations, told us all "Why the Sea Is Salt". Other offerings included an Edward
Gorey story, deliciously violent German cautionary
tales, the title essay from Me Talk Pretty One Day and, as a
finale, a group read of Goodnight Moon.
While I did go in anticipating more
salacious entertainment, what was actually on offer was something far
more intimate and certainly better.
There are naked women aplenty in venues all over Toronto, but
ones who want to share a literary experience with you are rare
specimens indeed.