satorimedia

How many women do I know who would love this?

Via Shanmonster, one of my favorite scenes from "the Tango Lesson".

There's a dance renaissance on the web, I'm finding, boosted by YouTube and other video sites. It's really nice to see the connections and analysis going on...

4/6/07 moblogging, here we come.

I can now post to all of my blogs from my treo.

And a shout out to my friend's nascent tech blog, Beauty and a Geek . Even if I don't understand what she's saying, she says it well.

All my GPS-owning friends, beware!

I think actually this is the first salvo in the Robot Apocalypse. Having discovered how easy it is to manipulate the dumb ones, they will now adjust their strategy to find the weaknesses of the smart ones. Probably through some really cool scent-therapy...I've noticed an awful lot of my smart friends liking BPAL...

A Different Kind of Idol

While shopping for DVD players with my girlfriend we started talking about American Idol. We're both closeted Karaoke afficionadoes, and she was excited to discover that there is an "American Idol" version of the video game Karaoke. She confessed guiltily to wanting to play it; I have to confess, we share that dark and secret passion. It's hard to confess, but I hear there are special clubs for people like us...

Anyway, finding this article this morning about the Metropolitan Opera Auditions brought it to mind:

“If you can type your application, you can sing for us,” said Darren Keith Woods, the general director of the Fort Worth Opera and, on Feb. 3, one of three judges at the Philadelphia district round of an event that has been called the “American Idol” of the opera world. The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions offer tremendous exposure and, for up to five winners, prizes of $15,000.

Somehow I doubt that there's an acerbic Simon involved, and the rest of America doesn't get to vote...but one wonders if they did open it up like that, would it increase the exposure and popularity of Opera?

Probably not. There's not much excitement or public humiliation with criteria as nice as this:

“I don’t think about how do we fix this,” Mr. Rutenberg said. “I go in listening for decent rhythm, singing in tune, starting a phrase with intention and ending it with intention. If we’re lucky enough to get a performance on top of it, so much the better.”

Still...I guess I need to take a closer look at the current Idol. For my Girlfriend's sake, of course.

In more sober news...

I'm really starting to worry about our country.

Anti Gay Racist Emails from Army Recruiter

and this about a principal , from a really great performing arts blog.

A Dancer's Brain

From Ranting Details (a very sad commentary on homophobia there, too, for those interested:

"Once the dance began I knew that if I successfully got through the
first entrance I would have the confidence to make it the rest of the
way. While that is a lot of pressure to put on yourself, it is
unfortunately the masochistic fashion of a dancer’s brain... Any fear I had about
jumping at the opportunity to dance the role was gone and I laughed at
the person I had been only minutes before. Fear can disappear so easily
and were I to have this challenge thrown at me again, I have the
building blocks to attack it with more maturity. Of course, there is a
time for maturity and a time to throw it out the window…"

Ah...so it's not just poly...

Though I've not seen the movie "the Breakup" (and since I suspect it has a happy ending, I don't think I will anytime soon) this excerpt posted by another online friend has some interesting undertones and connotations:

Brooke: How many times do I have to drop hints about the ballet?
Gary: You know I can’t stand the ballet (she storms out). Brooke wait, we’ve talked about the damn ballet. I hate the goddamn ballet! You got a bunch of dudes in tights flopping around for three hours. It’s like a medieval techno show. It’s a nightmare. I sit there in a sweat. The whole time, I do, wondering when the hell's the goddamn nightmare's gonna end. Go to the damn ballet!
Brooke: It’s not about you loving the ballet, Gary. It’s about the person that you love loves the ballet and you wanting to spend time with that person.
Gary: Not when they’re at the ballet.
Brooke: Okay. Forget the ballet! Forget the ballet!
Gary: I will.

On the other hand, Short Bus is out on DVD today. Now THAT'S worth seeing again...

Beware the Madness Hamsters

...and other interesting thoughts of Edward Monkton.

I thought this would end up being saccharine and silly. Ended up just being the latter. The Penguin of Death redeemed him.

Check out the gallery. Some funny stuff. Especially the pills...

Sorry for the hiatus

I'm afraid there have been plenty of personal upheavals lately, and this blog has been sorely neglected. This phrase, however, brought me back to this blog:

They did not follow instructions, however, but “randomly bent, folded and attached the various intricate pieces until there was a model of something I understood. it was a model of grief.”

It's from the description of a very interesting "interactive dance performance" called You Made Me a Monster. Tonya Plank, the Swan Lake Samba Girl, describes it quite well on her blog; I'd like to have seen it, even though some parts of the "interaction" don't seem to have gone completely well.

When it works, it really works. And when it doesn't...it's confusing.

Mine

I decided a couple of days ago to be my own Valentine today.

Here's the present I just got myself. Used, less than $10 with shipping. The woman is responsible for the choreography that first made me even want to dance (Baryshnikov in La Belle Dame sans Merci, in case you're curious). Since I'm moving towards a creative business model, I suspect there will be some useful bits in there.