The Queens

Dan Barry: BARABOO, Wis.

In a modest hotel suite at the Ho-Chunk Casino, a few women from out of town gather for a reunion. Homemade brownies sit on the counter, along with a peach pie, some cheese curds, several cans of soda and a long, sleek bottle of cherry vodka — a perfect name, they joke, for a burlesque queen.

There is no Cherry Vodka in the room. But Nocturne is here. And La Savona. And Ann Pett. And the Irish Mist. And Bambi Jones, also known as Bambi Brooks, Joi Naymith, the Black Panther Girl, the Mona Lisa Girl, the Garter Girl, Evangeline the Oyster Girl — and, for a while there in New Orleans, "The Girl the Whole Town's Talking About."

And Pat Flannery, just Pat Flannery, may also show up. Nearly 60 years ago she did her "How Do You Do?" routine at the old Moulin Rouge in Oakland, wearing dark opera gloves, a polka-dot gown and a look that said, You naughty boy. By act's end, only the look remained.