papeetepatrick

carbro--yes, I needed to be updated on Baryshnikov, and need to research him. I confess to not keeping up all that carefully with him, not because I don't see what he is (you'd have to be an idiot not to see that), but just that for some reason I have never been that much of a fan in the way I have with so many others. However, I am gradually going to know a whole lot more than I ever imagined--this site is quite relentless, and does make one want to expand beyond the limited picking and choosing I've been doing. It does seem that most ballet dancers do stay within the field, but I am only judging from the most visible probably. It could also be that some of the less famous go into any number of areas of teaching and performing that are not specifically ballet, and I definitely don't have much knowledge of that.

That is so funny! I bet that is a place where she can smoke. Von Habsburg lectured on the Danish Royal Treasures in 2003 here and told anecdotes about the Danish queen, including about her love of smoking. Never thought I'd run into that material again.

bart--I meant to add that I think your 'Swann in Love' idea is surely the most realistic if anyone wanted to use a section of Proust as a ballet. Just because I'm crazy about that 100-page-plus dinner party doesn't mean I would know whether you can do a ballet culminating in 'Poulet a la Financiere.'

bart--I actually found 'Swann in Love' to have a more Proustian sensation to it than 'Time Regained,' but I think I'm in the minority. Casting of Ornella Muti was physically perfect, I thought, Deneuve such a straight shooter it's hard to see her as Odette even though I think she's a great actress. Oriane and Basin are definitely fabulous characters. While you are right that you could not sustain sympathy (it would be ridiculous to try to sympathize with these two completely), I don't know about interest. I think one could sustain interest, even though it would be about something often caustic. The 'orianisms', the 'red shoes' which become all-important despite Swann's illness, Basin's adventures in lust. Then there are the more balletic images as when Oriane and her sister the princesse de Guermantes are wearing those fanciful hats and Oriane waves at Marcel. Oriane continued to be interesting all the way into 'le temps retrouve', having been able to change with great facility according to whatever new modes came up. I especially thought her raptures about the Spinning Song in 'Flying Dutchman' hilarious--especially since I also like it probably for the same silly reasons. Maybe an adult could not work for a child Marcel--I think you're probably right, but I'm not sure. In that video of 'Giselle,' Makarova's costume makes her look like a giant little girl. Albertine and Marcel could be done, I just doubt the interest is there. But it may be that ballet is not suited for unsympathetic characters like Oriane, except in the decorative aspects, and it may be that 'La Valse' already takes this on successfully. The music is marked 'Mouvt de Valse Viennoise,' but Ravel doesn't ever sound anything but Parisian, so with the fading away at the end, you get a sense of Things Past as in Proust. Or if fascinating selfish characters like this are portrayed, they probably can't be the central ones.

dirac--yes, I think so. Streisand just developed that way, which shows she's intelligent, even if we don't find nearly all the results satisfying artistically, as they were (to me) about through 'Hello, Dolly!' Although my tendency to digress is straight out of 'Tristram Shandy', and I'm trying to curb some of it, this time I'm glad I was undisciplined: it occurs to me that ballet dancers don't very often stray that far from their discipline in the way that other artists do. Even when they become huge celebrities, like Nureyev and Baryshnikov, their little excursions don't constitute but a very small percentage of their production. I remember that remark of Bogart's about working with Audrey Hepburn in 'Sabrina.' Somewhat irritated, he said 'She's disciplined, like those ballet dames.'

carbro and bart--thank you. That link is marvelous, full of fascinating minutiae--that's the kind of thing that makes you really excited and want to get into all of it more and more. This especially makes me want to get hold of some fairy tale collections. Any particular recommendations?

I just Googled for 'Alice' and 'through the looking glass,' but don't know any of these productions--from English National Ballet and California Ballet in recent years. A non-children-performing 'Through the Looking Glass' would still be terrific. The review of ENB I read said there wasn't really that much dancing, but the choreographer who could figure out how to do the contortions once you've gone through the looking glass would need to be a genius, and spectacle wouldn't even have to be emphasized, since there are Red Queen and White Queen and all the other creatures. They could just dance spectacularly. But I'm sure every choreographer has thought through this one. Think Proust would be a great ballet, but rather a non-story ballet. The Ruiz is considered good, but I don't think you can really do all those complex stories justice, so I thought it ended up rather skeletal, a little aging Odette, the Verdurins, Charlus, but nobody really fleshed out. What would be great is to do the salon of Oriane de Guermantes, but it's hard to see anything old working but Ravel, and that's been used a lot. There might be something from high modernism that could be used, I don't know. Faure if there was a 'Combray' ballet, maybe; and maybe Combray really could be done as a story, with Marcel nervous about his mother's kiss, etc. Maybe Albertine could be the focus of Proust as ballet, the ones without too many characters could be passionate. Liszt's 'Mephisto Waltz' could be a great story ballet, since it's already built in.

The NYCB/Frances Schreuder story could maybe combine a modern dance story surrounding parts of 'Davidsbundlertanze' inside it. The TV movie was good because of Lee Remick's pyrotechnics, but major NYCB details had to be omitted. You see this from reading the Shana Alexander book. The trial was in full swing, and there she was up at Saratoga. Juxtapositions like this are interesting, as when Leona Helmsley left the Park Lane Hotel to get on her private jet to go to no-frills jail in Kentucky--I think I would have done some austerity transition practice with such a future looming. I can't think that the Schreuder funding had any effect on the creation of this masterpiece, but it's hard not to remember that such a thing happened occasionally when you see it. Maybe enough time has gone by, and there's no way it's not still interesting--the arrival of that cool large check.

Romance/Romantic Films: The Scent of Green Papaya (French-Vietnamese) Last Year at Marienbad Brokeback Mountain A Summer Place (Sandra Dee) My Forbidden Past (Mitchum, Gardner) Camille The Apartment The Kiss (Garbo silent) Legend of the Happy Valley (Gish, Bobby Harron--Griffith) A Tale of Winter (Rohmer) Blonde Venus South Pacific Two for the Road Born Yesterday (Judy Holliday version only) I'm No Angel Days of Wine and Roses Gone With the Wind Walkabout Les Enfants du Paradis Hair Monster's Ball Picnic Pas Sur la Bouche Midnight Cowboy Lili Intolerance Farewell, My Lovely (Mitchum, Rampling, 70's) Welcome to L.A. Imitation of Life (1958, Sirk/Turner version) Casablanca Out of the Past Against all Odds Fanny (Leslie Caron) The Broadway Melody of 1929 The Sleeping Beauty (1964, USSR) A Streetcar Named Desire (Ann-Margret) Night of the Iguana Lady Chatterley's Lover (Darrieux) Ken Russell's 'The Rainbow' Stolen Kisses (Truffaut) Return of the Soldier Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Morgan From Here to Eternity Cinema Paradiso Some Like it Hot

I just watched this, adored it. I am just getting really familiar with 'Sleeping Beauty,' sort of a backward way to go about things since it's so basic, but that's that. Saw it with Nureyev and either Seymour or Sibley in 1973, then never have again till I have been watching 3rd act on RB tape. One difference here I don't quite get is that Makarova's Princess Florine dances with the Bluebird. And there's just one Jewel Fairy who does what either Park or Parkinson did (whoever was the one on the left and tinier). In RB tape it's Prince Florestan and his sisters, Park and Parkinson. But Brian Shaw's Bluebird dances with Sibley's Bluebird, so why isn't Makarova called Bluebird instead of Princess Florine; or was the RB's way unusual. I just would have assumed that Princess Florine would be one of the Jewel girls. I never heard of Alla Sizova. She is so gorgeous I could die. However, I think I'd rather watch this many, many times than perish any time soon. Mr. Soloviev is pretty sublime too. I wondered about those brown shoes, they aren't like anything I've ever seen. Might have been a period thing. I liked this better than any USSR thing I've ever seen--first time I ever thought Soviet imagination really existed. They were cleverer than I thought. Thanks.

Margot Fonteyn can't be separated from her royal image, and I don't see why anyone would want to, since you can so clearly see how much a part of her stage presence it is when you watch the old films of her with Nureyev. I wish there were more such problems, there's certainly little enough of dignity like Fonteyn's in today's world. Footage of her in that 1991 Nureyev documentary show her in all her mature aristocratic beauty; you'd think she and Audrey Hepburn were sisters, the resemblance was so uncanny as they got older, dying within a couple of years of each other and fairly close in age. Nureyev helped her with a lot of the medical bills, as is well-known. I only saw her once in person, in 'Poeme de l'Ecstase' to Scriabine and Klimt-inspired sets.

'Historically, weren't we in a similar situation a century ago?' No. Although your examples would make sense if we were. Ballet doesn't exist outside its historical period, and this period has no precedent. Technology is increasing at exponential rates and this is changing everything. While it is heartening to read of the success of Boston Ballet, Miami Ballet, and PNB and Suzanne Farrell Ballet, these don't really change the dynamic much. They are among the few benefits to ballet of the decentralizing process going on, but you don't see cities being built any more with the same kinds of centers they once had; and ballet is an urban thing more than it is an exurban thing. Once it has adapted to exurbia, it will probably be more like the hobby-careerisms in novelist J.G. Ballard's 'business parks' in 'SuperCannes' or the classes for the non-drinking members of the gated resort communities in 'Cocaine Nights.' However, you could still be right (I obviously hope you are), but only with a strongly organized resistance, which also hasn't any precedent.

Not over-dancing is what I liked about Robert Tewsley in 'Emeralds' 2 years ago. Now that Helene put up the links, you can see that he was holding himself apart in some ways, not sold on NYCB as the only thing he had to live for--but this made the performance stand out unforgettably. Not something cultivable though. I thought Farrell 'over-danced' in 'La Valse' in 1986, but that that was exactly what was needed, maybe a touch of decadence. But surely that was a very conscious choice for this particular ballet and not what people are talking about here. In music, some have thought Ivo Pogorelich is 'affected,' etc., whereas I find him the best living pianist even though I don't see him scheduled that much. Lang Lang may be the first huge career with Rachmaninoff traditions inherited as if purchased in whole large pieces and imported into the hothouse as newly commodified items. It's a knockout sound, but sticks more as theater than music. There's another kind of overdoing, thinking you can do everything--as in those periods when Barbra Streisand thought she could sing any kind of music, whether 'classical', disco, Broadway albums, etc., or write wonderful songs and adapt people's books for her stardom and buy many homes and then sell them, etc., do Las Vegas and overpriced tickets to rehashes of 'The Way We Were.' None of it ever sounded as good as 'Sleepin' Bee' or 'How Does the Wine Taste?' Kiri TeKanawa did a huge variety of pop and folk and musical comedy and religious in addition to opera, although I thought she pulled most of hers off, fairly unusual. Jean-Yves Thibaudet sounds subtle in all Ravel and Debussy, and good in the big Liszt transcriptions, however it's mostly just superficial silver sounds when he records written-out Bill Evans and Duke Ellington, sort of disembodied. Nureyev and Baryshnikov did Hollywood things, but that was normal when the heat's there. If they'd been 'down freaks' they would have just stayed in the Soviet Union.

I just got a perfect VHS copy of 'I Am a Dancer' from half.com for $8.29 including shipping! They had some other copies, but they then begin at $20 + or did on Tuesday. Go to eBay, anyone still looking for it, and if there are no eBay ones, they'll have the half.com ones there too. That 1991 documentary doesn't have nearly enough of 'Marguerite and Armand', which is why I had to have this one; nothing is omitted. (New Yorkers, there was a copy in NYPL from which I first watched this, but it has been lost or stolen.) You can just key in the title. It is truly wonderful to always have this now. I think it's incredible Ashton knew how to put the Marguerite story into the Liszt. Superlatives for the partnership of Nureyev and Fonteyn are never sufficient, so I can therefore write this miniscule post.

Yes--and we drank shots of vodka in a toast by Martins with Barbara Horgan inside the theater on Balanchine's birthday. There was that huge cake on stage and just outside the theater were tables with wonderful pastries from Payard Patisserie. I'm sure this has been written up 2 years ago, but I wondered if anybody knew if those were Passion Fruit or not. I thought so, but somebody that night said lemon, but I didn't think so. I never knew why the balloons didn't eject. I don't care for vodka, so took sip and still have almost the whole little bottle left as souvenir.

Everybody will see this, but here's the link. I had known about the play, but not known it was going to be Vanessa Redgrave. Fantastic! I last saw her in 'Hecuba' which people at BT also did. A few months later I heard Didion read twice from the book. This should be the most extraordinary thing on Broadway in years. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/theater/26didi.html?8dpc

'An interesting topic... but in the end, does it really matter? There is no question that ballet is an art. Cannot it be a sport also, if it makes someone happy to think of it so?' I think it does matter, and also that that is probably inevitably what is happening and will kill it if it does. The more it becomes sportlike, the less it will be ballet, and they can make it into a new category at the Olympics and sets won't be necessary at all, just corporate logos in the background. Competition is everywhere and always has been, it is not peculiar to sports. There are some obvious sorts of athletic matching that occur in all dance technique, but it's really so-called 'ice dancing' that best illustrates the danger. Huge populations think they were getting 'art' when Torville and Dean did 'Bolero' with lovely corporate logos. It's a cheap way to 'download' dance and think you are sensitive without having to do any earning. People can make themselves happy by thinking of ballet as a sport. Just because this is incorrect thinking doesn't make it useless: one of Nietzsche's most controversial proliferations is his argument privileging falseness over truth; he says that it can lead to longevity in many cases. People can also make themselves happy with recreational drugs, but then the law of diminishing returns kicks in, so the benefits need to be understood as temporary before embarking on such projects. The latest evolutionary technologies, such as those described in Ray Kurzweil's recent 'The Singularity is Near' seem to make it nearly unimaginable that a pure virtualizing will not prevail, in spite of the inevitable backlash from people like me, who cannot bear the thought. The more popular arts, like the Broadway musical, are already reflecting their corporate origins much more flagrantly (see Ben Brantley), and the nature of classical arts is to outlast by their very nature, but things I have recently seen make me feel pessimistic. That ABT 'Swan Lake' production is already vacuous: For awhile, if this is seen as the only way to 'get ballet to large numbers of people,' it will seem to work; but it seems to me more likely that such productions will not convert large numbers of people into the ballet audience, but that the popular culture will expropriate ballet into itself more and more so that what it once was will be barely recognizable. I would so love to be wrong.

faux pas--all interesting even if I disagree. Which is mainly that I just don't find those costumes to be at all evocative of 50's films: The colours are harsh and clash with each other, which I never noticed becoming popular till 60's rock, record covers, etc. I just found them too hard and loud to be pretty, and prettiness is what the 50's were all about, even when it was boisterous. I think if you look at 'The Band Wagon' or 'Singin' in the Rain' or the ones you named, you see a brightness but colours that nevertheless harmonize. These colours made me think that a 2005 version of looking back at the 50's was what was aimed at--with all the years of Lloyd Webberism and Disneyfied Broadway bled in somehow--and, since that must have been what was wanted, I'll concede that this was definitely achieved, in all its synthetic sterilization. The 'shirt jac' looks like a Hang 10 shirt--authentic suburbanite chosen over anything glamorous; this was touching in a mawkish, untheatrical way, but crisp, not hanging there, would have been better and Gene Kelly was the 'nice beaming boy' but always a theatrical boy as well. I don't mean it all should have looked like the ice cream colours of 'Les Parapluies de Cherbourg' (Deneuve, Castelnuovo) or 'Les Demoiselles de Rochefort' (fifties-ish, even though done in the 60's, with Deneuve, Chakiris, Dorleac as well as Kelly), although that wouldn't have bothered me personally, nor some 'On the Town' feeling either. It's tricky by now to do something from a specific pop period--as when musicals like 'Bye Bye Birdie' or 'The Music Man' are remade for television. It's as if the procedure is to 'update the period but still be the period,' a tall order. I wonder if it might not be better to decide either to thoroughly update or to thoroughly imitate the period, but trying to do both ends up with some indigestible, migraine-inducing hybrid. Towne films like 'Chinatown' and the recent 'Ask the Dust' are good examples of lovingly recreated old Los Angeles periods. This 'An American in Paris' just looked like 2005 to me, thin and with a whiff of reality TV about it.

So glad I decided on this, since I'm a ballet-lover but not the full-fledged sort who needs to see almost everything. Bentley in NYReview of Books said 'we remember when the pterodactyls were flying.' Yes, we do (and remarkable phrase, I wish I'd originated it), but maybe they just fly much less frequently, but not never maybe. In any case, there were some aspects of 'Liebeslieder' tonight I even liked as well as the last time, 1985. Thought Kistler had a harder glitter than the Marschallin, reminded me of that art historian, minor English royalty, Princess Michael of Kent, who gives Met lectures full of plummy accents and world-weary, slightly decadent racy talk. One of main differences for me in Martins NYCB is I look at the men more than the women, whereas in the Balanchine company I always concentrated on the women--except for this ballet, where the women are ravishing again, although Hubbe and Martins were too. This may be my other favourite besides 'davidsbundlertanze,' I think I'm nuts for this sort of thing. They can't be lax with this sort of music either, God, this piece is luscious throughout. I thought Kistler was all silvery filigree, and never liked her more than tonight. Looked at Joaquin de Luz more than Megan Fairchild in 'Le Baiser de la Fee.' This is partially because I saw McBride levitate at Saratoga if ever anybody did--because when I thought she levitated the shoe was going downward--a matter of a nano-measurement perhaps, anyway produced in part by soft summer night air in the country. But McBride was this thing of perfection. Some said 'An American in Paris' is silly, maybe so. I'd probably like it with different sets and especially costumes. There were 3 dresses, satiny dark grey-silver and cerise underneath, cerise gloves and one even had a feathered hat; later 3 men in these colours. These were the only ones that seemed very Parisian--the rest was like American TV sitcom colours or the colour scheme of that old Huck Finn musical, 'Big River'--strange weak baby blues, weird maroon-and-green combinations, Xmas crimson velvets, anti-ballet shirt for Woetzel, as for Westport regatta or something. The orchestra played it well, though, so it was okay. Had usher to lecture me on how you shouldn't want to look too closely at the faces because Balanchine didn't think you should. 2 years ago, someone else dropping all the old names told me she didn't want to know who was dancing because Balanchine didn't want you to do that. I wonder if they are paying to plant these people to tell you how to do your Balanchine by the book. I doubt it, though: Attendance was terrible, usher said it was the worst she'd ever seen tonight. I haven't seen it packed in years except for a Sat. matinee of 'Jewels' in 2004. Clever saxophonist in subway was playing 'An American in Paris' for tips.

Well, I feel a bit guilty about that labour you did, Helene, but now I will do my own five pages before stopping! Really appreciated it, and was interested in what I could wrest from that indeed 'awkward translation.' Since this is my first online German translation, I may have some difficulty getting 'new york town center clench' out of mind when I go there. I think I can see why his dancing impressed me so much in 'Emeralds'. It was quiet and had no brashness, but was elegant, it definitely seemed 'English.' Not like what I've gotten used to at NYCB over the years, but not pallid, tired or bland, so seeing him there was an unusual pleasure. As I recall, his schedule was not nearly as full as other male principles, at least not like Hubbe as an extreme example, but his decisions all make sense. I'm just glad I got to see him that day, and hope he will guest at NYCB some more. Thanks both.

I'd been wondering about Tewsley myself. I saw 'Jewels' on Valentine's Day, 2004, and his exquisite dancing somehow is what I remember about the whole afternoon more than anything else. I haven't been able to find out where he's been, although not listed in NYCB roster.

Yes, I appreciate this detailed review too--exemplary writing on an opera performance--and have as a result looked through this forum, which I hadn't seen. It made me look up the review of 'Parsifal' here a few weeks ago with Ben Heppner, which I didn't see, but it isn't the Robert Wilson production. I saw that in Los Angeles just before Christmas this year and thought it was one of the greatest moments in opera I'd seen. Domingo had a bad cold and was replaced by Gary Lehman, who had a wonderfully slender voice, greener vocally which was just right since it was also strong enough. Physically, he was much more the 'young fool', and this look of the stripling was wonderful visually, although nobody was going to be upset if Domingo sang. Vocally, Linda Watson was a magnificent Kundry, and the orchestra under Kent Nagano sounded fabulous that day. I don't know how to describe the stunning Robert Wilson production, but the Grail alone (when seen) was a glowing thing. There are long periods of standing still, but you can concentrate on the music in those. However, not nearly all the LA audience cared for this, and many left after the first act, so I got a fine seat. I was very impressed that LA had this production, as it matched anything I've ever seen in New York. Some of the younger people who got all the way through it were free with obscenities about how they'd hated it, and older ones complained of the length. Well, I wondered if anyone else had seen it, it cast a truly powerful spell. I was reluctant to do almost anything afterwards, but life has to go on, and I had thoroughly descended within 4 days, in the audience of 'Irving Berlin's White Christmas' at the wonderful deco Pantages Theater. I never had seen some Christmas pageant, and this was just awful. At least the old movie has some good dancing and Rosemary Clooney. I hadn't known till the NYTimes review for May 13 that 'Parsifal' was for some years never allowed outside Bayreuth, which gave it a religious significance well beyond the material itself. Even a few months is too long to say more than this, as I can't find my program. I haven't ever seen Macbeth, and am going to look for it here.

I'm fascinated about what Balanchine found in Ives, also in what Martins has. Ives is one of the few composers I have ever enjoyed only performing--and I only was interested in the Concord Sonata. Alan Mandel plays it perhaps better than anyone else who's recorded it (Herbert Hencke's is also good), but I generally don't like to hear Ives--I've seen 'Calcium Light Night' and think I'd rather see a Balanchine or Martins ballet to it than just hear it, though I'd rather hear Boulez, Copland, Bernstein, almost anybody. Ives idolized Bach and Beethoven, made many disparaging remarks about Debussy, Chopin and Mozart. The 'Essays Before a Sonata' give you an idea of Ives's philosophy and puritan consciousness, things like comparing the old Alcott house favourably to an Etruscan villa--the opposite of Balanchine's Lehar/Beethoven quip, except that Balanchine's is witty and idiosyncratic, and Ives's is resentful-oppressive and idiosyncratic. Even to play it was only pleasurable to me when I could get some time for it in the Steinway basement, so that what seem ugly sounds are made beautiful by a magnificent instrument. I can't imagine Ives respected ballet, so it's interesting to see that he's been made important use of therein. All those Increase Mather tones are so far from Petipa. Speaking as a musician, I'd take Petipa over Ives any day, as he is more interesting, less boring.

Farrell Fan--that is amazing, the prices one finds at abebooks. I hope any foodlovers that have somehow missed this book will work with it, as it is certainly one of the rarest things in my own collection. There are gorgeous colour photos, perhaps the best photos of cuisine I've seen, and the chapters are not divided in terms of kinds of food, but rather sensation and theme: the first 3 are 'Sensitivity..understanding the elements', 'Selection...the market speaks', 'Tonic Chord...rediscovering the essence'... Some of the more exotic dishes include 'Filet of Beef with Oriental Black Beans and Sweet Peppers', 'Steak Putanesca,' 'Soft-Shell Crabs in Beurre Blanc with Swirls of Caviar.' The Odile Cake does use 4 tablespoons of sugar, so that this leaves the intense bittersweet chocolate mostly intact, altered just enough.

Last night I made Sieveling's Odile Chocolate Cake, considered in the late 80's to be New York's Perfect Chocolate Cake. It still is. I am in disbelief at this Cake. The currants are to be 'soaked in 1/4 cup Mandarin Napoleon Brandy or another orange-flavoured liqueur.' Here's where I got to make a unique variation that is also not, since it's orange--but quite unexpected. I used the Orange des Iles Avatea of Paea, Tahiti, purchased among 5 others in Papeete in 2004, earning me my moniker here. In Bora Bora, I was told that the Rotui distilleries of Moorea were liqueurs as well as the world's most perfect grapefruit juice, but back in Papeete my hotel host corrected me immediately. Mr. Sieveling wants a cake that is 'extraordinarily rich rather than sweet.' This occurs. Green grapes are recommended along with a fresh flower. I think a peeled and cored fresh, ripe pear half is quite perfect too--and think a liqueur match should be colour-coordinated with the fruit rather than the orange flavour in the Cake (although the orange will not be disturbing either.) So one's Grappa or Poire Guillaume can be fetched. Nothing can threaten the integrity of this dark bitter and bittersweet chocolate concoction. Mr. Sieveling recommends unsweetened whipped cream, although an almost-Creme Chantilly is only slightly dissonant as well. And some mint sprigs, though frequent with chocolate at restaurants these days, do not bring one into the garish precincts. I don't recommend coffee with this, as that verges on substance abuse: the coffee would need to be strong and of good quality, so that there would be a lily-gilding perhaps less visual than gastric. I've had this unique cookbook, full of anecdotes about Mr. B. (as with Coulibiac), for nearly 20 years. However, it was until very recently so intimidating that I had only made the Potato and Leek Souffle, which is delectable. Old Pelleprat cookbooks from the 40's are the only ones even more so, and Mr. Sieveling clearly has worked through his Pelleprat. I only wish I could have dined at his Odile Restaurant in SoHo. However, I am no longer afraid to approach these beautiful recipes, even though they, having been born of ballet, make me move in the kitchen in a slightly bumptious way that is less Balanchine than Ronald Firbank with, however, severe punishment for overly precious flourishes. When no-longer-desired pan cataclysm a la Julia Child erupts, it must nevertheless be heard as musique concrete and not reacted to in an unseemly hysterical fashion unless the ingredients and assembly are destroyed, in which case it may be up to the producer whether or not to remain calm or go into a self-provoked high dudgeon. I found this extraordinary object at the Strand Bookstore, our lovely store of penitentiary atmosphere on Broadway and 11th. I have never known of anyone else owning it, but surely this board must be the one place where it is owned and mastered regularly. But for anyone who doesn't have it, I am not sure how it may be obtained. It's a McGraw-Hill book from 1985 and may pop up on auctions, but I have never seen another anywhere. I wonder if that cookbook store on 10th or 11th has it. I might have a chance to check if anyone is interested. As my history with the book demonstrates, it is worthwhile reading even if you are afraid to use it overtly. The Odile Chocolate Cake, it ought to be noted, is not at all difficult to execute, and it makes one think of the practical nature of the Black Swan quite possibly. I do not recommend this Cake for all persons, as it may be too good for you to be actually good for you, even though Mr. Sieveling does advise eating very small portions. This Cake is a form of Adult Entertainment. For me, it has, with the addition of Orange des Iles, bridged the gap between 2 of the perfect entities with which I have some familiarity: the 40 waterfalls of the Papenoo Valley and that other kind of ultimate abundant, even tropical glory, the New York City Ballet.