papeetepatrick

Wouldn't this just mean that the conductor has the score memorized? It's not at all unusual in my experience. Yes, it would. So I guess YOT was joking, with the wink. According to the piece, it's possible or not to do this.

What are you talking about specifically?

'most beautiful five minutes' doesn't mean anything to me, so if I have to stay on-topic in the strict sense, I will say 'parts of opers with the most beautiful five-minuteses in them'. In different ways, therefore, the first act of 'La Boheme' (take almost any five minutes anywhere in the act), and the 2nd act of 'Der Fliegende Hollander' --any of the 'five-minuteses' from the girls spinning through Senta's aria, as well as almost any 'five-minutes' anywhere in 'Parsifal'. Also 'Sempre Libera' from Traviata when perfectly sung, is the ultimate confection. I used to like 'Rosenkavalier', much less now, and am not that big a Strauss fan..

Yes, I think this ought to be closed too, good idea, Mel. These kinds of threads are beginning to become rhizomatic.

Quite so, Sander0, and there are many who have clearly figured out how not to be worried. After all, they never carried out any of their threats. There's a Mr. Ruppert who has written up how Al Qaeda has never bombed anything, maybe his belief that Bush/Cheney oversaw the blowing up of the buildings ought to be rewarded. That way we could learn how CAPITALISM was the cause of 'so-called terrorist acts' eh?

This is FABULOUS! He should get for NOT withdrawing from Afghanistan and Pakistan alone (alhtough he deserves it for much more), as that's where the War on Terror was supposed to be fought to begin with, and where Al Qaeda has re-strengthened itself. A 'Peace Prize' does not mean giving it to a 'peacenik'. Bravo, Prez! I just heard it over a Juliusburger and had had no idea. This is a great day. Everybody knows that Pakistan and the Afghan border are where the terrorists got re-entrenched while the pervious admin. did their Iraqi adventure.

Thanks for reminding, I won't be posting further here, whether or not that referenced me. It's just too difficult.

We don't think it is a bad thing, although I can't speak for Quiggin, of course. We thought you did. You wrote it that way, by not including what else it is, and talking about 'respectable sheen'. You have to say it in a different way if it's to be understood. Mainly, you could call a lot of it louche, but French art and even literature is not endemically louche. So, therefore, even though I may not think it is a 'bad thing', that is just to respond to the fact that there is a lot of French literature that concerns itself with these matter, vast amounts. Mainly, I ust don't think it's accurate, not only for the poets Quiggin mentions, but for thousands of others that don't even get especailly sensuous, much less sensual.

NO. This kind of generalization does not legitimately grow virally out of Mitterand's wannabe libertinism. There is probably more great 'louche' French literature --certainly way more than English - but that's not nearly all the French literature, of which there are all kinds. And certainly not 'French art'. Olivier Messiaen's music is not louche, and neither is Jean-Louis Barrault. As for the 'louche' art and literature, it has to do with the French ability to go beyond puritanism and prudishness of Britain and other nations, not even getting to American prudery--hardly a liability that one great Western nation was able to do it to my mind. I don't care if somebody hates Genet and Sade and the rest, but just as all arts (as we were discussing on the paper somebody says they're writing about ballet's uniqueness, etc.,) have their unique manifestations in different cultures which have a need and compulsion to produce them, as Italian and German opera, ballet in Italy, France and then Russia before Balanchine finally, then literature also was going to need full expression of these 'forbidden subjects', and they did need to be explored and made it explicit, including Sade. Iif it is worthless, attempts to give it 'a sheen of respectability' do not work. But they could do this kind of literature. More recent attempts, as in Michel Houellebecq's novels, which as I recall, have gone into Thailand hedonism to some degree, as in 'Platform' (but I don't think there's talk of the paedophilia in that one; actually, I know about the Thai sex business more from Nicholas Kristoff's excellent crusades in his NYTimes op-eds, which he's been doing for years, and has actually even rescued several young girls), I do tend to find pretty worthless myself, weird episodic pornography and then just call it a novel, but he's got his ardent followers. But libertinism in literature and life does not necessarily include paedophilia, and I don't think anyone has yet come to the fore as a 'Friend of Paedophiles'. At least I'm not. It may be that, as you say, 'paedophilia' is a compulsion, unlike other crimes, and for that reason, I am most grateful I have never had the least attraction to it. But there is no greater Arts culture in the West than the French, it is extraordinarily varied, and there is not a single domain omitted. This even goes into the arts of living to a greater degree than most, as in food (including simple food), clothing, and sex. As far as the latter goes, even without taking into consideration the 'perversions', the French have a more balanced way of allowing sex to exist within the context of life instead of various forms of recoiling from it IMO, and for the most part, you get a pretty balanced bourgeois society that is NOT based primarily on outrageous acts. Whether there is more paedophilia in France or Britain I don't know, but there has always been a specific English resistance to many French attitudes, and understandably so. But primarily, if someone doesn't care for the 'louche literature and art' of France, that's just like the 'watercooler jurisprudence' someone brought up, they don't have to and they can say so, but it doesn't have much effect. It's possible, although I don't know, that this easy sexual atmosphere that leads to a mostly comfortable attitude to sex in France has both advantages and disadvantages. I certainly don't support child rape, whether done with some kind of precious calculation like this seems to be, or just the rough vicious form, but I don't make generalizations about the moral fiber of a great nation like France based on what some of their elite figures make about Polanski. I studied with one of the most overt CATHOLICS in modern times for a year, and believe me, you find out why they've got so many cathedrals, convents and monasteries when you work with one of these non-sexual sadistic types (I don't mean 'sadistic' badly, she was magnificent, but yeah...). France is not necessarily greater, at least not because I like it the best, but it's certainly unique, and its enormous variety needs to be always pointed out, when people tend to think of it as a land of 'too-looseness', 'louchensss', or whatever perjorative term you want to use for their attitudes in these areas.

No, I don't think 'really good ones are few and far between', and think that conductors are one thing that have remained excellent. Just as musical performers. As in dance, it's the creators who aren't as compelling and writing music and dance that stirs us in all ways the way they did before. Of course, there's no Franz Liszt scene for even the best pianists, but then there wasn't any time in the 20th century to that degree. Ditto maybe no Toscanini, but there are great conductors, I don't need to name them. I do think salaries like that seem pretty ridiculous, but I guess I just think 'well, that's life'. TV stars get ludicrous salaries. Better Gergiev, whatever his is, than Suzanne Somers (I choose her because of her going about her need for millions back in the early '3's Company' days, she 'had to keep up', yeah, that's true, but who cares.) Opera singers are seemingly overpaid, but that's part of the scene, the big money, just as with movie stars, the fans want them to be rich. I believe it's in Leonard Bernstein's very old 'The Joy of Music', going back as far as late 50s or early 60s, there is some talk about how the conductor is not really needed; Bernstein, as always, very eloquent. In a technical sense, this is true of conventional music, in that top-flight players can 'get through it all valiantly'. But it's clear enough that an ear like Levine's is able to draw out what HE must hear. And that's what a great conductor does.

Dozens of places to stay. You're really 'nearby' almost anywhere in midtown west, aren't you? I wouldn't bother with the New Yorker, you could even stay at the Empire at Lincoln Center, i guess, and just be a couple of subway stops away. Otherwise Times Square if you can stand it. If you're not worried about money, then you could stay at the Waldorf and just walk over.

Well said, Hans, couldn't agree more (obviously). And that brings to mind the Japanese interest in making the ordinary beautiful. Not that they are the only ones, of course, but they do have a special refinement that way, which goes against being sloppy at all levels of society, not just the loftiest. And what you say of Wharton as well, since even most people who are not even artists want to make their own useful things as beautiful as they can in their own eyes, even when they are common objects; what Gautier said boggles the mind, and is sympathic surely only in its over-perfumed historical context.

He was very big on creating art for art's sake, and I would definitely recommend in depth research on him not just for his reasonings on valuing the arts but because of his deep connection with ballet. There's bound to be something specific that can be applied to an argument. Well, a chacun son gout. Thanks for putting the Gautier quote, I wasn't familiar with it, and my reaction to it is that is totally and utterly abhorrent--the precious aesthete in his fullest putrefaction. It is pretentious and false, and probably the best thing that can be said about it is that it's obviously more thoroughly embarassing now than it was when it was intoned. Although I don't know how anyone after Plato would go on about how 'useful things are ugly', since they are anything but. This is strictly 19th century 'full romantic jacket', as it were. Actually, I'd certainly say 'before Plato' as well. The 'needs of man' are not 'ignoble and disgusting', and they weren't when Gautier wrote this either. They are neither noble nor ignoble especially, they are simply the needs of man. Come to think of it, that in itself makes them noble. At worst, they are neutral. Not only, as well, is the lavatory anything but disgusting for that very reason of serving man in the beauty of his physicalism, and therefore being useful, it is also not even literally more useful than the kitchen. I have rarely, if ever, read a quote I found more appalling regarding 'usefulness' and 'uselessness' as regards beauty and art, I don't care how famous Gautier was. 'Art for art's sake' has it's historical place, but even if elements of it are still extant (and they should be, of course, in order to protect art as itself, not merely offshoots of ideology, etc), it is not a contemporary 'movement' in the sense it once was, not at all. It is not relevant in any culture today as it once was, even if it does have its historical interest. I haven't read what Gaujtier has to say about ballet, but he didn't see any Balanchine and much else. What he says about ballet may be of historical interest, but I don't see how something so dated could possibly be especially useful for a basic paper such as jdickerson wants to do. My impression was that he needed to write a paper that would prove why ballet is important NOW, and that needs to include all the years since Gautier wrote his fatuous, limply effete purple (or is it just pink) prose, not something stuck back in the 19th century. One thing I'd say: what Gautier has written in this quote is indeed 'useless', one of the most useless things I have ever come upon, and it is in no way beautiful IMO. Just contrast it with the delicacy of 'fine things' you read throughout Proust, and the difference is like night and day. I think he could have written exquisitely about doilies and figurines, if this is at all representative of his 'aesthetic theory', and he probably did do so.

Glad we could be of service, jdickerson. And I should add that the archives of BT should make at least part of your research very easy and convenient. They are very rich, these archives, and some of the most knowledgeable on ballet history are leonid, bart, Mel, Alexandra and some others I shouldn't leave out, but you'll find them. 'Discovering the Art' is also useful, just skim through it to find some good discussions. Maybe bart can suggest more specific ones to focus on.

Simon, I doubt that you and I disagree on anything basic about what might be up here, but I'd say it another way, because 'yes, we do even NEED ballet', but the 'meaningless question' is asking it about ballet by itself. All the other arts and artists you name would be part of the same question 'why do we need art?' So that 'why do we need ballet?' as a specific question simply can only mean 'is ballet outmoded'? Clearly, we think not here, but 'needing ballet' and 'needing the other arts' can be answered, but fairly simply. Because they would not come into being as 'gratuitous, charming things' which enrich us, I'm sure you don't mean that. But they are all part of social, cultural, ideological, political movements, they do grow out of all of these, not as esthetic baubles, of course, that exist outside of everything else of life. Yes, they can be 'greater than life' in a sense, but they don't exist without life. This was the one thing I do think Adoroo was good at explicaing, viz., the matter of the artist at the service of the Artwork, and both of these entities do come into being because of a need to express something. They aren't merely individual things, flukes. But, J. Dickerson, just 'Why do we need Ballet?' as a literal question, I do agree with Simon it's meaningless. And his suggestion is, I think, sound. Otherwise, you could do various things like 'What is unique about ballet?' or 'Why has ballet filled a cultural need in the nations where it has become a celebrated art form?' This is hasty and rough, but I agree with Simon that the original question is DOA in that form. But there should be some form of it you can find it you yourself are interested in ballet and learing about it, which you may be if you chose it as a topic. If not, it's probably not the best topic, period, because you might not see the appeal. Some of the articles that Mashinka posted from either the Daily Mail or Standard or Guardian, that one of the punk girl writing up opera, was an example of something pretty worthless, not to mention witless.

Was she the original Lizzie? I never saw her in anything, but she was Elizabeth in the Graham 'Episodes', I think miliosr had mentioned her. We had also discussed 'Fall River Legend' and a lot of people talked about seeing it over the years. but most not too excited about it in, say, the last 30 or so years. I had seen the Dance theater of Harlem's production and had not thought it was as menacing as I had expected it to be.

Yeah, she was absolutely adorable, a real doll, and played like an angel.

Good for you, Drew! I assume this means we may express our opinions on the other mods, non? Of course, I don't have any opinions on them myself, but there may be those who do.

Reminds one, of course, of Sartre's getting Jean Genet out of prison, although it is true he did a fair amount of time in serious gruesome French prisons. I don't have time to look up the details of the other case that comes up, but even though it was a 'member of the great unwashed' that Mailer got out of prison, and who then proceeded to immediate violent crimes, the opinions of most 'outside elitist clubs' would be the same. I've read that Genet's release was nearly inconceivable outside France, I'm not sure if that's the most famous case of this sort. Yeah, I read a lot of things this morning about people 'in a kind of club', but I do agree with Mel's suspicions about such appalling slowness and the great possibility that there were inducements. I'm going to suspect all I please, since I have not yet resorted to specific accusations of law enforcmeent personnel. But I can't see how it was high priority now for any other reason, if it wasn't before. Most laws should be obeyed whether you like them or not, as mentioned by someone above. But there are some, like sodomy laws, that nobody ever paid any attention to, and in the privacy of their homes, neither should they have, because what consending of-age adults do in the privacy of their homes is not the government's business (and they referred to certain acts performed by any partners, straight as well as gay/Lesbian) That's just one example, of course, but even though people ignored them, they were arrrested for these laws sometimes. Saying they should would mean that any laws anywhere, no matter how despotic, as in the former USSR, ought to be obeyed just because they're on the books.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/26/arts/mus...?ref=obituaries A superb pianist, in particular of Mozart and Spanish music.

Indeed they are not. And there's the Petit 'Carmen', isn't there? There's a film of it with Zizi Jeanmaire and Baryshnikov, is that correct? At one point it's quite explicit, and wow, does it ever work, Baryshnikov is amazing for moment with Zizi on top of him. I liked them both a great deal, she the ever youthful too, and Denys Ganio was not hard on the eyes either. I don't remember if he was being 'vulgar', but I doubt I would have been too obstreperous if he had exuded some slight sense of the racy. With all due respect, I don't think that has quite applied since the turn of the century--that is the 20th--but even if you just took the 60s as the period to prove it, the idea of Paris as the 'naughty city' has long been outmoded, even if they taught us how to do it. You can see anything in New York, of course, not to mention a number of other cities, and one long has done.

I wouldn't probably use 'brutal', though, unless it really involved holding someone down, they were screaming, hitting and bruising, etc., It's maybe not an important moral distintion, but maybe 'brutal' is just not quite accurate, since there are many truly brutal rapes in the sense of beatings, extreme physical injury, and even murders. Yes, I think maybe it is a fairly important distinction, if for no other reason than those women (and occasionally men) who are physically beaten up and injured are killed are those who have suffered the 'brutal rape'. Maybe 'unconscionable rape' or 'cruel rape' , or 'calculated rape', whatever, it used force, but that's still different from the Central Park Jogger and a million others.

Yeah, after Richard's info (at least I hadn't known it), I can see how 'brutal' is what it really WAS, because the age difference and the use of substances makes it psychologically brutal, very obviously. But after this latest part of the discussion, I really don't object to 'brutal' except for the fact that it seems to refer to real physical force, and being realistic about the mise-en-scene, if the champagne is drunk by the victim, there probably was not a great deal of physical force, although I don't know. I don't thnk it really matters, because it's clearly a major violation for someone that old to do this. Quaaludes, on the other hand, could be something that a kid wouldn't really know much about and would think she was 'having fun'. But she shouldn't be expected to be the responsible one in this kind of situation, it was was definitely all his fault. As for the rest and the legal proceedings, they never go in the same way as 'true justice'. There are a million examples of lunatic jury decisions, including celeb ones, so I guess I just don't worry about it that much unless I have some kind of personal attachment. I guess where I am right now on the word 'brutal' is that it doesn't matter too much, even if imperfect, because the word 'rape' definitely applies here.

Good, very important points, Sandy. 'Statutory rape' is a legal term, it's not by any means always accurate. Certainly, it IS rape, though, if it's a 13-year-old--or most likely is; I forgot the exact age of Lolita, but she was a very bright young sexy thing, but she always knew it was rape that Humbert Humbert was performing on her, and did say 'you raped me last night'. And this changes by the year. By 17, when the legal age is still not reached, there could be very much sexual precociousness involved, and total fully consensual. That's the problem of the law, and it's always hard to accept it. I know several examples of males and females of 16 or 17 who would never dream of calling their sexual activity 'rape', because they were just as determined to proceed as was their (usually) somewhat older partner. Also, when the high school 'forced-marriages' occur (I guess they still do as when I was in high school), it's complicated still further with the fact that the partners may be 16--respectively. I had a cousin to whom this happened. Was her boyfriend, also 16, somehow guilty of 'statutory rape'. Maybe in some strict legal sense, but it never occurred to anybody, they got married and had stilll more children and the (surprisingly often) happy marriage that sometimes results even when it seems disturbing at first. BUT--I'm not sure that 'brutal' is accurate, only because that would seem to apply only if physical force is used. On the other hand, it may be irrelevant, because if it's 13, it definitely is a kind of rape when it's a man that much older behaving like this. So, perhaps you could say it's 'psychologically brutal', because it surely is--there's no question that Lolita's rape was brutal in every way, even though she knew she couldn't fight back physically--but I do think you're right to question these terms, because what Mel and others are talking about, with 'mobocracy', etc., is still what has to not prevail, and the wrong words can be incendiary. I'm not sure 'mobocracy' is anything new, though; it definitely seems to have been around a long time. But celeb 'rush to judgment' is definitely a major recreation, that much at least is not so much new, but bigger than ever. I never in my life saw anything so idiotic as the rabid attitudes when Paris Hilton went to jail and was then acquitted briefly before serving the rest of her sentence, with the mob furious beyond comprehension, given the 'crime', which amounted to almost nothing. Other starlets committed far worse, and because they seemed to be 'mentally ill', they got sympathy. The 'mobocracy' element was not based on the seriousness of the crimes, but that Paris Hilton was a 'loose playgirl' and not sufficiently 'sympathetic', even if only because not having a hardcore enough drug problem. That's why I'm not really interested in anything but the result, and not even especially any of it. Actually, my publisher's brother does serve as a lawyer for the Swiss government--a prosecutor. I can write him if anyone wants me to, just tell me exactly what to ask. i'm sure he'll answer, although I'm not going to bother unless someone says to--although I definitely think he'd have the answer to the technical questions. I personally just don't care that much about this case. Celeb cases are okay to 'voyeur', as it were, I think if we're honest, we are interested in them to the degree that we have some emotional connection with the celeb. There were, for example, many more people who had an emotional connection with N. Martins when his little cocaine business occurred--I mean, even if they didn't know him personally. 'Chinatown' means more to me than anything I ever saw Nilas do, but I'm still only interested in noting the result. Okay, saw Richard's addition: Yeah, you can call it brutal if the girl protested and Polanski used 'quaaludes' and 'champagne'. Or rather, even if the word 'brutal' isn't perfect, the slight inaccuracy doesn't really matter. He was forcing himself on her in a criminal way.

Yeah, that's important. And Cristian pointed out the Atkins just died, which I hadn't known--she was always the creepiest of the Manson gang, at least going on what Bugliosi reported about what she said about the stabbing of Sharon Tate, really one of the most graphically horrible things I've ever heard (I hadn't even thought till this minute about Polanski and Tate.) I think I read the book in 2000, and this might not be related to 'not in effect at the time of the original act', but that also reminds me of why some of the Manson murderers are still imprisoned, and/or were till their deaths, instead of executed, isn't it? Wasn't it because during the time of the murders and/or trial(s), the death penalty was not in effect? and then bringing it back later still didn't affect crimes, sentences, and judgments retroactively? I know, not exactly the same, but related, just like double jeopardy, etc. Yes. THAT is good. Okay, I think you should claim the 'Bartlett's Familiar Quotation' now as your own, or give proper attribution so we don't get it mixed up when we use it. This post does sum up, though, the way opinions are based on emotion, which is valid to a degree, but law doesn't work only on them, and shouldn't. In this case, I'm not especially interested in it, which doesn't mean I think it's unimportant. Obviously, this is more serious than other cases we've 'jawed' about, such as cocaine in cars, and even in that one, our opinions (including mine) may well have smelled. Okay, I googled, couldn't figure out who said it, unless it was George Burns. I suppose there are people with two noses, but that's not very nice to say, is it.