…and yet Galina Mezentseva has been retired for at least twenty years, and is of my generation. The minute I watched the very first video that I’d ever seen of her, which featured her performing Odile (the Black Swan role … Continue reading →
…this woman’s photographs. It’s her sense of color that is extraordinary, I think. She also manages to do this while being the mother of ten, which is quite a job in itself.
Continue reading →Yesterday I had an ant infestation, mostly those large ones that can move very fast, although there were a couple of teeny tiny ones as well. They came out of nowhere—I couldn’t see where they were entering—and seemed evenly distributed … Continue reading →
[Hat tip: commenter “Alifa.”] I just received the news that Russian dancer Maya Plisetskaya (whose full name should have been “the great Maya Plisetskaya”) has died at the age of 89 in Germany. Death appears to have come suddenly, of … Continue reading →
I saw the Russian dancer Galina Ulanova perform in person when I was very little, not long before her retirement at the age of fifty. She remains unique among all the dancers I’ve ever seen in person or in video. … Continue reading →
This is why I used to love the TV show “Rescue 911”:
Continue reading →Pledge week is over. I am deeply grateful for every penny that was donated. So thank you all, very very much. And I am deeply grateful to everyone who comments here. Even the lurkers are appreciated, whoever you may be. … Continue reading →
Here’s a great rehearsal video of some Georgian (the Russian Georgia, not the US one) dancers [hat tip: commenter “g6loq”]. Usually they wear costumes that make it more difficult to see their bodies. It creates a nice illusion but hides … Continue reading →
During a 1976 interview, author and poet James Dickey said this about poets and celebrities pronouncing on politics: INTERVIEWER Some of your detractors have mentioned the fact that they felt that you should use your influence, your place in the … Continue reading →
“Caedmon” asks me to comment on this clip of Natalia Osipova’s fouettes. Let’s take a look and compare them to the ones shown in my previous post about those whiplike turns: I have to say I lke Osipova’s fouettes the … Continue reading →
I’ve written about the ballet step known as the fouette before, and so I’ll quote myself: The turn…is known as the fouette—a word that means “whip.”…The trajectory of the leg as it quickly unfolds leads the body into the turn … Continue reading →
Emily Phillips had a way with words, and she used it to write her own obituary, which has gone viral [hat tip: Althouse]. I bet we can get a good idea of Phillips’ personality by reading it: It pains me … Continue reading →