“A gloriously perverse carnival air permeates The Hourglass Sanatorium, the sort of atmosphere that would be similarly at home in an Alejandro Jodorowsky or Fellini film. Bent figures in the threadbare finery of yesteryear — tattered cloaks, rumpled suits, crooked top hats — rub elbows with topless strippers amid the ruined relics of bygone splendor and in an atmosphere not of the timid and tempted soul seeking sin, being beckoned into the shadows by the luring finger or the sideshow barker’s promise of forbidden fruit; but instead of the brothel, the sideshow, the theater after hours, when those who labor to create our fantasies and illusions gather together to relax, to blow off steam, to end a long night’s work by unwinding in the company of one’s peers who, while not always pleasant, at least exist in the same frame of reference.”
And as a bonus, in case you are so inclined to read it, I moonlight as the Science Fiction Guy on a site called The Cultural Gutter and recently wrote about the first time I saw Rocky Horror Picture Show.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SATURDAY NIGHT?
“Our intention, besides parading around and making the scene, was to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’d been preparing for this trip for days. Laying the groundwork that would allay any potential parental suspicion. Picking out the appropriate outfit. With very little in the way of codified punk rock to guide me, I had my own interpretation of what was appropriate attire for such a sojourn, whichwas a t shirt I’d sliced open in the back and stitched back up using old shoelaces. I’d then written “Joy Division” on the front in bright neon pink glitter puffy paint pen, because I thought that was a clever subversion of the gloomy melancholy one expects. I thought about fashioning some manner of Dracula cape, but it never came together. Finished off with a pair of ripped up jeans and a lot of Dep hair goo. Lookin’ cool. Or something.”
Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.