charleston or something like it

about once a month the so-called "society for glamorous entertainment" invites nostalgic berliners to their "boheme sauvage". and so last saturday night my 20's alter ego lotte blumberg (a 17-year-old, still unspoiled department store model) dolled up and made her golden age debut in company of her rich and influential heiress friend kara wittgenstein. the joint where the entertainment took place consisted of two rooms. one a swanky salon where swing, gypsy, tango and balkan brass were played among others and the conferencier coco warmed up the crowd with tap dancing before a charleston lesson took place. which was quite the bee's knees - and dangerous because of all the kick steps. the spiffy crowd willingly stepped up to the dress code of strictly bohèmian, burlesque, cabaret, cancan, dandy, decadent, diva, gigolo, glamour, mafiosi, moulin rouge, variéte and vaudeville and displayed the best of manners. and besides many big cheese society members the wide-eyed lotte even spotted sherlock holmes out on a nightly prowl, though he did keep to himself most of the time.

the second room proved much darker and was clouded by the heavy smoke of ciggys. here in the casino the crowd indulged in poker, black jack and absinthe. when lotte had entered the venue, she was handed 60 million reichsmark with the invitation to increase the fortune through gambling, blackmail or other deals. but the naive girl lost half the amount right away to the monsieur in the "separee du spiritisme" who's tarot card reading announced that -beware the heebie jeebies- her next daddy will be a brillant, intellectual man without a back bone. which seems to be exactly the kind of sap, poor lotte has always been goofy about. applesauce! to make matters even worse, lotte then gambled away the rest of her fortune at the roulette table by two am. fortunately her benefactor kara wittgenstein stepped in to provide her with further means which lotte eventually lost too. when she emerged back into the salon at five am, the hoofers were still going at it although the sun was already shining through the windows.

lotte finally went home by train with the other owls, happy about what a swell night it had been. now, let's hope nobody finds out about her shenanigans, so she can have a whopee when the next "boheme sauvage" rolls around...