papeetepatrick

Are you kidding? It's already exactly like that. Yes, because if they did, they'd use the corporate blogs instead, and that requires stupendous 'writing-machine' skills. I've got this with somebody right now (and have built up to it for five years, through much subterfuge, masquerading and trickery), and it is way beyond either 'fairy' or 'tweet', I can tell you that. He's even written me excerpts to publish in a real book (and, in that case I stole them, and then he gave me official permission to continue stealing them), under a fake name for awhile, then finally with a name almost exactly the same as his own. I told him to feel free to steal anything I wrote if he can find a use for it. That very much depends, doesn't it? Some of the newer 'twinship fairies' have a very strong following, and recent attempts were made on me to see the virtue in such addictions. Thank god for reviving this thread after such a long dormancy, proving the relative time-collapses that occur with each new accessorizing, because I simply wasn't going to sully the Lynn Seymour thread by citing the unjust comparisons that had been made with her dancing. That's interesting, because I quit chat discussions years ago, because of their evaporative nature. The worst thing they do for most people (not you, Richard, or probably anyone here really) is make only the immediate buzz important and make people unable to keep concentration on any subject--anything becomes quickly outmoded in record time. Most blog communication is the same, although there have been notable exceptions, as the above-mentioned 'corporate blogging writing machine partner', the poet from Northampton, and a couple of people I've met in person as result of discussions. But I've found this board to be more potent generally, and although we're sometimes stodgy and old-fogey, here we are, having done a performance-art version of Twitter, as if on an old mainframe computer. The best thing is that the 'narrative thread' hasn't been lost, but then that's been what's good about this board anyway, and why things I never see anywhere else on the net happen--like reviving a thread from 8 years ago, a thread about an old Joan Crawford movie maybe, or about a Kaufman article on Balanchine or even the obituaries sometimes get revived when there's more to say about the person, there are permanent fixtures in other words, because this is the net too, but it's not for the purpose of cultivating internet junkies. The worst is people who develop really personae on the net and try to live in relationships with those people as if that could substitute for real-life relationships. Some of the freakiest say that that will eventually BE the way we live, but it's a long way from the 'Singularity' of Kurzweil (even though Gates listens to this and it is real science, as well as just having opened as a movie in Sonoma last week), or the hyperreal of Baudrillard, and usually just encourages the worst offline squalour when taken to those extremes.

Thanks, k. Will read later today.

Would it be possible to say something about this performance, or others RB is now doing, which much be what the piece looks like with them now? I guess you mean the piece in particular 'not looking like itself' in that it doesn't look as good as this we see here. Nanarina had seemed to think they hadn't revived it, so I'd like to know where the piece is now in RB repertory, both in terms of frequency and quality in the last few decades. If Dowell isn't 'keen on letting the ballet travel', as Mashinka indicates, and POB only does 'La Fille Mal Gardee', then some of the complaints of 'over-balanchinizing', at least in America, may have to do with that, mightn't they? I know there are reasons for these decisions and perhaps they are emotional and sentimental (and indeed could be valid for these very reasons). It reminds me of Villella's refusal to let the old films of his dancing be shown, so that we have only 'Man Who Dances', a terrible Bell Telephone hour clip with V. dancing to 'Little Drummer Boy, and 'Midsummer Night's Dream', which I've not seen, but isn't easily available. I don't know how this compares with difficulties with balanchine trust, etc., Thanks.

Trying to get back to earth after having now watched all of it. Yes, I concur, Barbara, because I am fighting right now my tendency to hyperbole and fulsomeness. I can't even believe it. So this is what some of you have been talking about, and other Ashton I've seen and liked didn't quite tell me enough. This is so special you know it at the beginning, you wonder who else could do it besides RB to touch you as much as this did, and you want in a way to be sure that no one else could. Okay, enough of that kind of business, I would like to know if POB does Ashton. I know I would like what they could do with him even if it's not the home of the purest Ashton. I can't think of anybody else, but it really is quite the masterpiece, isn't it? And explains all the complaints about underexposure, and why some think he is > or = Balanchine. It's not 'English provincial' in any important sense. Why would not this be as appreciated in New York as 'Liebeslieder Walzer' or 'Davidsbundlertanze'? And it does have something you've never seen at NYCBallet, I think. Maybe ABT could get it right, they ought to try. That thread on RDB and the Hubbe interview made me imagine them doing it too, but I don't know enough about them to say. Lynn Seymour absolutely musical, and btw, the music superbly performed (all of it, piano and orchestral) from beginning to end. How frequent is that? I've never liked Dowell quite so much, and his theatrical face is wonderful. But the other women and the young man--I guess that's Graham Fletcher-- are marvelous too--I thought he, in particular, was a likable kind of upper-class twit, nicer than similar sorts I recall from the Losey/Pinter film of L.P. Hartley's 'The Go-Between', just to take one example. How did these strike you, leonid, these two that were not of the original cast? I liked the husband as well, and then there was French Impressionism as the husband and wife go out for a stroll, it's just like Renoir and Monet for a moment, with Dowell jumping in and then left inside as he sees them--no, I guess she goes out into the garden with Rakitin, what a pretty moment. Inspired from start to finish. Edited to add: I just saw this from 4rmrdncr: "I do think most of the major companies could do it, but would like to see ABT (if Dowell ever lets them. He did let them do The Dream, so why not this?) And can think of many casts there." So is there likelihood Dowell would let ABT do it. Is anybody else allowed to do it? Obviously, if not, that does present some problems too.

Only watched the pas de deux thus far, totally irresistible--and how about THAT for an entrance! Did anyone put that on the 'Entrances' thread? And transformed within seconds. Can't wait to watch the 5 part YT. I didn't see this posted when you first put it up, Simon, so thank you, and also GeorgeB Fan for bumping it up. I saw Seymour live only once, unfortunately never Dowell.

Yes, that was charming to see Julianne sitting between Nancy and Lisa, who do look marvelous (Wagner so chic and thin, Eileen still full and beautiful.) Funny to have that little spat in between the 'scenes of good cheer'.

That reminds me, something that comes up frequently with one friend in conversation--that episode of, I think, 'The Secret Storm', where Joan Crawford stepped in for Christina, you see something of it in 'Mommie Dearest'. I mean--we want to see this! Will travel short distances... Anybody know how you see such a gem? I remember Liz Taylor guesting in 'General Hospital'. That was fun. And Gloria de Haven (I think she's still around) went into them back in the 60s. Yes, just looked it up, Ms. de Haven was in 'Unknown Episodes' of AS THE WORLD TURNS as 'Sara Fuller' in 1966-67.

This is uncannily like an old report Michael Musto, the Village Voice gossip columnist wrote upon running into Liz Smith at some event: Liz: Oh my God, Michael, you look so BUTCH! Michael: Oh Liz, so do YOU!

Let me get this straight, as it were - a guy who writes software and poetry, Twitters, and is a family guy (well, I assume it's a family) who's also a guilt-ridden fan of Andrea Dworkin. Jedward, move over. You got it. His name is Dominic Fox, and if all those other attributes weren't enough, he's even right about his looks, which are up there with James and Edward Fox, although I don't believe they're related. He lives in Northampton and, for more self-guilt-tripping, apologizes to English Socialists constantly about having gone to Oxford and feels compelled to decry all Etonians as 'invertebrates'. He's done everything to refuse his superior talents, including usually throwing in clunky terms and phrases to make an ideological point which would always ruin the poem (while saving his soul), until finally realizing that natural grace was not the worst thing to be born with. His eccentric embrace of all things Dworkin has made me accuse him of having committed rape at least twice (he has two children.) He's also a superb rock musician, loves heavy metal and sings folk songs, and picks a mean guitar while he's at it. For awhile, he was advocating 'unpleasure', a term he invented, and this went over like a lead balloon, I told him it was the most ridiculous project I'd ever heard of.

Simon, I think we already seem to have it, in this very thread--that proves just how great old meat-world ballet is. You know, managing to integrate Twitter into an old-fashioned discussion board without having to do it officially, just by graceful inference. In that way, we have preserved the Old Glamour despite our best intentions. From my own good offices have come recent publicity about Susan Boyle to Shanghai media conglomerate blogs, which made them talk about her, even though I plagiarized your 'Susan Boyle is soooo last year' and wouldn't tell them about Jedwerd, just 'cos I wanted to have the power. More seriously, I just read an extraordinary new poem by a writer of software who also Twitters and is even vain about his looks while being an Andrea Dworkin advocate, which makes him feel guilty about having fathered two children but wanting to remain a heterosexual even so. I could not believe how truly good it was by any standard, new or old, so I mention this only because the perfect and great artwork can and will emerge no matter what interference is run either by others or by one's own addictions to these state-of-the-art awesome media-culture accessories.

I think Parker is great just because of her witticisms. I was just talking about her with someone at length about an hour ago. That may not make her a great prose writer or poet, but she made her mark. I recall in one of Paul Theroux's novels, he made a long passage of things reducible to 'just more Dorothy Parker'. Since her greatness is as a humourist, he would naturally say that, because, after at least 12 books I read when I somehow admired him tremendously, rapier-like humour was not one of his attributes. On the other hand, extreme mean-spiritidness was, and 'Picture Palace' is full of little letters of hate to Stieglitz, D.H. Lawrence and any number of luminaries. On the other hand, if Truman Capote had had his strong stamina and self-righteousness, he might not have crumbled so easily under the pressure of the East Siders he thought he was trying to 'honestly chronicle', although when you read the 3 chapters of 'Answered Prayers', it does come across considerably more like dishing the dirt. As John Dunne pointed out, he really wasn't nearly as much 'one of them' as he thought--as Gore Vidal rightly said, you find out about those people from Auchincloss. Well, a whole course in Dorothy Parker would probably be a bit too much for almost any of us, but I'd never want 'A day without Talullah is like a month in the country' not to have been said. I was asking today about T.S. Eliot, we were talking about the 'vicious circle', I never saw that film. Was there a T.S. Eliot/Dorothy Parker tie-in? Practically speaking, you can probably find all the clever one-liners of Parker with just a little googling. I never think of her as anything else.

This is what I started with. There's no argument about 'protean in styles', but 'persona' is a difficult word. Both men may have needed a sense of being godlike, but one had no humility when it came to that at all. Fine. That's his business. I agree with Mailer that we have to accept him. I'm talking about what Picasso said and what Balanchine said, or rather what I know that they said. I know they said many things of which I'm not aware. That's marvelous, Quiggin, it rather rhymes with "I've always liked Judith Miller. I like operatic types." We were not going to Norman Mailer for 'art criticism', but for anyone for facts about the Louvre incident, and that happened to be what I had at hand at the moment yesterday, that is from what I remembered it. I'm not going to go through the Richardson to see if he didn't ever even mention it, I'll take your word for it that he didn't, since that's what you seem to indicate. It could well be the 'key term', a bit like some of the rhetoric that has come out during the last week in some of the religious controversies, and I have nothing against the 'tenderness and monstrosity'; they certainly both show in the extravagant and monstrous sensibility that would be able to turn Apollinaire's own tragedy and bad fortune into a repulsive 'delicate moment' in which to assuage his guilt with this image of a 'woman's black veil', which in Clark's description unfortunately comes across as the very 'adolescent hero worship of the artist' that Kakutani pointed out, in its overt 'special grief' monstrosity. I'm sure he spent time on other things during those ten years. I think we were talking about both. Michael brought the matter of comparing them in matters of 'persona factors'. That Michael may mean something different by 'persona factors' than I do is likely, but that doesn't mean it's not a provocatively interesting way of looking at both artists--you'll forgive me, I hope, that I took the liberty of looking at it as I happened to see it, that being the only one available to me at first. Their 'god personas' are both very impressive, and maybe, as many an artist (to use one of Mailer's favourite formulations) might say, they were both necessary in either case. Edna O'Brien certainly went so far as to say that James Joyce's monstrosity was indispensable for his own protean output. I myself have defended Leni Riefenstahl and other Nazis, including Heidegger, because of their artistic and philosophical output; others have defended Strauss and Schwarzkopf, I've defended Wagner. It may be that Balanchine, claiming something like 'apoliticalism', would have shown no more courage than did Picasso, and was simply never tested. But if we are then through with the talk of persona, the 'protean output' could be compared, yes, but as mentioned already, a number of other figures could as easily be chosen. In the sense of 'revolutionary', for example, Graham may seem more like Picasso than Balanchine, and so forth and so on. The whole discussion is rendered perfect, though, by Michael's superb witticism: "In that case I tend to forgive them the intellectual shotgun blasts - that is unless and until one of my own sacred cows gets wounded. "

Patrick, check out Richardson's v.3 Picasso life (Mailer’s Picasso claimed “no original scholarship”), it's as if the Louvre incident didn't happen, a blip. Are you saying that it's not mentioned in the Richardson, or that 'Mailer made it up' or Richardson never mentioned it, or what? Don't know what you mean by 'no original scholarship'. 'A blip' in what sense. Are you suggesting Mailer made up this story about Picasso and Apollinaire? Here's what wiki for Apollinaire says: "On September 7, 1911, police arrested and jailed him on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa, but released him a week later. Apollinaire then implicated his friend Pablo Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning in the art theft, but he was also exonerated.[1] He once called for the Louvre to be burnt down." So Mailer's rhapsodies may or may not be in question, but it's certainly not that the incident didn't happen. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/29/books/bo...racts-like.html There's Michiko Kakutani's review of the Mailer, plus mention Picasso's betrayal of Max Jacob as well, that Mailer didn't include. One thing I noticed also in the review is the 'machismo' shared by Mailer and Picasso. This is certainly totally absent in everything Balanchine stood for, of course. She sees Mailer as indulging in 'hero worship', but her review, while calling Mailer's book 'subjective', does seem to try to be objective, I don't know whether that's before or after he called her the 'one-woman kamikaze' or not, either way, it was a pretty good read of a review. She's got a review of Richardson, which she praises as 'magisterial'. I'm going to go back an look at that, which is obviously a lot more scholarly a kind of work, but her review alone clears up the Louvre matter, in that it did exist. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/books/06...nted=1&_r=1 Her review of the 3rd Volume of Richardson points out his cruelty. All these great artists have a certain amount of cruelty. The final quote that she makes of Picasso himself, as he says 'I am God' three times still seems very far from the 'persona' of Balanchine. I don't see Picasso as saying 'God creates, man assembles'. So if you want to compare artists in different fields (I really don't see much in it myself, and prefer what Michael pointed out as the more academic kind of carefully thought out thing, instead of this 'conversational fun thing'. I mean, I like 'conversational fun things', but for me, comparing artists doesn't mean much. It's enough that Picasso, Stravinsky and Balanchine worked together, they would therefore have many artistic sympathies, and probably all capable of ruthlessness and cruelty. Martha Graham certainly was. But 'persona' is unclear in what it includes. I was just pointing out differences in manifestations of the character-persona. Obviously, Gelsey Kirkland thought Balanchine was cruel, that's not quite the same thing, even if true, as what Picasso was up to.) In any case, I've often heard Picasso and Martha Graham compared, much more frequently than Balanchine and Picasso. I don't really see Picasso as having much similarity with Fritz Lang, I was just pointing to that particular weakness in character, which did seem to be negligible to both. Of course, one could say that Balanchine's insistence that dancers 'not be political' is not especially admirable in and of itself, but it could also just mean they really haven't time to take getting involved in politics if they're going to realize their potential as dancers, esp. Balanchine dancers. A couple of arresting quotes from Kakutani's review of the Mailer: "Even their preoccupation with violence, machismo and the baffling otherness of women have been very much the same. In fact, when Mr. Mailer described himself in "The Armies of the Night" as "warrior, presumptive general, champion of obscenity, embattled aging enfant terrible," he might well have been describing Picasso. "... "Like Ms. Huffington, Mr. Mailer repeatedly suggests that Picasso had homosexual leanings, that he saw his father as a rival, that he sought to pierce the appearance of people and things and depict their hidden reality. Like Mr. Richardson, he notes that Picasso's use of color was willed, rather than instinctive like Matisse's, that he owed considerable artistic debts to the poets Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire, that he channeled feelings of guilt and shame into his art with astonishing success." ... "And of Picasso's failings as a human being in general: "If he was a monster, we have no alternative but to accept him. We ought to know that violence and creativity all too often connect themselves inextricably. Indeed, how can they not when some of the most creative moments in early childhood are interrupted by adults -- concern for one's safety, or one's deportment, are always grounds for interruption -- and so in maturity, love is frequently followed by hate, and creation by destruction." "... "While such rationalizations of genius should not distract attention from Picasso's genuine artistic achievements, they attest to a naive, adolescent -- and ultimately hazardous -- impulse to worship the artist as hero. " She's a good writer (I never thought her better, and was reading this for the first time), and at least as a person, he doesn't bear much resemblance to Balanchine, to my mind. As an artist, that's something else, of course, but it's hard not to see something of both parts of a man or woman artist.

Quiggin--thanks for clarifying about Berard, my memory still halfway decent. Picasso and Apollinaire were close, that's the whole point: He denied even knowing Apollinaire to the police in the matter of that Louvre theft. I'll try to get the Mailer book out of the library again, and tell you the rest. Such acts tend, in most perceptions, to cancel out claims of 'feelings of closeness' that may or may not have been exactly pure and unalloyed, tied up as they are in guilt--and often 'experienced' after all personal culpability has been, if not paid, at least substantially covered up.

I liked the whole post, Michael, but abbreviated it to this, although do want say, of the parts I didn't re-paste, I think this is excellent: "An academic will be trained not to shoot from the hip in this way; but someone writing every day newspaper copy may fire off an impression like this, almost conversationally - a point that someone building a more considered, academic or historical argument would hedge in with qualifications." Exactly. But back to Picasso and Balanchine. Everything except 'persona factors too' I would agree with. Picasso had an enormous selfishness that was not really excusable, and went into cowardice, as is well pointed out in Mailer's book 'Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man'--his betrayal of Apollinaire is quite appalling, as was his cowardice during wartime, although I'd need to get the book in front of me to be more specific--a good bit of parading of his vanity at quite the wrong time, I remember reading and seeing photographed. It could be Balanchine never was faced with matters quite so 'testing of character', and certainly was not without flaws in his character, as is obvious enough (who is, of course?), but I never have thought of him as a cowardly man. As an artist, you can, of course, say that Picasso's courage shows in his artistic determination at all costs, but I've ceased to buy that argument--even the most monumental oeuvre does not excuse some things, although it doesn't lessen their greatness necessarily (or it's hard to see where and how it may have). A great artist has to be selfish (I know that may raise some eyebrows, okay, fine, let them be raised, I'm writing to some degree in a shorthand here), but there has to be generosity and kindness too, and perhaps Picasso was generous in certain ways, but there are basic decencies among friends that really went too far with Picasso. It may, of course, be that we all show lack of courage at times, but when you betray a close friend so callously as did Picasso did to Apollinaire, that's a bit different. In all the artistic 'Olympianisms' and the shrewdness as well, that you have enumerated (although I'm sure Picasso was much wealthier), I do agree with you, though, and very precisely you have put it. Of course, it's possible that some kind of parallel egregiousness existed in Balanchine and was acted on, but I'm not up on all the details of his life to know. I never heard of it, but someone once posted something about Balanchine in Paris and it seemed to be about some rich lady who adored him, but the post gave some impression of slight frivolity, superficiality--but I have no certain memory of it, and it's impossible to search out in the archives here, which is where I am fairly sure I saw it--it might have been a quote Quiggin put up from someone, but that's just a wild guess. I mean, in that one way, Picasso might even be likened to Fritz Lang, who had grotesque cowardice, and although his career was not quite as stellar as Picasso's, it was still pretty outstanding, and I happen to be one who even admires his Hollywood films as well as his German ones.

Saw the Salon list, have only seen 'The Shining' and 'As Good As It Gets'. Was actually surprised they had this many because couldn't think of any myself. They started in the 80s with the Shining, I'll see if I think of anything in the Old Periods. Pretty specialized, I can't even think of many writer movies evne when they weren't villains, 'Beloved Infidel' about F. Scott comes to mind, I guess 'Up Close and Personal' was about a journalist, not much else just at the mo.

And there are big encyclopedic compendia such as Bertrand Russell has written. Philosophers often recommend Russell, though quite a major scholar, as a 'philosophy for dummies' thing, when they find people who are trying to learn the grammar and technical terms of philosophy, but have thus far not been successful at it, as when they try to talk to these very learned philosophers. This is one of the nicest examples, as Russell is not disparaged as an amateur. I've gotten the little I know of Biblical history from Isaac Azimov, although I'm not sure of what his reputation is among historians. Then there are things like Nancy Mitford's popularized books on Mme. de Pompadour and others. Art historians tend to think these, and various things by Princess Michael of Kent and maybe even Olivier Bernier's Louis XIV books (or rather, I've gathered that they do, even though both give Met lectures, along with Geza Von Habsburg, who I think is thought to be a serious Faberge specialist) less lofty than Leo Steinberg, William Vincent Harris, or Anthony Blunt, but that's natural. They know the basics, and have probably often seen the photos in the beautiful coffee table books in their real-life incarnations. The professionals can be tiresome about this, because although it's normal for them to want to read texts that are more and more specialized, the tendency is unnecessarily snooty sometimes, as if non-philosophers or amateur historians are allowed to ask a question in these fields only for the pleasure the professionals get in mocking them (I've seen a lot of this.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/arts/dan...?ref=obituaries Hadn't seen this posted yet. I know nothing about this Prix, but I've seen posts about it here frequently, and am a great fan of the City of Lausanne.

leonid--thanks! that was great. Streisand as Millie in 'Picnic', and Ellie Mae in 'Tobacco Road' (now that last is incroyable...) Still looks like only possibility of dancing was something pretty basic at most in 'The Boyfriend' (I doubt Hortense was given big numbers, although it's clear she sang something called 'Nicer in Nice', and showed some leg). Was interested to see how vicious Joan Rivers really is--she made up that whole thing about the Lesbianism just to get a laugh. I remember back in the 80s when she was still guesting for Johnny Carson, and Dame Judith Anderson was on, and at one point said 'she's rotten to the core'. But since this tale about 'Driftwood' is so blatantly false, it's worse than all those months-long (if not more) jokes about Liz Taylor being fat. The crudeness was sometimes funny in a low way, but making this story up about 'Barbra being a great kisser, etc.' is vile, because it's not always obvious when she's joking. I truly dislike her.

Not quite Couldn't agree more. This is the most truly Louis XIV thread I've ever read anywhere, and as such, restores a kind of glamour-ballet that people who never dreamed of 'perfect Auroras' enjoyed. Why, with Lully down the miles-long corridors, how could you lose? And if anybody misbehaved, you could appoint a commission of courtiers, who are known for their no-nonsense discipline--with special skill (from long experience) in banishment to the provinces. Surely, therefore, we need many more posts, perhaps try for the 500 mark. Seriously, my impression was that the thread was quietly concluded by Pointe1432, in his/her describing of Tweeting among young dancers as being like chatting backstage. And that dancers have always done, just like everybody else backstage that doesn't have to use yoga to 'center themselves'--or at least not at every moment. What's left to say after that? If it works to bring in audiences, that remains to be seen. But here we se that lots of dancers themselves like to use it, and they would be using it for quick dance-business things as well as the purely social--anything like this could be just the right place at the right time for just that job that would have gotten a busy signal on the phone or other form which couldn't survive delay.

"She originally wanted to be an actress and appeared in summer stock and in a number of Off-Off-Broadway productions, including Driftwood (1959), with the then-unknown Joan Rivers." This is from wiki. Yes, and I think it comes back that I'd heard a general 'summer stock' quote before, but I've never heard the productions she was in specified. Although they probably are in a detailed bio, which I've never read. Well, this gel certainly worked fast, I'll say she did. She did finish Erasmus Hall High School, although early record bios used to say she was 'born in Rangoon'.

Are you sure of this? Never heard about anything but early clubs, like the Bon Soir, I believe, and maybe Basin Street East, she was in late teens when she did Miss Marmelstein on B'way and 21 when she started 'Funny Girl'. Also, hadn't been in Manhattan till early teens at all (pretty remarkable), I think she saw 'Diary of Anne Frank'. Not saying she didn't do any at all, but I don't see it being very much if any. She had already done the recording of Rome's 'Pins and Needles' too when about 19. Don't know whether she did an actual dance number in 'I Can Get It For You Wholesale' either.

Barbra hilarious and adorable, because always looks campy when she dances. You can see more of Rall's technical legacy and ballerina protege in her next pic, 'Hello Dolly'. He does look good there. I love her left hand in this one, it looks like Cecile Royale's tendrilly fingers in an old mannered photo I recently saw.

I agree with this, and it somehow suggests to me that that's sufficient. MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are all forms of the same thing, although I'd disagree that it's only minor celebrities (you may not have been saying that), because major celebs all use these two. But I think it may often just to have 'a fun network' as well. When I looked at this one friend's MySpace in 2006, they just always asked stuff like 'r u going to the foam party?' and 'Why did u mess up ur education?' This young fellow called himself 'Socialite Elitist', which was funnier than anything anybody wrote, but it probably stems from ancient-styled blogs (which I still use in moderation), to LiveJournal blogs, which are often very elaborate MySpace in tone, in that these are not even mini-celebs very often, but rather are just doing extensive diaries about every single activity they engage in (whether breakfast treat or medical procedures), and from there you get the more pointed self-promotional 'business and friendship' combination that all these social networking services offer. I'm extremely surprised when I find a young person who is not 'wired' these days, but even though I don't object to these things to quite the degree I do loud cellphone conversations in airports, it does seem nothing short of miraculously charming when you find a young person whose tech gear is limited to a cellphone and some texting on that.

Glamor may or may not be dying, but I doubt if Bouder's mild little tweets will make much difference either way. not sure of that, young people may just have different ideas of what glamour is. but I tend to think they are glamour-challenged, and just don't know some important things along these lines. Bart's history is very good, but I agree there is a contemporary sense, and it's common for many who use it not to know the origin, as with many other terms and concepts. But if Helene is a 'luddite Cow' for being into only 'facebook passive', there are a number on this board who would find me a quite lower animal Contemporary-Luddite, since the very idea of Twittering just wears me out. I had enough panic today just plugging in a new monitor after my ten-year-old perished (ten-year-old monitor that is). And I only was even able to follow some MySpace of one person in 2006 before you had to sign in for it. I knew that that would wear me out too, so naturally I don't know how to sign in to Twitter, and I've been told to do so many times. I've also heard of 'Facebook suicide' from Facebook addicts, but that too, I've never even looked at. Facebook suicide is supposed to help you learn to 'meet your real neighbors', but I don't have that problem, although it does sound especially nerdish to get that far gone. I felt really modern when I signed up for a FT article that dirac linked on Auchincloss a couple of months ago, but I never believed it would work, so it took me a month to get to it. I'd rather do almost anything than have to RTFM.