dirac

Thank you for posting, Pamela. My first response: Ludicrous. My second: Perhaps eventually he'll do something to earn it.

Thanks for that, Marga. One of the great things about the Nobel Prize is that it shines a light on writers like Muller who might not receive as much attention as they deserve.

Photo gallery, which includes the Ballet Society photograph of Balanchine, Le Clercq, Rieti, and Cagli mentioned above.

Good points, Ballet fan, and thank you for posting.

Thank you for posting, Pamela. I do not know Herta Muller's work, but as long as it doesn't go to Philip Roth, it's all good. Has anyone read her? Here is a quote from the Guardian article:

That’s an interesting picture – the girl standing at center with her body partially exposed, while the men, older and fully clothed, cluster at her feet, with all facing the camera. I think like Avedon Penn will be remembered chiefly for his fashion photography and portraits - nothing wrong with that. I always admired especially his photos of his wife, the elegant and beautiful Lisa Fonssagrives, who had a background in dance and a gift for posing.

I deleted a post just now because it made another reference to 'fundamentalism' and for reasons I hope are plain that is not a word to be hurled around on BT. I'm now closing this thread. I had hoped that I wouldn't have to, but the discussion is repeating itself, it's getting personal, and I no longer have the time or energy to monitor the thread and neither do any of my fellow moderators. Thanks.

I agree up to a point and indeed have an acquaintance who is always waxing lyrical over 'beautiful boys', but having met a couple of them I'm aware that they are young adults and certainly not children. If Mitterrand has a taste for rent boys surely such people are available in France; it's the trips to Thailand for that activity that sound worrying. I agree, Mashinka. Trips to Thailand are bad news. I too once knew an older gentleman who was inclined to burble on about beautiful honey haired boys, etc., but they weren't actual kids and I am certain he would never have laid a hand on a child no matter what allurements the saucy lad was offering. Mitterand may well not have meant 'boys' to be taken too literally. Sandy, I think Helene took care of the 'fundamentalism' question very efficiently earlier and refer you to her post. People, although some of the comments recently posted have made good reading, we are again wandering off the reservation a bit. Thanks. leonid, I don't think Polanski is a pedophile in the compulsive sense. He reminds me more of Chaplin (who was not a rapist, although he could have been nicked under statutory rape laws on occasion) who eventually made a lasting and mostly happy marriage with a much younger woman, much as Polanski seems to have done. (Polanski's wife is only a year or two removed in age from Polanski's victim, although I believe Seigner was twenty when they married.)

Irving Penn has died at age ninety-two.

It seemed an odd statement to me, too, innopac.

I never saw Kirkland live in the ballet, but given what everyone who did has said about the experience it doesn't sound like a peculiar attitude at all. I don't know, either, but I did see Lopatkina in Diamonds and she was certainly beautiful.

bart writes:

I agree with you about Chace’s tone but it is sad in a way that colleges and universities are so often regarded today as a higher form of vocational school instead of institutions of higher learning in the older sense. (On the other hand more people have greater access to education today.)

Even Glenn Beck makes $20 million a year! Beck makes as much as he does because that's what the market will bear in his industry. I agree there is little point to annoyance on the part of the general public there. Orchestral players are in a different position vis-a-vis the conductor. And bloated salaries, fees, and other varieties of 'compensation' don't always have to be taken with a shrug of the shoulders. Musicians do have some collective clout and there is no reason for them not to use it if in fact the pay imbalance is blatantly unfair. A quote from the article: I wouldn't count on any conscience searching, myself. I agree. Thanks for that link, cubanmiamiboy.

Thanks for posting this, Mashinka. You always come up with something interesting. It's going a bit far to suggest the conductor can be dispensed with entirely. Giant pay discrepancies are never a good thing but there are remedies. The Great Conductor Mystique can be overplayed, but there seems to be a human tendency to focus on the individual and not the group.

Thanks for the background information, Anthony.

That's fine, miliosr. I can't help you but I'm sure there's someone here who can!

So true, Paul. It can be if it’s not to your taste. Literary criticism/theory is really a branch of philosophy, and it’s possible to be fascinated with theory without coming to it through a love of literature, strange as that sounds. Yup. People who think the novel started with Richardson.

Thank you, cubanmiamiboy. I would suggest as a last word that child protection laws are an acknowledgment of reality, not a denial of it. I do see what you mean, however. The prosecutors and the court have in fact made conciliatory noises before. The most recent judge to opine on the matter made it about as clear as he could that Polanski would get a fair, even sympathetic, hearing -- but he had to appear. Polanski and his attorneys chose a different, more confrontational path.

On second thought, you don't need to answer that question, Quiggin. I shouldn't have put it up. Thanks. I'm inclined to agree with you, Estelle. Polanski is not the root of all evil, but he's not a martyr to sexual prudery and a law enforcement system gone wild, either.

One last clarification, Quiggin. Aside from the age difference, were they counselors or teachers? It sounds as if the older parties were. (The distinction does matter in such a situation.)

Indeed. We're not talking about what young people may or may not do together, but about older people messing with youngsters, male or female, and specifically what one older man did with one thirteen year old girl. And may I suggest to everyone that this aspect of the discussion has gone on long enough. Richard, I was posting at the same time as you, so I didn't see your post before putting it up. Quiggin should feel free to respond to your question about counselors as he wishes, of course.

I would suspect that reflexive anti-Americanism entered into the matter as well for some Europeans and as noted earlier petition signers are not always that attentive to what they're signing. In this case let's hope they weren't parsing too closely. Boycotting is a dangerous tactic, but it's a risk that entertainment folk take, for good and ill. I doubt that there will be any boycotting here although Polanski's new thriller is now in jeopardy, I'd say. The world is probably not losing a masterpiece if it winds up on the shelf. Thank you for the link, bart. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that the US line on extradition tends to be Do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do. I hope they can deal with Polanski in Switzerland and it never comes to that.

If you get a lousy steak at a steak joint, you're within your rights to complain. But if you go to some hot new restaurant where the chef is known for his adventurousness, you take your chances, and if your taste doesn't match his, you're not required to compliment him, but only a bad sport would actually complain. The Met didn't hide the fact that this was a new production by an adventurous director. I do see your point, but there's 'adventurous' and there's 'bad.' If the chef serves me an exotic meal and not only does it taste bad but it's poorly cooked and presented, I can complain, especially if I've plunked down a significant chunk of change for the privilege. He has the right to experiment and I have a right not to like it and say so. Thanks for the link, carbro.

It is strange when that happens, isn't it? Thank you for telling us about the event, YouOverThere. I'm afraid it never occurred to me that there was such a thing as a mandolin concerto. (I tend to think of the mandolin as the instrument that Lorelei Lee used to study back in Little Rock. No offense intended toward anyone who plays it. ) Are there other and better ones out there?