Goddammit. I started going back to the gym today, after an, ummm, absence. The machine I used to use a lot was the Salaaming Toward Mecca Machine—you know, the one where you kneel and bow down while pulling down on a thingie? So when I get there today, both of the Salaaming Toward Mecca Machines have been replaced by one Sally Rand Crucifix Machine!
I asked one of the gym bunnies to show me how to use it. Well. You take a great big bubble-ball, like the ones Sally Rand used to do strip-tease dances with. You put it behind your back and lean backwards till your spine cracks. Then you grab the two arms of the crucifix and pull down. I do not like the Sally Rand Crucifix Machine.
OK, Eve, you win the “Most Creative Thread Title” contest. Now then, by any chance do you belong to New York Sports Clubs? The reason I ask is that I do, and not entirely voluntarily - they bought my gym in December, and have been busily rearranging it ever since. I swear to god, every time I’m back there I feel like Helen Keller, pawing my way around everything trying to figure out where they’ve moved things now. (Of course, depending on what I’m pawing, this is not necessarily a bad thing.)
I think I have an idea of what the Sally Rand Crucifix Machine is, and it sounds to me as if you might, with a change of grip, be able to make it into your preferred Salaaming Towards Mecca device. Does it take interchangeable grips? Many of these crucifixy things actually have quite an astonishing number of attachments, it’s sort of like dealing with a walk-in KitchenAid mixer. (And it makes pasta, too!) Ask a trainer, preferably one that looks like s/he has a brain; of course that’s a problem - the smart ones become physical therapists or LMTs.
When I was about ten years old, I actually managed to sneak into Sally Rand’s act at the Texas State Fair. For years I had a photo book of her performance that I got an older guy to buy for me. I remember those bubbles of hers vividly. You may decide for yourself which bubbles I mean.
Johnson—No, I don’t think you CAN change the grips. Also, there’s only ONE Sally Rand Crucifix Machine, so by the time you have found the Giant Beach Ball, someone else is crucifying himself and you have to stand around and wait. I go to the NY Health & Racquet club, which delights in installing completely baffling devices, most of them apparently imported straight from Torquemada’s dungeon.
Screw it, I’m going swimming, instead. I already eat barely enough to keep Kate Moss alive, and yet I continue to grow and grow like The Blob, so obviously diet alone isn’t going to do it. Maybe I can do at-home liposuction, with a Hoover and a bendy-straw?
I work out at Washington Sports Club, the local branch of the NY company, and I haven’t seen this bubble crucifix thingie. Then again, I work out mostly with free weights, and only use machines for a few movements.
And any student of early 20th century pop culture knows who Sally Rand was.