SAY SO

really - so long ago

2009-02-21T18:28:00.001-08:00

2 years plus since i posted anything on this blog - I use http://Tony_Green.typepad.com all the time & http://Tony_Green.typepad.com/pouhu - but maybe I'll post to this one as well from time to time -

2006-03-22T17:58:00.000-08:00

in Christchurch Sunday to Wednesday morning -- Kristin Hollis hanging her big show 'Cat Farmer' with Felicity Milburn & Gavin Buxton -- opened Tuesday evg -- see photos on http://Tony_Green.typepad.com -- I made brief opening speech - then partied at Kristin's house -- good company good food & wine & Latin CDs -- Cubismo -- Leah Hartley & I had a good time treasure hunting in Smith's 3 floors of 2nd hand books & to my surprise records: 78s. Wednesday a.m. carried 15 of them onto the plane. Robert Radford, Angelo Roselli, Miliza Korjus, Lucrezia Bori, Lex McDonald mentioned in letter by Toss Woollaston Dunedin boy-soprano 1930s with severely unpleasant high notes singing Schubert and Brahms, early Gigli Quanto e bella & a replacement for Ponselle/Martinelli O terra addio [Aida] that Judi threw away or lost 10 years ago & more. In midst of activity in Chch txts from Stefan to say he & Zeudi won a comp in Verona -- first in rumba paso doble & jive -- & with open judging [judges show their marks] they beat favourites, ranked 50 places higher by the IDSF & won prize-money

back to blogspot

2006-03-06T17:54:00.000-08:00

I started this blog becasue it was easy to use when I was away from home -- but I've left it stagnant since August '05 -- all my attention has been on http://Tony_Green.typepad.com -- with new poems 3-d presentation of poems. I shd resume...

Alice & Olivia have both finished their gymn competiiton careers --injuries. Alice was 12th overall in the British & 2nd on Beam & has a heavy gong to prove it. They are both studying Nutrition at the North shore [Albany] campus of Massey University.

Stefan & Zeudi are still dancing in Italy. Results variable as ever, but always making progress. At Bassano Latin International Open they were 13th=. This month they dance in Rimini and Slovakia. Stefan sent video of their April performance for Team Diablo [chacha & rumba] and their demo for Sportel in Montecarlo -- a little theatrical jive.

I'm dancing (Social, Intermediate) with Sheryl at Ucan2 in Albany this year - hoping toes, knee & back stay in good condition.

a Beautiful Mind

2005-08-23T17:12:00.000-07:00

Sylvia Nash's biography of John Nash Jr [Touchstone 1998] spares nothing to get at the complexities of Nash's work, his aggressive competitive behaviour as a young man, his delusional psychotic illness, the terrible treatment, his homosexual relationships, his mistress of four years and the son she bore him, his marriage, the near-complete remission of his illness, and the psychotic illness of the son of his marriage. It's a sad tale of a difficult life. Anyone who has ben near to a friend or relation who has a psychotic illness will find it has a terrrible accuracy. Reading it brings renewed pain and grief. The movie falls a long way short of the book

Stuttgart -- 2, + Philostratus & A Beautiful Mind

2005-08-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

Same Story -- German Open Grand Slam -- Stefan & Zeudi after qualifying rounds made the 3rd round proper, the round of 98, placed 84=.

Other news:
My reading of Philostratus' "Imagines" is on http://Tony_Green. -- notes on artifice/illusion in painting.

At the same time I'm slowly making my way through the John Nash Jr bio: "A Beautiful Mind" -- of course, it's not at all like a movie, let alone The movie. The prose is readable, but not as good a read as the Spurling "The Unknown Matisse" . As with many bios, a lot of interesting material comes to light about the context, the other persons, institutions and circumstances. In this one -- so far -- the account of Nash's time at Princeton and then at the RAND Corporation are really informative. Sylvia Nasar is able, and this taks some doing, to write about the mathematics in a readable summary that makes sense of it. The story about Nash trying to kick the pigeons [transfered to Princeton in the movie] comes from the blue-collar staff of RAND watching him in the street and complaining to the management.

Stuttgart - 1

2005-08-17T22:32:00.000-07:00

Stefan & Zeudi made the third round only [top 96] --they were placed 67th.

Stuttgart Grand Slam

2005-08-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

So far so good -- Stefan & Zeudi [no.79] have made round 2 of the qualifying -- I'll update as news comes thru

Leipzig results

2005-08-15T14:41:00.000-07:00

Stefan & Zeudi were the only English-registered couple dancing.
N.B.The system for all rounds before the final is based on judges' votes.
They scored 6s & 7s for the 1st round, a total of 33 [cf the 6 finalists all in the mid-50s].
The results for the 2nd round were a bit strange, 6s except for 5 in Samba & a surprising 4 in Paso, usually their better dances.
They were among the last qualifiers for the 3rd round, with a total of just 26.
However, they attracted sufficient favourable attention to come, overall, 18th = . [6 places away from Semi-final]. Scores: Samba 4, Cha cha 3, Rumba 2, Paso only 1, Jive 3: total 13.

Stefan & Zeudi in Germany

2005-08-12T20:31:00.000-07:00

Stefan, on the phone this evening, tells me they are driving to Leipzig tonight with a Senior couplefrom Team Diabolo for the IDSF competitions, the 'Saxon dance Days'. They will dance in the International Open Latin on 14 August. There are 109 competitiors. Then they drive to Monaco, before taking the train to Stuttgart. Monaco, I asked? that's a lot of travelling. But he said Monaco, because that's what they call Munich in Italy.He was interested to learn for the first time that it was to München that they were in fact going. Ach, so. They will leave the Senior couple there and go by train to Stuttgart, for the biggest and best European competition of the year, the German Open. They will dance in the Rising Starts Latin on 16 August. They are no.103 of 340 competitors. Go 103! Then on the 17 August they start the Grand Slam Latin, no.175 of 383 competitors, many of whom have either one or two stars, exempting them from one or more early rounds. The competition foinishes on the 18 August. There are websites for both the Leipzig and the Stuttgart competitions. I'll certainly be keeping a close eye on the Stuttgart site: http://www.goc-stuttgart.de/index2.html & reporting on this blog at fairly regular intervals. One oddity: they are listed as dancing for England in Stuttgart, but in Leipzig for New Zealand. After the brown-maroon clothes Stefan wore recently amd that were disapproved of scathingly by one of his coaches, he's sold them. Zeudi is wearing a new fluorescent green dress. Stefan is considering a shirt to match. At least when their choreography takes them some distance apart, as in the Cha cha cha, they will easily find one another again.

nearly a month of silence

2005-08-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

put it down to jetlag, some of it, idleness, mail to catch up on, flat to be cleaned, a review to write and an outline for a long essay to compose, then there was also an unaccountable disinclination.

I've posted a short piece about Richard Killeen's latest show [at Ivan Anthony's] with a brilliant photo on http://www.Tony_Green.typepad.com , because it's easier to post photos on there.

Books have occupied me. Imposing piece of work: Hilary Spurling's extraordinary mining of resources for her biography of Matisse, The Unknown Matisse -- volume one, the early years.That becomes a vivid portrait of a time and place, with so many of the friends and colleagues given almost much attention as Matisse himself. There was so much I didn't know about Matisse. How he was hated and derided! And the whole of the Humbert scandal, that made life even more difficult for Matisse was quite new to me. At the centre of the book is the struggle against the Beaux-Arts sysytem, the need make room for independence of mind, or rightly, the desire to actually make feelings and perceptions known rather than have them repressed by routines that had lost touch with almost all kinds of feling and perception.

Last weekend there was a Monster Book Sale at Alexandra Park raceway. I arrived on the afternoon of the third day. Half the books were already sold. Just as well, I got an aching neck and shoulders from trailing past rows of tables with boxes of books in them. The most interesting of the books I bought [$2 for the good ones, 50c for the not so good] was an autobiographical book by Geoffrey Grigson, critic, poet, editor of 'New Verse', journalist and broadcaster, 'the Crest on the Silver', 1950.
The centenary of his birth [March 2nd 1905] is being celebrated this year. He has much to say about the virtues of village life in England, gives a vivid portrait of his life as a child of an elderly parson and his third not very amiable wife in a poor parsonage in Cornwall. This, strangely, is the happiest part of the book. Then follow the horrors of school, idle Oxford University years, a term teaching in a school for morally and physically degenerate and nasty children of the vey rich; depression amid journalism in London; the seriously unpleasant years working in WW II at Evesham, intercepting enemy broadcasts. In short, he gives an account of his generally rather grumpy dissatisfied aimless sometimes depressed and rather grumpy life.
Remote and vague in the background are his three wives and children. He doesn't even name the first two. Other biographical sources say that the first, a woman from Ohio, died of tuberculosis After several years of determinedly staying single, he hesitated too long over marrying an Austrian woman. So she returned to Salzburg. He writes a detailed description of an anxious train journey across Europe to Salzburg late in 1938 to find her and bring her back to England as his second [?] wife. He describes the young woman he talked to on the train; he describes the family of his wife-to-be, but says nothing about her herself, or what they did on meeting, other than buying a gold ring with garnets. That, I suppose, was the marriage that ended in divorce.

London [11]

2005-07-12T10:33:00.000-07:00

It's spooky on the tube, continually looking out for strange people leaving bombs at the doors as they get off.

Stefan & Zeudi never got to Bournemouth. The delay in Montecarlo didn't leave them enough time to get to airport and to get their dance clothes from Bassano. Stefan came to London by himself on Friday night & stayed for the weekend. On Saturday he discovered that the bombs had persuaded Ryan Air to offer change-of-flight without the penalty, so they could have come in fact, on a later plane. On that basis there was an attempt to get Zeudi to London on Saturday morning with the intention of dancing Latin at Bournemouth, but by then she had other arrangements.

On the first day of the British Gym Champs [the overall result based on all 4 pieces] Alice came 11th and on Beam 5th. The big surprise came on the second day, the individual pieces. She qualified for Beam only and came 2nd [the winner was the overall winner Olympian Beth Tweddle]. Alice arrived on Monday - for lunch - with a very big medal in her hand.

I'm leaving London tomorrow, arriving Saturday morning [NZ time] so will probably be internet silent for a few days.

London [10]

2005-07-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Explosion on Underground -- but I dont have any details, half-heard radio behind me, injuries, deaths, chaos, police sirens. London will be chaotic, buses slow, no trains? Another siren...

Yesterday looking at drawings in dealer galleries -- Robert Bevan's, Derain's -- including one made in Cassis c 1902

I forgot to mention the interesting show of Italian 50s/60s painting at Tate I saw on Tuesday -- a good chance to see a roomful of Albert Burri's, pittura povera?, & one of Piero Manzoni's white canvases with kaolin covered cloth, paper, bread rolls...

Stefan's phone call last night suggests that the Bournemouth trip is in the balance -- problems in Monte Carlo...

London [9]

2005-07-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

Tate Britain was crowded -- mainly for the Frida Kahlo show, which I didn't even try. In the 5th floor cafe space there was a large merchandising space -- a big trolley with over 3,000 Kahlo catalogues -- how long will they last? -- Kahlo jewellery hair grips butterfly brooches large and small necklaces & plenty of printed matter.

The c.70s show 'Open Systems: rethinking Art c.1970' was almost good value at £7 entrance [Donations requested: at the main door £3 and at the Cloakroom £2]. Nice 'cube' works and a whole room with Mel Bochner style measurements, Dan Graham spaces and photos, a Broodthaers museum piece, an anarchitecture room installation...& a good sit down with Robert Smithson's Hotel Palenque [1969] -- a slide lecture with a ghostly tape of the voice talking to an unseen audience -- low key anarthistory -- with photos that favoured stacking and seriality uncertainty and heaps, & ghostly slide-changes, none of which went wrong, a rarity.

Weather has turned to rubbish -- grey -- drippy showers -- & cold. Maybe it'll be ok for Bournemouth at the weekend. Weather didnt seriously impede my march up Charing X rd looking for books. Temptation on all sides, most, but not quite all, well resisted.

London [8]

2005-07-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

Somehow I took the wrong path in Regent's Park & ended up in West Euston instead of Harley street -- so walk to Wigmore Hall for Sunday coffee-concert took me 50 mins instead of half-hour -- it turned out to be young piano duo Simon Crawford-Phillips & Philip Moore playing music by Medtner op 58; Rachmaninov Suite no2; Oscar Strasnoy Bloc-Notes D'Ephemera [2001] & Wittold Lutoslawski Var on a theme of Paganini -- this played neatly into my preoccupation with Russian & e European music/dance -- the duo was good, I liked the way they changed painos between pieces, like changing ends at tennis.

Simon C-P seems to be the stolid serious still one and Philip the more demonstrative emotional flamboyant personality. The Medtner was thoroughly Russian in material and staid in harmony and rhythm -- I liked best the Waltz of the Rachamnainov Suite -- the strasnoty was welcome & had a nice conversational modern tone to it -- I'd like to hear more -- the Lutoslawski was brilliant and humorous playing on the familiar old Paganini theme. Then back to mothere's flat for Wimbledon Men's final on TV -- too easy for Federer.

I've read with pleasure 'Prokofiev on Prokofiev' it runs from his birth in 1891 to 1915, graduation from the Peterburg Conservatory. Not only a great intelligence at music / work, but a memoir written in the 1930s based closely on his diaries and family letters, with close critical review of his own early music. This has the advantage of largely excluding the colouring of reminiscence and at the same time comiung close to the text produced at the time -- prior to correction, reflection, and convenient hiding of deficiencies. The family life, the playing of games with other children, the delight in walking on stilts, erudition trained on detailed knowledge of the Russian naval fleet [much of it sunk in 1905 by the Japanese to Prokofiev's serious distress], rurla ligfe. travel on trains -- 3 days to Moscow -- & furhter to St Petersburg, the habitual recoirding of information and delight in cataloguing things -- all there. The regular textbook statement that he was a pupil of Lyadov has survived the evidence of this book that Lyadov was a lazy and unpleasant pedantic teacher of little help to him, while the reality of Gliere's coaching through 2 summers, tho not sufficient was obviously of permanent value. There's a lot about Glazounov and Rimsky-Korsakov as teachers and musicians. Throughout P is a permanent innocent about music, about professional musical life & intrigue, & about sex. Even at the end of his Conservatory days it had to be explained to him that 'Glazounov is away in Riga' meant Glazounov was suffering from another alcoholic binge. P's account of his childhood opera The Giant, with absurd childish plot and libretto, is one of the funniest things I've read. Anyway, I was off on Friday to Chappell's again and bought the 'Visions Fugitives', worked away at sight-reading them on one of the Yamaha electronics there.

The short 'Towards Ballet', 1934, essay by Adrian Stokes is my current reading -- that's, as in all Stokes, straining after an intellectual conspectus of the arts, and comes up with a mass of insights and acute perceptions. I'm going back to Travers and Emery's bookshop & up the ladder to buy the other Stokes book on ballet, that I saw on the top shelf last week.

London [7]

2005-07-01T10:41:00.000-07:00

Apart from usual London summer thundery shower-dodging, I've been at Tate Britain just long enough to walk through the current tourist-orientated show A Painting of Britain -- done in collaboration woith a BBC TV series fronted by the able old broadcaster David Dimbleby who can improvise nicely in front of the camera sometimes. Well, yes, it's a filled to the brim collection of good landscape painting c 1750 to present --but mainly 19th century -- so the occasional sidetrip to Hamish Fulton doesnt annoy the customers too much. Also full to the brim of customers even on a weekday, which makes viewing of smaller items hung close together -- the excellent watercolours -- like walking up Oxford street on Xmas Eve. Sharp elbows required. I caught a glimpse of a very nice Francis Towne waterfall in his best manner -- acquired by the Tate with the Oppe collection. & a great Girtin.

In a show that was designed to be illustrations to a broad history of the industrial revolution & landscape it is necessary to remember that the illustrations [paintings] aren't just handy historical footage for TV -- & to hunt for the pick of the paintings. Of course I got a bit battered trying to stand still to look at Constable's Chain Pier at Brighton, which is pretty good throughout it's complications of foreshore, sea and distant houses, and really takes at least ten minutes maybe quarter of an hour to take it all in.

The Dunedin 'Towne' must be J W Abbott -- I saw one v like it at Sotheby's last week in a v good sale of water-colours -- Edward Lear's v prominent in it, about a dozen of them, prices from £2000 for bl & wh, & as soon as there was a spot of colur £3000 upwards -- the bl & whites were often preferable -- also a rich sunset by Sam Palmer, Venetian William Callow, many v good things...

Next door, almost, at Chappell's, I bought some 1920s 'Fables' by Martinu and played one of their Yamaha electronic pianos for an hour. But not feeling well and not playing well, almost certainly the MSG filled seasoning mother's cook used. She crumbled up the 'chicken stock' cube and sprinkled it on the rice.

The Joshua Reynolds show was superior -- very nice selection of paintings -- all the best -- tho the condition is variable after 200 years -- faded 1760s -- bitumen rivers [I guess that's what it is] in the under painting of several of the later ones. The whole effect was not good -- almopst ruined by the usual glamorous overlighting and its inevitable bad bad shine -- manoeuvring to see paintings was necessary. There were a few I hadnt seen before, an early self-portrait done in Rome and some I hadnt seen for a long time. Enjoyable. The show was arranged by types of sitters -- so it was all about biogrpahies and personalities and their presentation as 'celebrities' -- an interesting idea, Reynolds as early massager of media celebrities in the first age of newspapers. I liked that, but again there was little regard for the way he shaped this out of Van Dyck [nobility origin of bourgeois portrait] and contemporary French [& Italian] portraiture. & then there is the way his military portraits are models for Gros -- In short, the history of art is depleted as long as it forgets it is work in a medium. How tiresome I must sound, saying the same thing every day.

I'm going back for some more today -- before the Wimbledon men's semi-finals.

London [6]

2005-06-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

I can now spell Fantasia Baetica, because the Chopin Society programme from Sunday is here in front of me.

Wimbledon occupies TV time from 12 to 8.30 every day, with a summary from 9.30 tp 10.30. I didnt stay around for all of that yesterday -- off to National Gallery to meet David Packwood. I didt know what he looked like. So when a large man appeared in the Poussin room with my Poussin book in his hand, I thought I'd found him.

I took him to the Pompidou in Irving Street which always has excellent cheesecake and good coffee. There we sat and talked about his Poussin project for two hours loud enough to be heard over the coffee machine by the manager and the waitresses -- or so I noticed turning round at one moment to see them making gestures to one another. They saw me looking and were a bit embarrassed, but the scene ended in general laughter.

Maybe the best part of the conversation and the cause of even greater laughter was his revelation to me that when he asked one of the Brit art historians [who deservedly should be forever nameless] why my book wasnt in their library, he got the reply: We've banished Tony Green to New Zealand.

Meanwhile, back at the books: I've just bought and have been reading the Memoirs of Ksschinska -- the powerful premier ballerina assoluta of the Maryinsky, who had been in love with Nicolas II when he was the Tsarevitch, subsequently protected by Grand Dukes and finally married to the Grand Duke André. Her glittering career of jewels villas parties triumphant personal successes was accomplished in the company of a seemingly endless array of Grand Dukes Duchesses and the crowned heads of Europe. Abruptly the Revolution of 1917 took everything, villas, money and jewels, and sent her into exile in what she repeatedly calls the Emigration -- among whatever remained of the Romanoffs and their associates of the old regime. It is a surprisingly chilly rarely intimate account, rather a list of people, possessions and favourable reviews. Prokofiev on Prokofiev, bought yesterday, looks more interesting.

London [5]

2005-06-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

Weekend travel blues -- St Johns's Wood Station closed, Jubilee Line out of action -- tube, buses very hot and crowded. Sleeping after lunch yesterday went on longer than I intended so I walked to Baker Street Station fairly fast -- 16 mins -- to go by tube to Prince's Gate to hear Paul Roberts play piano for the Chopin Society.

On tube sitting opposite, a young man Federer look-alike -- I resisted saying Hi Roger, having a nice day off?

The Chopin Society assembled in the drawing-room of the Sikorski Museum, Polish flags and military memorabilia everywhere, and in the corner a copy of Delacroix's portrait of Fred himself. Fine 19th c rococo style stucco on ceiling, Baby Grand, but quite sufficient for the drawing room packed very tight with about 60 chairs.

I was talking with the person next to me, when a woman in the row in front turned and asked if I wanted piano lessons, an Australian, originally from AdelaideMary Leonard. She gave me her card, tho I did explain that I was strictly an out-of-town visitor.

This was the best of the afternoon Time Out listings for Sunday: Ravel -- 4 pieces from the Tombeau de Couperin -- de Falla -- Debussy -- Albeniz. Paul Roberts, who is a scholar as well as a pianist, introduced the pieces - and played with vigour & rhythmic verve. The oidd thing was that there was only one Chopin piece in the programme, the Fantaisie Impromptu, but sounding strangely like more Ravel. The de Falla was especially striking: the rarely played Fantaisie Baitica [I've left programme at the flat can't remember spelling for sure] originally composed for Arthur Rubinstein. The friendly Chopinians then served a splendid buffet with wine or tea or coffee -- all home made. I watched as a rather fat man who got in early piled a little paper-plate high with sandwiches sausage-rolls and quiche & went out to the terrace balancing it carefully. And it was the birthday of a pianist member Paul Furtwangler. We sang a hearty Happy Birthday, & about six Polish women members then sang the Polish equivalent.

Alice, on Saturday night, reported that she came 2 /5 in a small invitational competition, with her best overall score, 33.25 / 40. It cd have been better, but there was a real problem with inadequate springboards. She told me she had focussed hard on the performance and that had helped her with her pre-competition nervousness. Thanks to Sophie for advice!

Stefan phoned to say they will perform in MonteCarlo, 2 shows, just before going to Bournemouth, thanks to an invitation arranged by Peter Maxwell, & there's also to be a private show for Prince Albert.

London [4]

2005-06-24T01:24:00.000-07:00

After the big birthday on Monday, it was the big gymnastics trip for me to Hemel Hempstead. Alice was in good form. You shd see the muscles. If I had abs like that...!

It was of course stinking [literally] hot, especially up in the gallery at the gym. I took video of some practice moves and of all her routines, looking strong and accurate. She doesn';t expect to do better than 6th in the British Championships [July 9th].

Sophie & Jonathan motored up for dinner at Alberto's in Hemel -- noisy, but the food was good.

Alice is looking after the house while Sally & Leman are away, struggling to know how [inexperienced] to water the garden properly. The roses are doing well, so she must be doing something right, but then so are the nettles.

I got back to the hopelessly sweltering flat in London late. I was not much use for anything yesterday except watching on TV Henman lose, & young Andrew Murray win, at Wimbledon. Thunder forecast for today.

Remembering Robert Creeley's discourse upon teeth in 'Presences', I hit on this in James Thurber [Lanterns & Lances] p117:

"'Take teeth, then,' I told her. 'Last year in London, somebody asked me why Americans thought teeth were so funny. I explained that it is not teeth, but the absence of teeth, that we regard as funny, and also, the absence of hair.'...If the falling apart of the human body is funny, then death should be the biggest laugh of all. I think I saw this concept forming when the edentulous mouth was first deemed to be uproarious."

London (3) -- & Cookham

2005-06-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

I can't work out why I can't reply to e-mails or send new e-mails on this cafe-machine.

While mother was suffering a session of TV watching Tim Henman behaving poorly, I was out of there after Andrew Murray won his first Wimbledon match. Another young hopeful: claimed as quickly as possible for Britain or even England, but he's Scottish, and has to keep on insisting on that to the press. Reminds me of Australians claiming Colin McCahon as 'Australasian'.

The event of the day was the gathering at Granny Mary Neale's house in Cookham Rise for her 90th birthday, with six bouquets, 50 [?] cards, 2 birthday cakes and a Balloon marked 90, in her little sitting-room: a merry small family party in the afternoon. The phone rang every ten minutes, with more birthday greetings, some of them sung. Sophie & Jonathan had taken her to lunch at the poshest part of The Compleat Angler in Marlow.

The result from the Rising Stars Latin at Cervia was a bit disappointing. 25th, missed the round of 24 by 1 mark As before, plenty of encouragement from friends and supporters and fellow-dancers, 'we daqnced very well' - but 'the worst possible judging panel'. That's how it goes. & Stefan had anticipated 3 weeks ago something of the sort would happen ther. Stefan & Zeudi refuse to be discouraged: just working hard & waiting.

Mrs Gaskell. Cranford (Chapter 7) : 'she had had a cousin who spelt his name with two little ffs - ffoulkes- and he always looked down on upon capital letters, and said they belonged to lately-invented families....When he met a Mrs. ffaringdon, at a watering-place, he took to her immediately; and a very pretty genteel woman she was - a widow, with a very good fortune; and 'my cousin', Mr. ffoulkes, married her ; and it was all owing to her two little ffs'.

cheers, fflap.

London (2)

2005-06-21T10:14:00.000-07:00

Sunday -- to Grosvenor House, with cousin Jean to the Antiques Fair. My mother's new friend Mrs Koetser had asked me to see her son's stand at the show, which I did. Nice little 1650s Van Goyen -- v sketchy, grey-brown, a sledge at the edge of a river -- and other good Dutch and Flemish paintings. Then we moved onto the much larger Antiques Fair at Olympia, half-empty, but with some quite interesting things to see, especially some early 20thc Russians & a Miro collage in a stand of a gallery from Barcelona. On the way to that we stopped off at a smaller Olympia Hall, the Allergy Show, organised by Jean's son & his partner, this was crowded with families, and we were told it was much busier the day before: Snake-Oil City-- everything you can imagine being marketed to allieviate the widespread common symptoms of allergies.

The big news Monday was Michael Campbell's vicotry in the US Golf Open. Then it was family day, Sophie & Jonathan & Alice all gathered at my mother's flat. We went out to the High street for lunch at Cafe Rouge. The rest of the day was taken up with Wimbledon on TV. The early rounds focus on British players, because so few of them last into the 2nd week. & it seems necessary to be shown why.

It was also the day for International Latin at Cervia. Stefan on the phone in the evening sounded satisfied to have made the round of 48, placed 38th. The politics always figures in these competitions & his view was that the top 20 places were all 'taken', leaving only 4 more places in the round of 24. This kind of information, of course, never figures in the rankings or ratings. Tonight it's the Rising Stars Latin. I'll post the result here asap.

Heatwave continues, though there was a brief thunderstorm in London yesterday morning, which began the moment I came out of the launderette.

London (1)

2005-06-18T11:17:00.000-07:00

I'm still recovering from sleep deprivation on long haul from Auckland to London & overnight Singapore.

Heatwave in London. Wimbledon next week: we're all ready to consume 2 million strawberries -- The Guardian says that's enough strawberries to stretch from Wimbledon to Reading.

On the plane I did a read through of [almost] all of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine. Almost, because I did skim & skip bits. Clive Bell's rather loose essay on French art [1931] is next up. The Poussin part is strange but interesting. More to come on this.

Sat & watched with my mother: horses at Royal Ascot on TV yesterday. 3 Y.O.F's Group 1 Coronation Stakes ended with a tight finish with Maids Causeway taking it out on the line in spite of shedding a shoe on the front right. Limping but seems to be ok. The Queen wore a blue hat.

William Hodges at the Auckland Art Gallery

2005-06-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

I had a list of tasks for the morning, and had to take my books back to the University Library. The wind blew cool on the upper deck of the Seaflyte, a bit too cool. After I'd got everything done, I remembered that the Auckland Art Gallery is hosting a show of William Hodges paintings -- and chalk drawings -- of his travels with Captain Cook to Capetown and to the Pacific, and his later paintings of India. One art-dealer friend I met as I'm going in, tells me that he thinks Hodges is better on the small scale and not so good on the grand scale of the landscapes he painted on commission for the Admiralty. This is, I guess, the modern preference for the sketch. I enjoyed the paintings, quite a few of which I haven't seen before. Yes, the smaller oil paintings are sweetly painted, but the larger paintings are also impressive.

But what perturbs me is the insistence of the wall-texts that the paintings are somehow caught within a classical tradition of landscape. At worst this leads to an appraisal of Hodges painting as suddenly inspired by the 'Pacific light' to break out of an era of rigid formulaic landscape. This would be almost plausible, if it didn't miss almost completely the complexity of mid-eighteenth century landscape painting. Richard Wilson, who taught Hodges, was clearly aware of Venetian mid-century painting and also of Aelbert Cuyp, as well as the range of Roman 17th century painters, usually thought of as classical. Could he paint a Hadrian's Villa like the one in the Gallery's collection without being aware of Marco Ricci's landscape paintings? Wouldn't it have been impossible in mid-century England not to have known of Joseph Vernet's harbour scenes? Several of Hodges' seem to me to re-work some 17th century Dutch painting, Cuyp almost certainly. There's even a Ruisdael look about the waterfalls. And the fluid calligraphy of many of them is closer to Francesco Guardi [ though coarser ], than to Claude or Gaspard. In England there was no lack of interest -- though the wall-texts suggest otherwise -- in chiaroscuro and effects of light, or effects like rainbows, in Joseph Wright of Derby's paintings for one major instance. However, the rhetoric of show -presentation is just a familar annoyance and it is not difficult to ignore it when the paitnings are as good as these.

At the far end in a smaller room was one of three smaller complementary shows, McCahon waterfalls, several from private collections. That revived my attention. Especially a small triptych of them, painted in white and black, leaving bare areas of board for a third colour brownish-red.

By the time I got to the show of works from the Chartwell collection in the New Gallery I was beginning to tire; and going upstairs to the Hei Tiki show I could do no more than wish I had more time and energy for what looked as if it could be a good show for a full day.

2 Marie Rambert quotes

2005-06-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

'Quicksilver' p31 [retrospect nearly 70 years laterof 1905]

'Soon after I arrived in Paris, my uncle took me to an exhibition of very modern painting -- no doubt it was the Salon des Indépendants, and it was full of gret impressionist masterpieces. but we hated it heartily, and my uncle said: 'It's a mockery'.

at what was announced as the last appearance of Sarah Bernhardt -- 'of course, she was to make a few other last appearances later on'

pp.30 -31 'When the great Sarah came on to the stage and started speaking I nearly burst out laughing, and so did my aunt -- though she was a woman who had very little humour -- because the vocie sounded so cracked and so funny. Yet after a few seconds you did not hear the crack in the voice, yoiu just heard the golden voice, which was something of incredible beauty. Everything she was saying became so convincing...'

John Geraets

2005-06-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

John Geraets keeps in touch by postcard. The latest from Pokhara [dated 22 May '05] arrived 8 June, that's pretty good -- with a photo of the lake & behind that snow topped Annapurna Ranges, each peak named and with its height in metres. 'quiet people, thunderous rains, and it's wonderful!. I've managed to encourage Karen into the water with a blow-up meditation cushion 'floatie' so we take our daily lake swims and are so glad to be physically active and well again' He mentions 'good books to read' , doesn't mention what he's writing. They'll be heading for Kathmandu any time now.

Sophie & Jonathan are in touch frequently by e-mail from Spain, esepcially nice messages abt food in San Sebastian.
'
Hit the town for some pintxos, first place OK the second one a lot better but the bar we went to today is VERY good, fantastic combination of flavours, eg thin slice of fried aubergine, thin slice of cheese, jamon, more aubergine and roast green pepper on bread. or how about a crostini with two salted anchovies and manchego cheese and a sundried tomato and half a cherry tomato. YUM.
And a good menu del dia too. Duck legs with pear puree, hake BEAUTIFULLY cooked, so tender and delicious in a light vinagrette, puddings of creme caramel, fig icecream and fresh nectarines etc etc etc etc.

-----------------------------------------------------

More about Marie Rambert today on http://Tony_Green.typepad.com -- poetry & reciting & improvisation

an Ashley Dukes quote

2005-06-10T23:36:00.000-07:00

Quoted by his wife, Marie Rambert, in her autobiography 'Quicksilver' [Macmillan 1972, p116] from Ashley Dukes' play 'The Man with a Load of Mischief':
"Men reason to strengthen their own prejudices and not to disturb their adversaries' convictions".
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Quicksilver' is written throughout with lively humour - Marie Rambert is always generous to others and always modest. She also had a real gift for anecdotes, usually ending with a great punch-line.
Her achievements are legible in the book , but there's no cockiness. There's no disguising the many difficulties she faced, but no complaining, no excuses, no defensive tactics. She sees the virtues in her colleagues, is aware of her faults.
She was open minded about dancing, not a purist, nor a partisan. She admired isadora Duncan. She practised Dalcrozian Eurythmics and then she became a Diaghilev dancer. She worked with Nijinsky on his great modernist ballets. Though she doesnt say so, it's clear that she made a significant contribution to them. She tells how, while on the ship, travelling to South America with the Diaghilev company, she didnt realise quite how much she was in love with Nijinsky, until he suddenly married Romola.
Shortly after this, WWI brought her to England and there she was one of the creators of British modern ballet. She taught many of the most significant dancers and choreographers and gave them opportunities to produce new works. What it all came down to was love of her art and sticking at it, without cheapening it at any point by chasing after money or public adulation. What a pleasure to hear about this life, after reading Grace Moore's book.

Art/Commerce

2005-06-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

Lynn Garafola's 'Diaghilev's Ballets Russes' is the best hing I've seen yet on this v interesting corner of modernism -- the book is not just about the ballets and dancing, but about the economics and the audiences. The appartus of notes appendix and bibliogrpahy is also first-rate.

Back to Gracie, not Fields, but Moore.
Following up with a read through Grace Moore's autobiography, I was impressed by how well it shows the effects on an artist of cross-over from one genre to another. For 'genre' read economic sphere. There's Broadway and the demands of touring, then there's the continual attempts to fulfil the ambition to sing in opera at the Met, then there's Hollywood, movie-stardom and celebrity concert tours, with one-night stands in the opera houses of Northern Europe.

The money comes into the story mostly in terms of the later passion for buying houses, lavish entertainment & staff of secretaries, limos & chauffeurs, &, noteworthy moment, determination to get the pure white Royal Copenhagen porcelain dinner service like that reserved for the King of Denmark. There's not much analysis, but the raw data is interesting.

Whoever actually wrote this rather standard star-biography did a fairly efficient job of stressing the positives and drawing a littel veil over the negatives. Quarrels and temper are always seemingly justified. She did break some glass, but never threw telephone receivers. A Polish tenor upstaged her, Sir Thomas Beecham was suspicious of her as a singer, and is said to have spread malicious gossip, Lady Cunard cut her dead at her Covent Garden debut, a Polish tenor upstaged her -- why exactly? As for Beecham he was rude & his tempos were too slow in Louise, so says the book. She sang once with Dino Borgioli, who is misprinted as Brogioli, [the Duke in the old Columbia complete Rigoletto with Stracciari] --and the author's version of "Les Six" is Milhaud, Honegger and Stravinsky.

She is, in the end presented as all heart, making up for whatever limitations of voice, small range of operatic roles & the cashing in on the movie-stardom, in which she turned opera to use as standards alongside sentimental songs. Common enough practice. But Mengelberg could not for the life of him understand why she would actually want to sing Ciribiribin. Audiences kept on demanding it after her hit-movie, 'One night of Love'. What she did achieve, in difficult circumstances of approaching WWII was an 83 minute movie of Charpentier's 'Louise' with that fine tenor Georges Thill. Repeatedly she is seen as in contact with Mary Garden, socially and then professionally and studying the role with Charpentier, tho her French at that time was apparently rather shaky. The date for this appears to be 1938, tho in the autobiography it sounds as if it's the last months of 1939 only just in time before the outbreak of war. This, it is claimed, in the book was the first filmed opera. When I get a copy I'll report.

Meanwhile why did I, aged 4, dream of marrying her, rather than Deanna Durbin, apart from the fact I heard her record of 'One Night of Love' before I ever got to see musicals on the screen. I only wish she'd recorded 'Ciribiribin' with Mengelberg or with her friend Toscanini -- that would've been something else.

Ratings for Dancers

2005-06-08T00:27:00.000-07:00

Laughter this morning , lots of it, discovering that in the computer-rating system of Dancesportinfo.com. Stefan & Zeudi, after Blackpool, are now higher rated in their secondary interest Ballroom, than in their speciality Latin. The trouble with the computer-ratings is that they have no way of taking account of the 'political' judging -- to give it its polite name -- in all dance competitions. The computer just has no idea of what was going on behind the scenes in Croatia or Slovenia or anywhere else, that had a bearing on results there, let alone the possibly wayward results at Blackpool.

I quote from a forum comment on Dancesportinfo website: " @Bozenka This does not explain the strange results at Blackpool. Not just the Amateur latin was strange, a lot of good couples were out very early in other events too. It´s of course a big lottery when you have 20 or even more couples on the floor, but this does not explain everything. The russian champion out after the 48, that is just ridiculous."

Ridiculous if you expect Dancesport to produce results that are based on objective judgments. The absurdity of that expectation is currently being exposed in NZ's Dancing with the Stars, where the least able dancing 'star' [according to the judges] has survived to the semifinals on the basis of organising a large body of public votes [which count 50-50 with the judges].

Yet among dancers and judges there would be a moderately sound consensus about the relative standard of dancing of the top fifty in the world to the next fifty or so, give or take a dozen either way.

In exactly the same way an All Black coach or coaching panel can pick a test squad of 25 players, leaving another twenty-five in a reserve of obvious talent. There will always rightly be questions raised about the borderlines between the two. Quality shows, but it is not something that can have a meaningful precise number attached to it.

There is, I have noticed, a view among musicians that competitions are ruinous to music-making.

Last of Blackpool

2005-06-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

Stefan & Zeudi: Adult Ballroom, 148th -- just missed the cut for Round 3.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
from my notebook

Joan Acocella writing about the Classical stanceof André Levinson [Intro. to Levinson's Paris Writing's on Dance, p10] :
What he sought was not pure abstraction -- it is questionable whether such a thing exists in dance -- but a measure of idealization, a cutting away of detail in the service of a purer, stronger symbol".

Levinson on dance's autonomy [p.32]:
The ballet dance ...is not determined by any external motive. It includes its own law, its own logic, and any departure from that logic, pertaining to a body, moving in space with the aim of creating beauty by organized dynamism is perfectly apparent to the spectator.

Levinson on dance as motion [p.42] [Levinson also wrote film criticism. & see Deleuze {Bergson} on movement in film]:
The dance is motion is a harmony of living forms, masses and outlines, whose relations to each other are continually varied by that "motion which causes the lines to flow". We are exceedingly ill-equipped for the study of things in flux - even for considering motion itself as such. We cling to things at rest as though they were landmarks in a turbulent chaos.

Levinson on dance as independent of other arts [43]:
The intrinsic beauty of a dance-step, its innate quality, its esthetic reason for being...never is it shown to lie in the contours of the movement itself, in the constructive value of an attitude or in the thrilling dynamics of the leap in the air. All the other arts are foisted on the dance as instructors.

At Kamin's Dance Bookshop

2005-06-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

with over 500 pages to play with, Sortes Frank O'Hara is a possibility, & right off, I get p.403, not really to tell my fortune, as what coincidence might befall this text [it's titled as above and addressed to Vincent Warren:

'Shade of Fanny Essler! I dreamt that you passed over me last night in sleep
'was it you who was asleep or was it me? sweet shade
'shade shade shill spade agony freak
'geek you were not nor were you made of ribbons but of warm moving flesh & tulle'

this is decidedly an erotic dream, tho the intertwined limbs are Fanny Essler's, and there's an absence of fleshly contact between Frank & Fanny. It's Frank's tights not his legs entwined with her legs, & as for his crotch it's covered with a big sash - + a comedic touch-

'and a jewel in my left ear for luck
(to help me balance)'

good to know that, way back when he wrote this, Frank can tell she wasn't a geek.
No luck with googling Kamin's Dance Bookshop... but here's a quickie on Fanny Elssler http://8.1911encyclopedia.org/E/EL/ELSSLER_FANNY.htm . Any guesses as to which history of ballet Frank had been reading?

Thornley at Vavasour/Godkin

2005-06-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

Into town today -- wind on the harbour got up this afternoon -- showers etc. I borrowed Lynn Garafola's book on 'Diaghilev's Ballets Russes' from the Music Library. Before lunch I went to Holiday
Shoppe to see Fiona Chan and get travel insurance sorted. I cdnt resist going up the stairs to Jason's Books & came away with a Collected Frank O'Hara [pbk, 1995, the 1st hardback edition was out of print before I cd get a copy]. Maybe this will be good airplane read instead of Nijinska. But I like to read poetry aloud.

Lunch at Rueben, new management. Guy von Sturmer had trouble getting his eggs cooked as he wanted them. I had a tuna sandwich. He thought I might get arrested reading poetry aloud all the way to London.

After lunch Guy & I went to see Geoff Thornley's show at Vavasour/Godkin, the main purpose of this expedition. The results are on my other blog at http://Tony_Green.typepad.com -- photo & text.

More detail for Blackpool

2005-06-02T08:52:00.000-07:00

SAY SO says Stefan & Zeudi's results were all so-so, nothing above or below reasonable expectations in such large competitions -- Amateur Rising Stars: Ballroom 104= ; Latin 88. Amateur Adult Latin, 113.
They'll be back!

Next up: 19./20.06.2005 IDSF INTERNATIONAL OPEN LATIN Italy, Cervia
21./22.06.2005 IDSF INTERNATIONAL OPEN STANDARD Italy, Cervia

Also at Blackpool New Zealander Harley Baas with partner Tatiana Ostrapovitch had good results: Amateur Adult Latin, 72 -- Amateur Rising Stars Latin, 49.

Enjoy your coffee break, Leah.

Blackpool, Amateur Latin, -- & more waiting

2005-06-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

Stefan & Zeudi: Amateur Latin, top 143 [Round 3] -- much as expected. Amateur Ballroom result not yet announced.

. ------------------

Writing for publication means lots of long waits. It must be nine months since I wrote an essay for Maddie Leach's post-publication on her Take Me Down To Your Dance Floor piece. It is likely to be another two or three months or more before it is published. & the review I wrote with a fairly tight deadline for Landfall about six months ago still hasn't appeared. I'm lucky I don't have to produce evidence of publication activity to a university committee that looks into promotions, leave, or tenure. Nearly everything I write [or photograph], faute de mieux, currently goes into the ephemeral internet, but at least it's [almost] instantaneous.

Waiting waiting

2005-05-31T10:18:00.000-07:00

Waiting for results. Usual delays getting placings & marks onto the internet. Apart from the places for the top 6 in competitions, so far there are only blanket placings for all those who reached a certain round. Stefan & Zeudi reached round 3 of the Amateur Rising Stars Latin & round 2 of the Ballroom. At the time of wriitng, I can say that they have also reached round 2 of the main competition, the Amateur Latin.

Stefan, on the phone, half an hour ago, didn't have any more information than is on the internet. Even though the results are a bit disappointing, he says, the dancing is going very well. Sends thanks, to well-wishers in New Zealand. Next big competition is IDSF International Open Latin at Cervia.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, the weather is cold and wet here, and I've finished reading André Levinson's writings on dance in Paris in the twenties, and Alexandre Benois's memoirs of the Ballets Russes, moving onto Cyril Beaumont's descriptions of the Diaghilev ballet productions in London.

I have got about half-way through this. It is extraordinary eye-witness documentation of performances. He notes details of performers, costumes and decor, and some offstage memoirs of people and events as well. He recalls the effects of specific productions and of the way that particular dancers performed in particular roles. He had access to greenroom and backstage. I wonder about his methods: surely he must have kept and annotated programmes; and he must also have made notes and drawings. Certainly, for production of books on individual ballets, and for 8 inch high cutouts of dancers he borrowed costumes, sought out photographs and had artists make drawings.

A great moment, perhaps the great moment, for the Ballets Russes in London was by all accounts 1912 to 1913, When Bolm, Nijinsky and Karsavina were at their best. After WWI, he certainly admired Lydia Lopokova in La Boutique Fantasque and in Petroushka, but there is a certain bold tactlessness, even as a friend, about his criticism to her huband of Lopokova's performance in The Firebird. He remembered, too well, Karsavina in that role. Just as he remembered (and described) the earlier performances of Petroushka, with Karsavina, Nijinsky and Kotchetovsky, when he later saw Massine, Lopokova, and Zverev dance it.

So far, so good

2005-05-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Blackpool results, latest --. from www.danceportinfo.net -- alphabetical list of 2nd round is all we have: so far so good, Stefan & Zeudi are still in -- top 141, in Rising Stars Ballroom & top 206 in Rising Stars Latin -- more to come on both competitions. Tonight will be the big night for both Rising Stars competitions. It's obviously best to be in the Winter Gardens-- see the Blackpool weather forecast http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/%20Blackpool_UK_c.html

& here fine weather for the Sunday carpark markets. German Sourdough this week has light crust & excellent crumb. Last week's was a tooth breaker. Blinded by sun shining on road I narrowly avoided a hitting a traffic island while turning right.

Rising Stars

2005-05-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

Stefan & Zeudi rose as far as top 150 in Ballroom (Round 2) & Top 85 in Latin (Round 3). The exact placings have not been posted yet on the Blackpool website. Dancesportinfo.net has given them a provisional +0 for both competitions.

Windy Saturday

2005-05-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

& showery, a day not to hang out washing, not yet, maybe
afternoon, & the last Saturday to see Callum Innes' paintings in daylight
at Jensen's Gallery, but is it so windy that Toyota Echo's get blown off the harbourt bridge?

Blackpool time again

2005-05-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

Blackpool Dance Festival, the Big One, a whole week of Ballroom and Latin competitions, starts 10 am sharp tomorrow morning [UK time]. Stefan phones me this morning fom The Lancaster, where I stayed with Stefan & Zeudi last year, 10 mins walk along the promenade from the venue, the Winter Gardens.

Flying from Italy to Liverpool was a good idea, he tells me. The train journey from Liverpool takes only an hour and a half, better than flying to Stansted and then four hours or more in trains. Arriving with Italian friends at the same time as Liverpool FC fans whooping with victory back from beating AC Milan in the European final was a bit strange tho. In Italy AC Milan's loss was 'worse than the Pope dying'.

He's asking me what time he's dancing tomorrow morning, because, although he's in Blackpool and I'm in Auckland, I've got access to the internet to find out, & he hasnt. He thinks it may be 10 a.m. Yes, it is, 1st qualifying round of the Amateur Latin Rising Stars. They are dancing in the Rising Stars Ballroom & both the main competitions for Latin & Ballroom. I hope to get frequent text messages through the week. The website is www.blackpooldancefestival.net

Visiting Guy Von Sturmer

2005-05-25T16:22:00.000-07:00

Going to visit Guy also means that I go looking at books in 2nd hand bookshops in Devonport. Cyril Beaumont: The Diaghilev Ballet in London (revised edition, 1945, with illustrations) was the avowed purpose, I had noticed it last time I was there, but there was Virginia Woolf's Books & Portraits, 1977, with Angelvca Garnett's dustwrapper, both at Hard to Find -- & Evergreen had Clive Bell's An account of French Painting, 1931, with 27 references to Poussin in the index..

Tucked inside is a postcard, pristine condition, from the British Museum.The Nativity, Add Mss.35312, f.42. French, XV Cent. inscribed on the blank verso 'With love from Jonathan. Christmas 1931'. The scene enclosed in numerous fine tendrils & some fleshier foliage is properly an adoration of the Christ child by his parents, angels and shepherds. There is an ox lying down, looking up at the Christ child, with right forefoot tucked under him, like a dog; an alert ass head and shoulders; two adoring angels, one in green, the other with blue & white wings; behind them St Joseph hands joined in prayer beneath his chin; & out the back three shepherds in brown clothes, one hooded. A gold glory shines down on them all. Under a rustic wooden shelter, with holes in the roof, the Virgin, wearing a fine blue mantle, is seated on a vermillion drapery, praying over the child in a manger, that is a wicker basket of sorts. Behind all these, there is a distance of gently sloping hills a few trees & a castle.

Guy poured me a latte-sized cup of tea. The day was fine and the light in his study area was good for the photos I wanted to take. The best of them, with some words about Guy's painting is on http://Tony_Green.typepad.com

In Takapuna, the North Shore Hospice op shop had a copy of the autobiograpohy of Grace Moore at irresistible op shop price. Grace Moore was the singing star of a movie of 1934, which popularised operatic singing, One Night of Love. Her record of the title song [on the A side] and Ciribiribim [definitely B-side I decided when I found a copy in a junk shop recently] were popular & broadcast frequently in Britain well into the 1940s. I remember hearing it in 1940 during WWII while I was evacuated from London & immediately declaring that when I grew up I was going to marry Grace Moore. It was the sound of the voice that so impressed me then. I certainly didn't know she was older than my mother. I was certainly out of luck as far as marrying her went. I could not have anticipated that she would die in a plane crash in 1947.

The book is a rich mine of gossip about stars of the opera and of Hollywood. Dipping into it there is Grace Moore with her light lyric soprano in a concert with the great heroic tenor voice of Giovanni Martinelli, dining out with Cole Porter and with Gloria Swanson in Paris, studying Louise with Charpentier & telling us about Fanny Heldy who was -- I never knew this, listening to her on records with Fernand Annseau! -- opera singer & jockey. She must have been an unusually thin singer.

SAY SO

2005-05-24T14:04:00.000-07:00

This blog begins, because I can't comment on Ron Silliman's blog unless I'm a blogger.

My usual blogs are 'Accumulations' http://Tony_Green.typepad.com & 'Pousin's Humour' http://Tony_Green.typepad.com/pouhu [with an underscore thus: Tony_Green}.

'Accumulations' for short local art news items & the poems called 'Accumulations'; 'Poussin's Humour' for my various writings about the French 17th century painter, Nicolas Poussin.

_______________________________________________________________________________
Recent reading: about ballet in the early 20th century.
It began with buying in an online auction Arnold Haskell's biography of Diaghileff. Then I acquired in 2nd hand bookshops Bronislava Nijinska's Early Memoirs [518pp will do nicely for my next long plane trip] & Alexandre Benois's Reminiscences of the Ballet [I am reading now]; & from the University library Tamar Karsavina's Theatre street ; Joan Acocella's edition of Nijinsky's Diary; & André Levinson's Dance, Writings from Paris in the Twenties, with an intropdution by Joan Acocella. In all this, the themes of twentieth century modernism keep appearing, -- expression, form, national folk art, primitivism, autonomy of the medium, originality and tradition, not only in memoirs of the developments of Daighilev's Ballet Russe, of Benois, Bakst and Fokine, of Nijinsky, of Anna Pavlova, but also, and especially, in the critical writings of Levinson, his fomalist argument produces insightful technical descriptions.

The event of the day was Atlas Concrete bringing a truck down our communal drive [which serves 4 houses and 8 flats]. The concrete was for construction on the building site on the other side of the drive. We had understood the contractors were not going ot use our drive for that. Two of my neighbours complained to the driver about using our drive without permission. A young builder came and swore at them. They came to fetch me as reinforcement. But the foreman explained the situation to us and it does appear the operation was all quite legitimate. Meanwhile my cup of tea got cold.

Variation on dreaming I am dreaming last night. In my dream, I was searching for a bag I'd left somewhwere, cdnt remember where, got lost etc. I asked myself, isn't this really a dream? and everything seemed so much in its usual order in broad daylight that I answered: no it's not. So I was a little surprised when I woke up and found it was still night, tho the moon was near full and its light coming in my bedroom window. And furthermore the bag I lost on Friday last week was found again.

1990-03-06T18:09:00.001-08:00

1990-03-06T18:09:00.000-08:00