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Bertold Brecht as "Mack The Knife", the star of Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera

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Manson, circa April 2003, as "Mack The Knife"

Kurt Weill, a German musician and playwrite who came to fame in the 1920's, was most famous for his theatrical piece, The Threepenny Orchestra and is the author and writer of the very famous song Mack The Knife, whom he had actor Bertold Brecht play the part of in the Threepenny Orchestra. Manson has cited Weill a number of times as an influence on The Golden Age Of Grotesque, both for work and the reflection of the time period and context his work took place in, 1920's Germany predominently. During a handful of solo performances of the Grotesk Burlesk Manson sang, along with The Dope Show and the album's title track, Weill's well known Alabama Song or Whiskey Bar.

"Determined, I headed for the birthplace of Expressionism, humming The Alabama Song, by Kurt Weill. It was time for The Grotesk Burlesk and dozens of mice scurried from the Kinderfeld. Their political organs had to be removed and we set them in formation, creating a metaphorical 'question mark.' ."
Marilyn Manson
4/21/2003

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Marlene Dietrich from the film Seven Sinners, dressed as she sung The Manґs in the Navy

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Marilyn Manson Leader of the LOW ART GLOOMINATI

Marlene Dietrich is someone who needs little introduction. Aside from being one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood ever she came to personify glamour, beauty, elegance and decadence in the 1930's. She also later went on to represent and symbolize freedom and expressionism, as she was a German expatriate who became an anti- Nazi activist. Which for all of those reasons made her an influence on The Golden Age Of Grotesque.

In the video clip 'A Burnt Offering Can Be Considered Instant Choreography' from Manson's March 15th, 2002 Journal entry, which featured a statue of a lamb (of god) in flames while Marelene Dietrich. The opening vignette to Manson's Journal is actually from memoirs of Marlene Dietrich as he revealed in his Journal entry bearing her name, whom The NACHTKABARETT is also a reference to. And as can be seen above from the movie Seven Sinners was from A very famous scene within this movie is one which Manson has used as influence in his new aesthetic where Marlene performs the song The Manґs in the Navy in a cabaret-esque manner dressed in full Navy Officer's regalia, which Manson donned in his LOW ART GLOOMINATI Officer's outfit for The Golden Age Of Grotesque.

One of her most famous films was The Blue Angel which is about a traveling Cabaret show that Lola, Marlene, is the star of. It's a film noir in which a professor at a prominent German university falls in love with Lola, who eventually give up his profession to travel with her, being reduced to performing as a stage hand clown, ridiculed and left in ruins only to have Lola, Dietrich, fall in love and have an affair with another man.

But this type of decadent club cabaret performance was one which was hearkened back towards on The Golden Age Of Grotesque as it was an underground rebellion, very similar the the Swing and Jazz clubs of the same era, as well as the Moulin Rouge and the decadent club performances of the late Nineteenth Parisian nightlife, as portrayed by Toulouse-Lautrec (as seen below). It's an element which was used to recapture the excitment of rebellion, a live for now attitude with no thought for tommorrow because there's future; so let's perform and witness everything obscene and decadent now because, and especially in Weimar Germany, we're not going to wake up tommorrow, and if we do it will be in naught but the same poverty and misery we woke up into today.

And while they may be tame compared to or at least their depiction of today, these clubs and performances were the rebellion and the forbidden at the time, which the youth flocked towards and the establishment was deathly afraid of, which during the Nazi rise to power was one of the first things to be crushed under its heel. So enjoy for today what may disappear or be destroyed tommorrow; "This is the Golden Age Of Grotesque"

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Opening vignette to Manson's Journal, written by Marlene Dietrich

"The aged text that serves as an opening image to my journal, was put there to promote thought and discussion. I would like to make it clear that these words are not mine, nor did I intend for you to believe that they were. I used one of the memoirs of the great and talented, Marlene Dietrich as a bit of an amusement park sign that one might see at night. Will it turn on? Has it ever been on? Do I want it to?"
Marilyn Manson
4/19/2002

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From The Hot Girls Of Weimar Berlin

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Back inside cover of Antichritst Superstar