papeetepatrick

Oh, but it did catch on, just not quite as tenaciously as 'EGGGS-actly.'

Better than a miniseries (because everything is going to fall short, no matter what) is an 80s-style nighttime soap called BALANCHINE ! after 'Dallas', 'Dynasty' and 'Falcon Crest'. I can't wait for the opening credits which zoom in on the KOCH THEATRE, with rousing music by MIKE POST. I want the closing credits to be a MEDLEY OF FRANZ WAXMAN MOVIE MUSIC, including 'The Theme from Peyton Place'. Lee Radziwill as Barbara Horgan...hasn't had a part since 'Laura'...Robin McNeil as Himself and Lesley Stahl as Herself...Rin Tin Tin and/or Lassie as one of the Famous Dogs of Ballerinas...

THAT is hilarious...as is Faye Dunaway as Tallchief. My take on Mel's would be more like a Marivaux play.

We don't have to agree on this, the article is passe by now, as far as I'm concerned. By this definition, he is both trying to speak to the knowledgeable and those with no background at all--in which case you can surely write two separate articles, because those details about why NYCB is 'not doing Balanchine as well as it used to nor as well as regional companies' that the non-ballet-savvy will not recognize except for the ones in their own hometown. Nor will they know from Von Aroldingen or Whelan or Hubbe. I remember other articles he's written about the greatest dramatists of the century being Balanchine and Beckett or some such other overarching hyperbole. This is something he does, and it is not what he does well--which is deciphering the minutiae and sophisticated detail of rarefied dancers. An op-ed writer who'd taken a Freshman Survey course could do as well on the Great Geniuses, and it might be in a place where they'd read it. Or just one of the other non-dance critics who happened to be a balletomane, which I know there to be, even if they get their love for many things by reading the critics who tell them what to like. 'Failing to mention other greats' is, of course, no 'slight against them', because they don't need his approval, but it is misleading unless this is just some kind of public relations or advertising copy, which is partially how it reads (I mean that part only, if I haven't made myself clear.) It's possible that he hopes that there will be new balletgoers as a result of reading his first few paragraphs, but I doubt it. My experience is there is a tradition of going to the Nutcracker at NYCB among people who never see any other ballet ever, who go every single year, and never pick up the New York Times and read a dance critic. If these weren't written for 'us', I think he'd be more on the money to just say 'go ahead and go to NYCB, all you untutored bright people, it's still better than anything you've ever seen.' Agree on Wheeldon and the associated ideas. Edited to add: Here's the exact quote that Quiggin provided on another thread that I referred to above: "Watching this, as so often when watching the Balanchine repertory, I think it is reasonable to suggest that Balanchine and Beckett were the two supreme dramatists of the 20th century." It is not at all 'reasonable to suggest' this. You can decide to suggest these 'supreme' things or not, and it is purely a subjective matter, but it has never occurred to me once while 'watching the Balanchine repertory' that this 'would be reasonable to suggest'. But this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about in the current article.

This is very good, and has many examples of what's happening in NYC theater on and off B'way, as well as differing points of view. Most interesting are those who see possibilities for new creativity and less of the ubiquitous commodification as challenges from the financial crisis: http://nytimes.com/2008/11/19/theater/19bway.html?8dpc Surely this applies to all the arts to some degree right now.

Now that's an interesting observation, I wonder if it's widely held. I've always thought Balanchine was GORGEOUS, far more so than Montgomery Clift.

And I'd rather see PAUL MEJIA! (a new musical), which would of course include B. Like everything else, this would need Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role (and also as B...) and Penelope Cruz as Shari Mejia and Judi Dench as Romana Kryzanowska...Rona Barret as Arlene Croce, etc....PeeWee Herman as David Daniel..have I left out anybody?

I thought that the underlying question was what made Shakespear turn into the "great" one, as opposed to his contemporaries, with analogy of what made Balanchine become the "great" one compared to his great contemporaries, like Ashton and Tudor. While he then goes on for several pages to explain this in artistic terms, towards the end, he writes: Part of the answer to the underlying question is institutional and luck-based. We've discussed on Ballet Talk, and it was a major theme of Martin Duberman's "The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein" that what we consider a given, the success of Balanchine and New York City Ballet, was so tentative for so long. But then we consider the irony of the man who always said it would fall apart after his death, and "who cares?", to have had an institution that ensures that what happened to Ashton and Tudor does not happen to his works, at least in the near term, and a "family" that has extended his work across the US and the world. That's not the underlying question for all of us, but rather for Macaulay and whomever else. I think the analogy of Shakespeare and his contemporaries with Balanchine and his contemporaries is very poor. It doesn't mean anything, unless the 'growth industry' and popularizing determines all there is to the Value of Art. And it doesn't. The analogies need to be made with other great figures from other periods, because Mozart would not necessarily win even within his own lifetime. That's revisionist history, and he certainly did know who Bach was. Another way of putting it is that the analogy of Shakespeare with his contemporaries is certainly apt, but not at all an analogy to Balanchine and Tudor, Graham, and Ashton. And certainly the 200 years later becoming the world's greatest needs all the great playwrights since recorded plays to mean anything at all. You do have a point in the institutional luck, and the award for that goes first and foremost to NYCB, no matter what its faults. Then the industry spreads to Suzanne Farrell Ballet, MCB, PNB, and everybody else who love to dance these great works. I'm just talking about Macaulay, not Balanchine.

Thse posts have sparked a lot of interesting thoughts. I think, on the whole, that kfw's makes the most sense as to Macaulay's use of these three exemplars.What's important to me is to see Balanchine -- someone not hugely understood outside ballet circles -- placed on a pinnacle along with much more generally familiar Great Names. I thank Macaulay for that -- and for explaining rather persuasively why Balanchine should be in such select company. I also hope that more thoughtful and intelligent writers will start to think in terms like these. It's about time that "ballet" rejoined the company of the higher arts, where it was -- briefly and perhaps only locally -- when Balanchine was creating in New York City in the 40s-70s. Well, it has sparked some interesting thoughts, but I still disagree with much of it. The only rationale is that it is only a newspaper article, half-polished, not an essay of the sort a real writer would publish (as opposed to someone who writes excellent dance criticism, which he does), because even though I think kfw and dirac are probably right to some degree (but not nearly all) that Macaulay is referring to rankings by the general populace, that is not a subtext one should be expected to realize. You should not have to read beyond a literal statement of what Macaulay proclaims Shakespeare to be, unless you have the right to disagree with it (and he is neither clear about this, nor is he correct, for the reasons I've given.) It should be clear on its surface, otherwise it is really not written for 'general interest readers', but rather for those intellectual and probing enough to be looking for subtexts in newspaper articles (which is not where they should be; journalism is not literature.) Macaulay does not need to convince me that Balanchine should be in such select company, as I already see him there--and 'Mozart' is only the buzzword of the 'general populace' because of the boon created by the movie 'Amadeus', notable for having nothing to do with Mozart and/or Salieri, cf., Peter Gay's Mozart bio. It would only be interesting to me if he explained why he chose those particular Titans with whom to 'place Balanchine'--what the kinship is (in any case, he, like all of us here, makes only a ripple by making such judgments, there's then the March of Time). The 'other trinities' I was talking about could be as when people make a trinity of greatest 20th century artistic revolutionaries--although I'm not going to be limiited to trinities, if there are 4, I think we can accommodate it: Here we often hear Picasso, Graham, Stravinsky and Joyce as having come up with the most original new languages and artistic expressions. There is not one of these great artists and many others who does not have a cult, and cults are irrational, you do not argue with them. And those who make a point of claiming not to be cults nearly always are the most exclusive and elite cults. This is just a fact of life, like religions you don't share. As for ballet 'rejoining the company of the higher arts', I am surprised to hear you say that, as it has never left them. Balanchine's work did not 'briefly and locally' place it back 'up there.' His work is important and it is among the greatest of all artistic work, but the Kirov and POB were operating well before 'Balanchine in New York' as 'high art' (as was Balanchine himself before New York, by the way. There was also major work at ABT). Dance at its greatest is obviously one of the High Arts, and has been for the entire 20th century, not to mention the 19th, where we get the Petipa. There's been a dance department at Juilliard longer than there has a drama dept. You wouldn't have had Stravinsky writing for Balanchine and Barber, Menotti, Schuman and Copland writing for Graham. Even great performances of the Romantic Petipa repertory are 'high art'. What I would say about the periods in which Balanchine was most prolific and profound is that that is the only period in which Balanchine himself will ever be quite that profound, whether or not the 'growth industry'. In the 'global Balanchine onslaught', in miliosr's term (I don't sympathize with that either, but I do see it as a reaction to a concept of cult), there is a popularization of his work that is exactly like the gradual popularization of Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, but that will never be comparable to the exciting period of creative fruition when he was still alive and coming up with new works. Martha Graham Dance Company is somewhat different, in that the directors are not trying to do a new company for Ms. Mycene and Ms. Dakin, but to hold the works of Graham sacred as Suzanne Farrell does Balanchine's; Martins is doing this combination of Martins and Martinized Balanchine, maybe. Even so, live performances of Graham are not quite what you see on film with Martha herself, Bertram Ross, Matt Turney, et alia. In short, this is a dispersion and popularization which is just fine with me, but it has to do with different kinds of sensibilities than that of the cutting edge, which all things lose. So we do need 'growth industries' of great artists like Balanchine, but not nearly so much as we need much more cutting edge. I think there will be new cultural changes due to unmentionable events which may allow the cutting edge to get sharp and ruthless again, instead of having to work in hiding. Other examples are of the romantic concert pianist, whose pinnacle was surely Franz Liszt in that he was treated and adored like a rock star. In the 20th century, Horowitz may have come closest, but he was anything but glamorous, so it took on another dimension with his magnificent playing. Maria Callas excited opera lovers more than anyone else does now. There are all sorts of examples, but while all these geniuses 'live on' to some degree, they do not make up for the need for new art of an equivalent genius, and thus are all to some degree museum pieces. This is incomplete, and I don't have time to polish it either, but it's too long anyway and just a forum comment post Oh, and as regards Ba'al, I still worship him and many other pagan gods. I agree with Isaac Asimov that Jezebel got a bad rap, and had a lot of things going for her. Polytheism in general has a lot going for it, too. Idolatry can be defined in many ways--money and fame are often referred to as 'gods', etc.

I don't know of any other playwright who has been translated into as many languages and is part of standard curriculum, advanced scholarship, and performance as Shakespeare, nor has been adopted informally as a national playwright by other countries, such as Russia and Germany. If not the world's greatest playwright, Shakespeare has proven to be the most important playwright of the last half millenium. He's the Nutcracker of English studies! Oh, I adore Shakespeare and don't think of any playwright as greater. My emphasis on this as that certain forms of expression are from other periods and ways of experiencing and thinking, so it's never accessible to one 'greatest' person. Sophocles couldn't write 'a Midsummer Night's Dream' and Shakespeare could not write 'Antigone'. For another example, many French think Racine is greater than Shakespeare, and I've found him quite as impressive, even though the output is far smaller. I imagine I'm sometimes taken off-guard when Macaulay tries to do these big sweeping things, because they never seem to be nearly as convincing as when he talks about the individual works (incidentally, a Macaulay review of Martha Graham Dance Company in NYC in 2007 is also very interesting, because he is actually talking about 'Night Journey' in specific ways, just as he talks about 'Union Jack' in this one (the description of Von Aroldingen was worth the whole review), not making hierarchies based on putting Ashton, Graham, and Tudor into little categories as Jonson, Marlowe, etc., These I find tiresome mainly because they are never accurate and illuminating the way his insights into actual pieces, recent performances, and dancers are. I think I'm always a bit allergic to anything that has too much suggestion of Cult, though, and that Mozart- and Wagner-lovers can be especially extreme here--and these are two of my favourite composer, by the way.

Sandy--he may not think it, but he does write it, at least in the case of Shakespeare--because it is not something established that Shakespeare became the world's greatest playwright. I think he frankly does it a bit more with Shakespeare and Mozart than even with Balanchine. While I think it is appropriate to see Balanchine as equal to Shakespeare and Mozart, it would be interesting to know what someone thinks in terms of how one genius is like another, which is where you would find the 'Trinities' that bart refers to. But there would be other 'trinities' for other geniuses, I think. Thanks for the remarks.

Okay, it was suggested that I start another thread on this aspect of the article by Macauley on Balanchine and NYCB. I've said my piece, but if anyone else has any ideas, put them here instead of bart's thread which is to focus on NYCB's performance of Balanchine as seen by Macaulay now. I'll just reprint my whole post from over there, and there I'll delete the part that is focussed on here. Has to do with the question of proclaiming Top Geniuses. I'm sure plenty of people have strong ideas on this, so say something if you do--this has come up before and some people seem to think genius can only be one. I disagree totally. Anyway, as before:

That's a good point. And the 'growth industry', even when it has good results in MCB and PNB and the Kirov and others, reminds me of when there was only one Saks Fifth Avenue and one Bloomingdale's. NYCB actually has to compete with all those other companies, doesn't it? although I think that there's still some kind of aura around NYCB, it's pretty tarnished and will disappear in time as a result of that 'growth industry'. Because none of these more-performed Balanchine works are new; but when they were new, it was more exciting by a long shot.

He's good when talking about the specifics of NYCB, and esp. things like the descriptions of Von Aroldingen and Whelan in 'Union Jack'. Others will have been to NYCB more over the years, but I've been enough to see that he's characterized the evolution pretty well; it's Martins's company and it looks like it, tamer and tighter and paler. I liked the subtlety of the '4 years following Balanchine's death' as well, because I think of those years as having been especially inspired as well and went pretty frequently--in fact, the best performances (except one or two in the 70s as with Melissa in 'Swan Lake') I saw were in 1985, 1986, and 1987.

Thanks, Marga. It turns out NYPL has all the editions, so I have ordered the 1954 one. I'm sure it will have a lot of other great things in it, and I don't know how I've missed it this long. Why this piece and the ballet based on it have found little popularity is somewhat understandable, but not entirely. It may be the subject matter, but the music is certainly accessible to anyone who has liked Sessions, Harris, Copland, Wm. Schuman, Barber, Hindemith, etc. It's almost a piano concerto, but still not quite even though it's full of virtuous-piano writing and the piano is definitely as prominent much of the time just as with a concert, but it remains a symphony. I'd like to play it in public myself, and did work on it some in 2004. Somehow I became familiar with it at a very young age. It's Bernstein's New York, and I imagine Robbins only enhanced this poetic vision.

I interpret that thanks as meaning "thank you for shopping here" and not as subservience, especially since I reply with my own "thank you." Yes, and there is a mutual benefit on either side--the merchant values the money more than the shirt, and gets it. Therefore, it's equal insofar as they agree to complete the exchange. The cashier, while not the owner, still is employed and must represent the owner, whether or not he wants to (until he won't! I certainly know that feeling!)

No, but that reminds me of the great Tarkovsky film 'Stalker', which I only saw this year. Much beauty, but many people died as a result of scenes with the filthy chemical waters, and hardly anyone of the cast is left even though it's just late 70s. It's got those long silent passages of landscapes for 5-10 minutes of real time, etc. Very slow, but worth seeing, reminds me of some of Lynch's recent work, like 'Inland Empire'(which I don't care for.)

I don't find it to be as pleasant as just goodbye, or as in France au'voir monsieur-dame, etc, but the difference is with a more modern business usage. It's equally mechanical in pharmacy transactions in England and France, just a little less 'okay, you've paid, now buzz off...' although the difference is in the 'length of the moment of intimacy' between the seller and the buyer. The buyer often wants to prolong the interaction out of guilt at not having to tolerate such a tedious job; he wants to be reassured by the lower-down, in fact, that he needn't feel guilty about his greater privilege (this is tedious--much better to just realize that that's the arrangement for the moment). There are other versions in which the well-to-do want to pretend to be modest, and others in which the well-to-do want to enjoy being rude; others still in which the lower-downs and clerical types want to be as beastly as possible as 'That is correct, SIR!!'. I've reported bad attitude problems a number of times, but never gotten anybody fired (even though once I should have). But I've heard 'have a nice day' nearly everywhere outside America as well as in, and I don't have to like it to respect that they have to say it. These are different from some of the others, because they are just lubrication to get through tiresome sequences of irksome events, so 'have a good evening', 'have a good one', and 'no problem' are here to stay, and Customer Fulfillment Specialists in all lands have agreed to follow their guidelines accordingly. Leonid is talking about 'formality politeness', which is not especially American, but at certain levels it is a form of true politeness, if only because if one leaves it out, one has become impolite. I do tend to agree that these kinds of polite gestures and usages do not have to be deeply heartfelt to be important to observe, otherwise we'd never get a thing done; equally, if they never were, that's pretty pathetic too. Lots of them are different from country to country. I love the English habit of a waiter saying 'thank You', as he places your plate or glass on the table, and never heard that in America even at the best restaurants. The division by class is obviously what is being objected to, and certainly PLU can be seen to be quite absurd, esp. when it can be used by any class, such as social-climbers like the married bimbo in the play 'A Day in the Death of Joe Egg', who is not at all even upper-middle-class and going around with PLU and PUA (Physically Un Attractive, and referring to a baby with birth defects). But Proust has a wonderful description of aristocratic style when speaking of letters from ancien regime descendants to, say, artists they admire and are praising in the body of the letter, their 'new discoveries.' Nevertheless, at the end of all these letters, the duke or princesse never neglects to put the chill separation back in place with 'Croyez, monsieur, de mes sentiments distingues.' This can probably be construed as being either polite or impolite.

Has anyone seen this exquisite gem? Here's a synopsis by someone at IMDB. I just watched it, and it's one of the best movies about musicians I've ever seen. Not one of the best films perhaps as 'great film', but it does tell the story well and primarily you get to hear a LOT of the music, not just little snippets. This is not so hard to find on CD, but otherwise you have to go to World Music Institute and hear it live, which is best, of course, but these films of traditional players are not all that common. I highly recommend it, and you hear modern Thai sounds in the 'movie score music', as well as a contemporary Thai pop song in the closing credits. Lovely actors and actresses and beautiful photography as well. This is from 2004, which is very heartening, as I can think of only a handful of films of this sort, such as 'Farewell, My Concubine', about Peking Opera. That's a better film and has more drama, but this simpler one is excellent too, and the music is ravishing: "Based on the life of Luang Pradit Pairoh (Sorn Silapabanleng) the most revered traditional Thai music master who lived during the reigns of Kings Rama V to VIII, the movie traces the life of Sorn, who picked up the ra-nad ek (Thai xylophone) mallets as a small child and played all his life. The backdrop to Sorn's life tale is the story of Thailand's classical music from its golden age during the reign of King Rama V to near extinction after the end of the absolute monarchy when the government banned it as uncivilised in the 1930s -- a time when Field Marshall Plaek Pibulsongkram tried to push the Kingdom into the modern era. The film shifts back and forth from the time when Sorn was a young man, playing in a xylophone duel with the intense Kun In, to the 1940s, when Thailand was under Japanese occupation and Sorn's playing would provide some inspiration to the oppressed citizenry of the time. Written by Wise Kwai" Directed by Itthisoontorn Vichailak (all the other names are equally difficult)

This one is maybe something somebody can answer. I always thought it was 'I couldn't care less', but then a lot of people say 'I could care less' and always mean the same thing. Is one of them more right than the other.

This thread is good, we're gradually to all the ones I hate most. Totally agree with this one, especially when it's said to me in the form of 'Patrick, I think you may have issues about this...' I still think 'problem' is used a lot in the offices, as I outlined above, but in different senses than it used to have. Now you'll hear 'You got a PROBlem, you take it up with Rod_E', etc. By far the worst of all, nobody's mentioned it yet is 'GET A LIFE!' and 'I think somebody needs to get a life'. This goes back to the 80s, but it's never died. I think it is positively subhuman.

Don't I agree--I'm sure it was worthwhile, and the Bernstein piece is one of the masterpieces of the mid-century American repertoire. And it sounds like it may have gone out of rep very quickly as well from what googling I did last night. If people just listened to this one piece, they'd know what a great composer Bernstein was, not just for his show music--Lukas Foss's piano (and 'pianino') playing are stunning on the old recording. Will try to find the book. Thanks, Mel.

Well, 'I should have went' is just bad grammar, along the lines of 'he don't' 'It's my pleasure' is okay if the rep is complimented. The reason 'no problem' is practical, if not lovely, when used by Hewlett Packard, et alia, when they are trying to get your printer to work from around the world, is that it can be used for almost anything and nobody expects it to be a literal expression anymore. So that when you are complaining about mechanical failures and make a request for some help, you get used to 'no problem, sir', and there's nothing elegant about computer failures; the best one hopes is that nobody starts screaming. I think it's funny when they answer 'Welcome to Chase, this is Jane, how may I provide you with world-class service today?' I hadn't thought about the 'or no' but I don't care for it either. Nor do I like it when people want to write this sort of Continental English, and always write 'that's what the solution is, no?' instead of just simply 'that's what the solution is, isn't it?'

My most-loathed: "Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do." My favourite trash phrase "I'm outta here."

Was it the entire piece? with all the characters in the 3rd Avenue bar? Did you see it? I'm very interested and didn't know about this. Thanks!