dirac

It's above and beyond in my experience, too. I'm impressed.

leonid posted these interesting remarks in the Links forum, so I thought I'd cut and paste. Comments? Having two major company schools who it appears can produce male dancers of some quality but not female in any number as in the past. Instead of the Royal Ballet School pretending to have trained graduate dancers who were in fact formed abroad so they can go into the RB as RBS graduates, perhaps we will see more dancers from beyond the EEC entering the corps de ballet in a more direct manner. The last RB School performance this summer did not bode well for the future of English dancers joining the company in the near future. I have not seen the graduates from the English National Ballet School. Perhaps the RB should have some more talented dancers from American to join the ranks?

Thanks, abatt. This article from The Wall Street Journal comments on the mess, making the sound point that the board should have known better. Right now the situation looks grim, but I wouldn't write off the organization just yet. (I wonder if his departure was that abrupt; word of his interest in the Bayreuth job was certainly a hint, I'd say. )

Thanks so much for posting, tutu. Your comments don't seem 'inadequate' at all.

Many children, usually daughters, natch, of yuppie families do take ballet lessons at one point or another. Chelsea Clinton studied ballet for some years and is still active on its behalf. And of course, there's Ron Reagan.

Joan Crawford used to speak the same way every once in awhile. Oh, those studio elocution teachers....

Well, the three words don't resonate in my neck of the woods - we haven't been able to get the radio broadcast in most parts of the Bay Area for some time now. But it's true, Gelb seems to be using the clout of the name in a good way. Thanks for posting, richard53dog. I hadn't heard about this. Good for Gelb.

Should be worth listening to at least once:

Thanks for the report! I hope someone will chime in about the score.

I liked 'Rising Sun,' too. Never saw the film. Updike would condescend to him, of course, but Crichton was my go-to guy for page-turners that wouldn't turn my brain to mush, although on a bad day his books could sound as if they had been written by a computer. Also he had a woman problem (not referring to his private life, which I know little about), but that didn't bug me too much. You might like the movie of 'Disclosure.' I preferred it to the book. Michael Douglas is Michael Douglas, take him or leave him, although it was in this movie that his age really began to show. (Demi has to say 'You've kept in great shape,' all evidence to the contrary.) There's a good supporting cast, with a great turn by Roma Maffia as Sanders' defense attorney and Donald Sutherland is a lot of fun, too. I also liked the set for the office, and some of the less believable elements of the story are eliminated.

Thanks, papeetepatrick, for the link to the CNN article on auctions. It does seem that this recession is hurting the superrich, normally impervious to most economic up-and-downs, as well as everyone else. That might be bad news on the private funding front.

I agree, artspatron07. papeetepatrick, I don't think arts funding will be cut because there is so little to cut, but you never know. Not that it would do huge harm to provide more funding - we're talking 'chump change' as the President-elect would say (I saw a news item some time ago that mentioned the government was spending more on military marching bands) but that doesn't mean there will be any increases.

Michael Crichton has died at age 66. Not a great writer by any means, obviously, but a very clever man and his books were usually intelligent entertainment. “The Great Train Robbery” is very enjoyable. Also liked "Jurassic Park," which doesn't have the anti-science subtext of the movie. “Westworld” is one of my favorite sci-fi pix. “E.R.” was a fine show, too. Rest in peace.

The Bushes were always prominent at cultural events at the Kennedy Center and Laura Bush is a former librarian and great reader. I'm sure the Obamas will do at least as well. Considering the budget situation I would not expect hefty increases in arts funding, although there will probably be no cuts.

I agree, and I want to read about that, too, but my shelves already have quite a few books dedicated exclusively to Fonteyn’s art – Monahan, Chappell, Money, etc. Considering the many things left out, elided, or glossed over in Fonteyn’s own memoir, there was a need for a book like Daneman’s.

I agree with bart's most recent post. Daneman's book is not perfect but I'm glad it's around and I benefited from reading it.

Thanks for mentioning “Black Hawk Down," volcanohunter. How could I have forgotten. I think I’d give the booby prize to Orlando Bloom. The movie has some good action set pieces, though. Special awards for Knowing Their Own Limitations and Being Big Enough Stars to Get Away with It go to Robert Redford for not trying to be British in “Out of Africa” and Clark Gable for not trying to be Southern in “Gone with the Wind.”

And didn't he do a Jeeves and Wooster series with Stephen Fry? I didn't watch House at the beginning, but have been dipping into the reruns on USA and am really enjoying it. Laurie used to specialize in pop-eyed ninnies, so it did give me quite a turn when I first saw him in House. I don't watch the series regularly as my appetite for teevee hospital dramas, no matter how well done, was sated long ago. But on the occasions when I've seen it he was excellent and the accent near perfect. In any case, he seems to be getting more money and attention than he ever has before, and it's well deserved. Thank you, miliosr, for reviving this old thread. I have the impression there are quite a few Brits who can do Americian quite well, although the reverse doesn't always obtain.

Gerald Arpino has died of prostate cancer. Early obits here.

Articles like this come out every time there's a new Bond release, or at least that's my impression. I think that Bond was always a little bit camp even in the early days, though, wasn't he ? and reflective of attitudes that wouldn't pass muster now. Regarding plot lines - I wonder if it's really fair to take a really bad Bond flick (and there are quite a few of them) such as Die Another Day or Moonraker (although I find the latter perversely watchable) and write about them as if they were all like that. As for product placement - like bad or nonexistent plots, it didn't start with Bond. I think the earliest really blatant examples of it began appearing in the Sixties, although I could be wrong about that, and it gets worse and worse. I haven't seen the new one, but Casino Royale was pretty good, Mashinka. And in spite of all this talk about Bond and his women, it had some oddly homoerotic undertones. (It belatedly occurs to me that Elyot and Amanda in 'Private Lives' do qualify as idle rich - although in a funny way that play is as much about fidelity and enduring affection as well as playing around, now that I think about it.)

The leading characters of Design for Living are not rich. As I recall offhand, one is an artist, another a playwright, the third a decorator, and at the beginning of the play they have not yet hit the big time, although they are successful later. But they all have occupations. (I suppose you could call The Vortex a play about the idle rich but it hardly ‘flaunts permissiveness.’)

You can see some of the Tristan Project's videos here, including my favorite scene (and music) of all, the Liebestod, with its reverse rainfall: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9506273 There were very few cuts, and the scenes were fairly long in length, and sometimes felt like time had stood still. I'm thinking specifically of one scene with a person walking towards the camera through a wall of fire, and for a long time, it looked like he wasn't getting any closer. Of course, you have to imagine it projected on a 36-foot vertical screen with hi-def video, not unlike Slow Dancing. The scale adds so much to it, and I think in general if you're going to mix video with performance, the video has to be done to the highest possible quality and the biggest possible conceptual (and sometimes physical) scale. Otherwise it looks like random patchwork. I think the Ballet Boyz also do a good job with video, but their videos serve a very different purpose. --Andre Thanks for that, Andre. Interesting.

Thank you for keeping us posted on your reading. I hope others will, as well. Currently reading: A People's History of the Civil War and Gettysburg by Noah Andre Trudeau.

Hi, Mashinka. No, Connery has never been replaced, but on the other hand he was pretty much phoning it in after Thunderball, so it was time for the parting of the ways. The series had begun running out of ideas and source material that gave it its initial impetus, and that process would have continued even if Connery had stuck around. I don't know about that. Two stories of adultery are central to chivalric legend, and a few exceptions like Galahad aside, the knights of the Round Table saw a lot of action in the bedroom. That said, Bond's bimbo legion is pretty much indefensible, although even as I type that it occurs to me that Ursula Andress was no such thing. And Bond is changing with the times - Eva Green in Casino Royale is a new kind of Bond girl. Mr. Hodson seems to be upset chiefly because Ian Fleming makes him think impure thoughts.......

Thanks for starting the topic and reporting on the performance. YouOverThere. Interesting discussion, all.