Mayda del Valle: White House Poetry Jam

Shakin The People's House

Sometimes We Need A Laugh: Oberman on Bachmann

Working Thread: Moderate Republicans The Party Has Lost

All these names should have room in the Republican tent. Hagel and Warner are, in particular, stunning loses. If there is no room in the party for men of calm sober reflection, high intellectual capacity, and an understanding of compromise what is left? A party of Limbaughs and Becks, a splinter group groveling to an ever smaller, ever more radical, anti-intellectual "base" that requires no credentials other a frat-boy-like insistance on quasi-philosophical "purity".

The engine left the rails eight years ago and now we slowly witness all the following cars breaking apart and spiraling slowly down into the abyss.

Consider this a working thread. Please feel free to suggest additional names and I will update.

Lincoln Chaffee

Jim Jeffords

Chuck Hagel

John Warner

Arlen Specter

Paul brings up:

Colin Powell and Christie Todd Whitman

Outsourcing Broadway (and English)

For a Revival of ‘Dreamgirls,’ Pacific Overtures - NYTimes.com

Several months ago, when John F. Breglio told fellow New York producers that he was not only remaking “Dreamgirls,” the 1981 Broadway hit musical based loosely on the career of the Supremes, but that he was also going to South Korea to do it, they were puzzled, to say the least.

“Then they really laugh,” he said, when he told them “that it’s in Korean with Korean actors.”

The financial incentives for Mr. Breglio to go to South Korea were significant, coming as many Broadway producers are struggling to cover production costs. The fact that the set was made and financed here, and will be transferred to the United States for the run there, is a big savings for the American producers.

Papal Infallibility Bites the Dust?

Pope 'admits Holocaust row error':

"Pope Benedict XVI has admitted to mistakes in lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, according to reports."

Good Cop, Bad Cop? ....Obama and Pelosi

Bloomberg quotes an interesting comment from Phil Gingrey (R-GA) who thinks that Obama

“is trying to open up to Republicans. Quite honestly he needs to have a sit-down, heart-to-heart, come-to- Jesus talk with” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, on promoting bipartisanship. “Republicans respect this president, we like him, we want him to succeed, but we can’t be completely shut out of everything,”

Is Pelosi knowingly playing bad cop to Obama's good cop? If so she deserves a lot of credit...a whole lot!

Thanks TCM; Ponderings on The Gay Parisian, George Balanchine, and the Development of Neo-Classicism in Dance

Wow, I caught the last half of The Gay Parisian on Turner Classic Movies tonight and was fascinated and somewhat aghast at what I was seeing!

Right away I knew it was no movie musical I had ever seen and shortly I recognized Léonide Massine, being familiar with him from The Red Shoes. I kept thinking the musical number would end but it just continued from one dance to another and clicking the info button on the cable revealed that there was no listing for it (Turner Classics had sandwiched it between Flower Drum Song and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) indicating that is was another interesting short that Turner had turned up.

The piece was costumed to within an inch of its life in a style that, today, could only be considered high kitsch and was full of rapid and sometimes choppy edits. The director was in love with obscuring the frame with just about anything he could place in the foreground; wrought iron metal work, columns, people walking/dancing within a foot or so of the lens. The dancers however, were first rate...Massine doing his typical quirky athletic thing, a woman in a can-can section (yes this dance truly has it all!) doing a few dozen fouettes in the most rapid and violent manner ever seen, yet very well centered.

When it finished and no credits were run I quickly IMDB'd Massine and soon found that it was a 20 minute Warner Brothers release in 1941 featuring The Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo with Andre Eglevski, Fredrick Franklin, Nathalie Krassovsk, Igor Youskevitch and more.

Turns out, oddly enough, that Warner Brothers had made two 20 minute films with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo that year the other being Spanish Fiesta with similar cast and crew but also featuring Tamara Toumanova and Alexandra Danivola; both were choreographed by Massine.

While the film, technically and choreographically, is difficult to watch today (at least it may be difficult keeping a straight face) its a wonderful and rare opportunity to watch some very famous dancers and to ponder the history of dance as popular entertainment and the counter action to that popular entertainment that led Balanchine (no slouch to pop, he choreographed for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 and created Slaughter on 10th Avenue in 1940) to revolutionize the world of dance in the mid 20th century.

Concerto Barocco an early costumed version.

The year when these two pictures were released, 1941, was also the year that Balanchine created Concerto Barocco a seminal ballet, perhaps the seminal ballet of the 20th century. Balanchine created the piece from an exercise for the School of American Ballet which he founded in 1935 with Lincoln Kirstein and set it on the American Ballet Caravan for its 1941 tour of South America. In it he finally abandons any pretense of story-telling and simply allows the music and movement to amplify one another, a concept now often referred to as neo-classicism.

Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis had explored the same basic concpet in Modern Dance starting around 1916 which they called Music Visualization and described (via Wikipedia) as "a concept that called for movement equivalents to the timbres, dynamics, and structural shapes of music in addition to its rhythmic base." Balanchine's revolution was to apply a similar idea to the technique of ballet, breaking it forever from the story-telling tradition in which it was becoming moribund.

This also led Ballet away from the world of popular entertainment (for contrast see the videos of Massine's Gay Parisian below) and into a much more "highbrow" cultural plain. He had begun to make the break from popular entertainment as early as 1928's Apollo, done in collaboration with with Stravinski, denfinatley cracking the mold. With Borocco and the jettisoning of story the mold was shattered. Ten years later he quite literally stripped dance to its essence when he removed the costumes and first presented Barocco in rehearsal clothes.

Today both Ballet and Modern are free to tell stories or not, to amplify the music or use no music at all, to be of utmost seriousness or to appeal directly as popular entertainment (although to me, they seem, like most of the arts, to be awaiting the next great revolution.)

Thanks Mr. B.


The Gay Parisian part 1

The Gay Parisian part 2

That Damn'd Liberal Media Bias

GOP Lawmakers Outnumber Democratic Lawmakers 2 To 1 In Stimulus Debate On Cable News

Beauty and Aesthetics: If Joshua Bell Performs in a Subway Station Does Anone Listen?

A very interesting (long and worth it) read over at the WaPo posits this question:
Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.": An interesting discussion of beauty and aesthetics ensues.

Pick Yourself Up: Obama Inauguration Speech's Best Line Riffs on Dorothy Fields via Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

Is Barack Obama now a not so secret Fred and Ginger fan?

Is it coincidence that Obama seems to have turned to a popular song written at the height of the Great Depression to find perhaps his most memorable line in today's inaugural speech?

Obama(2009),
"we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again"

Pick Yourself Up (1936) lyrics Dorothy Fields, music Jerome Kern,
And pick yourself up, Dust yourself off, Start all over again."

The movie Swing Time was released in 1936; the Depression was raging and Fred and Ginger were cranking out light entertainment for RKO featuring opulent settings, popular music, lots of dancing and oft times offering a few chuckles at the foibles of the upper crust. In the process they also created a body or work that is unsurpassed in the field of American Musical Movies and indeed Dance on Film.

Pick Yourself Up is introduced first in song as Fred hits on Ginger, a ballroom dance instructor, by pretending he can't dance, a bit later its used in a classic dance sequence as Fred tries to save Ginger's job by showing her boss that she has indeed taught him to dance (much to Ginger's surprise.)

Will Barack and Michele have a number up their sleeves ala Fred and Ginger for the Inauguration Ball this eve? We will have to wait and see, but in the meantime enjoy this clip; it just doesn't get any better than this!

Great Writing- Bono on Life via Sinatra

Op-Ed Guest Columnist - Notes From the Chairman - NYTimes.com

I Got Your Budget Crunch Right Here

Bettie Page

1950s pin-up queen Bettie Page dies.

How could you NOT post this!

And I gotta love the R93 top light choice!

I always liked Abbey Road

Speaking of Bubbles

My good bud S and I decided to try our hand at making beer last night. It was quite a process. Bought a kit, then got the ingredients for a clone of Geary's Pale Ale. Three hours later with no major disasters it was into the 5 gallon pale for the initial fermentation. Went home to dinner, then a few hours later S called to say there was not yet any bubbling in the air lock. BUMMER. But woke up this morning to receive this lovely video in email!

Paul Newman... A Life Well Lived

Tiger Woods...probably the most outstanding single-sport player ever.

That title is going a long way for me, Ali and Michael Jordan are certainly up there. But Tiger is, perhaps, only half way through his career.

Coming back on Friday to post a 30 on the back nine, 7 birdies, on what can only be considered a very difficult course in a major that always separates the men from the boys. But today, watching him play/struggle with significant pain from recent knee surgery, was an amazing event...regardless of tomorrow's outcome. The last two holes....

Bad drive on the 17th, buried in the the ruff, needing to hook around trees, hitting a shot that almost makes the green but ends in significant ruff just left of of the putting surface on a steep lie, he addresses the ball and catches a flyer towards a pin that is running downhill away from him, and boom, the magic happens again, one hop-hit the flag, and drop in for a miracle birdie. It was the first time I have ever seen Tiger laugh on the course, at least in a major! He was, I swear, actually embarrassed that the ball went in.

Some will call that shot luck, Tiger called it that in the clubhouse later, but even to be able to have that kind of luck requires incredible talent; perfect line, perfect intent, amazing concentration.

The pain in the left knee was obvious occasionally throughout the tourney but was more so today. After the amzaing birdie on 17 his caddy reached from the green down the hill to shake his hand, but what he really did was help pull Tiger up the slope to the green.



I had stopped watching for a while after the 9th when Tiger was, I think, 5 strokes back and had just tuned in again on the 17th. After the birdie he was one stroke back. The 18th is a challenging Par 5, you have to be long off the tee and then you are looking at about 230 over the pond to a devilish green, its a tin cup hole if ever there was one. Tiger crushed a fade to perfect position then pulled out a 5-Wood and hit a big fade the left him a big breaker down hill, perhaps 45 feet. The smart play, with a day left to play (Sunday...Tiger's day) still in front of him, questions in his mind (well probably not in his mind but in most other minds) as to his physical ability to play a final round, the smart shot was to lay up and play for birdie. Not today, not Tiger. He hit the 5 and the camera stayed on Tiger, the same intense face we see on every shot, eyes following the flight of the ball, and then, as it lands, the grimace of pain; a grimace that led to what could no doubt be anything else but gut-buckling pain, just so obviously a case of incredible mental discipline.

On the green he lines up the put, lining up WAY left of the pin, so far left that the NBC announcers are freaking out, he is just on top of a small ridge, he gives the ball a slight tap, lined up perhaps 25 degrees left of the cup, the ball picks up speed and then breaks about 8 feet over the last 20 feet to roll solidly into the center of the cup. A perfect read, a perfect stroke, nerves of absolute steel.

Tiger starts tomorrow one stroke ahead of a tight pack.

Anything can happen on Sunday at the US Open. Still, of the 13 times Tiger has held or tied the lead going into the final round of a major he has won every one. That statistic is unbelievable, it says it all; luck doesn't happen 13 out of 13 times. Don't bet against him.

40 Years On

Bobby Kennedy was assassinated 40 years ago today
it puts me in a mood...nostalgia, sadness, aching for hope, for an Amerika to become America once more.

Wondering

Can we overcome slow decay, ignoble rot

JFK 11/22/63 fifth grade for me, out of school early, quite a shock but then so was the missile crisis a little earlier, even at that tender age realizing the absurdity of hiding under our desks. (and a year later my parents, big Peter Sellers fans, unknowingly take me to Chicago to see Dr. Strangelove....Chill Wills riding the bomb!)

MLK 4/4/68 already resisting the war, memories of the Illinois Bureau of Investigation hassleing me in the high school cafeteria for wearing a Peace Sign armband, they were wondering what "commies" were creating the underground newspaper that flew through the school regularly - ripe with the smell of the mimeo machine that announced its presence.

"What is that, the tracks of the American Chicken?"
"Who are you, The Mod Squad?"

9/4/70 Bye, Bye, Baby Bye Bye. Freshman year in college, Janis is gone.

9/18/70 The Star Spangled Banner blaring from the dorm window mourns Jimi's passing.

7/3/71 The Trifecta, no more Lizard King.

Time passses 12/8/80 John Lennon, perhaps this is the ultimate absurdity/obscenity?

Can this violent nation, born to the gun, always believing in a doctrine of exceptionality, just stop grabbing?

Can we think for tomorrow?

Can we sacrifice for our future?

Yes we can?

Nothing to Say That Can't be Said

Well since I'm wearing my old (pre-google) Blogger T-shirt I thought perhaps it was time to un-kick the habit.

 Got any blog hits for me P-man? (check out his blog...good stuff!)

 

 

 Speaking of hits I haven't seen people chewing gum this hard in nearly 40 years!

 

 

I'm not sure what this is going to turn into,  but I promise not to talk about Peak Oil too often.

 Heard some interesting quotes from Kurzweil today, might have to go look em up...... something to the effect that in 20 years solar panels will produce and store ALL the world's energy needs.

 As I tend to be a bit twisted that got me to thinking about what would happen should that come to pass. I mean really, thats a lot of energy..... energy that is already being used here on ole planet Blue. What happens to the Earth if we re-purpose all that solar energy; take it from whatever its current use is (and thus make some kind of perhaps significant change what, our climate, the ground temperature, the thermal currents...who knows) and instead burn it up in our cars and homes?