travel

Experience Crazy Horse Paris

The Arab Sheikhs smelled of expensive cologne. A cloud of cigarette smoke hung off the low ceiling in the basement of a centuries-old Parisian building. The neon sign outside lit up the words Le Crazy Horse de Paris. There was little other indication that you had arrived at an iconic location. It was 1987, I was 19, and my father had just paid a small fortune for us to sit up close at one of the most erotic and oldest burlesque revues in existence. Plush red velour banquettes were filled with eccentric looking men and exotic looking women. The lights dimmed. For the next few moments, my eyes adjusted to the low lights and a single silhouette of a beautiful woman drenched in mist, almost enveloped by a revolving glass door on a stage. Black Russian in hand, my father grinning beside me, I settled in for what would be two hours of the most stylized, visceral experience of my young life.