dirac

I didn't mean to suggest that I'd never seen the term "Ex-library copy" before, only that I was struck to see it by a number of quite rare books.

Regarding the notion that libraries can be trusted to hold on to rare and valuable volumes. I was recently browsing online for a hard-to-locate book. It’s available – for about a hundred dollars. “Ex-library copy.” That bookseller probably picked it up for a few dollars, maybe less, at some library sell-off. I did some more looking, and found many similar items.

sandik writes: In the late sixties, to give only one example, Jerome Robbins’ experimental American Theater Laboratory put on an entire season with NEA funding alone. That kind of operational funding was an important part of the NEA’s contribution to the health of American arts in the past. The loss of it has been a serious one, and private philanthropic funding has not made up the difference.

Actually, Springsteen has a few diva-like attributes that are generally underplayed in adoring profiles or go completely unmentioned. (Which is not to say that kfw is wrong and he isn’t a decent guy – but he’s been a very big star for a very long time, and that takes a toll -- no matter how nice you are.) Battle’s problems, from what one reads, went way beyond the customary Don’t You Know I’m A Star behavior. It’s too bad.

Turns out our site sponsor does indeed have La Fosse's book on file. Some very good deals, too...... http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books

I used to have a copy of La Fosse's book handy, but it went away somewhere. I'm trying to remember what he said about Kirkland -- I think he said she wouldn't help with lifts, and was a pain generally, although the performances were often worth it. It's always nice to have an old thread revived, Giselle05. Thanks!

I was a little hard on her -- she wasn't all THAT bad. I quite agree -- Parker wouldn't have been in that typing pool very long. Some executive would have snapped her up pronto. (I felt the same way about the casting of Isabella Rossellini as a legal secretary in "Cousins." Yeah, sure. :blush:) Your mention of Jourdan made me think of another movie in which he flirts and betrays, the wonderful Letter from an Unknown Woman with Joan Fontaine. It seems plausible that Fontaine would spend her entire life in thrall to this one man, because as the character is depicted, love is her life, her reason for being. And that motivation becomes less plausible as women are shown holding real jobs, having careers.

Please do post your review, miliosr, even if the response to your query isn't overwhelming! Looking forward to reading what you have to say.

julip writes: And now thanks to you, julip, I have a vision of the President in Roddy McDowall's peroxided Shirley Temple curls. They are oddly flattering...........

Interesting topic, Dr. Coppelius. Hans writes: I didn’t, but from what I’ve read, Seymour (and Christopher Gable) in collaboration with MacMillan, chose deliberately to present “unbeautiful” deaths – Romeo and Juliet don’t die romantically, they just die, and you are left with a sense of waste.

As noted, Nutcracker suffers from overfamiliarity, but I think it's a little jewel of a score, the equal of SB in its way. So I voted for Nutcracker to help its rating.

Miliosr, thanks for starting the topic. There was an article about the movie by the dance critic Laura Jacobs in Vanity Fair a few issues ago, which I’m afraid I didn’t get around to reading. I’m sure she had much of interest to say about it. I tend to think of “The Best of Everything” less as a homily on the perils of hooking up than as an interesting view of the sexual politics of the era. All the men are bosses on one sort or another. All the women are secretaries. The woman who fails to marry and persists with her career is Bad. Middle aged women without men are to be pitied -- or feared if, like Crawford, they've achieved a certain amount of power. The movie is an example of that hardy Hollywood staple “Three Girls Look for Love in the Big City.” It takes a harsher tone than most of these – the men in TBOE are really creepy – they have all the power, they know it, they use it. The contemporary variant, “Sex and the City,” moved to television. Somebody should write an essay making the comparisons. There’s a distinct resemblance, for example, between the Candice Bergen SATC character and the Joan Crawford role. Suzy Parker, a lovely ex-model unable to act her way out of one of those cast-iron Fifties brassieres, goes impressively crazy. I seem to recall a scene where she goes through Louis Jourdan’s garbage?

Paul, I was just struck by Ansanelli’s implication that to leave with another job in place would in some way be morally wrong or self-dealing. She is indeed fortunate that she is in a position where she presumably has the financial and professional luxury of not doing so, and my point was that most people don’t have said luxury. (And even if you do, there’s nothing underhanded about seeking alternative employment while you still have it.) I certainly agree with you that it would be wonderful if Ansanelli came to SF. The company could sure use another ballerina.

Although I don't doubt that Ansanelli 's interest in the classics is genuine, I wonder if "leaving to dance the classics" isn't also a helpful catch-all excuse for departing NYCB, analogous to the politician who wants to "spend more time with his family." (I don't mean this as an invitation to speculation.) In passing, I note that Ansanelli expresses a feeling that to leave NYCB with another job lined up would be in some way dishonest. I do feel the need to point out that in the quotidian world of employment, it's almost suicidal not to do so........

It's nice to learn about her. One of the unhappy by products (along with the many benefits, of course) of the advent of online bookselling and superstores is the decline of specialized bookstores (although it may be different in other countries) .

Rachel Howard has a new book, unrelated to dance, coming out. She'll be reading it next Wednesday at a Clean Well-Lighted Place for Books (601 Van Ness) in San Francisco at 7:00 p.m.

Laur, it's too bad that people who don't know much about ballet will sometimes put it down. Thanks for reporting on what happened in your city -- it's great when grass roots involvement leads to good things.

Farrell Fan, it was in the July 18 Links, just for the record. Thanks for the notice, anyway -- it might have been missed.

I'm not sure that it is generational. It is physically more difficult to read lengthy, complex material on the screen. (Although I don't doubt that this is harder for older eyes and bodies than younger ones.) Advances in technology may change this -- the problem is already being looked at-- but observers have noted changes in how people are reading. It's not so much reading as scanning.

Thanks to all who pointed out the high cost of many specialist publications. All too true, and in such cases digitalization is a blessing. The point, however, isn’t that print will go away – after all, much of what many of us do on the Internet involves reading and typing. And for scholarly research, it can be a gift – making previously difficult to reach library materials available on an international scale. University presses are cutting back on monograph publications to counter the library cutbacks on purchases, and when they do publish often the author has to pay some of the costs, as Estelle notes. And there are many advantages, including the future possibilities involved with hypertext and multimedia capabilities. However, the author is correct, it seems to me, in pointing out that books should not be destroyed or put in storage to make room for, shall we say, less essential items. Skittl1321, you are quite right, but perhaps a little optimistic to assume that “of course libraries won’t destroy” valuable items. Guess again. Bart mentions the transfer of newspapers to microfiche, a project which, taken as a whole, was a disaster – papers were transferred poorly or incompletely in many cases. I don’t worry about that with the books, but there is a big difference between scanning a text online, or printing it out, and reading it sequentially between the covers. Recently I was at the library doing some research and requested a Saturday Evening Post from the early sixties. At first the librarian wasn’t sure they would have the physical copy, but she looked, and came back with a triumphant gleam in her eye. We were both happy to have the real thing in our hands. And the reading experience was far more instructive, not to say pleasant.

Yes, Rockwell could have been more precise -- he ought to have said something like "performed in its entirety" or words to that effect -- but hey, he's on deadline.....

You could be, but you're not. Beautifully said. And thank you, julip, for starting the topic. We don't do any "flaming" on this board, and courteous debate is always welcomed!

Further commentary:

It's off topic, but I'm hanging on to most of my opera LPs, even if I rarely play them. Those wonderful books that were included in the old sets, with great notes and photographs! (And I still like the sound.)

The old machines are often better made, too. I took my old Sharp in to be fixed and the repairman commented on what a good machine it was. Depending on your space needs, I'd hang on to any tapes that are potentially hard to find and replace if you need to.