papeetepatrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_Center_Honors#1970s Here's the list since the beginning. I've never paid too much attention to these, and was surprised that I liked more of the ones from previous years than I didn't. Definitely think it's worse even than giving one to Oprah, no matter how far-fetched, to give to McCartney and Lloyd Webber, that's all wrong unless you include French, Italian, German, etc. A few old ones seemed just as silly as some of these do. I can't really see why Lauren Bacall got one, although I find her effective enough in old 40s films. I'm surprised Shirley MacLaine hasn't gotten one, not that I think she should especially. I'd like to see Mr. Miranda, the composer and star of 'IN the Heights' get one, there aren't enough Hispanics, and that really is part of American culture--and he's written the only score I've really liked for a B'way show for some 3 decades--but hasn't been around long enough. Maybe also along those lines Eddie Palmieri. The Dixie Chicks ought to get one, although I haven't heard of them for awhile. Best news on the new list to me was Merle Haggard and Jerry Herman. Means they're not forgetting people who aren't still coming up with new products, but once did make major contributions in different domains. I checked in several places and cannot see that Elliott Carter has ever been the recipient. Is that really possible that he hasn't been? If so, that's the most egregious omission I can find. Of actors, Al Pacino certainly seems deserving.

Charming typo that. It's well-known to be a good place to do it, I did a fair amount of it when I lived there. That does sound pretty fabulous. Davis would have thoroughly been able to throw himself into it, and make it a unique experience. Come to think of it, that's one way (although only for the most storied and privileged films) that silents can be enhanced in a way that talkies can't--by bringing a superb live score to it, and when I've heard these at Film Forum with a pianist, it's been capable and enjoyable, but a little too funky for some films. I've seen many of them on the big screen, including 'Queen Christina' and 'The kiss' and 'Anna Karenina'. I've only watched them on television if I hadn't any other opportunity (and revival houses in New York don't operate the way they used to, with many of the classics coming back to theaters like the Thalia and the now-defunct Theatre 80 St. Marks, with some regularity.) I don't know if you have had time to read our whole thread here, but I really do love 'Romance', and that is the one I'd most like to see onscreen of the ones I haven't. Your description of the Florence show reminds me of the auction of her things at Sotheby's or Christie's shortly after her death. A friend went to see it, and said it was lovely, and I had not known about it, or I would have gone too. Around that time, the NYTimes Magazine did a piece on her, which had photos of the interior of her apartment, and details of things from the King of Sweden, but I especially remembered (not quite sure why, since I've seen other impressive versions of this in wealthy apartments) her bookcases of beautifully bound books--there seemed to be a colour scheme, dark-violet or mauve maybe, I'm not sure.

Thank you, yiannis, for that very sweet reply. This gives me a better feeling, since at least a few other artists are remembered (I realize you did mention Sylvie already, but I got quite lost in the account of 'A Woman of Affairs' and was on the verge of wondering if anyone besides Garbo had ever existed, you know). I actually enjoyed very much your fine attention to nuance in 'A Woman of Affairs', and it has convinced me to watch it again; I'll re-read your post on it beforehand.

I live in the Chelsea/West Village area, and walk up by FIT and often to 34th Street on walks, and kept passing by the studio where Stewart's show is shot. I never knew anybody to go to TV shows except my sister-in-law going to NBC news at Rockefeller Center with corny posters, etc., to 'get on TV'. Never knew a single person who went to one of these live tapings, so I looked them up on the net: Yes, it seems you can just request tickets for almost any of them, David Letterman, Katie Couric, Colbert, and they send you an email if you filled out the form properly. Then, you just pick up the free ticket on the day of the shoot--although you do have to get there an hour and a half before shooting starts, and the experience until start time is much more like an airport than going to a B'way play, concert or ballet. So I decided to go up there and see Martha Stewart in action. Having never been in one of these studio audiences, it was all interesting, with the hyped-up warm-up guy revving up the hooting and applause, to the rather splendid set they've got for her there--with a greenhouse, back kitchen full of assistants, front kitchen where she frosted a cake with an audience member today, and huge photographs of New York on the surrounding walls. Plus all that equipment hanging down. I was pretty sure the professionalism of all of it would impressive, perhaps inspiring. Martha is one of those who does look exactly in person as she does photographed (like, of TV personalities, George Stephanopoulous, and unlike Barbara Walters, who looks handsomer in person.) All of it was as seamless and effortless as possible. She does have this interesting habit of taking finger-nips of cake-frosting quite frequently. Then she's over with some guy 'Figgy Newton' doing these craftsy things of some kind of coffee table plates made of hardening Hosta Plant Leaves. This kind of thing always loses me. The 3rd 'tableau' was with Chef Michael White, a pasta expert, this was the best one, and there was Martha eating Cake Frosting and Plates of Pasta at 10:30 a.m., while talking about her yoga teacher and having just spent the weekend in Sweden--demonstrating ways to fold napkins at the Royal Palace, of course (I'm not kidding). In the 'off-moments' she is totally expressionaless unless some makeup artist comes to tidy up a lose strand of hair or collar that's not quite right. Really a pro, and very gracious with her guests and the audience member she worked with. Since the show I happened to get a ticket for was the first for a new season, and that it's now going on the Hallmark Channel, she also did a bunch of promos at the end, reading the teleprompter for ads for the show, times when it would be seen, etc., and redoing these. That's probably less often. They give you pins of 'I Saw Martha' (I'll give this to my sister) and a copy of the mag. on the way out. I thought this would be more like a kind of live theater for me, even though it's television, in seeing it live--and it was. Naturally, one thinks of her legal travails of 6 years ago and more, which she clearly sprang back from almost totally--although I did see in her Wikipedia entry that she was denied a visa for the U.K in 2008, beause of her obstruction of justice, and that she stopped dating her longtime very-wealthy Hungarian boyfriend in 2008 as well. Quite hard to realize that she is already 69 years old--looks marvelous, and everybody is up pretty close. Am interested to hear if other people have ever watched these tapings of TV shows here (or Los Angeles and other places, I guess Oprah's is still Chicago.) I thought it would be mostly tourists, but before they started taping, they tried to find out where people were from, and it was more often from the tri-state area, with a few from Australia and one from London. I was hoping to see this seamless process, as it reminds me of certain nightclub entertainers I've seen in the past (Rosemary Clooney at the Blue Note comes to mind), and I wasn't disappointed in that way. I doubt I'd go back, but I might go to another show if somebody thought it was special to see in person.

This post is an impressive thesis, and I must say I've never encountered a more devoted fan of literally anybody. I've seen 'A Woman of Affairs' once, and don't remember it well--I much preferred 'The Kiss'--but if anyone wants to know every single nuance in the former, he will find it here. Now, as to that last paragraph I've quote above, may I respectfully, in singling at least that out, say that you do go too far--at least for most of us, it sounds nearly delirious, but maybe some can accommodate such things. There is no character or figure ever written or played anywhere, from ancient Greece to Hollywood soaper who 'tells us all we need to know about human nature'. If you 'live in Garbo', as it were, I suppose she "does makes us as aware to human beings as well as all inanimate objects and the universe that surround our existence", but I don't to quite that degree. You may or may not mean this as literally as you say it. This singling out in such fugues as 'which only she as true goddess has the key to it' is really a bit too much for most of us. I do agree with you that she is a great actress and does 'show generosity' in singular and unique ways. However, in many films, she is exquisitely attuned to the upper-class ways of dismissing servants and underlings--this is amusing and she does it uniquely, but I wouldn't call it generous exactly. To quickly sum up my reaction to this somewhat breathless worship, may I just say that 'screen goddess' is still a slight oxymoron. They are called 'god and goddess' because they are extraordinary and exotic, but 'real gods and goddesses' don't have bodies or perish. Frankly, there are even other actresses who can inhabit the screen even in that particularly luminous way, Delphine Seyrig being the best example I can think of--and she can do things Garbo could never do, and vice-versa. In fact, if you want to speak of 'generosity', she's got what I see as generosity in much larger supply, as well as much greater range as an actress, even though her own career is also relatively small output. And that's without even bringing in stage actors who had abilities Garbo didn't have. I can't really see how one would want to respond to this unless one agreed with you totally. But, again, we don't even bring in stage actors and stars. There certainly are 'Garbo Fans' and GARBO FANS, don't doubt you've proved that.

Too bad 'Love' isn't included in the Garbo Silents Collection, NYPL has that, but not 'Love'. i saw 'The Painted Veil' once, thought it was okay, that was when George Brent still looked very handsome, I believe. Yes, I'd agree. And 'high theatrical' is right. That story about Colman/Niven/Gilbert/Garbo was wonderful, miliosr. Thanks.

author-deleted: double-post when I lost connection for few minutes.

Cynthia O'Neal's new Speak Softly: A Memoir. I've long been a huge admirer of this beautiful lady, and only recently discovered that this memoir had been published, just doing a bit of Googling. Although not so much a writer per se, it's nicely written. There have been a number of threads about her regarding O'Neal's Baloon, which was finally closing, and Michael O'Neal, her brother-in-law, was speaking of her 'wonderful eye' and I believe she commissioned the mural of the NYCB dancers that's just been donated to Koch Theater. She was always an enthusiastic balletomane, and close friend of Rudolph Nureyev, who is discussed in the book (although I don't know how much yet, having read about 50 pages last night.) This clears up a lot of things I had wanted to know about her, the widow of actor Patrick O'Neal, and who had fascinated me early on in her luminous role as 'Cindy' in Mike Nichols's 'Carnal Knowledge'. I met her at a party a couple of years after the film was made, and was most thrilled. The text goes back and forth in time, with the High Life chronicled (they lived at the Dakota and were close friends of the Bernsteins), and her gradual immersion into a fulltime work in helping people with life-threateing diseases like AIDS and cancer. This started with some of the same things I used to be more interested in, and those were interesting to compare: I used to value the Course in Miracles (I don't now, a lot of us go through a New Agey sort of phase and then conclude it), she preferred Marianne Williamson's version of it in her lectures (I heard one of these and didn't care for it), and was also fairly involved with EST of Werner Erhard, which never interested me, although many of my friends took it. After meeting some of these 'spiritual leaders' that were working specifically in the support of AIDS sufferers like Louise Hay, and for a while with Williamson's Manhattan Center for Living, she broke off from that and, with Mike Nichols's help, formed Friends in Deed, which is just down the street from me (didn't know about that any more than I did the studio on 8th St. for Hendrix, which I've still to check out). So that, for some 20 years, she has been visiting people in hospitals and worked as the president and one of the 'facilitators' of the groups which are large support groups for the patients and, I think, 'exhausted caregivers' and grief-stricken survivors. Not really my kind of thing, these groups, although if it weren't so tacky (and it would be), I'd be interested to see her at work in one of the sessions--but that would go against what it's meant for. She'd been an immediately successful model in San Francisco the minute she looked for work (which hardly comes as any surprise to anyone who saw 'Carnal Knowledge'), and later in London she was in all the fashion mags while Patrick was making a TV series. Had met him in Hollywood, where she was in live TV way back in the mid-50s in the old Matinee Theater. What may interest others as well as myself is this is not just the 'socialite doing good works', i.e., 'charity balls', but has become her life's work. She's apparently got the strength for being around all this, and it's quite impressive to see someone drawn into this kind of compassionate work after having really had the life of the New York Artistic Elite. I think it was around 1987 that she became involved in wanting to help in the AIDS epidemic. I don't know for sure when Nureyev was first diagnosed, although I'll report that part when I've finished the book. This is a truly inspiring person, and the book should appeal on many levels. For me, she's going to always be the calculating, hard and tough 'Cindy' of 'Carnal Knowledge', and some of that still shows (thank God), but she's not the usual 'spiritual healer' type--by a long shot--although she does take all that very seriously. Highest recommendation. Edited to add, Sep. 5: Finished the book at home, after reading chunks in Madison Park and Jackson Square Park, near me (and probably near Cynthia's previous apartment, which was somewhere on 14th Street)--it's just sublime, one of the most moving things I've ever read, and which 'resupplies' a sense of something which I'd become rightfully cynical about, but a bit too much so. Not all of what I hadn't liked about some of those programs was fake or false, as with anything else. Some of our paths intersected--I still have some real admiration for Louise Hay, although I'm not exactly the 'crystals type'. There's a moving chapter on her last visit to see Nureyev at the Dakota with her husband Patrick, in 1992. I recall the time of his death because it was, I think, the same month as Audrey Hepburn's, which had upset me greatly. It's quite a portrait she makes of him as he is about to conduct, despite the advanced stage of his illness. The book is much more skillfully structured than I realized upon reading the first 50 or so pages, and has a wonderfully intricate movement back and forth through time. While she does talk about the period of her 'new life' with Friends in Deed and her 'previous life' with the Bernsteins, the Greens, Nureyev, parties, the Dakota, the net result is that there is the sense of one: When est was first popular, many of those who took this training, originated by Werner Erhart, did give those of us who hadn't taken it the sense that we 'really just don't know something important'. I resented this intensely, and refused to take it (as I found she had originally when her husband had first discovered it for himself). While I'm glad I didn't, I became quite as arrogant when I was involved with the Course in Miracles, when I believed it literally--I thought those who didn't were 'unenlightened'. These 70s-style programs can be seen more clearly now: They have value: even though I essentially did completely reject the Course in Miracles (if not all of its ideas which might coincide with what I still do cherish), and do not believe even slightly that Helen Shucman penned any of it from 'the Voice' which she claimed--in a most annoyingly understated way--was Jesus Christ; I am sure that this is the original work of Helen Shucman herself, it may even be part of her psychosis that only manifested itself fully in the last 2 years of her life. In any case, the sole interest for me now in A Course in Miracles (popularized by Marianne Williamson on Oprah, and which I read many times during the period I found it credible) is as a creation by Helen Shucman--perhaps even a kind of religious fiction, since she refused to claim authorship--either that, or considered herself a most unusual Jesus Christ. As such it does have a unique literary interest as a strange and bizarre production--somewhat like some of the strange grottoes produced by isolated eccentric artists over decades--although I must say I much prefer Simon Rodia's Watts Towers to ACIM... 'Talk Softly' is no such thing, it is about a fully human life, and one that has been lived most fully--which is to say, admirably and inspiringly selflessly as well as fabulously and lavishly selfishly. I was always right about this gal (lot of fire), and I remember we invented a word together at that party: 'Hospility', which is a contraction of 'hostility' and 'hospitality'. There are many scenes in the Jonathan Larson's 'Rent' that were based on his experiences in Ms. O'Neal's 'Big Groups'.

Margaret Cho gives it a sparkle just seeing her name there. I've never seen the show, but I hope she wins it. Florence Henderson is a bit much, maybe she'll 'win hearts' just like Pam Anderson, but it doesn't sound as promising IMO.

Also saw it when it first aired, is first time I ever saw ballet, or at least a nearly-whole one. I had probably seen things on Ed Sullivan or Bell Telephone. Thought it was enchanting, loved McBride, but had nothing else to compare it with, and haven't seen it since. I would have thought it was a few years earlier, more like 1962, but don't know why it seems a bit older. That's when 'amahl and the night visitors' used to also be shown all the time and 'The Wizard of Oz', the latter may still be, I don't know.

Exactly Surely both? I'd like to know what others think, with specific examples, if possible

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Yes, I saw this and didn't read till now. All fascinating, and obvious that it can make no practical sense to refuse money at some level from anyone at all. It has to do with class identity, of course, and Tea Party people can be thought to be 'no-class' by some of those 'effete elitist types', but they're not illegal. Nightclubs have often been run by Mafia, and some of them presented real talent. Las Vegas is as born of Mafia as Athena was of Zeus. People go pay and spend all their savings on various forms of schlock in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. I recall the late philosopher Jean Baudrillard saying that it is hypocritical in the extreme that the overt Mafias are treated as having anything underneath them that is fundamentally different from what runs the business world and capitalist endeavour in general. While probably true, that's 'not the way things are done' as long as there is High Art, which learns it can do without some of the tobacco money (I got confused in the thread about that, whether maybe some still took it, but no matter), so it's really not whether who anyone's taking money from is 'such a bad thing', but are they up high enough to at least refuse it from some 'outed' odious types? Well, yes, they can refuse to take it from the Mafia and, I guess, some tobacco companies. It's all hypocritical, and even the art doesn't redeem that, because it's of course true that art is in the world quite as everything else is. At least, to some degree. In being in the world, it's also hypocritical. I've never found a single thing that didn't have some internal contradiction in it somewhere--saints no less than sinners. I didn't know that the Mayer article had already been posted, sorry. When I read the Rich, I knew something more about the Kochs (people who worked for them and knew them socially years ago told me about them), although I don't hold any strong opinion, having given up the idea of 'purification' in any material sense years ago. I guess I thought Rich was exactly right to say that, somehow though, the New York elite liberal community, including the New Yorkers who know City Ballet well, would indeed find it 'startling' about the Texas'...etc. Well, of course, people in high places go down too, as we've seen many times. What interested me about the article was simply that people didn't know that much about the Kochs' involvement with the Tea Party and Murdoch, too, I guess. But--of course it affects what goes onstage to some degree, it's not possible to separate the money, whether or not some of its blood money in some cases or just well-removed 'capital theft' and 'business theft', obviously this effects the artists, they don't live in an isolated world. It's just not possible to prove this, and philosophers and theorists do talk about these things all the time, in their ideological analyses of movies and pop work and high art. One just makes the best of whatever deal you can get. I'm sure I'd take money from Koch if I could get it. And 'Sopranos' fans may remember that Dr. Melfi, who did take money from Tony Soprano, sent Carmela, Tony's wife, to another shrink, who would not take 'blood money', as he called it. That shrink told Carmela to leave Tony, and she just couldn't pull it together to do that, so she compromised with getting Tony to make some huge contribution to some good cause, a school or some charitable organization. But his colleague, Dr. Melfi, continued to profit from the Soprano Enterprises.

I couldn't find the original article we discussed when the theater's renaming was first announced (are some of the old and even not-so-old threads discarded more quickly in the upgrade?), so I just put this here. We're not political-discussion-oriented here, so I'll quote this excerpt which is most germane (at least to us) from today Op-Ed by Frank Rich, without linking it. You can then just go and read the rest if you want. Also, if any mod knows where the old original thread is, this might go there. I was very interested to know these specifics about the Kochs, though. Had no idea. Wow. "Last week the Kochs were shoved unwillingly into the spotlight by the most comprehensive journalistic portrait of them yet, written by Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. Her article caused a stir among those in Manhattan’s liberal elite who didn’t know that David Koch, widely celebrated for his cultural philanthropy, is not merely another rich conservative Republican but the founder of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which, as Mayer writes with some understatement, “has worked closely with the Tea Party since the movement’s inception.” To New Yorkers who associate the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center with the New York City Ballet, it’s startling to learn that the Texas branch of that foundation’s political arm, known simply as Americans for Prosperity, gave its Blogger of the Year Award to an activist who had called President Obama “cokehead in chief.” " Rich's paragraph also interested and amused me because it characterizes us New Yorkers as somewhat provincial, in thinking we'd associate the Kochs primarily with NYCB, but I don't know how many would really be different from anyone else. He's not always perfectly accurate anyway (last week, for example, there was a lot of emphasis on how 'no buildings had been completed at Ground Zero', when that's flatly false anyway, but also because the 1 World Trade Center is growing up very fast. But 7 World Trade has been there since 2006, escaping the tribulations of the developers that none of the others did.) Even so, I didn't know the Koch Bros. were the Tea Party originators.

Garbo was good in 'Ninotchka', but I think Ina Claire steals the show in spades. I hadn't realized how good she is here, and she made few films (I just looked them up, and don't know if any are worthwhile, never heard of any except 'Stage Door Canteen', where she appears as 'Herself', but I can't remember that.) This, despite a hairstyle which I find unattractive in the extreme, even though the stylist (just hers, mind you) gets special billing. I thought Garbo's hair was often overly contrived as well, it looks better when it's very smooth. She does sometimes look magnificent in her Soviet attire, although there are a few shots in which she looks distinctly older (though not at all unattractive). I was surprised at how good I thought Melvyn Douglas was this time around, though. A friend told me he'd heard that the famous 'laughing scene' was dubbed, but I don't know about that. I think it comes across very badly by now (has sort of a Marx Brothers feel to it), but must have been thrilling at the time. Primarily, I see Garbo as actually 'working with the other actors' when I watch this--esp. in her scenes alone with Claire, who is pitch-perfect as this totally fatuous Grand Duchess ('Swana' is a genius name-choice)--and doesn't dominate in the way she had in a certain way before. It works because of the actors and the sets and costumes are beautiful (this is very good with the volume turned all the way down, as some of Garbo's lines, in particular, sound ridiculous when spoken), and it's snappily paced. Although none of this makes me like it, except for Ina Claire's moments (and there are many more than I'd remembered.) I do like 'Queen Christina' very much, whether it's objectively good or bad doesn't matter a whit to me, it's one of the 'pure Garbo-movies' as such, even if its greatness doesn't go beyond that. She's much better at than she is at play-acting a socialist, or even enjoying just being more 'social' with her fellow-actors. As you say, miliosr, her feeling for Gilbert is important, and that may account for the sincerity one feels in some of the scenes in 'Queen Christina'. Anyone who has seen 'The Bullfighter and the Lady' will know what you mean, but Garbo was well-beyond not being able to resist this sort of thing. I think her feeling for John Gilbert was far more important than I'd realized, and your pointing out her insistence on him for the part is exactly right: She clearly still loved him, or she wouldn't have gone to such pains to secure the part for him; although she didn't want to go back to 'being lovers', I'm sure this affection for him plays a more vital role in what is best about 'queen christina' than even I had thought. In a sense, she does a sort of 'abdication' for John Gilbert in championing him (rather an extraordinary tribute, isn't it, when the only person in Hollywood that will go all the way to bat for you is also the biggest star?) Now 'loving Gilbert Roland' is another matter, Dietrich would have been the type to have seen why Gilbert Roland would have been just the one she'd abdicate for--at least for the run-of-the-picture. edited to add: That's marvelous and illuminating. I think it explains part of what her genius is. A 'long memory' is a truly aristocratic trait, I think, and doesn't have to do with bloodlines, etc., as hers were none too lofty, as we know.

Maybe, and I'll say just one thing about 'Ninotchka', vis-a-vis that rarefaction: I think that is where they try to make her less so, and that does continue with 'Two-Faced Woman'. I hadn't thought about this till recently, but she really doesn't work unless she can continue the bigger-than-life persona. I don't really see it till 'Ninotchka', and it occurred to me that she knew this too, and why she really didn't want to do any more movies. There are actors who can go in and out of rarefaction, but I don't think she could, and so she stayed in it, just not in films. Quite an interesting destiny in the 20th century, it seems to me--esp. since she lived a long life in what was surely a sense of isolation, even with friends.

Giving up thrones for people is always a bit difficult to understand, even 'for the woman I love' on radio--and that may be just the nadir. I have little more to say about 'Queen Christina' that I haven't said elsewhere, but I enjoyed write-up, esp. the information about the writing melange, and also what you've put about the production costs. I've watched 'Ninotchka' again recently, some 3 or 4 times half paying attention some of the time, then more closely, but I'll wait till you get to it before saying anything.

How delightful you're on holiday again. I just watched those clips and I must say I do like them, and would like a full identification of all the dancers, of whose names I am not entirely sure. While I did see 'La Danse', I don't know who those are either, but I have an especial interest in one of the dancers in the clip carbro posted. I can't think why, as her face rather does look like a real-life Clara, but... This use of that music is quite clever, some of it. Much prefer it to the Grand Pas de Deux, with its endless descending scales (so dramatic, yet so small.)

Certainly not, but such confession comes as little surprise. Your fussy tastes can be quite trying, you know.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/arts/music/26hendrix.html?ref=music This is just a few blocks down from me, I've probably passed it a million times, never knew about it. Will check it out.

This interests me, because 'Francaix' is the name of the composer, for those who were unsure (and haven't looked at the linked article). I had no idea Balanchine had written anything to music of Jean Francaix, who was one of the very few French composers of some importance who worked with Nadia Boulanger. Her primary fame came from the great Americans who worked with her--Copland, Harris, Thomson, numerous others, but she did not teach at the Conservatoire, or not ever primarily, although there were some classes through the Ecole Normale de Musique, I believe, and she herself had studied at the Conservatoire, along with Ravel and under Faure and Dubois. In fact, Francaix is not that well-known. He's not one of the major French composers of his time, which is not to say he shouldn't be, but rather I never heard of him except when I was in her class. I'd like to see (and hear) this work, which comes as a pleasant surprise to learn of. So it was a play on 'a la francaise', of course, but I did somehow remember that he had an 'x' in his name (I don't know the French name otherwise, although it may be common), and found out from the Macaulay article that is indeed the same.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/aug/03/monstres-sacres-love/ Here's Robert Gottlieb's take. I haven't read it yet, if ever, but I think I recall he's the dance critic, so some may find various reasons to be interested in this article. Yes, I see that's correct about Gottlieb/Balanchine. He's also got a podcast on the NYRB site on Dickens which may interest.

It might, but such an inference might well be irrelevant in certain circumstances except to certain very, very aged fossilized purists, since everybody knows what 'camp' is by now, and Princess Michael of Kent is an example of one who is seemingly certainly not averse to it, both talking about it and possibly even indulging in it purposely--she seems to enjoy it immensely. But I'll get to that in a moment, because she's interesting in this regard. otoh, I didn't hear anything 'camp' or 'affected' in Ms. Woolf's speech. I should listen again, and see if I can find any. My very first impression of that clip made me think of Vanessa Redgrave, but then that fell off. As for the queen of England, I've heard her, as most have, through the years on PBS documentaries. It's always an interesting speech, I find. Some of the archaisms do remain, as the famous speech after the Windsor Castle fire, when she was clearly slightly less unflappable then we've always seen her before, and said 'it has been an annus horribilis'. Well, you know, many of us learned that term from that speech. She's very funny, and on one of the shows she was sitting for a portrait in the traditional Order of the Garter regalia, and talking about not only how uncomfortable the clothes were, but how the painter's father loved her gun collection, and how sometimes some of the collection would be missing. Although I don't know how pointed that was; in any case, there are the famous stories of Queen Mary deciding she liked someone's furniture. Rex Harrison had a lot of what you hear in Ms. Bowen, I was thinking. Beautiful speech indeed, and I've always loved his. But I want to ask leonid about Princess Michael, minor royal and art historian who either did move to France because fox-hunting became illegal, or planned to, or said she was, something... Have you ever attended one of her lectures and/or heard her speak at length? Because this is very interesting, even when she chooses an art history subject so precious, it's hard to see why one would spend really any time at all on it. Charles II and Nell Gwynn were one thing, but 'the Winter Queen of Bohemia' was a bit much, but that's by the by. She's from Bohemia herself, explained why she's called 'Princess Michael' (aside from her husband's name), and I believe the name is Anne-Christine Von Reibnitz, Austro-Hungarian. So she then is an 'English princess', as she says. And you have this very extreme speech which is very novel and enjoyable to hear, because this is the 'big plummy accent' you get. Since she is not English, it's interesting that to our ears, though, it would sound so upper-class English. Of course, she is upper class British, but she's not born English. It's a very 'woman-of-the-world' speech she has, you would say it had some affectations in it (in a way you wouldn't say it of Queen Elizabeth), but it still comes across as convincing and pleasurable to hear in its extravagant way. She likes to get racy in these talks and talke about the 'who-ahz' a lot. I can see that some wouldn't like it, she's definitely got a streak of decadence to her. But she's also got first-class brain and wonderful command of all the history, but isn't always the kindest when speaking of others, as in her lecture about Elizabeth, the name also of the month-long queen of Bohemia, she said 'well, Elizabeth wasn't teddibly bright'. I thoroughly enjoyed both lectures, despite the silliness of some of the content (renting a barge to go up the river so she could experience her first sighting of Bohemia just as the Winter Queen had was a bit 'conspicuous consumption'). It's a low, rich voice that doesn't sound too strange given her big-boned, handsome figure. I'd say she was campy sometimes, much more than Ms. Woolf, but I think Princess Michael knows she is campy, even though she talks about going to parties at Windsor and being a descendant of Diane de Poitiers fairly often (in fact, this kind of talk could be considered 'campy', I'd say, especially when she said to us 'When Her Majesty the Queen is kind enough to invite us to Windsor...' etc. and talks about her daughter's 'squah-toed shoes').

Wonderful article, catches us up and intrigues me out of many forms of boredom from which I've been suffering. The main relief is to finally see an article posted on BT that I don't end up being hateful about in some way. If anything, Jowitt gets better as the years go by, and I haven't read anything new of hers for some time. She was always good, though, always. She's not too judgmental, and I like her balance, whether she's talking about the two films of different periods of 'Appalachian Spring' and telling you that Martha stroking the wood of the porch raling of the steps is 'Phallic' (yes, I had to be told), or talking about Bill T. Jones's 'Still (Here)' back in the day of the controversy in what I thought was the single most balanced voice...well, she's still doing that. She can allow the extreme virtuosity in without having to turn it into a thing with obvious black-and-white 'sides' to it, there's no either-or-ness in her approach. Really good, exemplary writer, I think. And this: "For instance, Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, whose works appear in many companies' repertories, creates full-throttle demonstrations of kinky, twitchy, dodgy behavior, in which the dancers ripple their spines and slash the air with their limbs until they resemble sleek machines running amok. A physical version of multitasking that approaches dementia." is so good that, even though she's not exactly recommending it, she has described it in such a way that I really want to see it. Same with the Forsythe and the idea of the dancers 'de-creating' their bodies. She is proof in her own writing that dance is definitely thriving, and I haven't even gotten to the linked clips yet.

Thanks for mentioning 'Nature Boy', ViolinConcerto, that's glorious too. Not her song, but she makes it hers. I looked it up, dozens of artists have recorded it, I think Cole's is the most famous. kfw, will look at NPR tribute later today--thanks. The ones I posted are her own songs, and those are actually the only ones I knew; I didn't become aware of her until the 90s, although the career goes way back. The songs became very introspective and they can't quite contain themselves (although she does control that somehow.) Her model was Billie Holliday, but Lincoln's deep rich sound moves me even more.