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Happy New Year 2023 From Rochester, NY!
Happy 2023, Everyone! It’s been ridiculously long since I last posted. 2022 was a rather big year for me. I sold my house in Arizona and moved cross-country with my dogs back to New York. But not the City this time; I moved to Rochester, up in Western New York. I was offered a job…
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Bella Italia Romantica!
This year has been one of the busiest of my life. I moved from the city to the desert, bought a house that needed more significant work than I’d thought, and started a new job. Adjusting to a very different lifestyle has been more challenging and time consuming than I ever would have thought, and…
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Of Pretzels and Pashminas
“When, in today’s ballet, you see a man express his feelings for his lady by hurling her into the air, catching her upside down, and wrapping her around his neck like a pashmina, you are seeing the legacy of the Bolshoi.” — this from Joan Acocella in her latest New Yorker article, analyzing Morphoses (whose…
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We Need More Artists On Whom You’ve No Choice But To Form an Opinion
Here’s a very nice collective tribute to writer David Foster Wallace. And here’s one literary agent’s homage. I was struck by one line of the agent’s in particular: “Whether you liked his work or not, he was at the very least the kind of writer you had no choice but to form an opinion…
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Kenn Duncan Exhibit at NYPL
There’s a very good exhibit right now at the New York Public Library’s Performing Arts branch of photographer Kenn Duncan’s work. Duncan (1928-1986) was a dancer and champion roller skater in the fifties and became a photographer in the seventies. As a dance photographer, he worked for Dance Magazine and After Dark (a 70s NY…
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Waterboard Thrill Ride
Sorry for the posting hiatus! It’s been a long time since I’ve gone half a week without blogging… There’s just nothing much going on in New York right now, and I’m trying to get a couple of writing projects done before the fall is officially underway. Anyway, this post is about a piece of installation…
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Olafur Eliasson’s Intriguing But Controversial "Waterfalls"
When I was downtown on Monday I finally had a chance to walk over to the eastern seaport to see the newish public art installation by Olafur Eliasson, Waterfalls. It’s a series of four man-made waterfalls set up at various points on the East River. There’s been some controversy over the high expense of…
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Happy Bastille Day Everyone!
For some reason, this day always seems more fun to celebrate than our own 4th. Maybe just because it’s foreign, but also I think because the French Revolution signified much more historically and on larger scale than our own. Anyway, I seem to have been eating a lot of French food lately (Nice…
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Russian Roots and French Cuisine at New York City Ballet
Ballet season has officially begun in New York! So, I have spent the last two nights at NYCB. Wednesday night’s program was called “Russian Roots” and last night’s “French Cuisine” — I’m loving these titles, which are named after the nationalities of the composers to whose music Jerome Robbins, the American choreographer they’re honoring…
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At party & showing for armen danilian
At party & showing for armen danilian Originally uploaded by swan lake samba girl via mobile. Danilian photographs dancers with the Kirov Ballet based in St. Petersberg, Russia. Danilian has just released a new book of his photographs called “Behind the Curtain.” It sells for $50. Some of the photos were on display in…
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My New Favorite Dance Photographer: Andrew Eccles
Except one look at his website reveals that, like Fabrizio Ferri and Michael Sharkey, he is not really a dance photographer. Enter his website, then click on Dance to see more brilliant photos of the Ailey crew. Above photo, of the beautiful Amos J. Machanic, Jr., is from AAADT website.