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.

I've never read any of these books. Are they children's books or more for (young) adults? As a point of reference, I'm currently reading Beatrix Potter to my little boy.

A few might be suitable for children, but most are for adults of all ages. Gorey is ironic, sophisticated and often a bit morbid.

First time: The Lavender Leotard; second time: The GashleyCrumb Tinies

The Bronze Idol, perhaps, for the sake of the costume -- this is assuming I can exchange my current body for something a bit more svelte. If I had to pick something appropriate to my age and ability (bleah), then either Dr. Coppelius or the Baron de Zabrus (from "The Gilded Bat").

I've come across exactly one introductory ballet book that a boy might enjoy, Usborne Publishing's The World of Ballet, by Judy Tatchell. There are a lot of good pictures, men get equal time, and it's not all pink toe shoes and tutus.

I'd like to see a ballet based on Neil Gaiman's work. For instance, the short story "Chivalry," in which the aging Mrs. Whitaker finds the Holy Grail in an second-hand shop under a threadbare fur coat, might be fun. Coraline could be the basis of a good Halloween ballet.

Some mention ought to be made of the "Penny for Your Thoughts" number in "Waiting for Guffman." For really bad ballet, it's hard to top.

Yet another Balanchine here (and Stravinsky on the Dead Russian Composers quiz).

Here's little perspective on monkeys, typewriters and Shakespeare:

Scott Adams, 1989

Dilbert writes a poem and presents it to Dogbert:

DOGBERT: I once read that given infinite time, a thousand monkeys with typewriters would eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare.

DILBERT: But what about my poem?

DOGBERT: Three monkeys, ten minutes.

--Scott Adams, Dilbert comic strip, 15 May 1989.

Houghton, 1993?

Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.

There are also a couple of classic short stories on the topic, Russell Maloney's "Inflexible Logic" and R.A. Lafferty's "Been a Long Time." Both are worth tracking down.

That's all I've seen online. However, there used to be several well-designed ballet coloring books available from Dover Books and Bellerophon.

I live alone, and I loathe television. Period.