RIP dancer Judith Jamison

The New Neo Posted on by

Statuesque Alvin Ailey dancer Judith Jamison has died at the age of 81. She was a towering figure in the dance world – pun intended, because she was very tall – and there are plenty of tributes. This is mine.

I first saw Jamison perform relatively early in her career, when I was in college some time in the late 1960s. I’d never even heard of the Alvin Ailey company, much less Jamison. But she was instantly noticeable and memorable because she was so unique. She didn’t have a conventional dancer’s body; she was taller and not especially turned-out, with extremely long arms and legs and a slightly thicker (but just slightly thicker) torso. But that wasn’t really it, although her height helped. The reason she was memorable was her stage presence, something you can’t define. Between her height and her ability to project that presence, she was a star from the very first moment.

I saw her dance many times. Most memorably, she had a prominent role in Ailey’s signature piece “Revelations.” I may have seen her dance that something like seven times, and then when she retired I saw some of her replacments. They were usually more beautiful, they were often quite tall (although not as tall as Jamison), and they were probably better dancers technically. But none could even begin to compare with her. The moment of Jamison’s running entrance in the “Wade In the Water” sequence, carrying a ruffled white parasol held impossibly high, was one of the most arresting theater experiences I can recall.

Unfortunately – and I mean very unfortunately – I cannot locate a single video of her in the role, which is odd because it certainly wouldn’t have been impossible to record it at the height of her fame in the 1970s. No one else compares, but here is the moment. Strangely enough, it’s the only video I could find of the piece that has the entrance, and it’s rather blurry. Nor, of course, is Jamison the person holding the parasol here. The entrance is at around 0:24. When Jamison did it, the audience used to let out a gasp:

The other moment that stands out in my mind is also in “Revelations,” when Jamison made her entrance in the “Rocka My Soul” (“The Day Is Past and Gone”) finale. The moment she stepped on the stage she established the character – a bossy but lovable lady with whom you didn’t mess. Her height once again gave her that commanding quality, and the large floppy hat completed the picture. Again, there is no footage of Jamison in the role. But here is a short clip of the dance; her entrance is at 23:04, but the person in the role here just doesn’t convey anything like the same authority and humor:

It’s interesting to me that the two moments of Jamison’s I recall best were entrances and not even really dance moves. But take it from me, they were absolutely wonderful and she was magnificent.

Jamison’s signature piece was her solo “Cry.” I never much cared for its choreography, but most people love it and at least it has been filmed. So here’s a little bit of footage of Jamison herself dancing the part; I couldn’t find any record of the whole thing, although it may exist:

RIP, Judith Jamison.

Two election night videos

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This one makes me marvel at the fact that Joy Reid is on national TV. “Many celebrities” equals “flawless campaign”? This is analysis?

And this one – well, it’s self-explanatory:

Those lovable uniters on the left advise Democrats to shun their friends and relatives who voted for Trump

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Of course they do.

I’d tell people who are that easily triggered to see a therapist, but the therapists are often the worst of all – as the above example indicates.

Another political change story

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I know little about this guy, and in fact hadn’t heard of him till last night, when YouTube decided this video might be something I’d like. Good old YouTube, always making with the helpful suggestions.

I clicked on it and was immediately taken with his accent. Love it! But I kept listening because he was describing the process of political change and especially how it feels, emotionally, to be on the other side of that Rubicon. So I’m posting it here:

Trump begins to make appointments

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The first one was his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who had helped him make this year’s presidential campaign more effective.

Then there’s Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador. Personally, I’d rather we leave the UN, but until then, she’s a good choice – although it’s important to make sure that appointments coming from Congress not threaten the GOP’s majorities there. In Stefanik’s case there will be a special election. Her district’s election history can be found here, and from the look of it it seems that beginning in 2016 it became strongly Republican after having been Democrat. Interesting. I hope that holds.

Trump has also announced that he won’t be appointing either Pompeo or Haley to posts in his administration.

More appointments here:

Stephen Miller, one of [Trump’s] longest-serving top immigration advisers, [will be] deputy chief of staff for policy in the incoming White House. …

Tom Homan, the former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will become a “border czar” overseeing deportation policy.

This time Trump knows a lot more about DC and about who his friends and enemies are, compared to 2016. He doesn’t know everything, of course. But he’s a great deal more aware of the depth of the swamp.

And then there’s the race to replace McConnell as Senate Majority Leader, which is between Thune, Cornyn, and Scott. There’s a ton of scuttlebutt about it (see this sort of thing, for example). Who knows what’s really going on and more importantly what will be the result, but I think it’s safe to say that at the moment it’s Byzantine. I prefer Scott, but I have a hunch it will be Thune. I’d be happy to be proven wrong about that.

These are happy dilemmas, though, compared to the alternative, an election loss. Then we’d be facing many disastrous prospects, such as the end of the filibuster, and the passage of HR1 and DC statehood and court-packing.

Vance explains the Trump administration’s deportation policy – as of now

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It sounds a little bitty bit like Mitt Romney’s (yes, that Mitt Romney) “self-deportation” plan:

Romney suggested his administration would make it harder for illegal immigrants to get jobs, which would in turn lead them to seek work elsewhere.

More to the point, it has echoes of what Trump was saying during his 2016 campaign. Actually, he said a lot of things back then as a beginner feeling his way towards a policy during the 2016 campaign:

Donald Trump and his top aides have spent the last two weeks sowing confusion about what the status of the country’s 12 million illegal immigrants would be under a Trump administration. Would they all be deported, as Trump argued last year? Or would some have to go while others would be allowed to stay, as Trump has hinted in the “softening” of his position in recent days? …

First, Trump announced that he will aggressively move to deport criminal illegal immigrants — that is, immigrants who have committed crimes beyond the act of entering the country illegally. “We will begin moving them out day one, in joint operations with local, state and federal law enforcement,” Trump said. …

… Trump [also made a] statement that those here illegally would have “one route and only one route” to legal status … Everybody seeking legalization would have to leave and then return.

But then, a few short paragraphs later, Trump said that “in several years,” when tough enforcement measures are fully in place — not contemplated, not in the planning stage, but actually up and running — then “we will be in a position to consider the appropriate disposition of those who remain.”

So, as an old boyfriend of mine used to say, clear as mud. Then again, I think it was made intentionally unclear, and the same is true today. I’m not even saying that in a critical way. I simply think the problem of illegal immigration is so huge and so complex at this point that it makes sense to do the most important part first and then see if there’s a next step and what it would be. As Vance describes.

I think Trump is more serious about it now and also more aware of the difficulties. And I think the leftist fantasy of an expulsion of 20 million people is just that, a fantasy.

Oh, and back in 2012 – which, granted, was a long time ago – Trump criticized Romney’s “self-deportation” idea:

Donald Trump on Monday said Mitt Romney’s “maniacal” and “crazy” policy of “self-deportation,” alienated Asian and Hispanic voters and helped cost him the election. …

“Republicans didn’t have anything going for them with respect to Latinos and with respect to Asians,” the real estate mogul-turned-reality TV star said.

“The Democrats didn’t have a policy for dealing with illegal immigrants, but what they did have going for them is they weren’t mean-spirited about it,” Trump added. “They didn’t know what the policy was, but what they were is they were kind.”

Being a living doll

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I saw this the other day. It’s quite well done, particular by the male dancer:

It’s actually an old trick that appears in many ballets, as well. For example, Coppelia (here she’s pretending to be a doll to fool the elderly dollmaker):

And then there’s this from The Nutcracker:

In Petrouchka it’s puppets:

And in non-election news ….

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, there really IS non-election news.

For example, a pogrom in Amsterdam:

As Europe marks the 88th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Dutch city of Amsterdam gave police emergency powers to prevent further breakout of antisemitic violence. The measures to protect the Netherlands Jewish monitory came after the city on Friday night witnessed an anti-Jewish pogrom as organized Muslim migrant gangs ambushed hundreds of Israeli soccer fans after a match between Israel’s ‘Maccabi Tel Aviv’ and the Dutch team ‘AFC Ajax,’ historically seen as a Jewish club.

“Amsterdam banned demonstrations for three days from Friday after overnight attacks on Israeli soccer supporters by what the mayor called “antisemitic hit-and-run squads,” Reuters reported Saturday.

Everything I’ve read about the violence indicates that it was perpetrated by Muslim gangs and that it was preplanned. It’s an example of what happens when a Western country absorbs huge numbers of unvetted immigrants from Muslim countries and fails to assimilate them.

Amsterdam is, of course, the city where Anne Frank’s family and friends hid for years, protected by brave people such as Miep Gies, but in the end were betrayed and sent to the camps. Because the story of Frank is so well known, I believe most people are unaware that The Netherlands had a terrible record during the Holocaust:

A key aim [of the German occupation] was to separate Dutch Jews from their legal protections and Dutch cultural milieu, extinguishing first their rights and then their lives. One of Rauter’s first initiatives involved consolidating the Dutch police under the Nazi-controlled Ministry of Justice. Rauter positioned the SS and the police to have full authority over the entire Jewish population of the occupied Netherlands. This gave the SS and the police the ability to persecute Jews in the Netherlands, and eventually implement the Final Solution.? Rauter had not only the Dutch police, but 4,700 German police personnel at his disposal. …

Many non-Jewish Netherlanders helped to hide Jews, often individually in exchange for payment. Two of the most active helpers were Corrie Ten Boom and Henriëtte Pimentel, both of whom were eventually arrested and deported themselves. Another notable person was Leendert Overduin, a Dutch Reformed Church pastor who ran Group Overduin that helped about 1,000 Jews to find hiding places. 21 Dutch people have been awarded the Jewish Rescuers Citation by B’nai B’rith for helping to save Jews from deportation.

The onderduikers in turn drove a reward system for “Jew-hunters”—notably the Henneicke Column, originally a group tasked with inventorying abandoned Jewish properties, which became a bounty-hunting operation. The Henneicke Column delivered 8,000-9,000 Jews to Nazi authorities between March and October 1943 alone, earning up to 15 guilders per head.

Of the onderduikers, about a third were caught and deported.

A tale of heroism by some and betrayal by others. Much more at the link.

Arizona, bringing up the rear

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What on earth is wrong with Arizona? Why does it take what seems like years for a state with a moderate-sized population to count its ballots? There are only about 7.4 million people in the entire state of Arizona. That makes it smaller than New York City. And yet Arizona lumbers on, and we still don’t even know for sure who its senator will be, Gallego or Lake, although Gallego has been consistently in the lead. Luckily, the presidential race is already decided and Arizona isn’t needed.

But what gives? (the article is from yesterday):

It’s taking far longer than expected in multiple counties across Arizona to count ballots and report election results.

The delay means numerous congressional, statewide, and local races have yet to be called, including a U.S. Senate contest and races that would help determine the balance of power in the U.S. House. Voter advocates are warning that voters won’t have enough time to fix any problems with their ballots if the counting goes on too long. …

The long, two-page ballot that many counties had in this election was to blame for delays in at least some instances. For example, in Maricopa County and Pima County, it’s taking longer to remove mail ballots from their envelopes and unfold and inspect them.

In other counties, the problems vary. Cochise County is experiencing a mechanical problem with its tabulators that’s causing them to operate slowly …

In both Yavapai and Pinal counties, tabulating polling place results from Election Day took much longer than expected because of unclear voter marks that had to be sorted out before results from the polling place could be reported. …

Yuma County still had 40% of its ballots to count as of Thursday night, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. It’s unclear why. …

A coalition of dozens of voting rights groups are concerned that, because of the delays, voters will not have enough time to respond to counties that flagged a mismatched or missing signature on their mail ballots. Under state law, the deadline for fixing those issues is Sunday, while counties had not yet reviewed hundreds of thousands of voter signatures on ballots across the state as of Thursday night.

Whatever is going on – and it appears to be plenty – it undermines the already low trust in the integrity of the election process in the state.

Here’s an article that appeared today:

In Arizona, official tallies were 83% complete by mid-morning on Saturday with Trump leading at 52.7% and Harris at 46%, or about 180,000 votes ahead. But enough ballots remain uncounted – 602,000 as of late Friday night – for the state to remain undeclared. The state sensationally flipped to Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2020.

Indeed. It’s a very good thing that the presidency is no longer in doubt, even without Arizona. But there is that Senate seat, and those House seats. The latter in particular could be highly important.

Also:

In the key US Senate race there between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego, Lake, who always denied that Biden won the White House fairly in 2020, was trailing the Democrat 48.5% to 49.5%, or by around 33,000 votes, mid-morning on Saturday.

So it’s still up in the air. More [my emphasis]:

The delay in reporting the races falls largely on Maricopa county, the fourth largest in the US, where the state capital, Phoenix, lies. The county on Friday evening reported 351,000 ballots yet to count. Some have not been through the first step of verifying the voter signature on the outside of the envelope. Officials expected ballot counting would continue for 10 to 13 days after election day.

There is no excuse for this – none. But here are the excuses offered:

The long process for counting ballots is in part explained by the lengthy two-page ballot itself with election workers taking nearly double the usual amount of time to separate the two sheets from the mail-in envelope, lay them flat and check for damage, according to Votebeat.

In Cochise county, a mechanical problem with tabulators caused them to work more slowly.

According to the Arizona Republic newspaper, part of the state’s problem is “early-late” votes – early voting ballot papers that were filled in don’t get dropped off to be counted until election day itself.

“We have a substantial number of voters who take their early ballot and they kind of keep it on their kitchen counter for, like, three weeks,” state representative Alexander Kolodin told AZ Central.

Kolodin, a Republican, is considering a proposal that would require early ballots to be returned in advance of election day, giving time for election officials to go through the process of verification.

Ya think?

It’s almost as though Arizona wants to be in this position. And people can be forgiven for being very very suspicious.