Just saw a show at Dock 11. Good dancing when there was dancing. The state of the first solo was the best in the show, oh and the walking while arching backwards. Good stuff. Most of the time, there was acting, or at least what I saw as acting- the attempt to display something that was not there. Two women who for some reason where shooting each other. I did enjoy the changing of roles, or scenes, by changing who had the ponytail and who had the hair loose. great movement qualities. I would have rather just seen them dance to some generic dance music. But Bach aint so bad.
Self Indulgent
Has anyone ever called a show s/he enjoyed self indulgent?
I mean besides the people performing the piece.
Look at the camera
I was putzing around Youtube today and saw a couple vids in which people address the camera, except they don’t look at the lens they look at the little screen. This makes them look a little off, like those people who talk to you but won’t look you in the eye. Are you worried your soul is going to be stolen?
If a your soul is stolen by a photo, what happens to it when a video of you is on Youtube accessible worldwide?
What would the website www.ewetube.com be? Fertility help for sterile sheep?
Friday Night Lights
Been watching that show a little bit recently on NBC.com. While eating or making dinner or doing laundry. Can’t take the show seriously. I mean it’s about football. The show is well made, but it’s about football. Watching sports is like watching porn – you are watching someone else have all the fun. And you can quote me on that. If a small town like Dillon exists and I would not be surprised if one does, man that is sad. How pathetic would those people have to be to get so riled up about highschool football? I guess if you have nothing else in your life.
Kinda like people who get so excited about being whatever race they happen to be. Why be so proud of something that you had nothing to do with? It’s not like anyone works to be Italian, or Irish, or Chinese. It’s preselected for you by chance and your parents. be proud of something that you had a hand in. Maybe I am too much of a Euromutt to care what ethnicity I am. Isn’t pride of one’s ethnicity also being glad that one is not another ethnicity? Doesn’t pride of ethnicity then a racist idea?
But back to football…So if it is pathetic to get so excited about highschool football, is it even more pathetic to watch a TV show about highschool football?
McLuhan vs Johnstone
The medium is the message = Content lies in the structure
yes?
no?
Bald Britney
After Britney shaved her head, she went up in my esteem. (is that a phrase? going up in someone’s esteem.) I applauded her decision to do that. Everyone should shave their head at least once in their life. It feels good. Also good to feel the contours of one’s skull. Where do you end and where does the rest of the world begin? But soon after she shaved she covered up her baldness with wigs and hats. She bowed down to the majority opinion that shaving your head is a big deal. It’s not. Hair grows back. I shave my head frequently as part of an effort to stave off real baldness. Not sure it is working. But people always react to a shaved head. “oh, you change your look more than a girl” Guess since I can’t see the change, except when I look in the mirror, which is not often, I forget that it happened. Hair is just something exterior, that is very mutable. Guess my point is that if Britney had embraced her baldness, albeit temporary baldness, she would have gained even more of my respect. But by shying away from it with wigs and hats, she will slowly drift off into the hazy world of has-beens. Keeping the baldness would have helped her stick out give her something to stand for in the bubblegum pop world. How long before she completely disappears from the news, when she can no longer endanger her children blah blah blah…
anyways, true beauty lies within. 😉
Po Mo
So I was at a meeting the other day and at the end of the meeting someone joked about doing something post-modern so that no one had to be good at anything. Why is there that idea about po mo? If it’s po mo I don’t have to be good at whatever I am doing. Definitely seen that at some shows. Saw this group Poni at Sophiensaele in Berlin. Did a lot of performing of things badly. Musicians “dancing”. I wonder if musicians would like it if the dancers picked up their instruments and started jamming.
I would say that there is a confusing of lack of hierarchy with lack of skill. Yes I could change the hierarchy with which I define my ballet skills and say that I am as good as Baryshnikov, but the defined hierarchy for ballet exists and comparing my ballet skills to that, well, pretty sad. lack of hierarchy or relativism does not mean complete rejection of all measurement of value.
hmmm….
Word to the Wise II
Let the weather predict itself.
Dryers
Why is it that I get such satisfaction from washing clothes and not using the dryer? No, I don’t like to walk around in wet clothes. I hang my clothes to dry. It’s not just the buck and a quarter I am saving that makes me happy. I’ll just spend the money elsewhere. As we did tonight on sushi at Drunken Fish in Oakland.
But hanging clothes to dry, such visceral satisfaction. Why pay for something when it can happen for free. Also nice is to see the pile of laundry go down slowly. Is part of the reason the USA uses so much more energy because we do much more laundry? How many times to you wear a shirt before washing it? how about underwear or socks? Why do you or do you use the dryer?
The less you use the dryer the longer your clothes will last. Think about the lint. That is just money in the garbage. You paid for that lint when it was still part of your shirt or whatever before you stuck it in the dryer, so why throw it away?
Dryers and billboards should be banned. Just think about how much nicer cities would look if there were no billboards. Take a moment right now to think about it. No, I mean it really. Take a deep breath look away from the computer and think about a billboard free environment.
Okay, look back now.
Nice wasn’t it.
Kinda like Vermont.
Sweater vs. Heater
I was in class today, large dance studio. Kind of a cold day, for the Bay Area, so the studio was cold. Another dancer in class asked if it was possible to turn on the heat. Considering the size of the room and the strength of most heater, by the time the room was warm class would have been over. She had another layer to put on, but that was not her initial thought.
Maybe I am stereotyping here, but I am guessing that a dancer in the Bay Area is a more liberal person informed on current events, global warming and green house gases. A sweater produces less CO2 than a heater, yet the idea of putting on a sweater, came after the thought of turning on the heat.
Reminds me of the time I was at a friends house. We were in the backyard barbequeing burgers, talking about the sustainability of the American lifestyle. As we walked inside, I saw his wife turn on the heat instead of putting on a sweater. Oh the sustainable lifestyle.
As for me, I am going to go back to watching a DVD on my laptop and eat some ice cream.