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Parlour Of Vices: Rufus Wainwright's Poses

RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 19 June 2001

BACK IN THE days of Stephen Foster, the piano was the centerpiece of the parlour. That was the room that women ran, the room where music, like femininity, was supposed to civilize baser impulses. From the piano flowed the family values of 19th-century America. It might seem a long ways from 'Old Folks at Home' to the detoxing ingenues Rufus Wainwright evokes on his new Poses, but there's a line between the two.

Total word count of piece: 921

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