papeetepatrick

It's a kind of revelation to think of Farrell and Diana Adams inhabiting the same choreographya quater of a century apart. In fact, Croce refers to the "Adams-Farrell" role later in the essay. I was rather pleased to find McBride associated with Hayden, since both were great favorites of mine. McBride substituted for Hayden in 1961 the season following the premiere. 23 years passed between her first performance in this ballet from the one Croce reviewed in 1984. What a trooper. What a career. Bart--GREAT! That was it. It all comes back that 'playing young' of Farrell and the 'she's as exciting to watch as Farell', which was why the performance seemed to have an extra charge to it; but also good to be clear on the rest of the cast, which I'd gotten confused. I do think I was reading it standing up at the library a few years ago, but it must not have been THIS volume. What I like is the earlier paragraph, because I saw the original production as well, so that means I saw Verdy twice, Hayden twice, and probably Diana Adams the one time. But I was there primarily because a friend was one of the pianists, and was not aware of what ballet was at all then. Still, I'm glad to know I was in the presence of those dancers more than I knew, and one that I never had thought I saw. Wait, no. What I saw was in the early 70s, maybe that was the continuation of the 1961 original? I thought that Liebeslieder had been early 70s, but I'm wrong there, it's early 60s. Maybe it's that my friend was just beginning to do the piano, I think there are two, along with Gordon Boelzener. But I really can't remember right now.

Just to mention that I finally looked through 'Writing in the Dark', and I can't find what she said about McBride and Farrell in 'Liebeslieder'. I don't know where I saw it in that case, because I was sure it was here. Well, I wasn't, was I?

Good Lord! EVERYBODY's going for it! Should be an XXXXcellent opportunity for me to practice uncharacteristic restraint...

No, while you are 'just joking', so you can get away with it, it is important to point out that you are NOT always right, because fear is definitely more than a 'state of mind'. What the hell isn't? who says the American BTers can't cuss too? Thrilling discussion! Keep it up, folks! London must be TERRIBLE! I will NEVER go there again, because it's GONE TO THE DOGS!

I haven't seen 'Man of Aran', but 'Nanook' is definitely beautiful, and his widow speaks on the vhs, and maybe dvd, I can't remember which I saw. But ALSO, and only saw this a year ago, Flaherty's 'Louisiana Story', about the Cajun boy and the beginning of oil-drilling in the bayou country is beautiful, however dated and somewhat 'corporate progaganda'. It has a wonderful, Pulitzer Prize-winning score by Virgil Thomson. Which reminds me of Pare Lorentz's 'The River', about the Mississippi River in the Depression. Thomson was one of the really great film composers, as was Copland, as in 'The Red Pony', although that's not a docu, of course. Of these, 'Louisiana Story' is the best IMO. Really wonderful b & w photography.

And fire. I, too, loved Bart Cook, he was a dancing fiend, LOVED to dance.

Nureyev for profundity of just DANCER. For youthful charm, Nikolaj Hubbe.

Oh yes, this makes the name come to me of a very similar NYC documentary 'Salt Mines' from the late 80s when the trucks and piers were still lived in by addicts and drag queens. They lived right in the garbage, not just in the abandoned lots and trucks. Really upsetting, and by the end, they've vanished. We knew they would eventually, and you could see how weak their 'strong bonds' were with each other, their lovers, etc., but carrying it through to the point where they were dispersed literally anywhere and with little control over it themselves, was powerful. I've seen these people for decades, as these scenes were a part of the area several blocks over from me that is now the parks on the Hudson and the Meier apts. for movie stars, etc., so that all that underworld life has disappeared forever, beginning, I think, in the 80s with the erection of Battery Park City. There's barely even a trace of it left.

Yes, in some ways it was, dirac. And precisely for some of the things we love just now in this thread. His attempt to destroy literally everything about the Southern ethos is borne of his own self-hatred. He not only trashed Margaret Mitchell, but even said Faulkner was guilty of 'subscribing to the Southern Myth'. And also that, in the certainly vainglorious claims of some Southerners that there culture was the greatest in history, he then concluded things like that, if Southerners were not buying recordings of classical music in some stores he surveyed, that they had 'really almost no culture at all'. Much of the Southern Myth is hyped-up nonsense, but New Orleans is proof that it reall exists in a unique form, even after Katrina. I went there again for the first time since childhood, just 4 months before Katrina, and I said yes, THIS is what proves that there really is a such thing as a Unique Southern Culture. And, although there are visually and decoratively other lovely Southern old cities, like Charleston and Savannah, it is New Orleans that is an utter original. He was simply unwilling to give any credit for a very difficult region, and certainly blood-drenched and with hideous problems of poverty and racism in much daily life, but he simply reduced it too far, while along the way he did do many polemics against Southern tradition and bigotry that were very astute and well-placed. But every single tradition needs that, whether French or English or Chinese. I might also note that, stupid as it was for Southerners to think their culture was 'the greatest', since it was a very young and undeveloped one as it was, that was not unlike some of Gingrich's statements about American culture when he and the Toefflers were big. I was pretty young when I read it, but even though I now respect 'Gone With the Wind', and do also think it is a truly great film, I could have listened to that part MAYBE about the 'false Southern myth', but, oh brother, when he started in on Faulkner, I said 'wait a minute, kid. There's whippersnappers, and then there's whippersnappers.' You could still call it 'love/hate', I suppose, but I could remember very few things he said except that the stereotype of 'the true Southern lady and her kindness' is true, of course, and also he did say that 'the South by now had a flourishing literature'. I don't know, I don't mean I don't think it's a great book in some ways, but as a Southerner myself, you have to go through some of that battle within yourself, and I came out knowing that I belonged in a big city that the South doesn't have anything like, but I changed my mind about a lot of the things that he condemned and that I agreed with him about at the time. Like what you said about the distinctions among the ruling classes. Indeed it is about much more than moonlight and magnolias.

I think this is one we just have to agree to disagree about. Mitchell's book definitely depicts, and has thoughts about, profound topics. I'm just saying that what she does with this as a writer -- and what Lampedusa does with his own social or political concerns -- are quite dissimilar. Didn't you misunderstand me? I meant I agreed that the Amazon.com review was 'wrong-headed' precisely because they are dissimilar. I just wanted to add something about what I felt about 'Gone With the Wind'. Just added this in case you had thought I meant your assessment of the amazon.com review was wrongheaded. I couldn't think that anyway, since I haven't read the Lampedusa, but what you had said about that review did make it sound very superficial. Anyway, no offense meant.

I'm sure it is a wrong-headed conparison, but 'Gone With the Wind' is definitely profound, if not subtle. It is about the ruling classes and their point of view and doesn't really intend to be 'sensitive to issues' of the social sort. There's enough of that elsewhere. I still like 'Gone With the Wind' for 'documenting' the Southern ethos in a way that has made it known much more widely than have much greater pieces of literature by Faulkner, McCullers, O'Connor, Welty, or even, to balance out 'Gone With the Wind', W.J. Cash, whose polemic of the South 'The Mind of the South' was searing and often accurate, but also unbalanced and merely hateful in a number of ways, and reaction to it lead to his suicide. These 'socially unfair' books, films, plays are all important to know the 'pure narrowness', whether it is 'Mein Kampf', 'Triumph of the Will', 'Das Kapital', 'The Communist Manifesto'. These are all forms of propagande, but those have to be read to understand what the truth of social and political problems are if the critiques are to really be more than propagande themselves.

But Ray, whether one likes rap or not, that really is the art form that not only put Compton on the map, but Compton is also THE most important birthplace of rap. I would think that a documentary of a high school putting on 'Our Town' would want to play down the notoriety which is what Compton is certainly most famous for (the rap music scene 'straightoutacompton', with such figures as Suge Knight, Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dog, the Bloods gang is identified with Compton as are the Crips with Long Beach), and even in the Compton Station of the Blue Line, you see efforts that reflect what I imagine the documentary is trying to show: This 'beleaguered community', as you accurately call it, that knows it's beleaguered, and wants to protect what is not violence-oriented within it. There were these high school student-type sculptures and murals on the platform--I've been there a few times, but won't wander very far, the place is not safe--that were trying to show a troubled community working to get beyond the gang-identified place it has long been. So I can imagine it's worthwhile to see it, although 'Our Town' in Compton does sound a little Twilight Zone, however admirable. These are indeed very good, and I've seen all of them unless there's a very recent one to come up. I remember that in one of the last ones, the very wealthy one refused to continue appearing. I've never seen this form anywhere else, but it's very effective, and is a little like Reality TV when you watch all of them. That's why some of them didn't want to continue, I'm sure, it's really their personal lives that are being documented. I've got tons of favourite documentaries, one was on PBS about a tragic African tribeswoman, I even have the script and will try to find it. Another great PBS documentary was about San Diego twin girls whose parents did not really see that they were not spending enough time with other kids or even conversing with their parents, and developed a language of their own, or dialect or linguistic something of other. I was very moved by this, and even still have a recording of the sound on an old cassette tape. Can't remember that title either.These litle girls were truly the most charming pretty creatures, and many years will have passed; I hope they made it. I also liked 'Riding Giants' about surfing the biggest waves in the Pacific, and Thom Anderson's 'Los Angeles Plays Itself', which shows buildings and locales in Los Angeles that were often used in films, like the Bradbury Building downtown, and the various filming done at Bunker Hill before it was destroyed from what it was; these includ 'Double Indemenity', Stanwyck's house. Those are just two from 2004.

Article seems to have read more twitter than media studies or philosophy, in which 'she' and 'her' are often used INSTEAD of 'he' and 'his'. I don't know who started it, although it wouldn't be too hard to find out if I could still stand the people who know (with an exception here and there), but it was definitely a part of Gilles Deleuze's 'becomings', that is to say, the 'becoming-animal', the 'becoming-woman' of man; I can't rfemember what work, probably 'Mille Plateaux', written with Felix Gattari, where these 'becomings' are first introduced, I've read a fair amount of it, and it has been very important in my life. These philosophers and theorists often speak of 'the author and her work' even if it is a man. I don't tend to do it, but usually still say either 'he' or 'he or she', I don't care which. The 'her' will be all right if we get used to it, as we did with 'Ms.', which existed only in form of Southern pronunciation of 'Mizz' for Mrs.' But then we really did get used to 'Ms.' which did not exist as such 45 years ago. I grew up with that Southern 'Mizz', and we still used it informally in my family like that. Can't see how I'd be able to accept 'shhe', though. Although we'd all use any of them if they come into common usage. 'Hiser' I wouldn't care for. I believe Helene and others use s/he, I copied that after awhile. 'They' is wrong, but I don't mind using it, but prefer it for even more informal writing than we do here (and also absolutely indispensable in difficult situations in which one needs discretion in spoken English), which is a lot more restrained than on a lot of the blogs, of course (and good for me, or I wouldn't even still be half-fit for society, if this board didn't force me to mind my manners. I can't believe I've lasted 3 years and a half )

Big newpaper blogs are a special kind of blog anyway, which I think is important. I don't know about the 'prostitution angle', but they are not like more personal blogs, even the good ones, like Paul Krugman's. There is never real interaction in a serious way, it is mostly just ranting or passing the time. I agree with most of what Helene said, though. But these BIG newspaper blogs just get so much unrelated comment (unlike small blogs where people know each other and interact, often for years) that they (the specific posts and threads, not the general blog itself) disappear in a day or two; they are never resuscitated and read after they've got a new post up. By now, I'm sure this one is worn out, isn't it? I used to post on Krugman's blog once in a while, but it's not becaues I wanted to discuss there, because you can't in a moderated blog where the comments are delayed; it was usually just to tell him what a good job he was doing, etc,. I don't see much value (and therefore probably not much harm in them, no matter how stupid or ill-thought-through the topic, because the remarks evaporate very quickly. BT is much more like more personal blogs, has many of their characterstics, but is the only online forum of any kind I've been able to stay with, strangely enough. Because the more personal, smaller blogs are almost always full of fighting and even psychosis sometimes. But I remember posting on that religion blog in the WaPo, it didn't matter a whit what you said, it was just like an old AOL chatroom.

Patricia McBride, and that's not why she's my favourite again after all these years. It's because of the old early 60s 'Balanchine Nutcracker', with her and Villella, which was the first time I ever really saw ballet at all, even though on TV. I saw this even before seeing Fonteyn and Nureyev in their many TV appearances. I think I saw that old 'Nutcracker' at least three times, it was annual for awhile, I believe. Later on, I fell in love with many ballerinas, but she was the first, and it interests me that she has become the first for me again.

Redundancy in UK law is not a euphemism for dismissal, (although you could argue that it merely serves to obfuscate). I hadn't heard this, but being made 'redundant' sounds very searing, much like 'homo sacer', the person become worthless, as Palestinians are often described in Israel or Jews were in the Holocaust by such writers as Giorgio Agamben. Maybe the British don't mean it in the full way it sounds, but that sounds like not just losing a job, but being 'made worthless' (and not just losing a salary or wage.) But then that's not necessarily so, because British English is not the same as American English in many ways, and therefore it's unlikely that it's meant cruelly. It has a quaint sound to us, which is like when I first heard 'ex-directory'. I've been 'laid off' before, and don't care if it's called that. It's not exactly the same thing as being 'fired', because I've been 'fired' too, and I know the difference! Some of those times were very painful, so it's really the pain experienced and the attendant sense of helplessness, even if temporary, more than any serious upset at the terms or idioms used. You're just upset and angry, and getting annoyed at terminology naturally comes into play as well. One time I asked a supervisor 'Am I getting fired'? and she said 'Possibly.' Looking back, I find that a most amusing answer, but it was only a temp job. When there was more at stake, I really didn't ever care what it was called, the net result was the same thing.

Thanks, 4rmrdncr, for your kind words and the excellent addition you made to mine. Bart, yes, Croce has something, I'm pretty sure I read it there, in 'Writing in the Dark' on that same period of 'Liebeslieder' casting, but this is what you were talking about the more tranquil, contemplative, serene Patricia McBride. In this, from 1985 performance, I remember her face more than I do the rest of her dancing. It was uncanny, and I saw the expression one other time on her face as she left Juilliard from rehearsal. Several dancers made a strong impression in that performance, and Farrell was also marvelous in what I recall is a much more extroverted role, she is very youthful. These remind me a bit, these differences in character types, of the Women in White, Red and Yellow in Graham's 'Diversion of Angels', which is one of the more balletic Graham pieces but still not ballet in the strict sense, of course. Not that the contrast was quite that strong, but Farrell's is slightly like the youthful 'Woman in Yellow', who is really more a girl, that's about 'young love'. McBride's character here is more like the Apollonian 'Woman in White' who ultimately prevails over the erotic 'Woman in Red' in 'Diversion'. There is not really 'prevailing over' in the Liebeslieder Walzer, I think, in the same sense, and no parallel at all to the Woman in Red, as I recall, and didn't notice anything of that sort when I saw it in 2006 either. I do remember being equally dazzled by Bart Cook's dancing, there was this 'dancing fiend' about him that day, and maybe very often. I also recall Jock Soto was dancing that day, and Maria Calegari, but memory doesn't serve quite as well, except that Calegari was, as always, very elegant. But McBride and her serenity is definitely the primary image I retain from that performance, but then this always then recalls Farrell's seeming 'excitement to dance'. when she was seated there was this sense that she couldn't wait to get up and dance again, a youthful quality. This could be an incorrect impression, but if so, I did have it at the time, not invented years later. And then always follows how fabulous Bart Cook was and how wonderful the men's costumes look in that. Thanks for the info on 'Swan Lake' and McBride, Jack.

Will fill in later on Liebeslieder, it was great all right, that perf, want to reiterate before stepping out what you've just said about McBride in Swan Lake, also interested in Farrell and Verdy in it--I imagine they all did it, and I wish I could have seen all of them. Mainly because the only performance I ever saw Hayden in was 'Swan Lake', and that alone puts her all the way to the top with the others I've seen more. I just won't ever forget that one apparition-like appearance of Melissa.

In alphabetical order : Roberto Bolle, Suzanne Farrell, Allegra Kent. Yes, we're not in the 'Most Handsome Dancer' thread, so I imagine we can be allowed freedom of unsubtle taste on this one. I definitely go for BIG STARS, and I'll even grant that the one of Allegra may well be the most beautiful in the entire collection. It's the loveliest photo I've ever seen of her.

Thanks for posting, Mashinka. I didn't read any reviews at all before going to see this and still haven't, although I may read the one you linked to later. I'm not really at all concerned with film critics, and definitely agree with Joan Didion's assessment of them--'petit point on kleenex'. The film is extremely funny, with crisp and outrageous dialogue throughout. For once, the part is so roroco, that Michelle's voice does not seem to be that of the 'lesser actress'. and she knows how to turn all of her racy talk to good advantage.

I don't think so. Because of her partnership with Villella, and Robbins' return to the company later, she wasn't as affected by the ascendancy of Farrell as other ballerinas. I remember her quoted saying that Villella was her 'savior' during those years, although she also felt the ballets made for the two of them were more creations for Villella than for her. That's good. I had thought it would read something like that, so that these extra details are very good to get; and this all does demonstrate still further the singularity I see her as inhabiting.

I thought it worked, although want to hear others comment. Not surprised it vanished, almost unnoticed. A friend and I were one of THREE people at the Angelika here yesterday afternoon, and it's only been around for a few weeks. She looks ravishing at exactly 50 (just looked in IMDb, she was 50 on April 28 of this year.) But I think just incredible good fortune at getting this one final chance to use that beauty before having to start in with the more obviously 'aging-actress' roles. My friend with me is a painter and has done several beautiful portraits from photos of Bette Davis and I have his most beautiful one of Garbo, and I kept saying 'You've got to paint that face!' Kathy Bates is very funny, as will come as little surprise. Rupert Friend is a pretty boy, but I liked it that he wasn't quite 'too pretty' so that Michelle could be the beauty here.

Not for me, I have always been a huge fan of all three, more Farrell and McBride probably because I saw them both a lot more--although my few memories of Verdy in the 70s were thrillling. But usually so, I'd imagine, as you say, because fans love to compare much more than I think is necessary. Or, if they compare, I wish they could consider loving all the 'comparees' a bit more, because only then can you see it as the artists themselves do. Balanchine loved Farrell the most, but look who used all the others so well too--he wasn't really 'comparing', just being profession most of the time, resopnding to his desires and emotions at others. He didn't spend all of his time on Farrell, just was more obsessed with her and made more ballets for her. Not nearly always. I expect many people to do it, but I started out as more of a fan of Farrell, and still am a big fan. But if I have to choose between the two, McBride wins for me. I only found that out recently, but it's set by now. The special gift of her happiness and her delight in her male partners is much more my idea of sexiness and sensuality by now than a 'worshipped goddess'. I used to be a LOT more into diva worship than I am now. Diva worship is mostly a camp affair to me at this point. So by now, I only compare them because everybody else is always talking about Farrell no matter what, and that has to be dealt with. I wouldn't say that if she weren't one of the most important ballerinas in my ballet-going life, but she's not my favourite anymore. I do not agree that one always has to talk about Farrell when you're talking about Balanchine in those years; you have to do it a LOT of the time, but not all the time. The Farrell Myth frankly detracts from the great dancer Farrell was. And so, while it is appropriate that Jewels leads to the top of the hierarchy with Farrell in 'Diamonds', YES, the hierarchy is set in THAT BALLET as Suzanne as apotheosis and pinnacle, but that does not take into account all the other pieces in the repertory, or the subjective feeling we eventually define as the one that means the most to us, in dancers (or any kinds of performers or creative artists), if they are up on a comparable technical and artistic level. In terms of reputation, Farrell is probably at the very top of the Balanchine hierarchy of ballerinas in most people's minds, even when they look back to stars of the 40s and 50s, but McBride and Verdy are, as you say, many people's favourite ballerinas, and, face it, that is what the balletgoer cares most about, who he/she loves most. We are not mostly concerned with the external, with the facade of the WHOLE New York City Ballet apparatus and edifice as it is erected in some kind of inner hallucination for us. We look at a lot of work, and decide 'that means the most to me for reasons I can point to.' And we are all the better equpped to do this when it is a matter of performers who are on an already very high level. That's why Croce kept looking back and forth, one to the other. It could be that, as a man, I am ultimately attacted to McBride's feminine charms in her dancing than I am to Farrell's 'goddess qualities'. I don't tend to worship people, even great artists. And don't think I don't know Farrell is a great artist, I do. Just, in a sense, 'not my type'. I prefer women who let men be as much a part of the action as they are, and you always get that with McBride--always.

More than you'll ever know...

I just saw this today and thoroughly loved it, the best film I've seen in years in some ways, insofar as it is one of those films that 'they just don't make like they used to'--just lovely. Plus, as a huge Michelle Pfeiffer fan, I am so pleased. This is the role she really needed right now, and is one of her crowning roles--really good luck for her for a change, as she has not had that many good roles over the last 15 years. And she can still use her beauty in its fullness here. It's a delightful film, with Rupert Friend as Cheri and Kathy Bates as his mother. 'Divine decadence', as Sally Bowles would say. First time I've been to a movie house in two years, I usually think dvd is just fine. Last time was 'Hairspray', in which I thought Michelle stole the show even as the wicked one. Go figure, as they say. It's not perfect, but it's very good. Hope to hear other reactions to this film.