A modicum of ironic detachment

If the New York Times had actual editors

2012-01-05T00:34:00.005-05:00

~~January~~ April 1, 2012

A Fairy Tale Stoked by Childhood Dreams
By ALASTAIR MACAULAY

We live in a golden age of children’s fiction, and in the most memorable moments of his staging of “The Nutcracker,” Alexei Ratmansky takes his place among the most imaginative children’s authors.[This is a ballet review, not something for the Book Review section.] The snow scene that ends Act I, with aspects of seduction, terror and vengefulness unlike in any other “Nutcracker,” has a dramatic urgency that recalls some of the classic works of Hans Christian Andersen.[Aspects of seduction and terror have always been there in the music, and are already present in Mark Morris's "Hard Nut."] The time-traveling scenes whereby a pas de deux in each act shows us a Princess and Prince who are the adult alter egos of Clara and the Nutcracker Boy recall some of the finest parts of the “Harry Potter” and “His Dark Materials” series.[To repeat: this is a ballet review, not a discussion of children's literature over the ages.]

Few productions of “The Nutcracker” repay serious scrutiny.[As opposed to productions of Corsair, Bayadere, Sleeping Beauty?] If you’re just [JUST?!] a balletomane, you may return to see multiple casts; but the lover of choreography craves more. The curious thing about Mr. Ratmansky’s production, which American Ballet Theatere presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for almost three weeks in December (the company gave it its premiere there in 2010), is that, although it’s presented as a vehicle for a wide range of star casts, its pas de deux in Acts I and II by no means compliment all of them.[You were expecting different casts to dance identically?] It is, however, a company show. Vividly engaging from the opening kitchen scene, gorgeously costumed, full of keenly individual characters, its most invariably telling fare comes in what it gives its children, its corps de ballet and its supporting players.

When the massed children first rush into the Stahlbaums’ party, they gesture yearningly upstage to the Christmas tree (and its presents), hopping. Then they stamp in frustration, ~~memorably~~ doing little jumps with bent knees that arrive with turned-out feet together (assemblés). That gesture to the tree is echoed by the Snowflakes at the end of the act, as the children escape their lures.[Are "the children" here the same "massed children" in the first sentence? If not, clarify.] And those stamping assemblés (with the knees tucked up) are the kernel of many steps that follow for the Snowflakes, Clara and the Nutcracker Boy, the Princess They are also to be seen in "Hard Nut."]

All this suggests that the children’s pent-up energies stoke the fantasy scenes that follow.[How does this follow? Are all other children in all other versions of Nutcracker so lethargic?] And so the Ratmansky “Nutcracker” acquires a strong edge of “Hansel and Gretel.”[Huh?] The children are the motor to the energy of this “Nutcracker” and its dream. And see how the Nanny and Butler return as Sugar Plum Fairy and Majordomo: this is a child’s dream in which the domestic staff rule the heavens. (Richard Hudson’s décor proposes, rather confusingly, that the Sugar Plum land is somehow inside the children’s doll house.)

The intricacy of this construction deepens on further inspection — but several flaws still glare. Amid all the liveliness at the party (I never tire of Frau Stahlbaum’s endearingly silly sisters), irritants include the grandfather’s sneezes (always a bad shtick in ballet), the grandmother’s dodderiness, and the child who three times has the same crying fit directly at the audience.[Are these really "flaws" that "glare"?]

If I understand Mr. Ratmansky’s idea correctly, this “Nutcracker” occurs in a child’s world.[The phrase "well, duh" comes to mind.] Nanny screens the children’s eyes from the sight of their parents kissing. The dancing dolls, like the vivid servants in the kitchen and (above all) the mice, have a heightened intensity that makes them more real and less daft than the formally polite grown-ups. So the tepidly choreographed battle of mice and soldiers is a disappointment. And though the snow scene is serious, it is the last serious moment until, late in Act II, Clara and her Nutcracker Boy recognize themselves as the Prince and Princess, as if meeting them in a magic mirror.[Doesn't the character of the music direct what is "serious" and what isn't?]

The rest of the Sugar Plum land in Act II — despite a real wealth of dance detail — is ~~just~~ a return to charming silliness. Since the 1892 premiere production of “The Nutcracker” ended with a view of bees before a hive, it’s interesting that Mr. Ratmansky — who knows an astonishing amount of dance history — has restored bees to the ballet. His four male bees fructify the 16 female flowers in the long Flower waltz. But these bees, with their foolish helmets and petty wing beats, and the giddy, vapid flowers are the ballet’s most trivial characters; and theirs is a long waltz, played here at a very moderate tempo.[This is one of the most famous and gorgeous ballet scores: can you really have nothing else to say about it than what all ballet stage managers know, that the Waltz of the Flowers is 26 min long?]

I watched eight American Ballet Theater performances in December, with seven women as Princess and seven men as Prince. In the first performance in 2010, with Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg, the pas de deux took off as multilayered constructs.[huh?] That was just as true on Wednesday, when Mr. Hallberg (returned from injury) again partnered Ms. Murphy. These two breathtaking virtuosos find time to phrase and to characterize, so that you’re aware of the roles within roles: the Nutcracker doll and the chivalrous boy within the Prince; the coltish, giddy girl within the Princess.

The same role found Xiomara Reyes at her best on the evening of Dec. 18; and Herman Cornejo, his partnering never better, beautifully captured the triple tiers of boy, hero and doll. Likewise Paloma Herrera and Cory Stearns on Dec. 24: Mr. Stearns’s characterization was canny and his presence never more handsome. (Something about his handsomeness and his artistry often gets lost in the vast space of the Metropolitan Opera House.)[Word count in this graf about the women: 18. Word count in this graf about the men: 30, disregarding the 19 words in the parenthetical, with its simpering repeated reference to how handsome the dancer is. As the kids say: ew.]

I reviewed the season’s first cast, with Veronika Part, who is physically and technically ill suited to being rapidly manhandled, and Marcelo Gomes, who is too virile to catch the boyish wonderment.[If you reviewed them already, why repeat such harsh dismissal? And "too virile to catch the boyish wonderment" is a telling phrase.] Eric Tamm, new to leading roles, acquitted himself pretty well on Dec. 15 (when his partner, Ms. Murphy, replaced Hee Seo) and Friday (when he replaced Alexandre Hammoudi). His partner at that latter performance, Yuriko Kajiya, was sure but bland.

With lesser casts, these pas de deux both become obstacle courses.[As so most real pas de deux.] Since Daniil Simkin is a precarious partner, it’s as well his performance on Tuesday evening was not his most precarious. There was no mishap, but the partnerwork was at best blurry. His soloist technique is stellar but involves a tricky mixture of facility and tension; his stage persona lacks any element of repose. His partner, Maria Riccetto, was deft and sickly sweet. Unless the moments when she kneels to press his hand to her cheek are played with fresh emotion, they cloy.

Joseph Gorak’s dancing (Dec. 21 matinee) combines brilliance with stylishness to rare degrees; it’s already evident he’s one of Ballet Theatere’s most remarkable men. But to give him this as his first full-length role was to throw him in the deep end. The choreography was more to blame than he or his partner, Sarah Lane, for the moments when she came unstuck.[Blame? We're blaming, now?] She, Ms. Riccetto and Ms. Kajiya are all inclined to make the heroine’s adoration of her partner sentimental.[This echoes the last sentence of the previous graf. Spell out what you mean to say, and say it once, but clearly. You tend, in these 3 grafs, to praise, defend, or justify the male dancers, while sniping, in far fewer words, at the females.]

How can we add up the positive and negative aspects of this “Nutcracker”? I changed my mind at every performance. And I keep changing my mind about Mr. Ratmansky. When I say he is the finest artist choreographing in ballet today, I say so with mixed feelings about ballet itself.[WTF????? Your review attempts to show you off as a person who knows children's literature and opera and ballet history more than it tells us about Ratmansky's "Nutcracker." If you have mixed feelings about ballet, Mr. Macauley, you are in the wrong job. You might also give equal attention to the females as the males on stage.]

Lucy Kellaway rules!

2010-02-15T13:11:00.001-05:00

I have mostly enjoyed working for insensitive people as I find them restful and straightforward. An insensitive boss can be told what his failures are without going into a blind funk. They don’t take things personally. And because they are insensitive, they help me behave better. If I know I’m not going to get rewarded for being needy, I have no choice but to tone it down a bit.

Debt is not your friend

2010-02-15T12:22:00.005-05:00

I read Club Orlov, Irvine Housing Blog, and Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation, but I think Orlov and Kunstler exaggerate to make their points. Then I come across things like this, a reader letter to the Simple Dollar blog:

I’m 26, married, and expecting a child in October.

My Debts:
$390k @ 5.5% mortgage
$15k @ 4.9% car payment
$13k @ 4% education loan
$25k @ 3.3% education loan

I have a well-stocked emergency fund already in place and I’d like to start minimizing my monthly payments on other debt. Generally, I would agree the best approach would be to pay down the mortgage since it has the highest interest rate. However, I only plan to be in this house another 3-5 years. When I move, I’ll be moving to an area with a much lower cost of living (and also lower pay). I hope to use proceeds from the sale of my current home to buy a small home with cash in the new area. Since I won’t be staying in this house long enough to truly realize the benefits of extra payments on my mortgage, does it make sense to instead try to clear the other 3 debts so that when I move, I will be completely debt-free?
- Chloe

Where to begin? She's married and pregnant, but speaks exclusively in the first person SINGULAR.

She's 26, and carrying a debt burden over USD400,000.

And (wait for it) ... she believes that the house she "owns" will turn from an income suck into an ATM in "another 3-5 years."

Why has this young person mortgaged her future, and that of her child?

How many others are similarly situated?

How will her story end?

How will their stories end?

How will our story end?

Slouching towards Appomattox

2009-09-16T15:57:00.002-04:00

So Joe Klein posts this on the death of Jody Powell:

He was a civil war buff, the descendent of seven--he claimed--confederate southern soldiers and I began the Rolling Stone story with a quote from W.J. Cash's incredible The Mind of the South about the confederate soldier, slouching, disheveled, undisciplined and lethal. I wish I could replicate that quote here, but I can't seem to find the piece on the internets--kudos to the reader who can...because, to my mind, it's the ultimate tribute to the man.

And I find this, via Amazon's "look inside book" feature, without too much trouble:

To the end of his service this soldier could not be disciplined. He slouched. He would never learn to salute in the brisk fashion so dear to the hearts of the professors of mass murder. His "Cap'n" and "Gin'ral" were likely to pass his lips with a grin -- were charged always with easy, unstudied familiarity. He could and did find it in himself to jeer openly and unabashed in the face of Stonewall Jackson when the austere Presbyterian captain rode along his lines. And down to the final day at Appomattox his officers knew that the way to get him to execute an order without malingering was to flatter and to jest, never to command too brusquely and forthrightly. And yet -- and yet -- and by virtue of precisely these unsoldierly qualities, he was, as no one will care to deny, one of the world's very finest fighting men.

Aside from the h/t from Anonymous himself, what interests me is how different his recollection and the original are, and yet how clear it was that this was what he was looking for.

Why oh why can't we have better ballet criticism?

2008-11-04T00:15:00.005-05:00

X. laughed and I sputtered at this, from Alistair Macaulay:

Even so, I’m impatient to get to Mr. Hallberg. What should one praise most? The way he has taken six roles already this season as if each one made him a wholly different person? The way he makes the imaginative world of each ballet more real by his absorption in it and his focus on others? The beauty of his partnering, so that it’s a wonder just to see him gently lower a woman to the floor? Or should one cut to the chase and wonder at the astounding stretch of his entire body — such legs, such feet — in classical ballet, so that he illuminates steps with time, naturalness and phenomenal grace?

Yes, Mr. Hallberg has lovely feet and, perhaps, from the furthest seats in a very large house, he might look an impressive dancer.

But.

I saw him from the eleventh row of City Center, and his eyes are dead: he sees the studio mirror at the proscenium, nothing more. His gaze focuses on "his" ballerina only when she comes into his orbit and he is required to be aware of her.

Artur Rubinstein always said that live performance was communication, and of course he was right.

In Hallberg's case, haven't seen such a total absence of communication, of communing, of community, since the unlamented Huntington Hartford ballet company.

James Wolcott, as is his wont, says it much better than I ever could:

The suspended animation was broken only when a man rushed on the stage, fell to his knees, and pressed his face against David Hallberg's chiseled cheeks as if he had found the Promised Land. It took two stagehands using an elderly usherette as a spatula to pry the intruder off of Hallberg's white tights, and then Alastair Macaulay was escorted back to his seat, the other members of the tableau shuffling into the wings during the interim.

know thyself, said the Greeks

2008-09-26T04:53:00.001-04:00

Friend: You're a good person.
Me: What?! I'm Attila the Hun in an estrogen suit!

Don Giovanni dress reh, minus the Mozart

2008-09-26T04:47:00.002-04:00

The nice thing about grand opera is, if the visuals suck, you can close your eyes and listen. If the singers suck, you can watch the stage action and listen to the orchestra. If the conductor, however, manages to somehow drain Mozart of all shape, crystalline structure, coherence, in sum, whatever it is that makes Mozart Mozart, and turns the music into Muzak, this is a profound problem. When it occurs in an ugly, ugly stage set than sees most of the action taking place in what seem to be brickwalled underground spaces, and a production that despises all the characters, well ... it makes for a long, sad night at the opera.

I heart Jon Stewart

2008-09-19T02:56:00.002-04:00

Yes, it really takes Jon Stewart, basic cable comedy news host, to call out Tony Blair for conflating Hezbollah AND Hamas with Al Qaeda. Jesus, as they say, wept.

Random thoughts

2008-09-13T18:06:00.002-04:00

Regarding Ratmansky landing at ABT instead of City Ballet: If you had a choice of working for Peter Martins or Kevin McKenzie, who would you choose?

Perhaps there is a case to be made against General Jaruzelski for actions after the imposition of martial law in Communist Poland. But it can be argued that the only instance in which the military stepped in to displace a Communist government made the eventual disintegration of the Soviet Union more likely, not less so. Perhaps, just perhaps, Jaruzelski, who did have military divisions (pace Stalin), deserves some of the credit that is generally reserved for the Polish Pope? Can his patriotism be questioned?

If teevee won't give airtime to idiots who run onto the baseball field during a game, why oh why do the "news" channels show, interview, and generally reward the moronic behavior of people who disregard "mandatory" evacuations during hurricanes?

I was Ras'ed

2008-09-10T19:16:00.002-04:00

Phone rings. Pick it up. It's a recorded female voice. Almost hang up before I hear that it's a Rasmussen poll. OK, I'll play.

Good track/bad track, Obama/McCain, and a TON of questions about "illegal" immigrants. Sheesh, guys! The poor folks who pick our lettuce, cut our absurdly subsidized sugarcane, and work as builders and gardeners without any rights or protective equipment are heading home or seriously considering heading home since, in case you haven't noticed, economic activity in the U.S. is feeling unwell at the moment.

One question asked if Obama's choice of Biden made me more/less/no change likely to vote for Obama. I hit the button for "less" even before I read this Kinseyian quote:

“Make no mistake about it Hillary Clinton is as qualified as or more qualified than I am” to be vice president, Biden said. “And quite frankly, she may have been a better pick than me.”

Whimper.

Who's hono(u)ring Stephen now?

2008-07-24T05:15:00.005-04:00

When she was in Toronto recently, N. stopped at The Queen of Tarts, where she found gingerbread Stephen! Of course, being as they're Canadians, they forgot the red WristStrong bracelet on the left hand, but still, I think it's terrific.

And, no, I still haven't ... eaten him.

Remember the ladies, continued

2008-03-31T00:46:00.003-04:00

So Sunday's Newsday, in its boilerplate "This day in history" sidebar, gives us this:

"1870: The 15th amendment to the Constitution, giving all citizens the right to vote regardless of race, was declared in effect by Secretary of State Hamilton Fish."

Sigh.

Support school kids in Senator Clinton's name

2008-03-29T22:31:00.002-04:00

When Stephen Colbert was "running for President" in South Carolina, backers of Sen. Obama helped block his getting on the primary ballot.

As part of his candidacy, Colbert asked for his supporters to donate to projects in South Carolina public schools through donorschoose.com.

Now, in preparation for his show going to Pennsylvania, Colbert has set up the Democralypse! challenge at Donors Choose, to benefit public schools in Pennsylvania, for supporters of Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton.

Sen. Obama's numbers are outrunning Sen. Clinton's by a wide margin. Even if you don't plan to vote for Senator Clinton, please consider giving money to one of the Pennsylvania projects in her name.

Thanks!

originally written in 2005

2007-09-29T04:14:00.001-04:00

What's wrong with America that we turn almost immediately to see how our celebrities are going to respond to anything that happens regarding our country, and they are revered for throwing these damn concerts??

Here's merely one opinion. There's nothing wrong with America. It's just the political system that's utterly broken. We have not been asked to sacrifice anything for so long by our politicians. They claim they don't WANT our taxes (well, of the super-rich, anyway). They don't WANT "big government." They only thing they ask is that the "private sector" contribute to, yep, "private" charities. They have absolutely abandoned the leadership role that government must take in times of crisis.

In the meanwhile, celebrity has become commodified, and since there are no leaders in the spotlight, celebrities have stepped in. And since this is a consumer society (remember when we were told to go shopping after 9/11), even charity is reduced to an exchange: I'll entertain you, if you do the right thing.

If Katrina had occured September 10, 2001, the muddled incompetent response would have been perhaps understandable.

But now? After anthrax; after serious concerns about "dirty bombs," containers carrying explosives or biological agents; after Madrid, and London, and Sharm el Sheik?

New Orleans was hit by a dirty bomb. It was a dirty bomb fueled not by fissile material, but by climate change (and ongoing long-term loss of wetlands).

The rest of the coast was hit by a tsunami: not literally, but that was the effect.

So there are two immense disasters in the homeland. But the homeland guard is overseas, in a situation that their military and political masters have mishandled as cluelessly as they have the situation here and now.

Our classified spy satellites are being focused on the Gulf of Mexico instead of the other Gulf, to aid in rescue. One of the people who run that program said the images indicate that the effects were worse than the effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

I don't know if that is true, but, goddam it, wouldn't a "reality-based" government announce that fact, if it's true? It would take some onus off the poor initial response. Instead, they lie, and lie, and smile, and blame everybody else save themselves.

They knew this hurricane was coming. They did nothing. They knew the levees would give way. They took away the funding. They ran an exercise last year, I believe, of a flooded NO. They knew from that exercise that 30% of the city's population could/would not evacuate even under a mandatory evacuation order.

Why didn't NO have publicized plans to use the overpasses that would be above the highest waters as staging/rescue/evacuation sites?

How are the surviving families going to be reunited? Who is going to pay for all the medical care they require, given our lack of a national medical scheme? What plans (ha!) are in place for the NEXT hurricane to come into the Gulf, and the next?

How many people who have still not been located, out in the back of beyond, will die before water and food and medicine is gotten to them?

For a long time after the World Trade Center collapsed, I would wake up and cry. Now, I wake up and am ashamed, and enraged.

"They're tryin' to wash us away .... "

"Goodnight, America, how are you? Don't ya know me, I'm your native son? On the train they call the City of New Orleans. I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done."

Week in review

2007-09-29T03:31:00.000-04:00

Martha Graham at the Joyce (OK, it was last week) was unidiomatic and rather sad. To the point that most reviewers noticed. When Graham dancers seem to be auditioning for ABT, or actually dancing Corsaire, you know something essential has been mislaid.

Fall for Dance at City Center on Thursday was terrific.

Taylor's Arden Court reminded what Mark Morris has gotten from Taylor: the tight interweaving of music and movement, a certain dispassionate stance of the choreographer. Lovely stuff.

I would be happy to see Ratmansky's Middle Duet again and again, especially if danced (again and again) by Ekaterina Kondaurova and Islom Baimuradov. We were sitting in the GT, so we saw the projected squares of light (a prison cell?) that the dancers movements were confined in during the first part of the work. The music is ... ominous tango? totalitarian tanz? And Ratmansky's response to it is perfect. And Kondaurova, tall, lanky, with glorious feet (a rarity in St. Pete recently) dances and acts out the unspecified but enveloping drama. X says NYCB has this work (from 1998!) in its rep, but in a version with more dancers, and nowhere as strong. Thank you, City Center, for showing us the Real Thing.

After the intermission, Shantala Shvalingappa danced "Varnam," an excerpt from GAMAKA, choreographed by this dancer and actress who looks a bit like Callas. I wish there had been a libretto or surtitles of the lyric of the live accompaniment. She was clearly telling us a story, but it was like watching an unfamiliar opera in an unrecognizable language: you only wish you understood some more of what you were watching.

The last item was Deuce Coupe by the Juilliard company. I still can't decide what I think of Twyla's work. It was the only work of the evening in which the tight and unironic connection between the choreographer and the music was broken. One feels that Twyla gets ideas and then rummages for the soundtrack on which to play those ideas out. Dunno.

Friday attended a 7 pm dress of Nozze. The first cast Suzanna was indisposed, but the (?) cover was excellent and no, I didn't catch her name. The Figaro of Erwin Schrott was italiente, big round voice, nice piano, good actor, but sometimes losing the conductor or about to fall off the cliff vocally. The Cherubino was fine but ... Flicka she wasn't. Things went well or well-ish until the Countess flounced in, from another century and another repertoire. Hei-Kyung Hong could do Verdi, but yikes she was wrong for this piece and this ensemble and this production. Her acting was coarse. The finale of act 2 was a shambles. I was surprised the conductor, Philippe Jordan, didn't call for a redo. Reader, we left at intermission.

The ritual cleansing of 1120 Fifth

2007-09-29T03:27:00.000-04:00

The WASP political equivalent of a mikvah will occur today, when Bill Clinton visits the penthouse of 1120 Fifth, three days after George W. Bush collected $1 million for the RNC at a get-together in 4A. Karma, baby.

2006-02-14T23:52:00.000-05:00

After

2006-02-14T23:50:00.000-05:00

Before

OMFSM, they've killed the WNN list! Bastards!

2005-12-31T13:48:00.000-05:00

If you're a lurker on the World News Now discussion list, the bad news is ... there hasn't been any news since the list went down.

It's being repopulated on an ad hoc basis, with the addys of folks who have posted to the list since October.

Once the list gets re-established, I'll post a link to its new home.

what I've liked lately

2005-10-11T23:24:00.000-04:00

Last Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher was a keeper: Salman Rushdie, Andrew Sullivan, and some Hollywood actor were all sharp and funny. Even Ann Coulter couldn't ruin the hour.

Saw Serenity thanks to Josh Marshall's preview (thanks, Josh!) two days before it opened. It was nice, but I hoped for more than nice. The SciFi channel had run all of Firefly the day before, and I just think that Joss Whedon's prodigious gifts require more than a 120 minute time limit.

Attended Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos at the Met last week. Susan Graham is superb as the Composer: great singer, great interpreter, and a great actor. Lovely. The first act (known as the Prologue) was more fun than the longer "Act I," which is actually Act II (what? you want logic from opera?). I've never seen this work before. In this production, the work felt like the feel-good mirror-image of Lulu: sexually empowered Zerbinetta has a great time fooling around, does no harm, and no one harms her. Very few operas are happily sexy; this is one of them. See it if you can. (If you don't know the URL, it's metopera.org)

Sunday, went to the closing night of the New York Film Festival and saw Haneke's Cache (yeah, it's missing the accent ague: I'll try to fix it at some point). I didn't not not like it, but it left me confused: surely it's meant to be more than just a shaggy Algerian story?

And I ADORE Clement Crisp's ballet reviews in the Financial Times, especially his elegant filleting of pompous non-choreography such as the execrable Tricodex by the Lyon Ballet Company. Heee. (Anybody who calls the kids who attend Christmas-time performances of The Nutcracker as "Herod fodder" will always have a special place in my cold cold heart.)

The few, the proud, the profoundly confused

2005-09-12T22:55:00.000-04:00

To: Walter E. Gaskin
Commanding General, Marine Corps Recruiting Command

Dear General Gaskin:

My 83-year-old mother is in receipt of the following letter from you.

"Dear _____,

The United States military is in need of your service.

Now is the time to put your unique language skills to the test as a member of the United States Marine Corps. Your command of the Arabic language will be invaluable among the elite few, where you'll play a pivotal role in communicating with people from Arabic-speaking countries."

[etc. snipped]

Now, my mother does, in fact, speak several languages, including Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French, Spanish, and English. But she does not now nor has she ever spoken Arabic.

And, have I mentioned that she's EIGHTY-THREE?!

I know that database marketing and mailing list rental can be, wait for it, hit-or-miss, but this glimpse into your valiant if misguided effort does not inspire confidence.

I'm just glad you're not tasked with hurricane watch, General.

You aren't, are you?

Your bemused servant,
Sinyet

2005-09-06T00:11:00.000-04:00

So you've heard what the locals are calling New Orleans? "Lake George"

Then there's the quip that Rehnquist actually died on Tuesday, but FEMA only learned about it four days later.

But seriously ....

If swathes of the affected Gulf region will be without electricity for a month or so, and with gasoline both scarce and expensive, couldn't we ask that part of the $5 million in assistance pledged by the Chinese be delivered in the form of bicycles? Nice, old-fashioned, upright bikes with fat tires and panniers. Listen, it works in Bangladesh and India. It could work in Mississippi. Give the bikes away to able-bodied people who agree to use them to aid the elderly and infirm to get needed supplies. If China won't do it, somebody put me in touch with Lance Armstrong's people: if he were to make such a donation to the American people, it would do his image more good than any number of bike rides at the Crawford ranch.

~~

Has anyone given any thought to the cost of the medical care the survivors will require?

Laurie Garrett at the Council for Foreign Affairs has written a clear-eyed and scary e-mail (at http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200509/msg00032.html) about the disease entities that may be/are spawning in NOLA.

But what are the chances that surviving four or five days in the heat, without adequate hydration, has caused currently subtle but long-term kidney damage in a lot of people? People without medical insurance, but who must now, if there is any decency left, must have their medical expenses met by the government.

this WAS the dirty bomb, plus a tsunami

2005-09-04T01:03:00.000-04:00

It's a valid question someone posed:

"What's wrong with America that we turn almost immediately to see how our celebrities are going to respond to anything that happens regarding our country, and they are revered for throwing these damn concerts??"

Here's merely one opinion. There's nothing wrong with America. It's just the political system that's utterly broken. We have not been asked to sacrifice anything for so long by our politicians. They claim they don't WANT our taxes (well, of the super-rich, anyway). They don't WANT "big government." They only thing they ask is that the "private sector" contribute to, yep, "private" charities. They have absolutely abandoned the leadership role that government must take in times of crisis.

In the meanwhile, celebrity has become commodified, and since there are no leaders in the spotlight, celebrities have stepped in. And since this is a consumer society (remember when we were told to go shopping after 9/11), even charity is reduced to an exchange: I'll entertain you, if you do the right thing.

If Katrina had occured September 10, 2001, the muddled incompetent response would have been perhaps understandable.

But now? After anthrax; after serious concerns about "dirty bombs," containers carrying explosives or biological agents; after Madrid, and London, and Sharm el Sheik?

New Orleans was hit by a dirty bomb. It was a dirty bomb fueled not by fissile material, but by climate change (without arguing the causes of climate change here).

The rest of the coast was hit by a tsunami: not literally, but that was the effect.

So there are two immense disasters in the homeland. But the homeland guard is overseas, in a situation that their military and political masters have mishandled as cluelessly as they have the situation here and now.

Our classified spy satellites are being focused on the Gulf of Mexico instead of the other Gulf, to aid in rescue. One of the people who run that program said the images indicate that the effects were worse than the effects of the Indian Ocean tsunami.

I don't know if that is true, but, goddam it, wouldn't a "reality-based" government announce that fact, if it's true? It would take some onus off the poor initial response. Instead, they lie, and lie, and smile, and blame everybody else save themselves.

They knew this hurricane was coming. They did nothing. They knew the levees would give way. They took away the funding. They ran an exercise last year of a flooded NO. They knew from that exercise that 30% of the city's population could/would not evacuate even under a mandatory evacuation order.

Why didn't NO have publicized plans to use the overpasses that would be above the highest waters as staging/rescue/evacuation sites?

How are the surviving families going to be reunited? Who is going to pay for all the medical care they require, given our lack of a national medical scheme? What plans (ha!) are in place for the NEXT hurricane to come into the Gulf, and the next?

How many people who have still not been located, out in the back of beyond, will die before water and food and medicine is gotten to them?

For a long time after the World Trade Center collapsed, I would wake up and cry. Now, I wake up and am ashamed, and enraged.

"They're tryin' to wash us away .... "

"Goodnight, America, how are you? Don't ya know me, I'm your native son? I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans. I'll be gone 500 miles when the day is done."

Plus ça change ....?

2005-02-07T16:56:00.000-05:00

Remember, in the 1990s, when the crack about the disintegrating Soviet Union was that it was "Burkina Faso with nukes"?

The Feb. 2 issue of the Financial Times had an opinion piece by J. Robinson West, Putin's policies threaten global oil supplies, with the following: "There may be large oil reserves in Russia but without massive investment and management skills, it will not flow. In spite of the hype about Russia, more oil industry investment has flowed to west Africa. The risks in Russia were already large and have mushroomed. The impact of the Yukos affair could be enormous. Russian production, now the world's second largest, could slide, not surge, and with it the Russian economy and prestige."

The good old Soviet habit of wasting resources and substracting, instead of adding, value, seems to have survived.

a page torn from an old commonplace book

2005-02-07T00:49:00.000-05:00

... a man may feel as if he had come to pieces, and at the same time is standing in the road inspecting the parts, and wondering what sort of machine it will make if he can put it together again. — T. S. Eliot

(I don't know German, but I know great translation of poems when I see it. This, of Rilke's last poem, is from Wolfgang Lippmann's "Rilke: A Life"):

Now come, ultimate essence I avow,
desperate pain that tears my body's flesh...
In your ferocity my earthly gentleness will
turn to hellish fury. Pure and entire,
I mounted suffering's chaotic pyre
free of all future and sure that for this heart,
with all its treasures muted, future cannot be bought.
Is it still I who burns unrecognized and caught?
I can no longer reach for memories.
Oh life, oh life: to be without such blaze.
But I am burning. No one knows my face.

To must of us the movements of the soul are so mysterious that we seize upon events to make them explicable.— Scenes from Provincial Life

Carelessly disposed along the tops of the low bookcases was a mass of ancient pottery—shapes subtle, free, and flowing; shapes angular, abstract, and austere; brilliant glazes, delicate crackles; textures that flattered the sense of touch through the sense of sight. — Michael Innes

(And another tidbit from Innes, who knew how to pack a punchline:)

Without direct word spoken, it had to come to the audience that Hamlet recognized of a sudden that Ophelia's presence was part of a plot. From that moment he would be speaking to her—savagely—with the skin of his mind.

NYCB February 4, 2005

2005-02-05T14:13:00.000-05:00

Cygnette attended the ballet last night. Fanfare by Robbins, a short Wheedon, Balanchine's Orpheus, and Robbins' Four Seasons make for one long and peculiarly shaped evening.

Since Nilas Martins, as Orpheus, had the acting range and stylistic understanding of David Boreanaz, Cygnette could have more pleasantly spent act II drinking heavily in the foyer.

Both Fanfare and Four Seasons are all-out, big company pieces. Fanfare started out looking a bit raggedy. The dancers were not to blame: they are tired, fighting injuries, and under-rehearsed, probably. They may be missing a misunderstood, but necessary, process for works such as these: a person to yell them into shape. Robbins used to do it. Makarova still does it, for her productions. Is she available?

Cygnette is not sure what she thinks of Christopher Wheedon, yet. Within Friday's program, his Liturgy looked *wrong,* because hermetic. There were no echoes, no allusions, no references to anything outside of the two figures doing incredibly clever and difficult partnering together.

Balanchine's work processes all sorts of other arts, music first of all, into the dance. With Robbins, you see him processing the Balanchine vocabulary, and the company style, as well as Broadway and "showbiz" into his dance. The "Summer" section of Four Seasons echoes Mediterranean dance steps in just a couple of bars, but you get the allusion immediately. Even Orpheus (undone by the unsuitability of its music) has the Lost Souls looking like a Hieronymus Bosch painting come to life.

But Wheeldon's work (yes, Cygnette has only seen Liturgy and what she likes to call "Vee Ay Ay Ay") is affectless, uninterested in banging up against the creative world that's out there. Pity, that, since he has talent.

Or is this what post-modern ballet is all about?