Federico Garcia Lorca was – is – a consummate poet of desire, so it’s entirely fitting and lovely that Blair Thomas and Co. would choose to dramatize several of his letters and poems in the haunting, comic, melancholy “Cabaret of Desire.”

In the playbill, Blair notes that as “Puppet theater is a bastard art form, hybridized and neglected, I felt it was my duty as a puppeteer to examine the only major 20th century writer who wrote scripts specifically for the puppet theater.”  The evening is formed as a cabaret performance, buoyed by the music of singing glasses and Victrola trumpets, a treadle-worked instrument I couldn’t begin to identify, voices, and various brass; the puppets appear, constructed from shoes and hosiery, from wood (?), from paper, as parts of paintings come to life (I wish to god I had remembered I had a camera in my bag).  The very talented performers bring both energy and mystery to their roles; more than one audience member commented, in the post-show Q&A, on the tenderness of the ensemble as they handled the puppets, more facilitation than manipulation. The hour passed as quickly as a sigh. . . If you’re in the Chicagoland area, or even if (like me) you’re not, you should see this show.  I’ll remember their “Ghazal of Dark Death” for a long time.

And on the drive along I-94, I noted a windowless highway club offerng $10 strip shows.  Which did not remind me of the Poppy, except in a slantwise sort of way.  While passion ends – or, occasionally, begins – in the brass tacks of flesh, its expression is a lot more haute and hot when it nestles as a seed and flowers in the mind: perhaps sown by vision, or a voice, or a scent, a certain smell, then reenacts itself in the lovers’ choreography, another kind of performance whose end has already been glimpsed if not scripted outright. Theatre is where you find it, or create it, and we are all actors and stagehands, objects and audience, depending on where and how the curtains fall.  Especially when the topic is desire.

Are they not fantastic? in the truest sense of the word: “unrestrained extravagance in conception or merely ingenuity of decorative invention” – merely, well, that’s Merriam-Webster’s way of not getting your hopes up.  But Lacrissa, o my lord.  And Leo. . . Delight yourself.  (And thanks to Clive Hicks-Jenkins for the heads-up on these amazements.)

Off early tomorrow to Chicago to see Blair Thomas’ “Cabaret of Desire.”

Under the right circumstances, I’m a huge fangirl, and last night’s Rufus Wainwright show released the stars . . . It was more greatest-hits than I’d expected, lots of stuff from Poses, opening with “The Art Teacher,” and a scorching version of “Going to a Town.”  And – as every fangirl or -boy does – there was the moment when he played the song I was hoping for (two, actually – “This Love Affair” and “Rebel Prince,” both of which are on heavy rotation as I write Part 2), and I peeped in ecstasy like a just-born chick.  What a voice.

Can you name the many famous artists whose work is now a de facto hairdresser’s illustration?  Fun for all ages – and hairstyles!  Me, I’m getting a John Singer Sargent. . . Seriously, this is a fantastic research tool and visual aid, and utter addictive fun, too. Check out the “Frock Flicks” podcast. Don’t even try to stop ogling, you know you can’t.

Tuesday evening, I’m going to be hanging out with the bad boy French symbolists, talking of decadence, sharing my fave bits of Rimbaud, and reading (the first ever public presentation!) from both Under the Poppy and its ever-growing Part II (yes, there is more: lots more). All this takes place at Wayne State University, hosted by Prof. Anca Vlasopolos. Did I mention there’s also a full moon that night? Oh yeah.

A cultured lady of my acquaintance (hi, Whitney!) points out with beguiling attention to detail that “getting fitted [for a corset] is like something out of Zola’s “Au bonheur des dames“.”  She goes on to note that the cinching requires a handhold, something to grab onto, while one is laced into fantasticness. Here’s a lovely place one might do so, for instance.

The grabbing-onto-the-pole moment, though  – that speaks so wonderfully, so directly to the experience of love, of the handhold in the erotic sea, of the grounding we need when passion takes over, of the firm foundation for the flights of wildest fantasy, the ground we touch so lightly — but without the ground, it’s all pure air, and no one can fly forever. Lace up, oh yes, by all means, and hang on while you do it: both are necessary components to the pleasure.

What makes me think of all this – besides those corsets (I am really beginning to dig corsets) – is a  library discussion I took part in last week, during which we three writers on the panel all agreed that writing the work one loves is not just a sigh-worthy dream but a hardcore imperative, because the best work gets done that way. Any writer, artist, musician, creative person will say the same thing, and it’s the easiest question to answer, as “Where do you get your ideas?” is the hardest: “Why are you writing this book?”  For love. Sit in your straight-backed chair, put your fingers on the keyboard – that’s one handhold – and fall in love.  Keep the discipline of the narrative as a north star – that’s another – and follow the pleasure to its end.

Isn’t he?  This is the very first avatar of the puppet Pan Loudermilk, who came before the trailer, originating in the fecund imagination of Al Bogdan.  He sits on my shelf and gazes down with benign interest on my flesh-based gambols.  And no, I am not usually so very arch, but something about that top hat just brings it out in me. Though he does lack a fob.