papeetepatrick

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/arts/music/15lincoln.html?_r=1&hp This was one of the greatest jazz singers in the last couple of decades, you could even say history. Not like anybody else. She sang at all the clubs here for years, I finally heard her at a 6-hour concert at the Columbia Quadrangle in 2001, almost exactly 9 years ago, this part of August, just before 9/11. This Verizon concert was all good, but she was the standout, and the most mesmerizing song was 'The Music Is the Magic of the Secret World'. I never forgot the slightly harsh husky sound she brought to it, nor had I ever heard the song, nor have I ever forgotten the whole song in my mind, which I memorized just from hearing her sing it once (I've never heard it again, and it's not on youTube, but I'm going to fetch something that is.) What luck! It is now, and only my second time to hear it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF_xqWACdPo Oh, I see 'embedding is disabled', so you have to put it in your browzer, just look up 'abbey lincoln music is the magic youTube' and watch it on YouTube, has some clips of her when young and dazzling as well. This one is 'allowed' here. Oh man, this is gorgeous stuff. Also check out on the sidebar 'Shouldv'e Been'. I really hate to see this lady go.

The self-indulgence is part of the creative process sometimes--it can be unconsciously working during the indulgence, you don't have to know exactly how. But you can give some of it back if you don't think you should have been allowed that. Not that I think you should feel guilty about it, but it reminded me of the Op-Ed Columnist John Tierney, who didn't last too long there either (maybe a full year) talking about how rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments were 'theft from the landlords', and that he had realized this after he had had a rent-controlled apartment himself for many years. He said nothing about remedying his own 'theft', although he could have probably found some landlords who were suffering from controlled rents that would have been more than happy to be given some relief, even if they weren't the same one he'd rented ('stolen') from (whose family might have been willing to take it too, if he felt so strongly). But sure, I've seen lots of things that I don't think deserve any kind of funding, but it doesn't bother me any more than seeing paintings (including by a friend of mine) that sell for $30,000 and more, and don't seem to me worth $300. I didn't know Molissa Fenley had her own company. I think dirac's point is exactly right: You can't expect consistent returns on anything you invest in in the Arts, or you can stifle the artistic process. Not that it can't go too far the other direction, but there's even sacrifice made there, as when something takes too long to get to the printing stage, for example. I know about that, as I'm lucky, because the current process I'm involved with has been pretty extravagant, and will definitely take a while to pay off--and that definitely includes me doing some paying. Lots would say I didn't deserve it to end up happening at all (and there's still a short final stretch), but I just am not that prone to worrying about the old difficulties, if it finally begins to work out, if only because the alternative--just trashing something that took too much time and effort by most assessments--is worse, at least at some point (like when you're finally close to the end). Some of the tendency to austerity and worrying about budget deficits in general (considered to go too far by many of the best economists) surely plays into all govt. spending on the Arts, if they're also cutting back on much more basic matters in the public transportation and education areas.

kfw--you probably knew that Barbra was at the Vanguard last Sep., doing songs from the album 'Love is the Answer' (haven't heard it, that title is none too scintillatingly original). The Clintons and celebs, and some contest winners there. Had just been talking to somebody about Judy Holliday getting her start there with Comden and Green in 'The Revuers' way back when. I haven't been in a long time, although it's just a few blocks over from me. The only song I always associate automatically with Strayhorn is 'Lush Life', which Ellington could never have been depressed enough to write. It's a great and unique song, and jazz and cabaret musicians never let it go out of style.

Yes, Helene, but those are those fragments of something pristine and unexpected, they aren't a part of the whole work or conception of the work. Of course, a dancer in anything, no matter what, even P. Martins's R + J, can sometimes do something that will go beyond the work itself, but that doesn't quite transform the whole work, does it? Edited to add: But I see your point. Given the basic structure of what the Trocs is, those fragments would likely be the ONLY way you could see what the potential might be. And there's no reason to deny that those perfect 'outside of Trocdom' moments might not then lead into a whole work (but not a sendup of a classic) could be made. All you really have to think about is that pas de deux by Petit, and doing a good one, instead of that embarassing one. Just because that one is so smarmy and ridiculous doesn't mean it wasn't a worthwhile try.

Send-ups are not 'serious' in the sense I meant. Sure, they're very professional, but the Trocs's 'Swan Lake' is NOT 'Swan Lake'. Etc. What they are dancing is THE TROCS. Always. I just meant send-ups and parody and take-offs are not the real thing, in a certain sense of a real Petipa ballet. Sure, they can dance it technically, maybe even perfectly, but that is not a step beyond an old 'Swan Lake', it's still dependent on the old one, and it can be 'loving', but that's not what I was talking about. Send-ups of Martha Graham or 'Swan Lake' are always inferior in an important sense to the original. If they weren't, they would supersede them. And men seriously dancing on point would be just doing it in a ballet all of a sudden without calling too much attention to it, wouldn't it? It would just be a further extension of technique, a new element to add, and it might be very good. But I think the place to do this would be first in heterosexual romantic ballets, not in female impersonations, because female impersonation is always inferior to the original to begin with, even if it's just some dizzy something or other doing Diana Ross well in a bar or something. So if choreographers can do something well with men on point, not just in the fringe sense, I'm sure we'd be glad to see if it passes muster.

Believe me, I don't try to answer 'gender distinction' questions, kfw. It just doesn't pay off I don't find it beautiful personally, but campy is probably sufficient at some level. I like lots of campy things that I certainly don't consider (or expect) to be beautiful in a nobler sense. I admit I've seen little of the Trocs anyway, though, just the Swan Lake stuff, I think, and I don't care for that. I guess I might like them in some overtly campy new thing, if it was clever. I don't think it's their purpose to be deeply serious, is it, I mean in the traditional sense? IN any case, they won't answer the problems of AM's accusations of sexism by their impending achievements.

"How well equipped is this genre to speak to, or of, the world we know?" That sounds very serious, but may not be. It could be that people want ballet to be the single form which does base itself on more traditional male/female roles, without really placing as much emphasis on the seriousness of the passion as in the past (because people don't anyway, at least not nearly everybody does.) The seeming rigidity of the masculine and feminine roles may not be like in other forms, even opera. Opera could IMO more easily be about gay/Lesbian subjects and themes than ballet, although that might just be my own perception. There was talk a year or two ago about something for NYCO based on Brokeback Mountain. I wasn't that interested in what I remember reported about plans for it as an opera, but would have been less interested in a 'Brokeback Mountain' ballet. Sure, the Trocs have proved that men can perform on point. They might as well keep at it, if they want to. I haven't ever enjoyed the Trocs myself, but there's plenty of room. It seemed to me he was using the word 'sexist' where 'heterosexist' was what he meant. You could read 'sexist' into it, but you'd probably have to dismantle all of ballet to get what some might call 'sexist' out of it. It's based on traditional ideas of femininity, Balanchine's included. There are some branches of feminism that would see this 'exalted feminine creature' as a masculine fantasy and created purely by and for men. I don't know nor care as much as some, but i don't see the masculine/feminine dichotomy that is very pronounced in ballet going any time soon. I know something of what he may mean about the 'rom-com' thing, but it might not be exactly accurate. I recall when seeing the film 'Monster's Ball' that that was interesting and also romantic and moving, but it was inextricably bound up with the fact that the lovers were black and white. That made it fresh, and although it was romantic and sexy, it was dependent on that dynamic. He didn't mention 'Wuthering Heights' at POB. That's a story ballet, isn't it? I remember asking azulynn and some of the French BTers about this, and apparently it even emcompasses both 'Cathies', both stories. IN any case, ballet was never going to be very influential in what it said 'to this world' compared to literally almost everything else, so if it needs to change, which it will inevitable anyway, it won't be so that it 'speaks to this world' very powerfully. or 'of it' either, unless we get the hip-hop and sci-fi or whatever. So maybe we will. And it may be that ballet, even though new work is not usually considered to be in a Golden Age at the moment, is doing exactly that with whatever it's turning out. Maybe it's the period of history that's the problem, and we oughtn't expect that much more of ballet than anything else. It's certainly never influenced whole societies even where it was most popular, and it's never going to. Bart, I saw this after I posted, yeah, I agree, it's ruminations and just really throwing out possibilities. That's useful in itself.

I didn't realize 'Tabu' was the last film of Murnau and that he had died shortly thereafter. I heard of the film long before I finally saw it, perhaps about 1988 or so. An old book my father brought back from the Pacific War notes that 'Tabu' was filmed on one of Bora Bora's 'adjacent islets'. These are called 'motus' and many of them have billionaire resorts on them. Although it's far from ruined, I can just imagine what it would have been like in 1931. I don't think I've seen any of this other films, and have never researched them. 'Tabu' was poetic, to be sure. Oh no, I have seen 'Nosferatu', of course, don't know how I could have forgotten. Just noticed that Robert Flaherty did 'Tabu' with Murnau, had forgotten that too. I love Flaherty's things--'Nanook of the North' and esp. 'Louisiana Story', which is a little easier to go back to liking now that the BP kills seem to be holding.

Well, that's perfect too. What's just downright strange is what she WAS, whatever that is. I think a lot of actors could be said to have 'dropped off the radar', there might be some debate on that, I don't have surveys and statistics to pull up about it, so I'm interested in which old stars are right now having a magnetism for contemporary young people (they do still seem to know who Mariyn Monroe is, but not necessarily Ava Gardner, although Sinatra is known by everyone still, I think, but that's a great singer.) But in video-rental/sales stores here, there have for some reason always been some kind of old faded poster of Crawford, much more, say than Davie or Stanwyck or Dietrich or Garbo. Some of it could be West Village Provincial, with Charles Busch's shows, he's always been nuts about her. I guess your remark here is much like what I was saying about the 'sex symbol' thing. She gives one sometimes the impression that she is 'supposed to be a sex symbol', and also that she's 'supposed to be an actress'. And she doesn't quite deliver the way the others of either primary orientation do, but nevertheless IS this huge star. Now that uniqueness of persona does interest me, but it is still only the things I've been enjoying rediscovering in the 20s and 30s that make me have a real affection for something about her. I imagine she thought that early stuff was mere tinsel and stepping-stone to something more serious. I like the Sadie Thompson too, but only saw it once and some years ago. I was interested that her singing wasn't bad either, she could have probably done some 30s musicals had she been light-hearted enough to want that, or so it would seem. Oh well, I'm glad she had a beautiful youth, because that phrase for older people, 'youthful', is never what you think of with her as she gets older. Joan Crawford 'still youthful as ever?' I'm sure it was never said.

miliosr, you've really helped me figure out my weirdly troubling perception of Crawford--primarily because I didn't fully even appreciate the fresh youth until I understood her somewhat artlessly charming dancing as the Charleston Expanded. These are all delicious now. But part of the confusion was because that's really not the period that is the most famous for some decades now. Her output went through her life, and it's the later things that defined her in the popular imagination. Even people who know about 'Mildred Pierce' don't know it probably as well as 'Baby Jane' at this point, and definitely it requires movie-buff delving to get to 'Our Dancing Daughters'. The change she made in herself is also interesting because it really was so popularly accepted and some of it even widely celebrated. Obviously, many didn't miss the fresh ingenue so much. I wonder if I've seen that issue, I may have. There's another ADigest that has the dressing rooms of stars, including Marion Davies, as I remember. But I was looking at the magazine a lot right then, and even temp-jobbed at Paige Rense's Madison Ave. office for a week or so, yes, I remember that's where I read the issue about the dressing rooms, and abused the 'no personal calls' privilege, because nobody else was there--I was talking to a showbiz friend, and he said 'well, you know, Garbo was always old'. I recall that Davies said 'Garbo just stayed away and ate salad' or something like that. But it might be another issue, because one of them has all the silvery deco that Adrian and Gaynor lived in, I believe. And there may have been photos in that issue you're talking about of Deborah Kerr's house, she probably lived in Hollywood for a lengthy time, I think there was Claudette Colbert in Beverly Hills, and maybe Audrey Hepburn, although she always rented in Hollywood, I'm pretty sure. I don't recall offhand the one of Garland and Crawford, and I imagine they always get back to featuring Hollywood star houses any time they can find an excuse, so it might not be the same one, but I was definitely looking at all the issues in the early 90s, so maybe just don't remember it.

It certainly was worth pointing out, he had to come up with something even if he didn't want to. Love it. I think it's funny that 'Ten Best Dancers' could be considered as delimited and specific as 'Ten Best...Marooned in Lit.' I hope that next week we get 'Ten Best Energy Bars in 100 Years of Health Food History', so that that will include nut cutlets from the WWI years. Take your word for everything in the comments section. Thank you for the yeomanry

Is that what the Gay Men's Chorus(es?) are? I'm not sure I've ever heard them, except that I haven't live. I was supposed to see the Blind Boys of Alabama, but missed it due to unforeseen circumstances, but that might be 'male blended-voice singing', although I don't know it it's 'glee club'. I'm not familiar with the term 'glee club' except from high school days, and my h.s. glee club was mostly girls, as I remember, it may have been all girls. That was probably not representative, though, but I had nearly forgotten the term. Were there ever professional glee clubs?

I don't think it's useful at all, but I think you need 'Ten Best Novels Ever Written' to be analogous. 'Best Novels of the Year' is vapid enough, but is at least based on a reasonable delimitation, just like '10 Best Films' by Village Voice critic or NYTimes critic, etc., is just not making any bones that it's other than just mostly subjective, but at least about something they can really put their hands on, and admit it's just opinions. And even, say, just take the VVoice, they'll usually put 6 or 7 critics deciding what the 'best films of the year' are and even an 'honourable mention' category. I don't think '10 Best Ballet Dancers' is much better, even for Ballet Talk. 'Favourite Dancers' is enough, isn't it? And we've got all sorts of versions of that. '10 Favourite Ballet Dancers' may not be an elevated exercise either, but it's playful and honest and 'people like it', etc., Yes, that would be the right way to do it, as I see it, and what Jennings's should have been. But would that make a good Feature for the Guardian in the way '10 Best Dancers' does? That's for a general public more than knowledgeable balletgoers, I'd suppose, so maybe it's a 'bringing ballet to the people' thing done somewhat indirectly. Even within the shabby format, it's sort of surprising he didn't call it '10 Greatest Dancers' though. And if he had, and did it with a subtitle going along with what you say about 'Historically Important Dancers', that would have been a good little piece. As it is, he's chosen dancers he's never seen in person in some cases, or some he saw do one (or a few) performances that moved him personally very much and decided that that meant 'best dancer'. It's like Helene's signature on her posts (have to go look that up), and while I have very treasured actors, for example, that doesn't always mesh with who would objectively be called the best. The Garbo thread is therefore nice, because that's one case where I like one who is always considered one of the best. But I like all sorts of obscure ones that I would never call 'best' just because they mean something to me that I consider especially meaningful. Yes, here's Helene's sig., which seems to me to apply here: "Critical awareness involves the ability to distinguish between personal taste and artistic merit." -- James Calvert That's why I think the Japanese I never heard of are just as legit as what jennings wrote. Some of it is based on historical weight of legitimacy, some of them are just 'what he has liked'. He was 'moved by Gelsey's Juliet' and this Pavlova youngster i'd never heard of (made me wonder if he wanted to put a Pavlova on there who wasn't the one we all know about).

Great response, made my day. Never heard of any of your faves, though.

Now it comes back. Corny? Yes. But it was a boring show too, after awhile. I always thought it was fun for awhile, and then got annoyed that I didn't like anything but Diana and Leslie. And then there was truly cornball ending, the 'Be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody's brother...' that was truly none too wonderful. I think it also does go back maybe even 3 years earlier than I was thinking, when I was watching it that is. Although I never knew about any of the Clooney, Stafford, etc., connections. Frankly, I can't even remember the way it sounded.

Yes,I like it much better than I remembered. Accepting 'period charm' in another way, I guess. I like this one too, on the 'sidebar' thing. Were you and I putting the Dance Fools Dance one up at the same time? Good lord. Okay, so I erased that one, and will put up the one I didn't like so much before, but just watched it again, and think I can enter into the period style more now. She's very voluptuous and sexy in this (the Dance Fools Dance we both posted). I'm sure my problem with her is the way the persona develops--I saw 'Our Dancing Daughters' and 'Dance Fools Dance' in the late 90s and early 00's, and had forgotten that those are the times when I really see Crawford as this lovely young girl. And as the 'armour-plated period' begins (whenever it does), I get turned off. She takes something, I don't know exactly what, a step further than Davis and Stanwyck, whom I'm crazy about even unto their dotages, and even in garbage vehicles. But really liking Joan Crawford? I see that it's only in the 20s and early 30s things, and that I respect 'Mildred Pierce' and 'Flamingo Road', even if I don't believe in her sincerity somehow. She does seem to project either earnestness or self-righteousness or both, and there are films I really have never been able to get through, such as 'Daisy Kenyon'. So I guess I perceive a peculiar evolution, in which it literally seems like two different people--I don't think I can think of another example quite like that; the others just get older and do different things that older people do, although there are actors whose LOOKS become nearly unrecognizable to me unless I read their names--such as Albert Finney and Jon Voigt and Elizabeth Ashley. Various reasons for this, of course. No, more than that, I don't find Crawford to have much sense of humour as she gets into her 'mature persona', and I was once told by someone wise that that's my Achilles Heel, so I can't easily overlook that except when she's young and fresh. This is the one I now like, but didn't before: Maybe it's all Charleston, and that really does make it all make sense. I had thought of 'Charleston' as mainly just a movement here and there, two or three stock steps, but it was obviously a whole style, or at least had room to develop itself or just be nicely expansive. She's very good at it. These are great clips.

Oh, but I can definitely hear her singing these particular ones: 'Come on-a mY House, and I'm gonna give you peach and pear, and I love-a yer hair', because I never heard the song all the way through till I heard her at Blue Note in 1987. That was a GREAT evening. She was still in good voice then, and was just unforgettable, there's another part that goes 'come on ovah to my house, and I'm gonna give you Easter Egg.' It was hilarious, and she was the most professional thing I ever saw. I didn't know about Miller having anything to do with Rosie either, I've also got an LP from the 50s' called 'Blue Rose' which is all Ellington. Actually, hadn't known he would feature name entertainers, maybe he was still doing it in the 60s, but I only remember regs. Trask and Uggams.

So was I. I loved the show as a child, and especially Diana Trask (lovely, and I never heard about her again) and young Leslie Uggams (who we heard from a lot, as in 'Hallelujah, Baby!'.)

Yes, and that helps understand what happened when she went out of what I usually think of as the 'Charleston range', if you see all of the steps as somehow Charlestonish. Which doesn't mean I think some of it looks good, but maybe it was a popular style. Yes, and the relentless quest for perfection often brings up that difference between 'perfection' and 'perfectionism'. They are not at all the same things, but the perfectionist thinks they are (the fastidiousness of detail.) This is something that can be shown not to achieve perfection in many cases, and Crawford was one of these. This would go along with her 'all business' attitude which comes across a lot, and is no different from what Fairbanks was saying. This commanding persona appeals to some even when for others it takes away the sexual allure. I can't really think of another major female star of the Golden Age that it happens with so obviously, although Davis and Stanwyck are not overt 'sex bombs' either--it just always seems like Crawford is 'supposed to be', but isn't quite, whereas Davis and Stanwyck just don't emphasize it on purpose. But Garbo, Colbert and Dietrich are all both commanding, tough and sexy to me, and later Turner and Gardner are both oozing sexiness with no effort at all, and it just never occurs to me with Crawford. I guess she's unique, though, and there are people who just don't show it except at keen moments--I've no doubt she did, but I never am quite moved by her, except intellectually: I do like that her persona existed, because it's different from anyone else's, but I never quite enjoy it the way her real fans do. She seems artificial to me, and more and more so as the career progresses. She always seems to want to be 'bigger-than-life', but that may not be something you can work at--just like an attitude of 'perfectionism' won't necessarily bring real perfection. Both Garbo and Crawford seem somehow 'strange', but there are versions of 'strange' that make sense to some and versions of it that make sense to others. For me, Joan Crawford is a historical phenomenon more than anything else. There must be a 'magic' there, but I just can't see it.

To me, it's a great film, but after that, a Garbo film. It's her performance I am most interested in in it, and the 'I vant to be alone' bits are clever, especially when she gets rid of servants (something she does rather superciliously and effortlessly in 'Romance' as well) with a combination of finesse and brutishness. Bart's oft-reiterated differentiation between the Garbo Thespian and/or picture and the Garbo icon may be more my perception than I realized. I was never a Garbo-watcher, for example, and the one friend of mine who was (until he decided he'd scared her) is much more critical of her performances than I am. And especially this one, he also thinks it's Joan Crawford's picture. I think she's good, but I don't usually think of much except that last telephone scene, which, as I write this now, makes me think of that Luise Rainer thing. I like Garbo's 'trapped doe' quality when she is first told by Barrymore that he's slipped into her room, and it's funny when she asks 'Why?' and a moment later, with this odd swoop, goes toward the phone to call for security--sort of matter-of-fact and other-worldly creature at the same time. Could you say Crawford's middle and final career periods were both 'armour-plated'? If so, I think she's charming enough in the early 30s pictures (although not her dancing, or what I've seen of it, which can be dreadful), and certainly pretty. But I probably like a couple of the 'middle-armour-plated' ones best--'Flamingo Road' and 'Mildred Pierce'. From the final period, only her Blanche in 'Baby Jane' with Bette Davis, I guess. There are some in the 50s I can't bear, like 'Eva' and a few others whose names I'll look up later. That remark of Fairbanks, Jr. was interesting, about how his wife's life began and ended at MGM's gates seems very apt. Maybe that's why I never find her sexy in a way I normally would with good looks like she has (or had: the armour-plated look part I liked much less.) I got the impression she was concerned with the concept of her Big Movie Stardom in a very explicit way that was beyond anyone else's. I am not sure I have ever liked Lionel Barrymore's hamminess in anything, and even in this, I don't much. But do like Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone and John Barrymore too. Agree that the movie doesn't seem 'creaky', and is always a pleasure to glide through, as it were. I've seen it a good many times. But it's one of my two or three favourite Garbo performances. My friend, the Extreme Garbo Fan, finds her 'over the top' in this part, but I think it's right for a Russian ballerina. Looked back at your premiere list. Interesting that Dietrich was there, also enjoyed seeing names like Bebe Daniels, and I imagine there were many more. I have a movie magazine from 1928 I got from a store in 1986 for about 2 dollars, that has stories about Tom Mix, Bessie Love, and Bebe Daniels and Mary Astor, among others. It's marvelous to look at, because they're written to you as though they're current. But that's the case when you read stories of Liz/Debbie/Eddie or anyone from the 50s as well, of course.

mmmm...love that. Esp. some of the more obscure guests like Anita Page. Saw your things on the Novarro report about Gilbert Roland, looked him up and saw that he'd been married to Constance Bennett for about 5 years--I guess not around quite yet. That opening night sounds like one of the ultimate ones, like a sort of Nathanial West/Day of the Locust one. No, I just looked, Roland was already Armand to Norma Talmadge's Camille in 1927, but married Bennett 1941-1946, so he could have been there. I'd like to see that, but doubt it's still extant. Also, this, apropos John Gilbert discussion this thread: "Gilbert Roland chose his screen name in homage to his two favorite movie stars, John Gilbert and Ruth Roland."

I don't see that it's a matter of 'male comedians/female comedians' issue. And I do not consider her a 'victim' of her own self-chosen cosmetic alteration. I am not judging her based on equally (or more, and I concede that this is surely plausible, if not probable) vicious male comedians just because you are, and I am not going to. Nor do I judge Susan Sontag's arrogance based on Norman Mailer's arrogance (if his was worse, as it may have been, that does not excuse hers, which I have witnessed in public--in all its unbelievably boastful 'glory'). I am only bringing this up at all because you are talking about 'male comedians going further' and if they have, you may be right, but I am going to judge Rivers' vicious behaviour as I choose. She has nothing to do with anything 'women's movement' because no feminists spend time talking about how ugly and fat other women are, even if men do it when they shouldn't. But tolerance for the endless jokes about Elizabeth Taylor is okay if you don't consider it a feminist issue, as is Heidi Abramovitz being a 'bow-wow' or what-have-you. As for 'my particular animus towards' Rivers, I don't have one, I just don't like her, I find her gratuitously nasty, and I do not find her a 'victim'. If she wants to get endless cosmetic surgery and then say 'who wants to smell like a middle-aged Jewish woman', let her say it, but I do not have to find it funny and I do not find that it gets her off the hook for her nastiness to other people, in this case especially other women whom I do have some respect for. Her cosmetic surgery has been precisely like Michael Jackson's and it's been well-documented. She has always been described as doing it frequently, being 'addicted to it', and 'getting a high' from it. I don't 'blame her for it', I just said that when I saw that poster, I don't even believe that it was a look that she wanted, because one of the lips had begun to look off-balance. I am just reporting what I saw. So maybe I'm wrong, maybe she loved the look. If so, FINE. Edited to add: At this point, men seem to get all sorts of physical enhancements and surgeries that don't 'turn out well'. And they are doing more and more of it. That's another issue, but I don't see that they are 'victims' of 'this particular society' either, it's their choice if they don't think they're 'hot enough' and go get some dumb surgery that doesn't work perfectly. It's perhaps more sympathetic when people try to 'beautify themselves' if they haven't talked about how ugly other people are, maybe that's my 'particular animus', if you think there must be one. Could be that it's poetic justice for one's looks to be critiqued if you've managed to make a mint critiquing other people's (or making public mockery of them). It could be that Liz Taylor's overeating was a form of 'victimhood' of her looks (the social pressure of 'being Taylor', etc.) just as Rivers's cosmetic surgery didn't work, but if that's spurious, frankly I don't care about this subject that much, and have said all I have to on it. I wish I hadn't posted this topic to begin with.

I rhink she looks fabulous, and I like the movie. Many of these 30s movies are full of period charm, and I don't expect more of them. I like 'Mata Hari', and because of Garbo, less for Novarro. Maybe it's for Garbo fans, and I do tend to enjoy all of them except 'Ninotchka' and 'Two-Faced Woman', which are interesting to see, but not to re-see IMO.

The desperation I was thinking of was more specific, having to do with the cosmetic surgery. I think she didn't really want to look like a clown, which she is, but rather a glamorous woman, which others can decide she is or isn't. This is because the poster at that club where she was doing a gig a year or two ago showed lips that were not just worked on, but clearly misshapen by then. The surgery has made her more of a clown, which is all right. But I don't believe that's what she wanted the look to do. So--you do too much of cosmetic surgery and it always ends up looking as if trying to achieve a look that isn't yours, at very least. It doesn't matter to me that much, but I would say that the film probably has some importance, but that I know enough about her already, since she's always as 'out there' as possible, and you see the interviews on ET and other tabloid shows, and she's always pushing for something or other. I do see that I didn't find her as offensive as some back in the days when she was really big, and that my more negative assessment came later. Her pushiness made some of her viciousness funny, just by the fact that she always laughed at her own jokes really hard. Being as hard on yourself as you are on others does not necessarily get you off the hook about how hard you were on others, it may make it look like you were just trying to get off the hook yourself or just being a masochist, which Rivers clearly is, to some degree. That's cool, but it was always her responsibility to take those chances. To me, her contribution is very minor, and doesn't hold up with the years. I was more fascinated that they would do a documentary on someone who has already spent her whole life documenting herself, not really in the piece itself. To see it for me would just be a superfluity, since she's always been on view.

It was interesting, because Julie is maybe 28 or 29, I was even surprised she went to that, but she's smart as a whip, already a successful lawyer. But it's the generation that didn't see Rivers on the Tonight Show or probably even see much of that show she did for a year or so in the early 90s. Rivers's invective was bound to seem more inoffensive when it was not longer current. I remember in the article the phrase about her struggle against irrelevancy. And the desperation always has seemed to be there. A little more than a year ago, on a walk around the 20s here, I saw that she was appearing in a little cabaret or club for a limited engagement, which might be somewhat like when she was starting out and singers and comics do that sort of thing literally anywhere. But she's never been an automatic audience draw: Back in '92, '93, or '94, she had that B'way show 'Sally Marr, and her Escorts', and I believe it only lasted a few weeks (which surprised me, and I sort of wanted to see it, too). That's the one about Lenny Bruce's mother, and the poster had Rivers in this rather coarse fur coat or fake fur coat. Not that it might not have been better than much of what was already making big money on B'way back then, but it was still too much of a 'new york provincial' thing by then, and B'way can't usually sustain such a thing. That's what's so astonishing about 'In the Heights' already running for almost two years, but I imagine that will be a one-time thing, and nothing else (as far as I know) has followed it up as a model for 'Dominican shows', etc., even though it's still doing fairly well in ticket sales. the 'Sally Marr' show sounds more like the Off-B'way kind of show in a smallish theater from back in the 60s, the Al Carmines era, and things like 'Wait a Minim' coming from Britain.