Tancos

Can't forget Laurel and Hardy: Big Business and Do Detectives Think?, at the very least. And Buster Keaton's The General. Also Christopher Guest: This Is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best of Show, A Mighty Wind. Or are you making a distinction between satire and comedy? I'm surprised that no one's mentioned Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Local Hero. I kinda wish the "adolescent comedies" had remained forgotten. Oh, well.

Something a bit different that I think qualifies as an "unconsummated romance": Millennium Actress.

Melancholic here, which is what I would have predicted. You are a "nervous" Melancholic, with an abundance of black bile. Melancholics are characterized by the element of Earth, the season of Autumn, middle-aged adulthood, the color blue, and the characteristics of "Cold" and "Dry." Famous Melancholics include St. John of the Cross, St. John the Divine, St. Francis, and St. Catherine of Siena. If you were living in the Age of Faith, perfect career choices for you would be contemplative religious, theologian, artist, or writer. Curiously, on the other "temperament" quizzes I've come across I usually score as "choleric."

Advisory for animation fans: the first installment of Princess Tutu is now available on DVD. The reviews I’ve seen have been wildly erratic. I myself am in no hurry to pick up a copy, though I eventually probably will. If you have broadband, you can preview the anime by watching some of the music videos here (enter “Princess Tutu” in the “anime” box and click "search." You need to be a member of AMV.org to download the “local” videos, but the “direct” links are available to anybody.) Judging from these, I would say that the animators actually do know something about dance, but some of the characters need to work on spotting.

This year, Balanchine for work, ABT for home. In past years I've also bought the Pilobolus and Gert Weigelt calendars.

How about letting the mice win for a change, and then transporting Clara to the Land of Cheeses, home of the Limberger Fairy?

I was a statue last time, so this year I think I'l be a bird -- specifically, Bluebird with a properly-feathered tunic, with wings as depicted in one of rg's Russian postcards. If the wings actually work, so much the better. (This assumes that I can trade in the rickety, aging contraption I inhabit for a real dancer's body for the evening.)

Edward Eager: The Time Garden. There's also a sense of time passing in Eager's books as a set: the characters of some of the books are parents of the characters in later ones. Rudyard Kipling: Puck of Pook's Hill, Rewards and Fairies. A couple of youngsters meet visitors from England's past. Diana Wynne Jones (again): Hexwood. Time and identity are very woozy; a demanding book for young adults, but worth the effort. Archer's Goon. More fun with who and when, but funnier and for younger readers.

Diana Wynne Jones, A Tale of Time City. I may think of some others later.

A lot of Diana Wynne Jones -- The Chronicles of Chrestomanci (Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, The Magicians of Caprona and Witch Week) Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Air; for older kids, The Dalemark Quartet, Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Homeward Bounders, The Merlin Conspiracy and probably several others that I've forgotten or haven't read. Michael Ende, The Neverending Story (much better than the movie) John Bellairs, The Face in the Frost Lloyd Alexanders's Taran books: The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, The High King And many others I'll think of later. Some mention should also be made of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass, but I hesitate to recommend them, well-written though they are, because of Pullman's hatred of Christianity.

According to the Spandau Ballet Unofficial Home Page, "The band's new name was derived from an inscription on a wall near a prison in Spandau, Berlin." I've read somewhere that the term "Spandau ballet" referred to the twitching of the legs of prisoners there being executed by hanging.

Here's a list of Oscar winners.

Time for reading is always in short supply. I have no qualms about abandoning a book after one chapter if it doesn't pique my interest. Sometimes one paragraph is more than enough.

"Cool Cat, Looking for a Kitty:" A Tribute to the Lovin' Spoonful "The Gypsy Eyes of the Voodoo Chile:" A Slight Return to Jimi Hendrix "Discipline/Indiscipline:" A Young Person's Guide to King Crimson "Look at Me, I'm Wonderful:" The Bonzo Dog Band Revue "Major Tom and Ziggy:" Who's David Bowie This Time?

Check the used book stores in your area. There have been many coffee-table books on ballet over the years, too many to list.