Through The Looking Glass

Last night I took Phoebe to the ballet. Pictures are not yet uploaded, because Yahoo! is being a total pain in the butt. **edit: photos (+ monkeys)**

The ballet (Swan Lake) was wonderful. It was yet another new choreography, and as usual the ballet suffered for it, but the set was improved immensely (to the point that it almost overshadowed some of the dancing) and of course the music is fantastic no matter what. I cannot stress enough that the dancing was excellent, but the choreography lacking. The best illustration of this is an observation I made in the first act. A male dancer had a solo, after which the audience applauded. This is absolutely normal, except that the solo required nothing applause-worthy. Female ballet dancers (ballerinas) are known for many, many special moves. Male ballet dancers have exactly three things going for them: A marvelously toned ass, a huge bulge, and the ability to leap spectacularly high. This particular solo consisted of the gentleman in question spinning around about three times. I’m terribly sorry, but any ballerina in the corps de ballet can spin around six times, with her off leg held up higher, en pointe, and smile while doing it. If the male dancers are to impress us, they must jump really high in the air. That is just How It Is.

There is a short piece in Act II for the four cygnets. I seem to remember thinking that the dancers were actually much younger, perhaps ballet students. In my recollection, they ranged in size from left (a tall girl en pointe) to right (a teensy girl in a different tutu and regular ballet slippers). Now, it is entirely possible that I am right about the height thing but it was merely a case of two drastically different-sized soloists, but I suspect that I am right in my memory and the number has just changed.

All of the dances for the corps, that is, the swans’ group numbers, were phenomenal. There is nothing more beautiful than thirty women in white moving in unison onstage – the Dance of the Snowflakes is another favorite, or it was until Kevin McKenzie got his hands on it.

Paloma Herrera danced the roles of Odette and Odile, and Marcelo Gomes danced the role of Siegfried. Paloma was wonderful, if a bit overly dramatic in her gestures (has ballet always been that way?), but poor Marcelo didn’t have an opportunity to show that he could dance until the end of act three. I must say, though, that once he did – boy, can that boy jump.

Speaking of jumping, I burst into tears when Odette threw herself in the lake, and didn’t stop crying until well after the curtain calls. I wonder if Phoebe noticed. (Incidentally, I suspect that curtain calls would not take quite as long, at least to get to the solo bows, if it were not such a long journey up to the stage for the conductor.)

After the show, Phoebe and I had a cup of coffee at the Starbucks in Barnes & Noble. We meant to go to a ‘real’ place, but that was very convenient. Also, neither of us had coffee – I had chai and she had hot cocoa with extra whipped cream. It was very nice. We talked about stress, diseases, and zombies. Voudon zombies, not cinematic zombies (though of course there was a brief detour in that direction).

This entry is probably longer now than the ballet, which has four acts, a prologue, and an apothesis. Time to go.

P.S. The price of culture (besides dumbing us all down) is apparently $90.

Dear Amy,

I tried to get a screenshot of my counter at 4444, but I was thwarted. I’m sorry.

love,
me

Apparently some asshole posted a MAJOR Harry Potter spoiler and my sister saw it. I don’t know where said spoiler is posted, so needless to say I am going to throw away the computer and lock myself in a dark room Just In Case. My sister hasn’t read the book yet because she is waiting for her copy to arrive from England; I haven’t read the book yet because it weighs 40 pounds or something and I don’t feel like carrying it around. I might buy a copy to read on the plane going back to LA. I don’t know. All I know is that if I find out who dies before reading it I will buy an automatic weapon and use it without reserve.

What’s funny about all this is that I have not read Return of the King, as I am waiting until after I see the movie to read the book (I’m weird, I know, but I don’t want to be disappointed in the movie), but I don’t mind some spoilers for that. I mean, maybe it’s just because ROTK was published 50 years ago and it’s My Own Fault that I’ve not yet read it, but still. I actually asked Will to tell me if anyone dies, and to be specific. Of course, this was only because I was tired of crying over Boromir and figured I just wouldn’t watch the other movies/read the rest of the book if anyone else I love died. Come to think of it, I missed some major details when I grilled him about it, so there ought to be some surprises still.

In conclusion, I need to take a decongestant.

Holy smokes! I’ve been using my dad’s computer all week. It’s a Macintosh PowerBook (laptop), and it’s on a cable modem. I don’t believe I shall ever be able to go back to dial-up. Happily, I think I get home in time to take advantage of a “sale” on SBC Yahoo DSL, which I hope is decent service. It has to be better than my MSN dial-up, and it’s only $6 more a month if I order by Monday. (Yes, we are drastically over-paying for our dial-up, but it is almost worth it for the convenience of not having to change our service.)

Also, I like this computer. I mentioned this elsewhere, so apologies to those who’ve already read it in another form. I don’t understand Macs at all, and I think that it is my (somewhat decent) understanding of PCs that causes me to at times hate them violently. My theory is that if I had a computer I didn’t understand, it would seem superior, even though PCs probably are, at least for what I use them for. However, I haven’t got $2000 to invest in anything, so I will not have an opportunity to put my theorioes into practice.

Tonight Phoebe and I will be attending Swan Lake at the Met Opera House. It is American Ballet Theater’s third-to-last performance of the season, and I am excited.

–Drastic Change of Subject Alert–

On Tuesday I had dinner with Nova. As far as I know, nobody reading this knows Nova. She and I grew up in the same town and attended the same college, but did not meet until a few years after college, at a mutual friend’s funeral to be precise. She and Will and her boyfriend, Erik, all attended Antioch at the same time, but she and Erik had already graduated when I got there. She has a Master’s from Columbia and he is almost finished with his (from NYU). She tells me that, though they would like to be permanent New York residents, they are thinking of moving to LA for a year or two so that Erik can explore the film industry. He is currently working on a feature here in NY, and has made several shorts of his own. Nova is a writer, and works as a copy editor for a publishing house. I told her about some of the stuff I’ve written, and she seemed genuinely enthusiastic. She wants to see the children’s story, as the company she works for publishes children’s books, and she would also like to read my “grown up” stories, and thinks that she will be able to suggest literary magazines for me to submit them to. This is all very neat and exciting, and a bit odd because I am so used to not doing anything with my writing.

It’s 11:11. As good a time as any to sign off.

the subway is so depressing.

My father is very much like me in many respects. For example, he writes down things that he sees that are striking to him in one way or another. This is from a sign that an elderly man he saw in the subway was carrying:

My daughter died
My wife is sick
I lost my job
Please help me

It made me indescribably sad, but also it made me angry. The other day, on the airplane, I read How To Be Good by Nick Hornby. It is perhaps the story of a marriage and perhaps an emotionally manipulative attempt at getting people to look at the world differently. Either way, I have been thinking of myself as a Bad Person every time I ride the subway. But am I automatically a bad person if I do not give money to the homeless? Am I OK as long as I do not have new clothes from the Gap despite the fact that my closet is already full? That is to say, am I a bad person if I keep my money, or am I still a good person as long as I really need the money that I keep? (I am not making myself any clearer, am I?)

So now the question is whether to allow myself to be sad and accept that I am human just for that, or get angry and beat myself up over not looking at The Big Picture. (Not to mention the fact that I have new clothes from the Gap.)

Last night I did not buy the new Harry Potter book. I also did not buy the complete short stories of Angela Carter, or any number of amusing-looking dating guides, but I think it is safe to say that Order of the Phoenix was the most tempting, and I persevered.

I am so sleepy that I had to look up persevere in the dictionary to see a) if it is the word I meant and b) how to spell it. Despite appearances, it is a perfectly decent hour – I am on the east coast and my blog is set to Pacific time. Nevertheless, I am sleepy. Strange bed and all that.

Things to do today:

• Pack

The damn weather reports keep changing, so I have no idea what sort of clothing to bring with me. Furthermore, I cannot find my phone card. Otherwise, everything is fine and I am very much looking forward to my trip.

Thanks so much to everyone who’s responded so far to my last entry. This sort of discussion really thrills me! In the hopes of keeping it going, I offer the following:

“As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time magazine, but as I inched sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what the state had in mind for me.”

~To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

“Standardized testing as an accurate measurement tool of learning is myth perpetuated by people who fail to recognize that education is not a system, but a life long process.”

-Katherine Smith.

Note: The quote is from a discussion at the Buffyguide forums.

OK, I know I’ve been updating this like mad today, but I keep thinking of things to say.

I just found a reference on Amazon to the Marilyn Monroe film Niagara – on a film noir list! Are these people insane? That is the worst movie ever and does not in any way resemble noir. Believe you me, there is plenty of crappy film noir, but Niagara is in its very own class of Crap.

…Then again, Fargo, and excellent non-noir picture, is also on the list. Maybe the person who put it together just didn’t read the assignment.