Selection from "Shoot the Arrow" by Amy Touchette
The World Famous *BOB* is a female burlesque dancer based in Brooklyn. She was raised on a small, isolated farm near San Luis Obispo in the California Valley. Eccentric from a young age, as she grew older she felt an affinity for her gay, drag queen, and transvestite friends, whom she found extraordinarily beautiful both inside and out.
Around this time she renamed herself "Bob" after Robert Smith of The Cure, and later "The World Famous *BOB*," now her legal name. After dropping out of high school, she and her best friend moved to San Francisco, where she dressed as a man during the day and a man dressing as a woman at night, hustled for money, and solidified a drug habit.
She moved to New York City in the 1990's after a series of personal tragedies and a desire to make a better life. Soon after her arrival, she and several other performers began a burlesque revival, now called "new burlesque," in which she was finally able to acknowledge her own unique qualities while paying homage to an art form that, for the first time, made her feel completely at home.
photos © Amy Touchette
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