Author: Tonya

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Governor Spitzer!

 

So, we have a new Democratic governor. Does this mean, someday in the not too distant future, the Appellate courts will become a little more friendly to we appellate Public Defenders?! Does it mean there will be a slightly greater than 1% reversal rate in criminal convictions?! Does it mean the state death penalty will be revoked (not that it’s been used since being reinstated, but one never knows what more conservative D.A.s might do), and there will be more drug sentencing reforms? I guess it’ll take him a while, especially with the judicial appointments… Still, happy happy day all around!!!

Above pic is a view from my couch, where my butt was firmly planted for several hours last night. This is obviously our senator-re-elect… Or… is it the next U.S. President?!

I can’t believe it’s been six years since that chaotic insanity took place. Wow. And now, with the Montana and Virginia Senate races undecided, we could be in for a repeat of that lovely ordeal. Less flashy repeat, but seeing as how Congress has more power than the President, no less important…

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ABT Fix Is Gone Gone Gone … What’s A Girl To Do?

 

ABT‘s fall City Center season ended yesterday, sadly. Above is the cast of Glow-Stop, with the ever-radiant David Hallberg in the middle, from this past Saturday’s matinee performance. I love the mixed repertoire that my favorite dance company performs during their fall season so much better than the full-length classical ballets they do at the Met in the summer. I generally like contemporary ballets better than classical because I find it fun and challenging to try to decipher the choreographer’s meaning, plus I get a little bored seeing the same classics over and over again, and who doesn’t like something new! And, I get to see a lot more of the corps dancers who are mainly relegated to the background in the classical ballets (most of which offer only a couple of large roles per ballet, given to principals and soloists). So, it’ll be another year til I see my favorites in my preferred season again, ho hum.

Anyway, highlights for me were:

1) Marcelo Gomes doing Sinatra in Tharp’s Sinatra Suites, Marcelo dancing the part of the cocky macho sailor in Robbins’s Fancy Free, and Marcelo and Julie Kent making that insane-looking never-ending lift in Lar Lubovitch’s Meadow look completely effortless. Marcelo has such a huge personality, larger-than-life stage presence, great acting ability, and sincere appreciation for American culture, that he brings so much more than the others to the Tharp and Robbins roles. If he was not a ballet dancer, I think he would be a very successful actor!

2) David Hallberg in everything I saw him dance — Clear, In The Upper Room, Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, Afternoon of a Faun … and he was definitely brilliant, expectedly, as Death in Kurt Jooss’ both timeless and timely, Post-WWI antiwar piece, The Green Table. He is such a beautiful man; his dancing is like watching poetry in motion. With his height and long limbs, he just fills up the entire stage whenever he is on it and makes spectacular lines. And his luminous, wispy blonde hair accentuates the fluidity of his movement. He is, I think, the quintessential lyrical dancer, and has definitely become, along with Marcelo and Jose Carreno, one of my favorites: David is the most sublime, Marcelo has the most endearing personality, and Jose is, quite simply, the greatest dancer in the world right now 🙂

(P.S.: David hasn’t been writing so much on The Winger this season, but, from what I’ve seen at City Center, that is likely because he’s been dancing every single night, so we’ll forgive him for momentarily neglecting us Wingers 🙂 )

3) Other principals I enjoyed were: Jose (like always) was perfect in everything he did; Angel Corella was wondrous in Clear, Max Beloserkovsy was beautiful dancing alongside David in Clear, Irina Dvorovenko was dazzling dancing Tharp, as she always is (and, as I think I’ve said before, to me, is currently the quintessential Tharp ballerina); Julie and Gillian were powerhouses in Meadow maintaining those shapes in mid-air practically on their own, supported only by what, Marcelo’s pinkies???

4) And a lot of the corps members I haven’t seen much of before: Misty Copeland stood out (at the beginning of the season, before she was injured anyway); both women who performed the Sinatra Suites — Sarah Lane acted the part very well and was so sweet receiving her many bouquets during curtain call the night she danced it with Angel 🙂 , and Luciana Paris had absolutely gorgeous extensions; Craig Salstein was a blast in Fancy Free and Rodeo; Jared Matthews is so damn cute you just want to pick him up and squeeze him!; Isaac Stappas did Death just as well as David I thought; Blaine Hoven seemed to be in just about everything and was very strong; Kristi Boone was remarkable in Glow-Stop; Marian Butler rocked in Rodeo, and Yuriko Kajiya was so sweet in Upper Room … and that’s just a few off the top of my head…

On a completely different note, one final thought about what we all had damn well better be doing at some point tomorrow, said much more compellingly and humorously by my very favorite political blogger. Please click here to read her raucous mad fun words of infinite wisdom.

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Hooray For Achilles Heel Marathoners!

Achilles Heel Marathon Runner

Today was the New York City Marathon — always a special day for me, and one of the many many reasons I love living close to the park, and finish line. A Brazilian guy won this year’s men’s race … which was a lotta fun for me of course, with my little Brazil fetish 🙂

Ever since my first friend in New York City, the divine Ms. Judy, took me to this event years ago when I was new here, I have always especially loved watching the Achilles Heel participants — those who have the courage and strength to run a 26.2 -mile race– miraculous for anyone to muster up — but with a disability. Literally made me cry the first year I saw it … people working so hard to overcome a nasty hurdle life threw at them, and accomplishing something huge, and attainable only by a select few really.

Here are a few other pics. It gets so crowded near the finish line, so I was up a few blocks, where the runners walked it off and met up with family and friends cheering them on. Everyone appeared to be in serious pain, and some even needed a bit of medical help. Methinks the city’s drug stores must be quite deplete of epsom salts right now…

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"Trying to Lift You Is Like Dancing With a Jack-in-the-Box!"

Mr. Jack

So Jacob says to me, while we try to do a simple lift for the umpteenth time! Apparently, I am springing up on releve (for non-dancers, that’s tippy-toes) way too early, and way too often, making it near-impossible for the guy to figure out where the hell I am so as to get a grip on me. Ugh. Lifts are so much harder than they look — even the simple-looking ones…

Anyway, I posted this pic for another reason. Just got my tickets for my annual trek down to North Carolina to visit my mom for Thanksgiving 🙂 Yay! Biscuits ‘n gravy, biscuits ‘n gravy, mouthwateringly buttery grits, more biscuits ‘n gravy, and … Jack-in-the-Box!!!!!! Seriously, this chain started in the west, and was a childhood favorite of mine growing up in Phoenix. There was a restaurant just down the street from our house, and I just thrilled to see my mom talk into the big happy-faced Jack in the drive-thru. Unfortunately, I got hooked on the menu too, which is admittedly major white-trash food — the greasy, greasy, lardy, meat-filled Monster Tacos and even greasier, fried-battery, near onion-less onion rings are my faves! Once I moved to the east coast, ugh, I was so upset — no Jacks! BUT, now they have opened several franchises in the south, and Charlotte, North Carolina (ONLY a near two-hour drive from where Mom lives!) now boasts one! So, every year, Mom has been driving me, and my cousin, who now lives in her neighborhood but who likewise grew up in Phoenix on this exquisite white-trash cornucopia, all the way to Charlotte for our annual trip down memory lane. Last year, for old times’s sake, Mom bought me this little Jack doll to bring home with me to NY. If he looks a little odd, it’s because his nose broke off and I haven’t yet got to Lee’s Paints to buy some superglue, so just stuffed it back in backwards. Well, thanks to my new teach, Jacob, the little man’s springy, wobbly head now has adult meaning to me as well…

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The Penis Enlargement Purveyors Have Raided My Photo Journal

Spam ruins lives. Seriously, it really puts a damper on the fun of blogging. (And because of this post’s title, I expect 50 spams a day minimum). But at least I can moderate the comments on this blog. I can’t do that on my photo journal plogger. So, think I’m gonna have to disable the comments function on the photo journal. With plogger, you either have to have the comments turned on or off; so, with them turned on, spammers can comment freely, forcing me to take valuable time from my day to manually delete the unwanted messages. At first it wasn’t so bad, but recently I’ve been getting upwards of 20 per day (got 42 at once to a single post).

But, it’s okay because now that I know how to embed a photo in THIS blog, where I CAN moderate comments and just refuse to post the spam, people who were commenting on the photo page can now comment here 🙂

Anyway, to try to make light of what is really an extremely frustrating problem, I think it’s kind of funny which pictures the Penis Enlargement pushers targeted to advertise their rubbish. It’s like they decided that someone in each of these pics could somehow benefit from a penis englargement in their lives. Here are some:

marthas vineyard artwork

“Maybe I wouldn’t be soooo exhausted being me if only my beau would take me away from myself, with a penis enlargement…”

Yanna doing splits lift

“Please, Lucas! If this lift is not a cry-out, I don’t know what is!”

WCS team baby baby baby lunge

Poor Mark — you seem to have got drawn into this vortex of profane insanity just for being my West Coast Swing partner … sorry!
Benji Schwimmer winning SYTYCD

Hmmmmm….

bobby brown guy teaching us to put on stage makeup

“Maybe explaining stage makeup to a bunch of first-time female performers wouldn’t be soooo tense-ridden if only I was a little bigger than this…”
guy waiting on the train at kings highway on my way to see valentina

Maybe guy waiting for the Manhattan-bound Q train at Kings Highway would not be so lonely, if he only had a penis enlargement.
me surveying my arsenal of TAC headache meds

“Maybe I wouldn’t need this arsenal of meds for my blasted Trigeminal Autonomic Cephalgia headaches if my boyfriend would just get a penis enlargement…”

DTS student showcase poster

Melanie is definitely hot for penis enlargements!

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Bah Humbug! Where Have All the True Drag Queens Gone?

Halloween Parade

Every year I tell myself I’m not going to go. And every year, I always seem to end up in the Village for the increasingly crowded, increasingly touristy, increasingly boring parade. My excuse this year was that my friend, Rebekkah’s Scottish boyfriend was visiting from Glasgow. And it was definitely fun to introduce an out-of-towner to our annual tradition. I’m just not sure what exactly the tradition is. I remember my first year here (not gonna say when that was…), when my older, wiser, fashion-industry maven friend, Judy, whom I will ALWAYS view as the consummate sophisticated New York woman 🙂 , and her friends, took me to this restaurant / bar in Chelsea and we sat there all night sipping cosmos (which I thought just about the greatest invention imaginable) admist the nastily raucous Chelsea throng of gay men with perfectly sculpted bodies in leather g-strings and stilettos — Judy and friends flirting with them, me by turns gawking and giggling. Voyeur though I may be 🙂 , that was seriously one of my best New York experiences — just watching other people express themselves so freely was kind of freeing to me. And it was the one time I felt like I could walk practically naked through the streets of N.Y. and be perfectly safe (and the city was NOT such a safe place then). I just feel like that’s not there anymore; judging by the eye-rolling and Valley Girlish “Ohkayyyy?!?”‘s at some of the totally watered-down drag costumes, the tourists who come now to see the spectacle would die if they saw the revelers of yore. Maybe, like feminism, the thought is that there’s no longer a need for that kind of expression, or maybe the gay drag thing got commodified so that it’s just silly and annoying now… Or maybe it’s just that I’m getting older and more sated on the city, who knows…

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Thanks, New Yorker!

The Complete New Yorker

Just received this in the mail from The New Yorker Compass, for taking part in their online surveys! It’s a DVD of the complete New Yorker archives — pretty cool for a NYer fan, and not very inexpensive-looking. I never win anything! Have been reading William Styron’s “Darkness Visible,” a memoir about his depression, have been feeling a bit sad myself lately, and was beginning to wonder whether I had what he did (as I often do when reading about a sickness or disorder — guess it’s the hypochondriac in me!). But apparently, if my day was brightened by such a simple thing, I must not be too bad off 🙂

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Mambo Combo Blah Blah Blahhhhhhhhh

Thank you soooo much to my friend, Rebekkah’s very kind and patient boyfriend, Robin, I now know how to embed a pic in my blog 🙂 Happy happy day 🙂 Pic’s of me and Luis finishing off our Mambo combo routine with a Latiny fish.
Mambo
Here are several more pics on photo page.

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Snobby, Elitist, Grumpy Old Lady Fights Back!!!

Okay, who are all of these people who continuously invade my neighborhood every Halloween?? Grumpy old lady has a very oily t-zone and desperately needs to buy more face wipes, which she knows are conveniently located right at the counter! Grumpy old lady pays a damn lot of money to live on the upper-west-side and does not have the time or energy to stand in line behind a bunch of teenagers waiting to shop for Halloween costumes! Grumpy old lady wants to be able to walk into her neighborhood Rickys, go up to the counter, and buy her blasted face wipes. Grrrrrrrrrr…..

Seriously, I just got back from seeing Twyla Tharp’s “The Times They Are a Changin‘” and have to agree with all of the reviews. For me, I think the problem was in the whole conceptualization of it from the get-go. I’m not a huge Dylan fan, but I just don’t see how the goings-on behind a traveling circus act reflect or symbolize his body of work. Reviewers said she was too literal with what is essentially poetry that defies narrative. Maybe… but I think she could have organized his music into SOME kind of over-arching story — like guys going to Iraq, some kind of inner-city turmoil — some relevant social crisis of today I think would have spoken better to his ouevre — just not discontent within a circus show. Like, when they broke out into ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ I just wanted to laugh. Because of the history of the song, it seemed kind of like she was comparing the circus owner’s mistreatment of some of his underlings to the atrocities of Vietnam. Maybe she just didn’t want to repeat her ‘Movin’ Out’ theme or be too ‘political.’ And it’s not that mistreatment of performers or father-son rivalry can’t ever speak to the human condition, but it needs to go a lot deeper than this. Also, for a so-called ‘Dancical,’ there wasn’t much dancing… a lot of great floor acrobatics, but not a lot of dancing; it was more like a basic musical. Still, I think she’s one of the most brilliant choreographers today — anyone’s entitled to a misjudgment now and then!

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Marcelo Gomes = the Consummate Sinatra

Marcelo Marcelo Marcelo! Marcelo Gomes was soooooo amazingly wonderful last night in Tharp’s “Sinatra Suite” (performed by ABT, whose City Center season I have now been to four times in only … a little over a week now?…) He was the best Sinatra yet — and I’ve NEVER liked ANYONE better in any role than Jose Carreno. I think Marcelo excels in parts where he can really ACT as well as dance his big huge heart out! He really got into the role, and it showed, and not just to me, little Miss Mad Crazed Crush-Ridden Marcelo Fan; the whole audience — at least in orchestra — was ooohing and aaahing throughout, so he OBJECTIVELY rocked! And he knew it: during curtain call, he emerged from the stage with a leap (albeit a tiny one) — the first dancer I’ve seen to do that during this relatively low-key season. I guess dancers know when they’re on and when the crowd is really into them and when they can get away with hamming it up 🙂 Interestingly, he danced with the same ballerina as Jose did, Luciana Paris, and Marcelo worked so much better with her. So weird how two dancers sometimes do not form a good partnership even if both are excellent separately…

AND, I sat next to a fun gay man. Great night for that since the evenings’ works consisted of: 1) cute shirtless guy (David Hallberg), cute shirtless guy (Max Belotserkovsky), cute shirtless guy (Angel Corella), in ‘Clear’; 2) cute shirtless guy (Jose), in ‘Afternoon of a Faun’; 3) gorgeous dapper gentleman / sleek sexy bastard Marcelo, doing Sinatra; and 4) three cute macho-shithead sailor-guys (Jose again, Sascha Radestsky, and Isaac Stappas — I think?), in ‘Fancy Free’… Gay guy and I were moaning and groaning and sighing and giggling in ALL THE SAME places 🙂 He he he he; silly fun!

I did realize with all the shirtlessness, however, that David and Jose seem to be more built than the others — perhaps a reason why they seem to have an easier time with the lifts…

Speaking of which … In other news (ie: my own life), on Wednesday night, I did my first real overhead lift! 🙂 ! With Jacob! He he he he he… Fun, and scary, but not really as frightening as I would have thought. Of course, he didn’t really tell me he was going to hoist me up high and lock his elbows once I was sitting on his shoulder — I thought his shoulder was as far up as I was going, but maybe it was better that way, so I couldn’t prepare to freak out. And I felt totally secure in his hands! But, seriously, I really really really need to get rid of the spaghetti factor. You have to make your own line up there; his hands are only holding you in two small places, and if you’re a spaghetti and can’t hold your own form, you’re, at best, not going to look very good, and, at worst, are going to fall. So, it is high time to get some real strength in my little piddly body! I do miss Luis (miss his sneaking up behind me in the deli adjacent to the studio making me check out some guy he thought was hot, miss his exposing me to all manner of new things with his unique names for some of our mishaps — ie: teabagging, and I miss our mad fun butt-smacking, boob-shaking, body-rolling, ball-busting routine…). But I think Jacob and I will work really well together, and I’m excited to get started on my next theater arts showcase, which we can possibly turn in to a competition show piece (if I have any money left to pay comp fees, that is…). He has a background in ballet and jazz, and was a former national cheerleader, so definitely knows lifts (obviously; he can lift a spaghetti after all 🙂 ) Now, I just have to decide what style of dance to do?….

One final thought: I found Jerry Springer’s reaction upon being booted off ‘Dancing With the Stars’ very interesting. He was expecting to get kicked off, but he actually cried when asked to give his little going-away speech. As did Rachel Hunter. And Stacy Keibler gave a sweet farewell speech about fulfilling her dance dreams “like every little girl who’s ever put on a pair of ballet slippers or tap shoes”… It’s remarkable to me how everyone takes this kind of dancing so seriously — I mean, it’s not at all like anyone’s trying to be a drama queen; it all seems completely honest and heart-felt. And I totally understand, as do all of my ballroom friends, I’m sure. It’s inexplicable, but for some inscrutable reason, it’s a genuinely big deal to learn to dance, and to dance well, as an adult…

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"God is the Man With the Greatest Sense of Humor in the Universe"

Took a break today from outlining my oral argument for court tomorrow to see the movie I think (I hope anyway) is going to take all the Oscars this year, “Running With Scissors.” It’s one of my favorite contemporary books and, as always, I was very dubious going into the theater. But, wow, did writer-director Ryan Murphy do justice to Burroughs’s book or what?! He did a bit of reworking so that the story would have more of an overall arc (and not so comprised of random bits of events), expounded on some characters and side-stories, and threw in some killer dialog, but overall it’s the same story as the book. And Augusten does a little cameo at the end during credits 🙂 The film also evinces (my favorite lawyer word 🙂 ) the power of amazing acting. Film ends up centering around the mother, played by Annette Bening, instead of main character Augusten, Jill Clayburgh creates much more depth, pathos and sympathy in a character in whom all that was lacking in the book, and, finally, OH MY GOD Joseph Fiennes completely blew me away with his portrayal of the schizophrenic statutory rapist who figures only in passing in the book. Took me practically the entire movie to figure out who it was behind that Village People-esque handlebar moustache, but once I remembered seeing his name in the write-up, I had to laugh to myself; I knew it took a powerhouse to create that kind of unforgettable character. He deserves every major award for that one. The one scene they left out that I wish they hadn’t was when teenage Augusten slips a paper bearing his phone number to the convenience store clerk only to turn around and see him laughing at it with two girls. You really felt sorry for him in the book when he was mocked for having unwittingly come on to a straight guy, and it imbued with a subtle poignancy Burroughs’s reflection that lacking a parent to instill in him a sense of reservation and teach him to think before acting had bitter consequences. The film totally Hollywoodized the sentiment by using it as a voice over during some of the more outrageous scenes.

I had a weirdly depressing weekend (feeling very anticlimactic now that my showcase is over, worried about being behind at work since I took off so much time to prepare for said showcase, sad that Luis will no longer be my teacher, and shell-shocked at learning from my high school reunion booklet that a classmate I’d known passed away sometime in the past ten years), and the movie had a similar effect on me as when I saw “Girl Interrupted.” It was the first time I’ve actually cried in the theater since I don’t know when, and when I got home, all I could do was sit in the dark with a glass of red wine and stare into space. It was comical, sadly pathetic, horrifying, deranged, and dramatically compelling all at the same time — like, in my opinion, all the best art is– and it just made me feel like I, like Deirdre Burroughs, like Susanna Kaysen, like Anne Sexton, like Sylvia Plath, am potentially so close to the edge. Like, it’s human to be so…and it’s only a matter of luck that prevents some from going over it.

In a not unsimilar vein, I’ve been to ABT three times in the past half week; here are two pics I took of David Hallberg at curtain call after his brilliant performance as Death in Kurt Jooss’s The Green Table.

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Pics of Pasha and Me are up!

Photos of Pasha and me (about 7) are up, thanks to Rebekkah! She took a film of Luis and me doing our crazy Mambo, so we’re trying to figure out if we can take snaphots from that. By the way, no teabagging occurred during that lovely little routine, I am very happy to report (at least I don’t THINK it did — oh I was so nervous I don’t even remember doing the damn snake!!!) Anyway, Rebekkah has an awesome camera, like the real photographer she is! I have crapola… Thanks so so so much, Rebekkah for these! And thanks as well to Judy, my very first friend in New York and hence always my NY ‘big sis’ :), Mark and Jackie, my wonderful former West Coast Swing team buddies, and Alyssa, my indefatigable friend who will let me drag her to just about any dance event 🙂 You guys all made me so happy by showing up to support me! You guys are the greatest!!!