dirac

Many thanks, Pamela, we rely on you for our Nobel news hot off the presses. This article lays out the current odds. I rather enjoy seeing Roth snubbed every year, but it would be a real crime not to recognize William Trevor - as the article notes he's in his eighties. I'll be pulling for him.

I have to agree with bart on the subject of magic realism. Just not to my taste, although I am a fan, along with Balanchine, of The Master and Margarita, which does have a whiff of it.

Thank you for the long and detailed review, Drew. You make me sorry not to have been there. Brian Seibert in the Times bounces up and down in his seat over the Peck ballet, along with many others, one gathers:

I admire "Solaris" but there are people whose opinion I respect who share your view, so that's more than fair. I did nod off during the Clooney version, although it was a respectable effort. Yes. It's a shame to make him sound like required reading, but there it is. (I would add that if necessary you can probably skip the two "Ivans" or at the very least not start with them since they're so uncharacteristic in many ways. I think they're fascinating but they are tough going.) Thank you for the heads up on "Come and See," I had never heard of it before.

I've never had any trouble enjoying samurai pictures, even if the the female characters can get on my nerves after too much exposure - I'm thinking specifically of Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy, where the women are constantly mewling and sniveling at the feet of one man or another while receiving stern lectures on the relative unimportance of canoodling when there's fighting afoot. (You get the same thing in Westerns, of course, but not to the same degree. That said, I prefer samurai to cowboys, at least in the movie house.) Chushingura is one of my favorite movies. I also liked the Mizoguchi version.

What a nice idea for a topic, pherank. I'd add "Earth" and "Solaris" to those titles and Boris Barnet's "The House on Trubnaya." I'm really not a fan of "Alexander Nevsky," however. I find it overblown. I do agree it's a "must see," though. I would substitute "October" or even "Ivan the Terrible."

Perhaps Gomes is too discreet for his own good. If you put Nureyev and Gomes in two theaters side by side, Gomes would sell five tickets to tens of thousand for Nureyev. Nureyev danced with his whole being - whatever you think of his technique - and thrilled everybody. He was the one who broke the mold. And again this straight-acting advocacy, at least in outline, reads like an entry in a 1950's magazine column addressed to African Americans on how to behave if they want to get ahead - that they will have to work twice as hard, etc - To paraphrase Ellen Willis, when Nureyev got it on, he got it on with everybody, and it was an essential part of his special appeal, I think. And it didn't detract from his chemistry with his partners but rather enhanced it. But he did break the mold - he was the product of a certain time and place, very much of the Sixties and Seventies. Completely different atmosphere now and in some ways a more restrictive one, paradoxically. I saw this quote from your follow up post after I posted my initial response - we were thinking along the same lines, plainly.

Thanks for reviving this thread, cubanmiamiboy. I would agree with bart that if "top ten best or worst" lists serve no other use (and you could argue they don't), they do force critics to make discriminations and defend their choices, and it's often interesting to see how they do that.

I think she did. You can find Vreeland's account of Nijinsky, Diaghilev, Vernon & Irene, et al., attending her mother's salon in her memoir, "D.V." (edited by Robert Gottlieb). As Natalia notes above, don't forget your salt shaker.

The report in the Salt Lake Tribune - I've got it in the Links somewhere in the last day or two - noted the ratings were low even by the CW's modest standards and it was the additional online viewership that led to renewal. There could have been other factors as well, certainly.

Sure they could, if the ratings were lousy enough (which they were). It may be a sign of the times that the show was saved by its online viewership, who shored up the small television audience enough for CW to bring it back.

The show has been renewed.

Thanks, Natalia. I've been looking forward to this movie, too. By birth and upbringing Vreeland should have been a lady who lunched, but her husband did not have much of a head for business, I gather. I don't know how much ballet interest the film will have per se but I expect it'll be a lot of fun.

I noticed the last time I was there that Fräulein was used rarely, when it was more common in the '70's when I first went. It sounds as antiquated as "Master," the formal address used for a boy. Thanks, Helene. I believe that's the same NYT article I linked to earlier in this thread. I don't know what to tell you, only that I do remember reading that some once used Ms. for divorced women and that Ms. no longer had that particular significance. I don't have any personal experience of such.

That's not true, Nanarina. Ms. is a title used by women of any marital status. In French (certainly in Quebec French) the default term of address for women is Madame (someone tried "Madelle" as a Ms-equivalent but it never took off), which means that many francophones default to "Mrs" in English. Nanarina is right as well, she's just a little out of date. There was a time when Ms. referred only to divorced women (and a divorcee was not a good thing to be). You could also tell a woman was divorced because she was called, say, Mrs. Ann Jones - a wife was referred to Mrs. Richard Jones. Years ago I was reading hard copies of some old Washington Posts from the early sixties and was weirded out when the social pages referred to a gathering of wives of Kennedy Administration officials as "Mrs. Robert McNamara... Mrs. Robert Kennedy.... Mrs. Dean Rusk..." their identities totally subsumed, symbolically, into their husbands'. Very strange to the modern eye but again, not that long ago.

Yup. Happens in San Francisco, too.

Why fight the urge, I intended to say.....

For Ms. you say say "Mizzz," while Miss gets the sharper "s" (as in snake) sound. At the college where I currently teach, the students of one of my classes insist upon calling me "Miss"--no last name. I keep fighting back the urge to tell them that I am neither a waitress nor a stranger on the street that they are trying to flag down. Why fight it? I guess it's better than, "Hey, teach!"

Not impertinent in the least. It's entirely secondhand information and from print. It's been so long I can't quite recall, but I either came across the information in an obituary, or possibly Ballet Review, or both. I am certain I read it at least once. I can't speak for our friend rg but I believe he has written on this board that Diana Adams was a very great favorite of Gorey's, as much as McBride if not more, which assertion should be searchable using our engine. The relative position of both ladies in Gorey's hierarchy of ballerinas would be interesting to know. When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near, etc. Looking forward to your book.

I didn't know that - very interesting. Yes, over here such a name change is usually connected to marriage and the decision to change is generally an issue for the woman only - in some instances the man will change his name also, but that's rare. I don't think as a rule there's much confusion between the much softer sibilant of "Miss" and "Ms." (which usually sounds like Miz). "Miss" is certainly a prettier sound. I wonder if it's really essential for the public to know which name he goes by in private life, if he chooses to use both professionally? It's not really something the publicity department has to tip people off about, and the information would likely surface in interviews.

Here are a couple of links that might help, cubanmiamiboy - they provide some helpful background on the term: http://www.nytimes.c...age-t.html?_r=0 From a UK perspective: http://www.guardian....un/29/gender.uk Note that the Guardian piece mentions the legal aspect. It was actually only a few decades ago that women could not open bank accounts, take out loans, apply for a passport, etc., without a male relative or husband signing off.( "Ms." often holds a special meaning for women who matured in that era.) "Ms." provides women with a formal public identity independent of marital status.

"Ms." has specific legal purposes as well. I quite agree that personal preferences, when expressed or known, should be respected.

Interesting question, kbarber. Use "Miss" and you risk causing offense, even if nothing is said. There are good reasons why "Ms." is now the default. The NYT is famously stuffy - there's a story, possibly apocryphal, that it once referred to Meat Loaf as Mr. Loaf. I'm not sure what else they can do, however. Newspapers are under more obligation to respect the formalities and probably publicity departments should, as well (not really a big deal either way IMO). Magazines are notably freer - magazine reviews often refer to the dancer by surname only (and sometimes the NYT does as well, depending on the context). The Internet, well. Referring to dancers by first name is often a sign of affection (the same is true for sports stars, for example). It can get dicey because women and men are not always treated the same way - in sports women tend to be called by their first names more frequently than men, at least that's my impression. I don't have any problem with it in certain contexts, although it would obviously not be proper usage for a review or article.

Thank you, gratarolli. And welcome to the board!

Thanks, Mrs. Stahlbaum.