So Twitter’s Shorty Award finalist nominees are up. They deleted the Dance category, as I kind of expected they would, for, I assume, not enough nominations. Typical. Though they also deleted the Books category, so I’m not taking it personally 🙂 Anyway, if you want to check out the finalist Tweets and vote, go here.
Still Here
I know you’re not ever supposed to start posts saying ‘I’m sorry for not posting in forever.’ But I normally write once or more per day, so, really, I’m sorry for not posting in forever! I’m just working on this ridiculously hard short story that really should be a novel (it’s 20,000 words right now and I’ve already cut out a bunch of stuff)– and hopefully it will be someday. Well, it will be, but I don’t know if it will ever be a published novel. The industry isn’t looking too good these days and I don’t know if I have the nerve to self-publish…
Anyway, I went to see Alvin Ailey on Sunday night (Blues Suite — my first time seeing it– liked but didn’t love it; Flowers, about Janis Joplin, which grew on me, especially the dream sequence with all the hilarious but uber sexy ’60’s era bootie shorts and leg fringe; and Revelations, which I could honestly see about 30 times per season — basically every night they do it — and never tire of it). I still have to blog about the two Ailey works that were new to me this season — Blues Suite and Masekela Langage, the second of which I loved. More about that later.
I always get very depressed around this time of year and I think it has a lot to do with Alvin Ailey ending their City Center season. I always get depressed when dance company seasons end but more so with this group than any other.
I also need to write my end-of-the-year favorites list (probably going to go with Nimrod Freed’s PeepDance as my overall favorite and Craig Salstein’s Time for ABT for new choreography, ABT’s Tudor Centennial and Alvin Ailey’s 50th anniversary celebrations for events), but I want to do links, and I don’t have time to do that now. Also desperately trying to make myself well. I somehow caught a nasty cold, which I want to be gone by tomorrow night so I can go out with friends and have a reasonably good time.
So, will blog soon! In the meantime, please check out dance tweeters and their tweets (see previous post). And have a most festive New Year’s eve!
Anyone Want to Sponsor a Dance Category in Shorty (Twitter) Awards?
So, the first ever “Shorty Awards”, for the best Twitter microbloggers, is underway. This competition has actually received a bit of attention — in NYTimes, BBC, and MediaBistro, as well as a bunch of techie mags. According to Shorty stats, more than 23,000 nominations have taken place in the past two weeks, since the competition was launched.
The competition is broken down into several categories. Of course there wasn’t a Dance category (or a Performing Arts category, or an Arts category), but, unlike with the Bloggies and other big blog awards, the Shorties allows users to create their own. So a few of us (and there really aren’t many; most dance people are still on Facebook only and don’t use Twitter) created a dance category and then nominated each other within it. According to Shorty rules, if there aren’t enough nominees, the category will be eliminated. But they don’t define “enough.” Not that it’s an enormous deal, but it’s always nice to put dance on the map, and Twitter does seem to be the next big thing.
Anyway, according to an email I just received from the Shorty people, Epicurious is sponsoring a food category. They asked if anyone out there was interested in sponsoring any other categories, to let them know. I have no idea what all is involved in sponsoring a category, but if any big, Epicurious-style magazine (Dance, Dance Spirit, Pointe, Ballroom Dance Channel, etc. etc.) is interested, you can email them at: info at shortyawards dot com. Just thought I’d put it out there. Nominations close at midnight on December 31st. Noms are followed by a round of voting and then an awards ceremony in NYC.