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Ashley Bouder Makes The Front Page of the NY Times


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More seriously, I just read an extraordinary new poem by a writer of software who also Twitters and is even vain about his looks while being an Andrea Dworkin advocate, which makes him feel guilty about having fathered two children but wanting to remain a heterosexual even so.

Let me get this straight, as it were - a guy who writes software and poetry, Twitters, and is a family guy (well, I assume it's a family) who's also a guilt-ridden fan of Andrea Dworkin.

Jedward, move over.

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More seriously, I just read an extraordinary new poem by a writer of software who also Twitters and is even vain about his looks while being an Andrea Dworkin advocate, which makes him feel guilty about having fathered two children but wanting to remain a heterosexual even so.

Let me get this straight, as it were - a guy who writes software and poetry, Twitters, and is a family guy (well, I assume it's a family) who's also a guilt-ridden fan of Andrea Dworkin.

Jedward, move over.

You got it. His name is Dominic Fox, and if all those other attributes weren't enough, he's even right about his looks, which are up there with James and Edward Fox, although I don't believe they're related. He lives in Northampton and, for more self-guilt-tripping, apologizes to English Socialists constantly about having gone to Oxford and feels compelled to decry all Etonians as 'invertebrates'. He's done everything to refuse his superior talents, including usually throwing in clunky terms and phrases to make an ideological point which would always ruin the poem (while saving his soul), until finally realizing that natural grace was not the worst thing to be born with. His eccentric embrace of all things Dworkin has made me accuse him of having committed rape at least twice (he has two children.) He's also a superb rock musician, loves heavy metal and sings folk songs, and picks a mean guitar while he's at it. For awhile, he was advocating 'unpleasure', a term he invented, and this went over like a lead balloon, I told him it was the most ridiculous project I'd ever heard of.

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I must now retire to my fainting couch with smelling salts at hand to absorb all this.

As a moderator I suppose it is also my duty to note that we're going way off the reservation, although by this time we've not only beaten the dead horse with this topic but skinned it, roasted it on a spit, and are now doing a fertility dance around the campfire. bart summarized the issues well a few posts ago (but if anyone wants to contribute their two cents they should do so by all means :) ).

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Actually we should have a balletalert Twitter account and a Twitter forum, so we can all Tweet about performances we're watching mid performance.

No, no, no -- no flashing screens during the performance!!! Wait until intermission, please :)

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It would be interesting to know if any studies have been done on the effect, if any, of tweeting during an activity - such as a performance. I am not so concerned about a dancer tweeting because if you are not interested you don't have to follow them. I do wonder though about the effect of tweeting on the performer's concentration and mood.

Not to mention on the choreography. :P

Sorry. :)

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With regard to social media, Facebook just asked me to poke someone. I don't know what that means, and I don't want to know.

Read no further, Helene. :clapping:

The meaning of 'Poke' on Facebook.

You can understand poke at facebook as to say “hey, you! wutsup”, but some people have wrong understanding that poke at facebook is symbol of disturbing. Following are the correct meanings of poking at facebook

A “poke” is basically someone trying to get your attention

It’s one of the meaningless features that are used just to annoy someone

If you poke someone not in your network and they poke back. You can view their profile even if your not their friend!

A poke is when you allow someone to see your facebook page for 3 days, so they can know who you are and hopefully add you as a friend

Is 'wutsup' any known language?

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It would be interesting to know if any studies have been done on the effect, if any, of tweeting during an activity - such as a performance. I am not so concerned about a dancer tweeting because if you are not interested you don't have to follow them. I do wonder though about the effect of tweeting on the performer's concentration and mood.

Hard to say, innopac. The use of electronic devices for communicating is increasingly second nature. Difficult to imagine that tweeting is any more serious a distraction than other ways of passing time backstage, but it's more public.

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We'll know that things have gone too far when an entire company enters, all still tweeting away.
Mel, you have to copyright this idea before it's stolen.

But WOULD that be going "too far"? It might be wonderful idea for the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream! And a variation for Puck! Oberon and Titania could tweet their argument about the page boy from opposite sides of the stage, staring blankly into the wings -- no need for all that boring, time-consuming pantomime.

Imagine the forest twittering with dozens of yellow-orange or pale-green lights. The fairy world would be revealed as in perpetual communication with the universe. This would be contrasted to the archaic world of the Luddite mechanics, the lovers (who personify the inability to communicate), and the stodgy Theseus and Hippolyta. This interpretation would support the view of those who see these new forms of communication as essentially benign, or at least without negative implications worth thinking about. :)

Alternatively, it might be done as satire. Why not present the fairy world as existing in a perpetual present, turning these devices into what is essentially personal adornment? Perhaps the fairies tweet non-stop because they have, sadly, very little to say to each other. Or, possibly, because in their hearts they are aware that hardly anyone is actually listening. :clapping:

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We'll know that things have gone too far when an entire company enters, all still tweeting away.
Mel, you have to copyright this idea before it's stolen.

But WOULD that be going "too far"? It might be wonderful idea for the fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream! And a variation for Puck! Oberon and Titania could tweet their argument about the page boy from opposite sides of the stage, staring blankly into the wings -- no need for all that boring, time-consuming pantomime.

Imagine the forest twittering with dozens of yellow-orange or pale-green lights. The fairy world would be revealed as in perpetual communication with the universe. This would be contrasted to the archaic world of the Luddite mechanics, the lovers (who personify the inability to communicate), and the stodgy Theseus and Hippolyta. This interpretation would support the view of those who see these new forms of communication as essentially benign, or at least without negative implications worth thinking about. :)

Alternatively, it might be done as satire. Why not present the fairy world as existing in a perpetual present, turning these devices into what is essentially personal adornment? Perhaps the fairies tweet non-stop because they have, sadly, very little to say to each other. Or, possibly, because in their hearts they are aware that hardly anyone is actually listening. :clapping:

Sounds tailor-made for the 'Trocs...

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The use of electronic devices for communicating is increasingly second nature. Difficult to imagine that tweeting is any more serious a distraction than other ways of passing time backstage, but it's more public.

I agree here and think that probably for those who tweet, it's just something they throw off. I doubt that it has much impact on their concentration at all.

This is perhaps where this discussion is held up. I don't really do this stuff much. I read Facebook but rarely post on it. I don't follow Twitter. I don't text much.

I do get into chat discussions, sometimes with people, a favorite is a regular chat group during Met opera broadcasts with maybe 30-60 other participants.

But these things aren't really second nature to me. They DO take energy and concentration. But If I did them more regularly, I think they would be much more routine.

Bouder is a different generation than I am, actually almost two! She probably tosses this kind of networking stuff off like breathing. I also imagine others at the same techno level do the same. It isn't actually an age thing but more a technological/social immersion issue.

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Why not present the fairy world as existing in a perpetual present, turning these devices into what is essentially personal adornment?

Are you kidding? It's already exactly like that.

Perhaps the fairies tweet non-stop because they have, sadly, very little to say to each other.

Yes, because if they did, they'd use the corporate blogs instead, and that requires stupendous 'writing-machine' skills. I've got this with somebody right now (and have built up to it for five years, through much subterfuge, masquerading and trickery), and it is way beyond either 'fairy' or 'tweet', I can tell you that. He's even written me excerpts to publish in a real book (and, in that case I stole them, and then he gave me official permission to continue stealing them), under a fake name for awhile, then finally with a name almost exactly the same as his own. I told him to feel free to steal anything I wrote if he can find a use for it.

Or, possibly, because in their hearts they are aware that hardly anyone is actually listening. :clapping:

That very much depends, doesn't it? Some of the newer 'twinship fairies' have a very strong following, and recent attempts were made on me to see the virtue in such addictions. Thank god for reviving this thread after such a long dormancy, proving the relative time-collapses that occur with each new accessorizing, because I simply wasn't going to sully the Lynn Seymour thread by citing the unjust comparisons that had been made with her dancing.

This is perhaps where this discussion is held up. I don't really do this stuff much. I read Facebook but rarely post on it. I don't follow Twitter. I don't text much.

I do get into chat discussions, sometimes with people, a favorite is a regular chat group during Met opera broadcasts with maybe 30-60 other participants.

But these things aren't really second nature to me. They DO take energy and concentration. But If I did them more regularly, I think they would be much more routine.

That's interesting, because I quit chat discussions years ago, because of their evaporative nature. The worst thing they do for most people (not you, Richard, or probably anyone here really) is make only the immediate buzz important and make people unable to keep concentration on any subject--anything becomes quickly outmoded in record time. Most blog communication is the same, although there have been notable exceptions, as the above-mentioned 'corporate blogging writing machine partner', the poet from Northampton, and a couple of people I've met in person as result of discussions. But I've found this board to be more potent generally, and although we're sometimes stodgy and old-fogey, here we are, having done a performance-art version of Twitter, as if on an old mainframe computer. The best thing is that the 'narrative thread' hasn't been lost, but then that's been what's good about this board anyway, and why things I never see anywhere else on the net happen--like reviving a thread from 8 years ago, a thread about an old Joan Crawford movie maybe, or about a Kaufman article on Balanchine or even the obituaries sometimes get revived when there's more to say about the person, there are permanent fixtures in other words, because this is the net too, but it's not for the purpose of cultivating internet junkies. The worst is people who develop really personae on the net and try to live in relationships with those people as if that could substitute for real-life relationships. Some of the freakiest say that that will eventually BE the way we live, but it's a long way from the 'Singularity' of Kurzweil (even though Gates listens to this and it is real science, as well as just having opened as a movie in Sonoma last week), or the hyperreal of Baudrillard, and usually just encourages the worst offline squalour when taken to those extremes.

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The Royal Shakespeare Company has come up with a rather sweet use of Tweeting-for-the-Arts, the NY Times reports.

"Such Tweet Sorrow": Posts by Shakespeare

Since Sunday, a new Twitter user who goes by the screen name @julietcap16 has been excitedly firing off posts about her typical teenage life, her frustrations with school and the birthday party she hopes her family will throw for her. But she’s not just any social-media savvy teen: she’s the online avatar for Juliet Capulet in a 21st-century update of “Romeo and Juliet” that the Royal Shakespeare Company has started online.
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The Royal Shakespeare Company has come up with a rather sweet use of Tweeting-for-the-Arts, the NY Times reports.

"Such Tweet Sorrow": Posts by Shakespeare

Since Sunday, a new Twitter user who goes by the screen name @julietcap16 has been excitedly firing off posts about her typical teenage life, her frustrations with school and the birthday party she hopes her family will throw for her. But she’s not just any social-media savvy teen: she’s the online avatar for Juliet Capulet in a 21st-century update of “Romeo and Juliet” that the Royal Shakespeare Company has started online.

That's kind of contrived to the point of being painful, like one of those faded trophy wives who comes on to her teenage son's friends? You know that kind of "please, stop" feeling?

I can just see the Tweets that some marketing bod will come up with:

OMG - poison sux. gonna heave... ;-(

LMAO - paris minger wnts 2 fngr me.

shank tybalt. 10pm. Peace out. r.

Does anyone mind if I do a volte face on my previous stance on Tweeting and the arts. Ban it ban it ban it.

With the honourable exception for Jedward, of course. www.twitter.com/planetjedward

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Simon, I especially love

OMG - poison sux. gonna heave...
The word "lapidary" comes to mind. Such precision; such compression. Emily Dickinson might have written it, if she were 17 years old today and ... well ... quite a bit different from Emily Dickinson.

Also love the Hamlet. I would be interesting to see it translated into a contemporary U.S. version. Anyone have an idea of what that would look like?

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Does anyone mind if I do a volte face on my previous stance on Tweeting and the arts. Ban it ban it ban it.

With the honourable exception for Jedward, of course. www.twitter.com/planetjedward

Yes, we mind, because I didn't know at first that you really DO think jedward is like Lynn Seymour. Once I found this out, I could think only 'How can I ever repay Simon for that divine Ashton?' And yes, I was willing to let you go penniless rather than Twitter Jedward. Nor have I broadcast them still to the backward Shanghainese.

Jedward sux, but as gr8 artist, teh bipolar 50 + demog's, hello?

Edited to add: I see none of you other middle-age persons can resist looking at the Hamlet except me. Now me, I only want to dream of seeing the Ashton program at ABT on June 12, which I am taking a friend for her birthday for. How about that? We'll see V. Part and Hallberg together, and we'll see Birthday Offering, and the Dream, and sometihng else, have to go look that up, don't u? And also Diana Vishneva in Thais pas de deux with somebody really good too..and Awakening pas de deux with Hallberg and Part.

Oh yes, Jose Manuel Carreno will dance with the lovely Ms. Vishneva, and Xiomara Reyes dances that night too. I can't believe the middle-aged Cockney who brought me to Ashton is suffering from Jedwardism.

Whatever. Some people are just so twee with the Easter Eggs. Makes me downright SHIRTY!

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Simon, I especially love
OMG - poison sux. gonna heave...
The word "lapidary" comes to mind. Such precision; such compression. Emily Dickinson might have written it, if she were 17 years old today and ... well ... quite a bit different from Emily Dickinson.

Also love the Hamlet. I would be interesting to see it translated into a contemporary U.S. version. Anyone have an idea of what that would look like?

'Lapidary' is, in my experience, a criticism of otherwise skilled writers. Auchincloss has used it for Henry James, although it's one of his characters that says it. I think it usually has to do with superficial style that doesn't fully inhabit the passion of the characters, or rather that's one example.

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Here is one response to twitter: article entitled "Computer Program Wants to Free Scholars From Computer Distractions".

In order to be free, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau claimed, humans must sometimes surrender a measure of freedom.

Fred Stutzman, a Ph.D. student and teaching fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science, may not have had Rousseau in mind when he created the “Freedom” application. But he does believe that to escape the siren song of social media, scholars might need to freely impose restrictions on themselves. “When there’s wireless everywhere,” he told The Chronicle, “how do we really escape the Internet?”

Mr. Stutzman’s answer is to relinquish one’s right to surf the Web to the supervision of a sort of robotic schoolmarm. Freedom is a shareware application that users instruct to disable their computers’ network adapters for a fixed period of time, leaving them unable to browse the Internet for up to eight hours.

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