vagansmom

Any reports yet from you Californians? What about NYC - does anyone have tickets to go? I read the LA Times review in the Links section, but would love to hear from Alertniks. Unfortunately, I can't go; I have to work.

I accidentally became engrossed in Steinbeck: A Life in Letters the other night while I was sitting in a boarding school library waiting for a student to arrive. Someone had left their book on the table next to me. Before I knew it, I was 86 pages into it and completely enthralled. I read some of Steinbeck's books as a teen and young adult, but in keeping with my current revisitation-of-old-classics stage, I now just have to read his books again. So many of his letters are gems; he regularly wrote to a couple of the same friends throughout most of his adult life. In them, he puzzles out his own writing style. I'm at the part where he's writing The Red Pony. His mom had had a stroke and Steinbeck and his wife were caring for her. He writes of his lack of concentration and all the attendant interruptions, often every 15 minutes, and comments that this new book he's writing is probably nothing more than an exercise in self-discipline and not very good at all. In reality, he's begun his most fertile period of writing.

Ed, would you recommend Weight for the middle school crowd? Our students read many myths, and different versions of them, as part of an "Origins" unit in a Humanities class. That just might be a great addition to our current list.

I'm afraid of indie movies with "quirky" characters too because so often, we end up with the stereotypical unique character. I work with a 17 year old boy who expressed this phenomenon quite well in his college essay when he said that living in a small private boarding high school can be tough to get through if you're one of the handful characterized by the larger group as an "individual." He basically says "to hell with the individual" in this situation because everyone's views of someone as an individual only pegs that person into an even tighter slot with less acceptance of one's free expression than those who've not been so crowned. He's expected to be the caricature of type. Indie films - well, all too many movies for that matter - often do this too. "Here's our resident quirky character" or "Here's our black best friend of the star of the show," etc. But I liked "Juno" despite the quirky character. In fact, I loved the film more for the other characters than for the one Ellen Page portrayed. Juno is wise-cracking, too much so for me, as are her two friends though to a slightly lesser degree. That Page can give her character texture despite all the language Juno's hiding behind is a great credit to her acting ability. I'd love to see her in another movie though; I need to see if she can draw me more into her inner world. I was very uncomfortable with her dry-eyed crying in one scene; I'm surprised the director chose to leave it so. But it was the other characters who grabbed my attention: her dad, her step-mom (Alison Janney - what a delight!), and the young couple, especially the young couple. I started out a little disinterested and my affection for the movie grew as the minutes passed. Without giving away the story, I will merely say I am happy with its ending.

Sorry, I need to rephrase. :blush: In asking about a ban, I was thinking of the traditional theaters in the USA that normally hold ballet performances. Somehow or other, it was my understanding that most if not all currently do not allow nudity in performances at their theaters. However, in thinking about this, I also realized that Pilobolus is still going strong; I assume that they still present works in the USA with nude dancers? I've only seen their children's performances in the last couple of years. And what about the musical "Hair"? Is that still being performed in the USA currently, and if so, is there still the famous nude scene?

Am I right that there's a ban on nudity in dance performance in the USA right now?

In working with a high school sophomore, I've had to reread both the Iliad and the Odyssey recently and enjoyed both so much that I've found myself searching out more and more of my own children's high school literature class readings. I'd forgotten all about such books. To quote a minor character from the film "It's a Wonderful Life", "Youth is wasted on the young!"

I found the movie cathartic. Silly, yes, but some of what I would've, in earlier years, called the most "campy" behaviors are closer to the truth than I could have imagined years ago. I found myself quite close to that movie, in fact, having experienced firsthand some of those types of scenarios. Very little cartoon in it.

Leigh, if you own that book, you might just want to empower yourself to go ahead and break it up into small pieces! A couple years ago, I was busy complaining to someone about how my arthritis makes it hard for me to hold books so I'm not reading so much. She suggested getting someone to break the book apart for me into manageable sections. Voila! I can read big books again! In fact, I now do it with paperbacks too. I got over the guilt of "ruining" books pretty quickly. What's the point of having them sitting on a bookshelf unread? Much better to literally tear into them and enjoy. Am currently reading Umberto Eco's books. I missed that wave when The Name of the Rose first came out. I just finished The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana and was delighted to find Baudolino under my Christmas tree yesterday! I've also just begun his The History of Beauty. It's chock-full of pictures. Initially, Eco made me feel ignorant and illiterate, but that turned fairly quickly into thrill at so many new worlds opening up.

Does anyone know a good web resource for how tutu construction has changed through the ages? I'm looking specifically for info about tutu construction through the last 100 years. How has it changed? Boning, for example. What was used before the flexible pieces that are inserted as boning today? I assume bone really was used at one time. When? And thickness of netting: I know it varies depending on the type of ballet and I know the difference between romantic tutus (ala Les Sylphides) and a powder puff tutu, but did it also change through the years and are there differences depending on where (what country) it was made? Can one distinguish a Russian tutu from, say, a French one, etc.? If anyone can answer these questions, which really are just a jumping off point in my quest, I'd love to hear them. But I really, really want to see pictures too. Thanks.

Uh oh.... and I love Depp, but this is disconcerting. Read the whole article from CNN.com Johnny Depp Revels in Burton Partnership

I've just begun a reading marathon since my December job workload is lighter than the rest of my school year. Currently, I'm rereading a favorite: the Jacob Bronowski book, The Ascent of Man, that's an accompaniment to the 1970's PBS mini-series. I own the video miniseries as well. Bronowski, as host, is what makes this book and series so pleasurable. However, because of all the new knowledge gained by gene research, I wish there were someone who would be willing to pick up where he left off. I'm also reading Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, a story about a Milan rare books art dealer who loses his emotional memory, which includes the loss of his ability to recognize the persons in his life. I'm only about 60 pages into it. It was recommended by my daughter, who read it while on tour in Milan and delighted in all the references to places she frequented. Also reading a terrifying book called Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret Wars, written by Judith Miller, William Broad, and Stephen Engelberg. It was first published in early 2001, I believe, at any rate pre 9/11. Interesting book given later political circumstances, (and Miller's own recent foray into the news as a subject). What's most scary is how little we really know of what's going on today in the BW and chemical weapons labs across the world, and how our government, like other governments, hid information from its citizens about it. I've always made it a point to read what's in the news, but it's what NOT in the news that's scaring me. This book reaffirms all my fears. On a much different note, I am reading all the Harry Potter books (except the first) for the first time - the British editions though. After trying repeatedly over a period of years (but losing interest each time), I eventually got through the first book's American edition. People tell me that Rowling became a better writer in her later books, and a young man told me that the British editions have a better flow. So, to be part of current culture, I'm reading those. Finally, in anticipation of going to see two movies just out, I'm rereading the books that were used for the screenplays: Pullman's The Golden Compass, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby. I'm quite sure I wrote on this board about the latter book a couple years ago because I was quite taken with it. I am really looking forward to the movie, although I'm disappointed that Johnny Depp wasn't able to commit to the role. However, I've heard the French actor is superb.

Teatro Lirico D'Europa, here, is coming to a city very close to me in late winter. They will be performing "La Traviata" which I would love to see. Does anyone know how good the company is? I know that, in ballet, there are a couple touring companies whose performances I'd just as soon skip.

You were right! I wrote DVD, but meant CD; you answered my questions wonderfully. Thank you, dirac. I'm looking forward to much Christmas vacation listening time, assuming my kids check out my "wish list" carefully....if they don't, I'll buy them myself.

Can someone well versed in opera recommend a DVD or two of Maria Callas? I haven't started looking for one, but have been listening a lot to her on youtube, and realize that her pre-mid1950's voice is at its peak. But I know nothing of the quality of any recordings, so am looking for help there. Also, is there an aria that is a "must have"? Or a full opera? I am an opera neophyte in the midst of a crash course.

Horror is not my genre either, but in my younger days, there were three that I found spine-tinglingly frightening. Rosemary's Baby tops the list. Farrow's air of vulnerability is what makes that movie. I'm not sure it could've been as frightening with anyone else in that role. I think, though, that another reason for my reaction to it was that Catholics were banned from seeing it! I was right at the point of questioning everything Catholic, so I simply had to see that movie to find out what the Catholics were trying to hide me from. Turns out that the end had nothing to do with my shakiness, but the path along the way sure did. An earlier film that frightened me when I later saw it for the first time at the ripe old age of 16 was 1963's The Haunting with Julie Harris. I thought it was deliciously frightening. Probably the horror movie that scared me the most (besides the monkey scene in The Wizard of Oz, which my kids loved to mock me for) was one I don't know the name of. Maybe someone here - it'll have to be someone over 50, I fear - will supply it. I saw this film several times as a very young child. All I remember is that people were turning into zombies. Hopefully, I'm not mixing a couple movies up, but I think they went out into the desert somewhere and the ground swallowed them up (yes, quicksand was an ever-present reality in my youthful thoughts!) and then they turned into zombies. You knew it by what looked like an ash stain at the nape of their necks. The most frightening scene, one that supplied me with a couple years of nightmares, in that movie was when the little boy (and girl?) are seated in the back seat of their car and realize that both their parents had that mark! For a few weeks after that, every time my parents seemed unreasonably irritable, I'd check the nape of their necks just to be sure.

Victoria, thank you so much for sharing your memories. What a treat peeking into ABT's world in the '60's! I especially loved hearing about Agnes de Mille as I adore her autobiographies. I didn't need any help picking you out in that photo - to this day, you look strikingly like your earlier self What??? There was a smaller girl than you?

Two comments: Great story ballet: My vote is for the Greek tragedy, Antigone by Sophocles. Most middle to high school kids read this play, and its theme - who do we obey? the state or a higher authority? - still resonates just as strongly today as it did during its author's day. It's already at least fairly familiar to audiences, and holds all the elements of a great story ballet: young love, conscience, sibling and generational conflicts, and then there's that stone vault Antigone is led into to die! As a story ballet, it works on so many levels. My middle and high school students are enthralled by this story, as am I each year when I reread it; it's seen me through several presidential elections and a couple of wars. Antigone's theme is always relevant no matter what current events issues are in the forefront. Regarding the posts about new composers: I wonder if the issue isn't as much about a lack of composers available, but a lack of funds available to pay them! What ballet company has the funds to commission John Williams, say, to write ballet music?

I don't have much time lately for recreational reading, so I consider myself very lucky that my high school tutoring jobs this year have required me to read Perrine's Story and Structure, a gem of a compilation of short stories whose authors include Hemingway, Faulkner, Porter, Cather, Welty, Gordimer, Hawthorne, O'Henry, and several others including a short work by Tolstoy. In high school, I had read most of them but, as is often true of high school reading, I just didn't have the life experiences to fully appreciate them. I reread some of them when my own children were high school 9th and 10th graders, but I still didn't fully enjoy them. Now, at 53, coming back to these stories, I am feeling as though I just found water after a long drought. I find this curiously so, because I've never considered myself to be especially appreciative of contemporary short stories; I usually find them so depressing that I tend to avoid them. (My favorite exception is Elizabeth McCracken's "Here's Your Hat, What's Your Hurry" - poignantly funny). Anyway, right now I am gobbling up one story after another, and trying to slow myself down! My current favorite is Willa Cather's "Paul's Case" because of his craving for beauty and comfort and the lengths he went to in his effort to acquire it in his life.

I just finished reading The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook: What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love and Healing by Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz. I took Amazon's recommendation and bought it along with The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: Attachment and the Developing Social Brain by Louis Cozolino. It's a great pairing. Perry has worked with traumatized children from many well-known situations: the Branch Davidian children, the kids who were at the heart of the supposed Satanic ritual incidents in the '80's/'90's. His common sense and big heart has made this book a favorite of mine, and I've read many of these sorts of books over the years. Although some of the children's traumas are heartbreaking, the book actually gave me lots of hope about human relationships. I read bits and pieces of Cozolino's book, much drier and full of chemical and pharmaceutical terms, after reading a chapter at a time of Perry's. The result is that I probably can't always tell you who said what, but they are a terrific match.

Treefrog, can you tell us the other Giselle/Albrecht castings?

No matter how healthy, young, physically fit, etc. people look, we never do really know their story. Perhaps there's a babysitter waiting at home who needs to leave at a certain time to get her train? Perhaps the person with the scooter has MS or lupus or myasthenia gravis or some other condition where you can look the picture of health, walk perfectly fine to your seat, but can't walk for more than 100 feet without your legs starting to give out. A scooter is ideal. Perhaps the woman rushing out is taking diuretics for high blood pressure or another condition and simply can't wait any longer before getting to the rest room. When I was young, I was critical of people for doing things like leaving early or before final bows, but then when I was still young but just a little older , I ended up with one of those conditions where I looked perfectly healthy, but needed a cane or a scooter to walk more than a block or two. Like you, I'm the sort who stays for the final bow and hates to miss a second of my enjoyment during that time, but I'm now in late middle age and I know that there are lots and lots and lots of reasons why people feel they need to leave early, and I don't waste any energy on it at all. Life is much, much too short

I have just finished reading Khaled Hosseini's (author of The Kite Runner) latest book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The reviews I've read were mixed, but I really liked the book. It's very different from his first work, which I thought was masterful. This second book of his is also quite good, taking place from the 1970's to the present. It follows the lives of two women in Afhganistan. While I already knew something of the lives of women under the Taliban, this book gave me much of the background I needed to fully understand it. Today, while proctoring a study hall, I read another book about a woman in an Islamic country, called In The Name of Honor, by Mukhtar Mai, as related to French author Mari-Therese Cuny, and translated into English by Linda Coverdale. Mukhtar Mai lives in Pakistan, in a rural village with rivaling clans. You may have heard of her. She is the woman whose official punishment for her younger brother's (a young 12 years old) supposed rape of a 27 year old woman of the upper clan was to be gang-raped in 2002 by a group of men from a higher tribe than hers. Her brother too was sexually attacked and savagely beaten. The truth was that the clan was trying to tyrannize her lower level clan over property disputes. Instead of committing suicide after the attack, she fought back through the media. She has gone on to create a school in her village, originally for girls but now includes boys as well. She's traveled all over the world speaking about the dangers to every woman in Pakistan, that Islamic law and tribal law are two different things, and that tribal law is what prevails in the countryside. Mukhtar Mai is still in danger in her own village, but she has decided to risk death rather than move out of her country. Her mission is education for Pakistani girls and women. Both of these books rounded out my understanding of the intricacies of laws - governmental, police, and tribal - in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. I ache for their women.

I feel the same way about Sean Suozzi - it's about time. Congratulations, Sean!

Hi Carbro, My daughter's a MOMIX dancer. That car commercial was done by Pilobolus dancers although there's at least one MOMIX dancer in it. It's fun to see how the MOMIX Hanes commercial really got ad people using dancers. I've been noticing more and more ads with dancers lately. Nice for the dancers - it's great pay along with the exposure.