.... though the fact that they have all disappeared from the blog might suggest otherwise. You see, one day I went to check my comments folder and found thousands, from Adelbert, Al, Aloysius, Abe, Alfonso, Alfie, Ammon, Alex--and that's just a few of the As. It turns out that the phrase "foot in mouth" drives sex sites in Italy to email. Perhaps the manufacture of so many nice shoes encourages … [Read more...]
Archives for 2007
Paul Parish: I concede. On the other hand, quality-time-with-your-own-mind fits too conveniently into niche marketing
[Paul is responding to a whole chain of posts that started out with thoughts on Balanchine's ballets "Liebeslieder Walzer" and "Serenade," but has now taken on all of Western Civilization. (This should probably be the cue to stop...)] I concede everything Marc says. And I don't want to go back to national Christianity any more than I'd go back to astrology. There IS a nostalgia for it which I feel … [Read more...]
We interrupt this program….
... to urge you to get thee to the Japan Society for Big Dance Theater's "The Other Here," running only through Saturday. I mean, if you live in New York. (They will be touring to San Francisco, Houston, etc. later this year.) Two stories turn each other inside out: one, set in semirural Japan, features a salesman whose greatest attachment is to a fish (though even it arouses ambivalence in him); … [Read more...]
Marc Etlin: Do we really want to return to the monoculture of Christianity–especially since we’ve never quite left it?
[ed. note: This morning, I got about 800 emails from my friend Marc, who should have been doing his (day) job (and me, too). Anyway, I've tried to piece them together here, because they form an interesting secular humanist response to Paul's Christian humanist response to my modernist lament.] It seems to me the secular goal of fame fills the same psychological placeholder as hoping for a future … [Read more...]
Paul Parish responds: We don’t want no reality TV
[ed note: Paul is responding to my post below about how the corps fulfills the modernist project of impersonality in art, which our current age of non-stop confessional threatens.] This thing you said is extremely important: I think [the impersonality that the corps supplies] is a big deal in this age of reality TV and memoir craziness, with the prevalent notion that the closer one gets to the … [Read more...]
We interrupt this program….
...to recommend that, if you live in New York, you get thee to Karole Armitage's show at the Joyce. I haven't always been an admirer--in fact, I positively detested her last outing, at the Duke. But everything on the Joyce program is worth seeing--cherishable, even. I didn't love every moment, but I loved the spirit of it: and that's the point--it has a spirit. Each piece establishes an atmosphere … [Read more...]
Apollinaire: chorus, corps, reality TV, and the forgotten modernist project. With response from Paul Parish.
[This is the final post in a discussion of "Serenade," "Liebeslieder," and the corps that began here with me solo, continued here with Brian Seibert and me, and then, moved to regular Foot contributor Paul Parish magnificently here. For more on Balanchine's "Serenade" (and who can get too much of "Serenade"?) here's my response to Pennsylvania Ballet's interpretation at City Center in November … [Read more...]
Paul Parish: more on the lost worlds of “Liebeslieder” and “Serenade”–of Germany and Shakespearean Tempest-tossed lands
[My friend and colleague Paul Parish, of Berkeley, sent me this incredible rumination on Balanchine's "Liebeslieder Walzer" and "Serenade" last night. It's a response to the previous two posts, first by me, then by Brian Seibert and me. I finish the discussion with this post. For more on Balanchine's "Serenade" (and who can get too much of "Serenade"?) here's my response to Pennsylvania Ballet's … [Read more...]
Brian Seibert and Apollinaire: Weeping over the lost worlds of “Liebeslieder Walzer”; plus, does a ballet corps distil or diffuse?
[Brian Seibert, contributor to the New Yorker's Goings on About Town section, is writing a book on the history of tap. He's responding to my response, below, to a couple of nights at the New York City Ballet, one with Terry Teachout for "Liebeslieder Walzer" and another for "Serenade," both by Balanchine.] I also was there on Thursday and, like Terry, I cried. "Liebeslieder" always has that … [Read more...]
Apollinaire: This or that–picking favorites among Balanchine wonders
On Thursday I saw the New York City Ballet in Balanchine's "Liebeslieder Walzer" (Love Song Waltzes) with my virtual friend Terry Teachout. (Besides being an AJ blogger, he is the author of a wonderful brief life of Balanchine, "All in the Dances.") "Liebeslieder" was very moving, and so was Terry, a man weeping his way through a ballet, tears splashing down his face. (His report here.) Last … [Read more...]