"Scream When You Leave"

"Oh, show us the way to the next whiskey bar!
Oh don't ask why,
Oh don't ask why!
For we must find the next whiskey bar
For if we don't find the next whiskey bar,
I tell you we must die!

Oh moon of Alabama
We now must say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have whiskey
Oh, you know why.

Oh show us the way to the next pretty boy!
Oh don't ask why
Oh, don't ask why!
For we must find the next pretty boy
For if we don't find the next pretty boy

I tell you we must die!

Oh moon of Alabama
We now must say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have boys
Oh, you know why.

Oh show us the way to the next little dollar!
Oh don't ask why,
oh don't ask why!
For we must find the next little dollar
For if we don't find the next little dollar
I tell you we must die!

Oh moon of Alabama
We now must say goodbye
We've lost our good old mama
And must have dollars
Oh, you know why."
 - lyrics by Bertolt Brecht with music by  Kurt Weill, 1927, 1930, from The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, 

Germany in the 1920s.  Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht had never been to Alabama, but no matter.  Weill had aspired to write classical symphonies before he turned to satirizing opera, but no matter. Playing at decadence in the face of privation was like waving a red flag at a bull, but no matter.

"All of us here are hookers and hustlers.
We drink too much, and don’t care.
The walls are covered with birds and flowers
That have never seen sunshine or air.

You smoke too much.  There’s always a cloud
Of nicotine over your head.
Do you like this skirt?  I wore it on purpose.
I wanted to show lots of leg.

The windows here have been covered forever.
Is it snowing out? … Maybe it’s rain.
You’ve got that look in your eyes again,
Like a cat in a crouch for a kill."

  - The Stray Dog Cabaret by Anna Akhmatova,  from

The Stray Dog Cabaret: A Book of Russian Poems, translated by Paul Schmidt, New York Review Press: 2007.

For the Russians, life was revolutionary and the stakes were life or death  (well, not always - just read The Twelve Chairs by Ilf & Petrof).  Artist Natalaia Goncharova (1898-1962) was described by a friend as "entirely serious."   The Stray Dog Cabaret opened on New Year's Eve of 1911 in St. Petersburg and the next year Goncharova participated in an exhibition named The Donkey's Tail.  Playfully named perhaps, but always an edge to the words and images.

Images:

1. Ewald Muller - Hanson Cigarettes, undated, useum of Applied Culture, Vienna.

2. Geza Farago - Torley, 1924, Museum of Applied Culture, Vienna 

3. Maria Schwamberger - Abadie, 1929, Museum of Applied Culture, Vienna.

4. Josepf Fenneker - Blond Poison, 1920, courtesy Alain Weill & G.K. Hall, Boston.

5. Natalia Goncharova - Behind the Red Curtain, 1916, Pompidou Center, Paris.

6. Natalia Goncharova - Peacock,  1911, Pompidou Center, Paris.