Redeye - Big tops and bare bottoms October 11 2006

“Nightlife in Midtown is already a zoo, so why not try a circus?” I muttered on Saturday, Oct. 7, while weaving to Crescent Avenue’s Sutra Lounge. Should I be worried that panhandlers look at me like I’m the crazy person as I grumble and stomp to inspirato? Naw, there’s no accounting for taste. And this week is about taste — for the dirty, the delectable and sometimes both.

Let’s start with the dirty.

Out of sheer fear, I skipped Mary’s Hanky Code Party. I’m kind of color-blind, and didn’t want to confuse mauve (navel worship) and magenta (armpit freak). It would be the pits if I couldn’t suck pits.

But on the Saturday in question, I did have a goal as I groused: to attend the Sutra-hosted performance by Cirque de Luna, touting itself as “the city’s first adult circus.” Walking into Sutra a little before 10 p.m., however, I worried I was in the wrong place. A DJ wearing jackboots was playing Nine Inch Nails, Peter Murphy and other tracks for an eight-inch-platform, anime-backpack, utilikilt, puffy-shirt, chain-mail crowd. Goths ... so archaic.

I’ve had this nightmare before. It starts at Dragon*Con, where someone dressed as a Tuscan Raider spikes my drink. I wake up in darkness, tethered in a spread-eagle formation. There’s atrocious “darkwave”/EBM playing, and in the air stagnant lube. And I’m introduced to the “Hot Poker” — unfortunately a person, not just an object. Actually, I think that is my sleep-interrupting goth neighbors’ life ...

Thankfully, the evening’s ringmaster — Professor Phinius T. Reinhart, esq., I believe — snapped me out of it with offers of “sin-sorial bliss” and a shitload of alliteration that made even me envious. “Luscious libertines,” anyone?

No, I didn’t see that many, either. There were some body-painted box dancers. And there was some cowgirl burlesque, and a hypnotist who appeared to swallow a 4-foot balloon. To the side, an artist did chalk sketches of the action. But the evening’s tit-illating vignette was Blackjack and the Beasts of Desire, whose feral females naturally turned everyone’s thoughts to pussy. And when a new DJ dropped Missy Elliott, “Promiscuous,” etc., there were screeches of heat and leg-rubbing. The circus itself, not so “adult,” but far more entertaining than Midtown’s traditional clowns — so visit www.cirquedeluna.com for future performances.

As for the weekend’s delectable tastes, in honor of CL’s Food Issue was a visit to 5 Seasons Brewing for the seasonal Bavarian Ecstasy Festbier. A full, sweet malt Märzen with a roasted pilsen finish, this limited Oktoberfest brew is a copper, caramel treat — so definitely go grab some while it lasts.

RedEye celebrates going out and going off. Send comments to redeye@creativeloafing.com, but hand-scrawled hate mail is preferred.