Afterwords

I didn’t see the bodies falling. At least I think I didn’t. In that moment of panic, when death seemed entirely possible, there in my living room, two blocks from the World Trade Center, too close to figure out what was happening beyond the swirling paper and the glass shards, debating whether to run or to stay inside, I might have seen more—or less—than I remember. Many weeks later, near where the National Guard barricade had been at the end of the street, I’m pretty sure I saw vendors selling photographs of body parts. How can you trust your memory—or your sight—when you half-expect every

culture Apr/May 2009

Not So Dirty Dancing

In her memoir, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper, Diablo Cody recounts her first strip at an amateur contest in a Minneapolis topless bar. In a feather boa and “five-inch, clit-pink Lucite platform stilettos” purchased for the occasion, she finds herself surrounded by seasoned pros and amplifies her performance accordingly: “I was concerned about my balance in the pink death-stilts, so I clung to the pole and gyrated like Gypsy.” While Gypsy Rose Lee would probably have been tickled by the homage, the reference demonstrates how much we’ve needed a biography of the patron