About

National Enquirer
The Gods
Justice
Health
Identity
Freaks
UFOs

Iris Rose’s second job after moving to New York City was as a receptionist for textile jobbers on
lower Broadway (her first was selling Italian ices on a street corner in Greenwich Village).
Her only responsibilities were to answer the phone and, once a month, balance the
checkbook. This gave her a great deal of time to read, and one thing she read cover to
cover every week was the National Enquirer. She appreciated it as a reflection of American
culture and was entertained by its absurdity. Though its circulation had fallen off slightly
since its peak in the late 1970s due to a rash of competing supermarket tabloids, the Enquirer
was still the most iconic of them all. To Iris, it represented a window into the national
subconscious, since it catered slavishly to the desires of the American public – including
unconscious desires – without providing explicit sex or gore.

After House of Jahnke, Iris wanted to create another show that would be appropriate for the
Pyramid Club. The National Enquirer, with its emphasis on celebrities and UFOs, seemed like
a good fit for the venue’s ironic affection for popular culture. Pyramid Club manager Bobby
Bradley agreed. In fact, he thought it such a good fit that the Pyramid used The National
Enquirer as the theme for the evening, inspiring all of the other acts, including “Kuka the
Flying Pig Dog,” a small, black dog in a harness sliding back and forth on a wire strung
across the stage.

National Enquirer was Iris’ first attempt at a solo show. She performed with two microphones
in stands, one fixed at the usual mouth-level height, the other at about waist height, so that
whatever movements she was performing, her voice was always amplified. Live musical/
rhythmic accompaniment was provided by James Siena on an assortment of found objects
and toys. National Enquirer was also notable as the first Watchface show to be documented
by photographer Ken Schles, who went on to shoot many of their performances and group
portraits.

Iris divided the Enquirer’s articles into categories representing the most consistent themes of
the publication and collected a wealth of examples of each. The text for the entire show
was drawn directly from the pages of the magazine. It began, fittingly, with a section called
The Gods about the Enquirer’s primary preoccupation and weekly cover bait – celebrities.
Those represented included Princess Grace, Joan Collins, John Wayne, and Herve
Villechaize, with Iris embodying each one while speaking the third person text about him or
her.

The second section, Justice, was inspired by the Enquirer’s obsession with what they claimed
was a persistent inability of the justice system to provide sufficient punishment for offenders.
This rhythmic section emphasized the ubiquitous phrase “a slap on the wrist” each time it
was repeated; each time the word “justice” came up, it was used as a harsh, percussive
accent, while James drummed aggressively on thick cardboard mailing tubes.

Each issue of the Enquirer contained offbeat health advice with headlines like “Your Mother-
in-Law CAN Make You Sick,” “Many Popular Exercises Can Harm Your Body,” and “Dreaded
Herpes Is Nothing to Worry About.” This questionable advice was collected in the section
called Health.

Iris believed that an important function of the Enquirer was to provide a mirror for its readers
in articles that purported to identify what was normal behavior, especially in relations
between men and women. This news could be alarming (“More and More Men Afraid of
Their Wives”) or reassuring (“10 Simple Ways to Weather the Storms in Your Marriage”). Iris
called the section drawn from these articles Identity. This was balanced by Freaks, which
showcased another regular genre in the Enquirer‘s usual line-up of stories. In contrast to the
articles telling the reader what was normal, every issue also contained ample examples of
the abnormal. This often meant sideshow staples of the past like conjoined twins, “The
Alligator Man and the Monkey Girl,” “Alligator Man” article and a man who ate fluorescent
light bulbs, but it also included stories of freakish near-death experiences (crushed in a
garbage truck, mauled by a cougar at the zoo), freakish disorders (people driven to
rearrange furniture, people who sweat excessively), and – an Enquirer mainstay – test tube
babies.

The show ended with a tribute to the Enquirer‘s frequent stories of UFO sightings and alien
abductions. This brief section consisted of only five lines; between the lines were movements
inspired by the complete stories from which the lines were drawn. James made full use of his
orchestra of noisemakers to create an otherworldly ambience.

In the summer of 1984, National Enquirer enjoyed a repeat engagement at the Pyramid Club.
It was also performed at 8BC, a short-lived but legendary club on 8th Street between
Avenues B and C in New York’s East Village, and at the Lhasa Club in Los Angeles.

More than a year later, Iris was asked to be a part of an evening at The Palladium, a former
concert hall on 14th Street converted into a nightclub by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, the
creators of Studio 54. The Palladium was especially noted for its collection of works by
contemporary artists, such as Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Francesco Clemente,
Kenny Scharf, and Vito Acconci. The anonymous feminist art collective, The Guerrilla Girls,
called attention to the fact that all of the artists displayed were men. In response, they
organized an event called “On October 17 The Palladium Will Apologize to Women Artists”
that featured 100 women artists performing and displaying their work throughout the club.
Palladium poster Iris was assigned to a small lounge near the top of the multilevel space,
outside the entrance to the Mike Todd Room, the club’s VIP area. With no stage, no
microphone, and no schedule, Iris had to adapt. She alternated between Health and
Identity from National Enquirer at intervals. She would climb up on a coffee table, shake a
metal New Year’s Eve clown rattle to get the noisy crowd’s attention, then launch into her
solo performance. As a man, James had not been included in the invitation to perform, so
Iris chose the sections that worked best without his music.