papeetepatrick

"White man who speak with fork tongue brought ballet rain dance to Land".

The name's Land. Brooke Land.

In fairness to Mr. Martins, it is almost always a much wiser course to refuse the on-site breath test.

Why is it wise? For the tested and his outcome, or for the truth? Or, do you mean the authorities, the police are likely to corruptly falsify? My questions have to be answered or the 'in fairness to Mr. Martins' may mean something, but I haven't any idea what that might be.

Here was the description in the papers at the time, that was very familiar in all the reports about 'struck the curb', etc., as, for instance, the Wall Street Journal:

Though the line of vehicles at the checkpoint on the Saw Mill River Parkway was “virtually at a standstill,” police at the checkpoint noticed that Mr. Martins’s 2005 Bentley Continental was wandering in and out of its lane, according to Mr. O’Leary. Mr. Martins drove onto the shoulder and struck the curb several times, at one point mounting the curb with his tires.

“He was having difficulty even at that very reduced speed,” Mr. O’Leary said.

And he didn't even GET charged with DUI or DWI, as the NYTimes reported some 10 days after the incident:

A leader of the New York City Ballet pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a lesser charge after being accused of driving while intoxicated.

The ballet master, Peter Martins, admitted to driving while his ability was impaired. He was fined $300 and released, said Nina Azeez, a Yonkers City Court clerk.

So, with swerving all over the place, he ended up with a $300 fine.

In legal terms, therefore, he is not even guilty of a 'dumb mistake' or what-have-you DUI. We call it 'DUI' of 'DWI', but that's not what it is/was officially. He's guilty of 'admitting to driving while his ability was impaired'.

There was also lots of high dudgeon round these parts when Nilas Martins made his plea deal, based on 'protecting someone else'. There was heard by his lawyer "He does not use drugs. He has not used drugs. He will never, ever use drugs," Jones said.

But he had to do some alcohol and drug 'evaluation' (I don't know whether that went anywhere.) I thought that was pretty innocuous by comparison, just an illegal substance in a parked car, but some were concerned about the other person, also a NYCB dancer, as I recall.

Of course this concept of liberty extends to the earlier example, didn't anyone who might have either been walking or driving home along the same route as Martins that night he made his "one and only" dumb move deserve the liberty of expecting their passage home to be as safe as possible and not come into contact with a drunk in a half tonne lethal weapon mounting the curb? Whose privilege was being revoked then and by whom?

And remember, for the record, that Martins refused a breath test. Does one refuse this more likely for having been just a little over the legal limit or perhaps a good bit or even a lot over? You have a lot to lose or a lot to gain if you choose to have one, but if you refuse one (I remember not being aware that you could do so, but nobody answered me on that), you may look suspicious, but that's still the less risky choice if you HAVE imbibed excessively.

it was not a given that the problem would be transferred to the streets which escalated the amount of smoking on the streets, especially in groups. The other option, being considered and legislated now, is a smoking ban in public spaces, confining smoking to private, indoor, non-commercial spaces.

You (and others) are ignoring the fact that many people rent their apartments and many rental agreements now preclude smoking in said apartments. So unless you are rich enough to own abode, you cannot smoke in your "private spaces."

Exactement. And a couple of years ago, an elderly woman smoker somewhere in Silicon Valley, CA, had to leave her apt. and go to a nearby park to smoke. I don't know if smoking is outlawed in her park by now. Probably. And even in multi-dwelling buildings, people complain of smoke that is not even possibly being diverted into their apartments--as from apts. ABOVE and with a window taking the smoke out. Such is the nature of the new mores, though. I think one of Pamela's many excellent observations was that some of this is also just particularly 'fashionable', and it's often practised by those who don't mind making you hear all their private cellphone conversations (I certainly don't mind being the one to 'move' when I'm stuck hearing these Reality TV Cellphone businesses.)

They've already moved. They still often move, in order not to bother non-smokers. Onc person's anecdotes from awhile ago have not changed that. Both should show consideration, or you just go for the legislation, get smoking prohibited. Nothing else will do.

And it has not been exacerbated in all cases. People used to smoke on the street and outdoors far more than they do now, no matter that there weren't the prohibitions in offices and restaurants. At least they don't smoke in New York on the street to nearly the degree they used to. PLUS--there are already cases of people being complained about in multi-dwelling units and 'having to go outside to smoke', so that will hearten all the anti-smoking contingent. There was an elderly lady written up in NYT a few years ago living somewhere in Silicon Valley that this happened to, and she started smoking on park benches, but I don't know if they've yet banned smoking in parks in that part of CA.

A total curtailment of their liberties because it offends a minority who in some cases appear to be so egotistically fragile they wish all examples of smoking to be expunged from all media, including a casual moment where one smoker, while being interviewed accepts a cigarette from her friend and asserts her rights to engage in a legal act; which it would appear many wish to no longer be so.

Of course I agree with this, but I chose this piece of post because it's so well-written

Well written but inaccurate. In my experience, supposition that doesn't begin with presuming the best motives and seeing if those don't provide adequate explanation usually results in a false understanding. In this case, it's not ego that makes people object to a bad example - someone who has enough perspective to recognize a bad example is unlikely to be influenced by it - it's concern for others, particularly the young.

I'm fairly sure Simon was not using the word 'ego' in the same sense you are, but he can clarify for sure if he wants to. He was using the phrase 'egotistically fragile' in a different sort of way which I assume is more subtle than when one is talking about 'too much ego' or just 'ego-driven' or 'selfish' or what have you. If you want the example I was thinking of, it was in one of Joan Didion's essays in The White Album, but that's all I'll say, it's in one of the essays there; to be specific would only add fuel to the already raging controversy.

My reading of Simon's 'egotistically fragile' was that he was referring to 'not strong enough ego'.

A total curtailment of their liberties because it offends a minority who in some cases appear to be so egotistically fragile they wish all examples of smoking to be expunged from all media, including a casual moment where one smoker, while being interviewed accepts a cigarette from her friend and asserts her rights to engage in a legal act; which it would appear many wish to no longer be so.

Of course I agree with this, but I chose this piece of post because it's so well-written, reminds me of someone else as far back as the early 70s talking about another kind of 'fragility', or rather the same kind, but in a different domain.

I also liked Pamela Moberg's posts on this, which I think put an alternative balance, or rather some new twists, on the matter, although I think the Queen of Denmark's case is not the same as the Paris Opera Ballet dancers. Strangely enough, people almost always talk about the Danish queen's smoking, including Geza Von Habsburg in a lecture once at the Met on royal Danish jewels; whether in the end, 'a picture is worth a thousand words' is borne out (or the reverse) I don't know. I know of other examples of smoking by monarchs, but won't name them here, although theirs, too, are not photographed. Other public people like Jackie O'Nassis smoked a great deal in private, but never in public. I also recall a Vanity Fair article about Shirley MacLaine, during her most hyper New Age days, saying 'I smoke sometimes too' (in addition to 'throwing back Ouzos' at a party she'd just been to.)

I don't know about the posh environs of Notting Hill, but in Central London cheap illegal cigarettes are frequently offered to people in crowded areas and the like. They are made of far more dangerous substances than the legal ones and packed with so many extra carcinogens they are supposed to be lethal. Stand at the south side bus stop just to the east of Oxford Circus in Oxford Street and you'll meet the cigarette pushers in no time at all.

Yes. I found this googling, from BBC 1 (Scotland.): http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00xy80z

BBC Scotland investigates the multibillion-pound world of the criminal tobacco trade. We discover that more than half of all hand rolled tobacco in the country is now either counterfeit or smuggled, and one in five cigarettes smoked is fake. Using secret filming, we expose the gangs which are costing British taxpayers four billion pounds in lost revenue a year. Taking you to the heart of the supply chain, we buy directly from the criminals and reveal their products are the most poisonous ever discovered in the UK. And with exclusive access to customs investigators, we watch as they take out a major organised Chinese tobacco gang which has set up home in Scotland.

At first I thought you were talking about the cheap fake cocaine and fake crack that can be bought legally in head shops here, and is so poisonous it has caused young users to kill themselves (this was about 2 months ago I read this, I believe.) I've never looked in the shops by me, and am not sure I would recognize the kinds of things they are referring to anyway. I'm sure there's a parallel illegal cigarette scene here, although I haven't looked into it.

But this would therefore be true too:

Smokers don't go up to strangers and try and push cigarettes on them.

By the time it goes illegal, it's not 'smokers pushing cigarettes', it's part of the greater general drug trade.

Simon, don't you see how heartless you are? Now I don't want 'an eternal spring', or even 'an eternal return', but rather 'an eternal Marlboro Country', lying back against 'an eternal World Ash Tree' and dreaming of Ruth St. Denis in her voluptuous prime...while I reach for...you see, I hadn't planned to smoke again until Friday, and yet...it's just in my nature...

Okay, sorry.

Maybe they bring the dogs and cats into hotel rooms in order to mask the smell of illicit cigarettes smoked craftily out of the window? A wet dog can smell very much like a pack of 20 Woodbines.

The number of dogs and cats that are likely to be staying in a hotel at any one time, will be far lower than smokers actually in residence.

But these 'smokers' do not smoke in the hotel. I doubt their clothes 'stink' more than some of the dogs, frankly.

This thread is really irritating by now. Is there any possibility of closing it? Aren't we all done with this?

Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa Cake.

Oh. My. God. You have made my day, I hadn't heard about this, although as a very serious cook myself, I haven't actually gone nuts over some of her imitation canned pineapple juice that wets Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix. Oh lord, not a role model except for good husband-choosing, she ought to go to the Martha Stewart Show like I did. Even if Martha does shamelessly insert insidious product placement like confusing people's names with 'L'oreale', which turns out to be all over her magazine, she DOES know how to countenance ingredients in a reasonably basic form (I do her Romaine Salad with Feta and Anchovies all the time.) She also begrudgingly admitted that you could frost a chocolate butter cream with 'just a regular spoon', after trying to sell all sorts of specialized paraphernalia.

I just Googled several sites, and this is so hilarious, I fully believe a new era in inedibility has impinged, one which may well signal the downfall of all civilization. And I do NOT like it that she's well-known in Britain either! I had thought she had a reasonably localized 'trashin'-cookin' following..

Sorry this is so but Simon's pm was full, so I could not 'emploi' that method

Role models cut both ways. There are people who are attracted to "bad boys", to power, to being able to get away with criminal behavior, and all sorts of things.

But that's not the kind we're talking about here. We're talking about ballet dancers being 'good role models' by not smoking and other 'unseemly behaviour that young girl ballet students or budding stars might emulate'. That would include the men who smoke too. Mere smoking does not make ballet dancers, male or female, 'good or bad girls or good or bad boys'. The context of this discussion is a 'pure-oriented role model', not those (like me) who are attracted to Obama, etc., and his 'cool hand Barack', as Maureen Dowd called it. But there are lots of 'bad boys' who are politicians, and I knew somebody who thoroughly admired John Gotti, when I was terrified of him when I had to play at the Beekman Tower, where he often came (I was even instructed to play 'Come Back to Sorrento', I believe.)

There is absolutely no way that smoking a personal choice to harm oneself can be seen as a greater evil than drunk driving.

Simon, I understand your feelings, and I'm sorry you had to experience that tragedy. I don't think this is the place to discuss the issue in detail, so I will only repeat that I don't see lifestyle choices and one-off dumb mistakes as parallel when it comes to modeling behavior, whatever their outcomes.

Then Peter Martins has at least two one-offs of differing sorts, the first of which was spousal abuse in the early 90s. This is public record, not gossip. I suppose you can call that a 'dumb mistake' and that he 'didn't choose to do it', not really anyway. Spent a few hours in the clink for it too. Another thing we disagree on is the 'opportunity to be a role model'. You don't have to be privileged to want to be a role model. For those here who want a 'role model for etiquette', there are quite a number at Ballet Alert who are very good at it (I mean that quite sincerely), as well as many who are not (I mean, not just me and someone else, who aren't interested in it in that sense, insofar as if I'm judged for having a cigarette as to my worth, I really am not interested in the opinion). Marie-Agnes Gillot is a role model for fouettes, that ought to be enough for any good citizen. It is really incredible how the extremely gifted are supposed to stand for things thought 'noble' by various classes of citizens, and yet it may be because the 'less privileged' don't think they're capable of it either, or haven't been rewarded enough to have to.

Baryshnikov and Peter Martins both have talked about enjoying cigarettes, but that's beside the point. Nobody said anything about Martins's DUI in relation to 'role-modelism'. Why are the French girls expected to be better 'role models' than Peter Martins,[ . . . ]

I don't think we have any right to expect them to be good role models, but they're in a privileged position, so they have the opportunity to be good role models in that respect if they want to be. In any case, chosing to smoke and getting a DUI through carelessness when one doesn't abuse alcohol aren't parallel. The first is a conscious choice; the second is a dumb mistake, and we all make those.

Do you know that he didn't choose to drink too much and think he might be just fine anyway? A DUI is not usually considered a 'dumb mistake' or 'careless', and it certainly is not considered to matter a whit by law enforcement. And, as I said, Baryshnikov AND Martins both have talked about smoking. I know many dancers who smoke. A DUI, though, could definitely be considered 'alcohol abuse' even if it's 'carelessness'.

The fact that she didn't makes me love her all the more, anyway, she was with smokers, why would other smokers mind? Now she has to be a role model for etiquette too? With that much weight on her shoulders the next time she performs the rose adagio she's going to fall flat on her face, as if crushed by a giant iron lung.

Absolument. There was no reason she should ask smokers if she should smoke, nor worry about fallout from potential boycotts of ticket sales (even if the 4th ring of wherever is still open) due to role-model-refusal tailored to ballet discussion board members (who, by the way, ought to consider not attending the POB season next year, shoudn't they, if Aurelie and Marie-Agnes won't shape up, not to mention, mind their manners if they don't want illegalisms to force the issue?)

Baryshnikov and Peter Martins both have talked about enjoying cigarettes, but that's beside the point. Nobody said anything about Martins's DUI in relation to 'role-modelism'. Why are the French girls expected to be better 'role models' than Peter Martins, and in alcohol-related accident is potentially far more fatal than that frightfully intrusive 4th-hand smoke you might get if you were at a performance with somebody whose tutu or ballet dress may have been in the presence of cigarette smoke (or was that barbecued pork from the cookouts they had to attend to make nice-nice with some of the suburban donors?)

I have to admit I wasn't in the least surprised by this moment, though I probably did mutter something to the effect of "stupid women."

You probably did. Two of the greatest ballet artists in the world, who have offered 99.9999% more than most to the world, and yet they do something you don't like. Therefore they're 'stupid women'. And I'm a 'stupid man', with a new book cover with me smoking a cigarette in my own kitchen, eh? Say it ain't so. I definitely feel bad about this, because I'm, of course, a great role model for many perverts, and I shouldn't be seen by them smoking.

It's really no longer glamorous to smoke in the way it used to be and most European countries have smoking bans – Germany appears to be the exception. I believe that part of the impetus for the bans had to do with the costs to national health systems.

"J'adore fumer", said DeNeuve in 'Pola X', and she's talked about cutting down to two a day after dinner, and probably does that or did for a time. She's said "I used to smoke a lot, but these two are delicious". I think so too. In the case of the smoker, it's usually that it's a very small minority that can smoke as a kind of 'dessert' thing like that. I smoke about a pack every 3 or 4 weeks, and don't intend to stop if I can continue it like that. I do it after a meal too, and yet it is not because DeNeuve is my role model in all ways. However, if you can do it like that, it's not even a 'filthy habit', as almost everybody seems to feel self-righteous enough to call it. I know someone at the moment who feels exactly this way about alcohol, and was never an alcoholic, but just cites statistics, so that at the age of 20 she never had a drink, and is now at the age of 35 much like a much older person.

Contrary to what some commenters have said, smoking is still very sexy and glamorous, and I'll get around to reading the wiki specificities later. A Swiss French friend who also smokes lightly says that smoking is allowed in outdoor areas of restaurants in Switzerland and in France. I am fine with bans in restaurants indoors, although personally, I like a good Italian or Spanish restaurants flavours and aromas mixed with cigarette and cigar smoke (this is different from one poster's discussion of the 'loss of scent' when you smoke: It's according to which kind. In a pristine outdoor environment, I'd never think of smoking, but again, I know I'm in the minority about not having the same kind of addiction--and it's not to make me 'special', it's that I get a headache and a sense of depression if I smoke except when partying with other people. I always thought the worst offense vis-a-vis smoking was allowing it in public workplaces, where it was simply nauseating, even if you smoked some yourself, but that's just acc. to the person.)

I like the thread though, as it has caught me up on attitudes about the outdoor anti-smoking campaign in a way I would usually associate with the New York Times. I see it is a kind of war, insofar as the extreme cases of 'right to not smoke' are being invoked as well as 'unhappinesses' of various kinds, and desires for the 'most stringent' forbiddings. I have no sympathy with this, because everything Simon has said is true except for knowing anything about Marlboro Country, he's too young to have known what being a Marlboro Man is like. But even objectively I don't have any sympathy with it, because it really is like liquor prohibition, but just different in kind: A drunk is very glad to impinge on your desire not to be a drunk or around drunks, and for this reason, we may not reinstate Prohibition.

I see nothing whatever in the thesis of 'role model' for young dancers for Aurelie and Marie-Agnes. Obama has a fag or two, as is well-known, and that's the U.S. president. Nor do I think that dancers and others who use their physical powers ought to 'know better', because they do. They don't need anything explained to them. They want to smoke, and one can simply try to force them not to. But I doubt they care about lip service on this matter, they want to see tanks if they're going to pay attention.

BUT...the fact is that the thread has proved that there is just battling it out. There are those who don't think smokers have any rights at all, and those who think they should be veritably policed. So they'll just have to see if they can get it done. Nothing really to discuss unless one has the power and energy to call up and join organizations, etc. People in the U.S. have long been smoking much less (last 20 years, I guess), and those who do smoke will continue to until the new crackdowns occur. And of these impending crackdowns I have no doubt. This is an increasingly sterilized country in a number of ways. And while even in France, DeNeuve can't smoke at the Tour d'Argent, she can at the Cafe des Deux Magots, if she ever goes there.

It seems to have an element of melancholy and solitude to it now. The compulsion to text has taken its place, a small decafinated pleasure that seems to dull rather than sharpen the mind.

Not necessarily. I rarely have even a single cigarette when I'm alone, it's for being sociable, even if the other person doesn't smoke (unless s/he minds the smoke, in which case I don't.) I like your comparison of texting, though, which has recently been written up in NYTimes as having ascended to heights of such extreme rudeness that the bimboes who must remain glued to their cellphones don't even mention mid-conversation that they must tend to this; they just do it, and start talking, with the flesh-conversation person left either to decide this is normal or abnormal and maybe just walk away quite as naturally as the texter thought it was to text. But I've seen no attempts to take LEGAL ACTION on all sorts of addictions to technology, because it's not been around long enough to show just how HARMFUL it is to the OTHER person. It boils down to whether you want to be strict and virtually totalitarian or accept some of the imperfections of democracy which are bound to accompany some of the freedoms it gives, as dirac pointed out about halfway through.

Many thanks for the reports, everyone. Not that I dont trust y'all, but I have been burned so many times by proclamations of "Woody's back!" that I no longer risk ten dollars on a theater ticket. I do catch them on cable and there's never been a time when I've said, Darn, I should have seen that one. (I used to go out to see his movies every year. They were usually at least as interesting as anything else at the multiplex. But I gave up after "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion." The last time was when somebody talked me into trying "Match Point.")

Same here except worse. Even the old ones I admired somewhat I never could take as seriously as others were. If you don't 'love', for example, 'Annie Hall', then how can you shell out for what he's doing now. You really can see films for just $10? Not that I'd pay it for this, but we're paying a lot more here by now, and no 'discount houses' like we used to have at Worldwide (that I know of.) Ultimately, I simply can't accept him, and do not even think he is particularly authoritative about NYC*. I know, for example, that I know a LOT more than he does, but that's by the by. I must say, though, that

They were usually at least as interesting as anything else at the multiplex.

*And he takes this 'I'm the ultimate New Yorker' thing way too far. It's not enough that I even hate 'Manhattan', but the New Yorker Magazine had a reading exactly one month after 9/11, in which Allen was one of the readers (along with DeLillo, Updike, Mary Karr, and others), and at one point, to prove his New Yorkism, he said 'Who kee-ahs about Cincinnati?' Tiresome attitude, and sums up his basically superficial and social-climbing number all the way down the line for me. No worse than the 'beautifully, beautifully true' thing, I guess. I wouldn't pay a cent for him, nor even watch a DVD.

Christian, if you think this made you want to go to Paris, I can assure you (from having lived there a full year) that that is one city he cannot even pretend to know anything about, except in the most superficial imaginable sense. If his film made you want to go to Paris, then you probably ought to do some more research to be sure that you really do, because 'Allen's Paris' is one of the most marginal extant.

And of course Reynolds isn't responsible for the amounts people are willing to spend at auctions. Although I agree with Anthony that these amounts were....excessive. So sad that in these hard times there are people who are willing to fork over four million dollars for a movie star's old costume. I hope that person's charitable contributions match up.

I see your and Anthony's point, but I'm glad she's getting the big money, because these are at least worthy, exotic items, and they should definitely be considered serious art. Things are sold on the art market for much more than that all the time that don't seem worth anything (Damien Hirst et alia), and in the financial industries, you don't have any object at all for the billionaires to offer--they just trade financial instruments, and get obese bonuses; so this seems like something she really deserved after trying so hard to get the objects placed in a museum. And she's the pluckiest lady ever; if anybody deserves to make it big in business this late in life, she does. Especially since she never did it for that purpose. I can't think of any major Hollywood character who has loved Hollywood itself more than Debbie Reynolds. How can you not love her just for collecting all this stuff, without knowing she was making a wise investment of that sort at all. Now maybe I understand why she was Peter Martins's favourite American movie-star idol when he was a kid. Even after 'Postcards from the Edge' and talk about their mother/daughter difficulties, Carrie Fisher said without reservation 'My mother is an extraordinary woman'. I agree, and all this collecting she did was a beautiful project.

vipa, on 16 June 2011 - 09:07 PM, said:

-- no one does it like the Danes. The variations were delightful, and again the choreography - lovely & musical in between steps, beautifully shaped jumps, grand plies when you don't expect them. a turn into a jump that makes you gasp and smile because it is both lovely and unpredicted. One more thing I have to add. The RDB has Character Dancers in their roster. One of these women (I don't know who) won my heart. She did a little section with a child, but she enriched the act through out. When the corps was doing their predictable stuff, my eye wondered over to her. She'd be on the side interacting, hitting the tamborine, swaying to the music and being alive on stage. She was not the only one, but she was exemplary. This kind of stage craft can really make a difference.

Yes, especially

The variations were delightful, and again the choreography - lovely & musical in between steps, beautifully shaped jumps,

The men in Napoli's variations stood out from the rest of everything, finally seeing RDB live: They really are in the air in these marvelous black knickers with gold cummerbunds and little pocket epaulets that looked like tassels--yes, they did all these marvelously ornamental things while in the air, and I saw some other good dancing in 'La Sylphide' too, but I don't care that much about kilts, danced in or otherwise--just can't overlook them and have given it up. I infinitely preferred 'Napoli', even though everything Hans said was true, and I was fully aware of Ms. Grinder exquisite Sylphide, but it was the dancing in Napoli. I had liked the women in the DVD from years ago more, although they were very good too. But live, it was the guys and their amazing embellishments en l'air in 'Napoli'.

Hans said:

mostly very nice, but why not stick with the Fellini concept from Act 1? It goes from 1960's funeral (which the music doesn't support) to happy 1840's costumes/dancing in the space of two seconds, then we're in the 1840's through to the end until Gennaro and Teresina, still in breeches and tulle, show up on a motorcycle. Put the 3 acts together, and this must be one of the most bizarre, ill-conceived productions of any ballet, ever.

Don't I know it, and saw only Act III, that motorcycle looks so ridiculous after all the 'happy Dane' business you nearly pass out, was that supposed to be Mats Ek exoxied onto some Meissen or something? But one thing that maybe could be modernized is the dresses of the women, not such stiff petticoat-stiff, porcelain-figurine-looking things. I used to like them more than I did now. I preferred them to the kilts, though. I think 'La Sylphide' may definitely not be my favourite great ballet, even though I enjoyed it once.

Colleen Boresta said:

The gorgeous score by Lovenskjold is played faultlessly by the New York City Ballet orchestra. I hope it does not take another 23 years for this fantastic ballet company to return to New York.

This is good dance-music, much like Louis Horst's music for Graham. Nobody wants to hear any of it as stand-alone in a concert hall. But if it's well-played, then it's very nice. And I do beg to differ about the 'played faultlessly by the New York City Ballet Orchestra'. About the best I can say about them was that they were not as bad as usual, and got better by 'Napoli', which has music that is also pretty banal, but is more peppy, hoo hoo.

Vipa also said:

One of these women (I don't know who) won my heart. She did a little section with a child, but she enriched the act through out. When the corps was doing their predictable stuff, my eye wondered over to her.

I think I saw this too, and some of the children were all right, but there was this one huge bunch of couples, I think the whole corps was in plaid and kilts, like elderly non-dancer couples moving a little at a resort and calling it dancing, and in the middle were some 4 child-couples, or just 8 children. Even with the gorgeous sets (and they truly were), this one was like they didn't have any space to move in, so it was like old folkish things, or what I'd imagine one used to see in Blackpool but in different attire. Too many people out there, and crowded, so that even these children weren't especially endearing.

Faux Pas said:

Teresina and Gennaro show up on a vespa at the end. It can be ignored in the face of the dancing and Bournonville's brilliant virtuosity. A truly joyous vision of dance.

Yes, that's the overall impression I came away with. I didn't pay attention to 'the works themselves' that much for the first time. It's the details for me in Bournonville, I can't say I find these pieces as transfixing as what I've seen of Ashton, Balanchine, Petipa as a whole. But they're worth it for those tendril-like movements that are like rhizomes, the way they keep propagating after you think they've finished their 'phrase', you think you've got a cadence and then it's like this vine keeps on growing--yes, that's beautiful.

Thanks for that mention of 'turns into jumps' and the rest 'when you least expect' them, vipa. That's what made the experience worth it most to me.

Some not yet named are 'I Can Get It for You Wholesale', with Susan Hayward wonderful; 'The Apartment', a beautiful poetic film, never quite surpassed in its peculiar way, esp. the bar with 'Mrs. McDougal' on Xmas Eve; 'Broadway Melody of 1929', which has beautiful vintage photography that has quality 'Great White Way' electricity; 'Gloria', with Gena Rowlands just plain formidable--nobody ever equalled her 'Take a walk..' at Port Authority; 'Miracle on 34th Street', which is flawless; and 'Days of Wine and Roses'. There are scores of marvelous NYC movies, though. 'Sweet Smell of Success', though, is definitely one of the greatest.

Thanks for telling us about those here, Alexandra (not that we have any business not thinking to look, of course). I just read both of them, and now feel more overprepared for Sat. than almost any performance I will ever have gone to (possibly even more than the Ashton 'boosterism' which sold me tickets). Although I do have to re-read the plot messes of 'Napoli' again--great paragraph that, I thought, and just taxing enough to enforce mastering it. Not that I wouldn't rather just go and let it wash over me by nature, so thanks for pressing the point (and the program notes).