Okay, a play commissioned by NIH and performed before an auditorium of scientists doesn't set one's aesthetic expectations very high, but "From Orchids to Octopi: An Evolutionary Love Story" was inspired.
Performed at my beloved, beleaguered Art Deco landmark, The Bethesda Theatre (whose official Web site is apparently down right now), the play is in the late stages of early development (evolution!) before moving on to Boston. I didn't stay for the post-play discussion, though I probably could have benefited from it. I got most of the science content of the play, but not all. (But hey, I noticed I was the only one who laughed at the one line from "The Wizard of Oz" during one of the dream sequences - "People come and go so quickly here....")
Since the play was commissioned to celebrate the bicentennial (last year) of the birth of Charles Darwin, it's logical to include Darwin as a character in the play. What we see are two couples - Charles and Emma Darwin - and their modern parallel, the twenty-first-century Emma and Charlie, illustrating the evolution of relationships and love into a society of career conflicts and the demands and fears of bringing a new baby into the world.
21C Emma (played by Kortney Adams) is a painter commissioned to paint a mural honoring Darwin, so she throws herself into researching Darwinian theory and Darwin's life. Her impulse is first to find a design principle, but she is frustrated and confused by her dreams of the carnival freak-show that shows life and change as a game of chance.
Domestic scenes with the nineteenth-century Darwins (Wesley Savick and Debra Wise) entertwine and echo with those of 21C Charlie (Tom O'Keefe), an entrepreneurial chef, and wife Emma. There are equal parts tension and tenderness, and a surprisingly sweet treatment of the question, Is love an evolutionary imperative for survival because of the helplessness of the human infant?
The dialogue is smart not just in the science content, but in its playfulness. Stand-out for me was O'Keefe's depiction of the nasty, beligerent tuberculosis, an ever-evolving supermicrobe who demanded to be included in the mural tribute to evolution. (It is the vile TB bug who takes the life of 19C Darwins' young daughter Annie, played fetchingly by Kira McElhiney.)
The ideas bound across disciplines - not just the sciences, but also language and the arts, incorporating even what I will generously call "dance," though it is more accurately stage movement (the lithe and lovely Adams emulating the first species to grow a neck and stretch itself out to a form that is adaptable to new environments).
The set pieces comprised seven tall, multi-paneled columns that the actors switched around to create parlors, doctors' offices, freak-show attractions, scientific displays, and - evolving throughout the play - the beautiful mural of which Darwin himself becomes the centerpiece, integrated into the Tree of Life.
In the end, it is neither design nor chance that defines us, but inspiration.
Other Credits
Playwright: Melinda Lopez
Director: Diego Arciniegas
Set/Puppet Designer: David Fichter (Puppets? Didn't I mention the giraffe?!)
For more information about "From Orchids to Octopi: An Evolutionary Love Story," visit http://www.undergroundrailwaytheater.org/ or Central Square Theater.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Asher Lev, "Observant Jew"
Back from seeing the dramatization of Chaim Potok's novel, My Name Is Asher Lev, at the Round House Theatre in Bethesda. [N.B.: spoiler alert]
Round House's productions this season have touched a great deal on artists, the meaning of art, and the role that art and artists play in our lives. Just as in Permanent Collection, their previous production, "Asher Lev" deals with conflicting ideas about art.
"Asher" is the epitome of artistic and personal questioning. What does it mean to declare "My name is..." and to whom are you declaring it? We come to question who we are as we look in the mirror to study our own images, and we wonder what it is that we can express to the world through our own perceptions of ourselves--and the world.
Asher (played by Alexander Strain) stands between two worlds; as an "observant Jew" he must honor his heritage, his mysterious but palpable ancestors, as well as his parents and their ethic of devotion and duty to their people. But as an observant artist, he must reach beyond that experience to find his own truth. That Asher begins to explore the sensibilities and imagery of the Other--particularly the image of crucifixions pervading Christian art--horrifies and offends his parents just as much as his drawings of nudes do.
In one scene between Asher and his father (played by Adam Heller), Asher tries to explain the difference between "naked girls" and "nudes." The discussion pulls up short of comic absurdity, just at the point where Asher's father, hailing his own master's degree in political science, matches Asher intellectually: the son accuses the father of aesthetic blindness, and the father accuses the son of moral blindness.
The bridge I see between those blindnesses is the nude itself, so well presented by the same actress playing Asher's mother (Lise Bruneau). It is through our bodies that we sense the world, feel our emotions, express our feelings. Asher the artist sees the nude and begins to see, to feel, the emotions of woman; likewise, his exposure to Christian imagery of sacrifice (the crucifixions he studies) informs his understanding of his mother's suffering.
The pivotal image in the play is one we do not see except through Asher's vivid narration and the stunningly effective lighting design's (Dan Covey) sculptural renderings of the actors. Asher's masterpiece paintings to be displayed in a Manhattan gallery, unbeknownst to his Brooklyn parents, depict his Jewish mother on a cross; the audience sees only Asher's parents' horrified response to the paintings as the mother raises her arms and twists her body in a silhouetted reflection of what she sees.
Asher Lev narrates the story throughout the play, facing the audience more than his fellow characters; this bothered me at the beginning because of our old creative-writing-class dictum, "show don't tell." Yet, as an adaptation of a novel told in the first person, the play honors the ancient art of story telling. It is Asher's story, after all. And the staging kept the narration moving.
The actor playing Asher's father also plays his mentor, the father's antithesis, paralleling the opposites-casting of the same actress playing Asher's mother and nude model. (The roles are listed in the program simply as "Man" and "Woman.") The actors thus become our bridges of understanding the two moral worlds, illustrating that it is never so simple as good versus evil.
And that is what art does. We feel the world and express it through our bodies and souls. But we cannot afford to simply be observant Jews; we must also be listening Jews (and gentiles and all else).
The Thursday night preview audience, traditionally a sparse and low-key group, gave the performance a standing ovation. My neighboring fellow subscriber said it was the best thing she'd seen at Round House. I would certainly put it up there with "Drawer Boy" and "Lord of the Flies," two of my favorites since the company moved to Bethesda. I thought I might dig out the book again (it's been on my own shelf since I retrieved it from my mom's collection nearly 30 years ago), but I think I want to let this moving rendition live with me awhile longer.
Other credits:
Aaron Posner, playwright
Jeremy Skidmore, director
Tony Cisek, scenic designer
Ren Ladassor, costume designer
Matthew M. Nielson, sound designer
Co-produced by the Delaware Theatre Company
Addendum: 27 March 2010
A little disappointed that the Post couldn't send a staff theater critic and didn't run a review until the weekend. Round House Theater reviews typically come out on Wednesday (Thursday at the latest). This is Saturday, when people have already made their plans for the weekend. Oh well. There's still time. Go see this play!
Washington Post review by a freelancer: Nelson Pressley reviews 'My Name Is Asher Lev' at Round House Theatre
(production photo by Matt Urban)
Video preview (on WaPo - embedding seems not to work for me)
Round House's productions this season have touched a great deal on artists, the meaning of art, and the role that art and artists play in our lives. Just as in Permanent Collection, their previous production, "Asher Lev" deals with conflicting ideas about art.
"Asher" is the epitome of artistic and personal questioning. What does it mean to declare "My name is..." and to whom are you declaring it? We come to question who we are as we look in the mirror to study our own images, and we wonder what it is that we can express to the world through our own perceptions of ourselves--and the world.
Asher (played by Alexander Strain) stands between two worlds; as an "observant Jew" he must honor his heritage, his mysterious but palpable ancestors, as well as his parents and their ethic of devotion and duty to their people. But as an observant artist, he must reach beyond that experience to find his own truth. That Asher begins to explore the sensibilities and imagery of the Other--particularly the image of crucifixions pervading Christian art--horrifies and offends his parents just as much as his drawings of nudes do.
In one scene between Asher and his father (played by Adam Heller), Asher tries to explain the difference between "naked girls" and "nudes." The discussion pulls up short of comic absurdity, just at the point where Asher's father, hailing his own master's degree in political science, matches Asher intellectually: the son accuses the father of aesthetic blindness, and the father accuses the son of moral blindness.
The bridge I see between those blindnesses is the nude itself, so well presented by the same actress playing Asher's mother (Lise Bruneau). It is through our bodies that we sense the world, feel our emotions, express our feelings. Asher the artist sees the nude and begins to see, to feel, the emotions of woman; likewise, his exposure to Christian imagery of sacrifice (the crucifixions he studies) informs his understanding of his mother's suffering.
The pivotal image in the play is one we do not see except through Asher's vivid narration and the stunningly effective lighting design's (Dan Covey) sculptural renderings of the actors. Asher's masterpiece paintings to be displayed in a Manhattan gallery, unbeknownst to his Brooklyn parents, depict his Jewish mother on a cross; the audience sees only Asher's parents' horrified response to the paintings as the mother raises her arms and twists her body in a silhouetted reflection of what she sees.
Asher Lev narrates the story throughout the play, facing the audience more than his fellow characters; this bothered me at the beginning because of our old creative-writing-class dictum, "show don't tell." Yet, as an adaptation of a novel told in the first person, the play honors the ancient art of story telling. It is Asher's story, after all. And the staging kept the narration moving.
The actor playing Asher's father also plays his mentor, the father's antithesis, paralleling the opposites-casting of the same actress playing Asher's mother and nude model. (The roles are listed in the program simply as "Man" and "Woman.") The actors thus become our bridges of understanding the two moral worlds, illustrating that it is never so simple as good versus evil.
And that is what art does. We feel the world and express it through our bodies and souls. But we cannot afford to simply be observant Jews; we must also be listening Jews (and gentiles and all else).
The Thursday night preview audience, traditionally a sparse and low-key group, gave the performance a standing ovation. My neighboring fellow subscriber said it was the best thing she'd seen at Round House. I would certainly put it up there with "Drawer Boy" and "Lord of the Flies," two of my favorites since the company moved to Bethesda. I thought I might dig out the book again (it's been on my own shelf since I retrieved it from my mom's collection nearly 30 years ago), but I think I want to let this moving rendition live with me awhile longer.
Other credits:
Aaron Posner, playwright
Jeremy Skidmore, director
Tony Cisek, scenic designer
Ren Ladassor, costume designer
Matthew M. Nielson, sound designer
Co-produced by the Delaware Theatre Company
Addendum: 27 March 2010
A little disappointed that the Post couldn't send a staff theater critic and didn't run a review until the weekend. Round House Theater reviews typically come out on Wednesday (Thursday at the latest). This is Saturday, when people have already made their plans for the weekend. Oh well. There's still time. Go see this play!
Washington Post review by a freelancer: Nelson Pressley reviews 'My Name Is Asher Lev' at Round House Theatre
(production photo by Matt Urban)
Video preview (on WaPo - embedding seems not to work for me)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Back-up Plans, aka Alternative Scenarios
Thanks to the comments recently added to my previous blog, the snow pictures, I realize I didn't quite lose everything when I crashed my laptop's hard drive.
Note the use of the active voice in that statement. Heh. Laptops don't take kindly to being "jostled," I suppose. The friend of a friend who was believed to be capable of recovering files from dead drives proved not so able.
Other than a few new Clay Aiken videos from the Golfing for Inclusion event earlier this year, which are replaceable from the massive vaults of my fellow fans (oh what a cloud they've built!), the most critical files I lost were the videos of our org's president and board chairman, which I was in the process of splicing together for promoting our conference in July.
As my brother would say, gum wouge (bum gouge).
The other files I thought I lost were my personal photos and videos from 2010, including the above-mentioned, below-posted snow pictures. There were also the snaps of the pretty tulips I bought from the grocery store to brighten my spirits earlier in this horrible winter. All my other files, from 2009 back, were either on the external hard drive or on data DVDs (which are unfortunately horribly unorganized, but that's a different problem).
The back-up "clouds" of Photobucket and Blogger and Snapfish and the like are not quite satisfactory, since they automatically resize the images. To make my calendars for next year, I need my high-res originals. But aha! I found that I'd actually uploaded those latest pictures to my office computer, so the originals were safe.
Anyway, since my crashing of the drive, my brain has been in quite a bit of a muddle. A couple of weekends ago, I misplaced a thousand-dollar check and my car. (Both turned up eventually, thank goodness.) I can blame all the distractions I want, but unless I start dealing with the clutter in my life and mind, the Crashing of the Drive could turn ugly. Literally. It makes me a little worried about this upcoming road trip to Raleigh. I don't have a back-up plan for her own self.
love, hosaa,
head in clouds
Note the use of the active voice in that statement. Heh. Laptops don't take kindly to being "jostled," I suppose. The friend of a friend who was believed to be capable of recovering files from dead drives proved not so able.
Other than a few new Clay Aiken videos from the Golfing for Inclusion event earlier this year, which are replaceable from the massive vaults of my fellow fans (oh what a cloud they've built!), the most critical files I lost were the videos of our org's president and board chairman, which I was in the process of splicing together for promoting our conference in July.
As my brother would say, gum wouge (bum gouge).
The other files I thought I lost were my personal photos and videos from 2010, including the above-mentioned, below-posted snow pictures. There were also the snaps of the pretty tulips I bought from the grocery store to brighten my spirits earlier in this horrible winter. All my other files, from 2009 back, were either on the external hard drive or on data DVDs (which are unfortunately horribly unorganized, but that's a different problem).
The back-up "clouds" of Photobucket and Blogger and Snapfish and the like are not quite satisfactory, since they automatically resize the images. To make my calendars for next year, I need my high-res originals. But aha! I found that I'd actually uploaded those latest pictures to my office computer, so the originals were safe.
Anyway, since my crashing of the drive, my brain has been in quite a bit of a muddle. A couple of weekends ago, I misplaced a thousand-dollar check and my car. (Both turned up eventually, thank goodness.) I can blame all the distractions I want, but unless I start dealing with the clutter in my life and mind, the Crashing of the Drive could turn ugly. Literally. It makes me a little worried about this upcoming road trip to Raleigh. I don't have a back-up plan for her own self.
love, hosaa,
head in clouds
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Beauty Therapy, and other laughable ideas
One of my New Year's resolutions was to blog more about my encounters with the arts. I did a fairly comprehensive roundup of my arts adventures last year for my Christmas newsletter, but wanted to do better on a more ongoing basis by going back to that "theater diary" assignment from the Georgetown U. class many many years ago....
Well, you know how New Year's resolutions go. (I've already missed recapping New Year's Eve "Young Frankenstein" at the Kennedy Center and the Elliott Yamin concert at the Birchmere.)
This week was especially interesting, arts-wise. First (Monday) was the Ford's Theatre benefit dinner with two guest speakers talking about the new production of "The Rivalry," a dramatization of the Lincoln/Douglas debates.
Wednesday was American Ballet Theatre's second night of a short run at the Kennedy Center, which meant mixed rep and not as many principals (reserved, evidently, for opening night Tuesday and for the full-scale ballet, "Romeo and Juliet," on the weekend). Why did I pick the "B" production and "B" cast? Daniil Simkin, whom I saw perform as a guest with ABT last year. Not just adorable and hard working, he's got a grand jete so explosive that you'd believe a new universe is being created.
And any ballet is just good beauty therapy, from Ashton's twirling candies at a birthday party, to the magical ensemble in the mysterious and dangerous forest (with piano accompaniment), to Tharp's calculus of shapes and shifting partnerships. It's all good.
Then tonight (Thursday) was my subscription play at the Round House Theatre, the second preview performance of "Permanent Collection," and it's here where I start to collect my thoughts.
The play was about art, heritage, vision, inspiration, and racism. Not necessarily in that order. Really it was about empathy, or lack thereof. Each of the two protagonists (one black, one white) asks the audience to see things from his point of view. They do not ask each other this, but rather demand, defend, and deny each other. In the end, their accusations of each other's racism are aired by the reporter seeking balance, and in the court of public opinion, both are brought down.
What struck me was the lack of empathy, the unwillingness to change or to seek compromise. As one of the female characters pointed out, it became a pissing match.
The issue of racism is tough in a suburban theater; I was listening to the audience comments at intermission, and most of the "ladies who lunch" seemed to think the black guy was overreacting. Well, I think they both were.
One thing really hit home for me at the end of Act One: that the white guy had to admit he'd never been downtown to the Museum of African Art. The point in the play was that he didn't feel he needed to understand black art because it wasn't as good as white art. Confession: I've never been there either. It's definitely on the list now.
Prejudice is a tough thing. And you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I deal with the kinds of things the black character was talking about--the sense of always being looked at as inferior. This is a really REALLY feeble comparison, but I've heard one too many dumb blonde jokes to think they're anything but old-fashioned prejudice.
Case in point: Let's go back to Monday night at the Ford's dinner. Guest speakers were a best-selling author and Civil War historian, Jay Winik, and the director of the production of "The Rivalry," Mark Ramont. It was a wonderful opportunity to talk to some interesting people.
Mark was charming over hors d'oeuvres as he described the structure of the three-person play and how he staged it, with the wife of Stephen Douglas as sort of a narrator/go-between between Lincoln and Douglas. I got very excited about that because it reminded me instantly of the structure for Michael Frayn's play of a couple of years ago, "Copenhagen," about Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. So I enthusiastically dropped that comment into the conversation.
Mark did a double take. Literally. He hemmed-hawed a nanosecond, and then said something like, yes, well, except "The Rivalry" won't be quite as "heady" as that.
You know what? That's not exactly the first time a man has done a double-take when I, a tall blonde, demonstrated my mastery of linear thought in the form of a complete sentence or a pertinent reference in conversation. Like, really, you know?
So it should not have surprised me that dry, droll Dr. Winik pretty much laughed at me throughout dinner. Maybe it was because I insulted the intelligence of our most recent former president by saying (or starting to say) that I wouldn't vote for anyone I didn't think was smarter than I am. I'll admit to not being very diplomatic. Oops. But I was making references to books and authors that supported whatever the hell we were talking about, and he (in a very professorial demeanor) challenged me at nearly every turn.
Finally, I was in the middle of making a point about the importance of story telling and started to say "that's what I love about Tolstoy..." when Jay turned to his neighbor and sarcastically remarked, "Did you think you'd be sitting at a dinner where somebody says 'And that's what I love about Tolstoy'?" And to twist the knife, to me: "You'll have to find someone with an IQ of 200 to vote for."
I may not be the brightest penny in the dish, but I know when I'm being laughed at.
But here's where I go back to one New Year's resolution I made a few years ago that I still actually keep fairly well: Laugh.
Someone drops the door in my face? Laugh at that person's clueless rudeness. Insulted? Laugh at the inferiority of manners and self-image. Well, just laugh, because it feels better than being mad.
I don't think that philosophy could have saved the two characters in "Permanent Collection," but it couldn't have hurt.
Like my "beauty therapy" at the ballet, the response of both men to the artists who touched them could have been a place to find common ground. One feels about the Cezannes the way the other feels about the African masks. Start with the beauty and the inspiration, and share that.
Love, hosaa
thinking, feeling, laughing (and way too tired to do links. Google is your friend.)
Well, you know how New Year's resolutions go. (I've already missed recapping New Year's Eve "Young Frankenstein" at the Kennedy Center and the Elliott Yamin concert at the Birchmere.)
This week was especially interesting, arts-wise. First (Monday) was the Ford's Theatre benefit dinner with two guest speakers talking about the new production of "The Rivalry," a dramatization of the Lincoln/Douglas debates.
Wednesday was American Ballet Theatre's second night of a short run at the Kennedy Center, which meant mixed rep and not as many principals (reserved, evidently, for opening night Tuesday and for the full-scale ballet, "Romeo and Juliet," on the weekend). Why did I pick the "B" production and "B" cast? Daniil Simkin, whom I saw perform as a guest with ABT last year. Not just adorable and hard working, he's got a grand jete so explosive that you'd believe a new universe is being created.
And any ballet is just good beauty therapy, from Ashton's twirling candies at a birthday party, to the magical ensemble in the mysterious and dangerous forest (with piano accompaniment), to Tharp's calculus of shapes and shifting partnerships. It's all good.
Then tonight (Thursday) was my subscription play at the Round House Theatre, the second preview performance of "Permanent Collection," and it's here where I start to collect my thoughts.
The play was about art, heritage, vision, inspiration, and racism. Not necessarily in that order. Really it was about empathy, or lack thereof. Each of the two protagonists (one black, one white) asks the audience to see things from his point of view. They do not ask each other this, but rather demand, defend, and deny each other. In the end, their accusations of each other's racism are aired by the reporter seeking balance, and in the court of public opinion, both are brought down.
What struck me was the lack of empathy, the unwillingness to change or to seek compromise. As one of the female characters pointed out, it became a pissing match.
The issue of racism is tough in a suburban theater; I was listening to the audience comments at intermission, and most of the "ladies who lunch" seemed to think the black guy was overreacting. Well, I think they both were.
One thing really hit home for me at the end of Act One: that the white guy had to admit he'd never been downtown to the Museum of African Art. The point in the play was that he didn't feel he needed to understand black art because it wasn't as good as white art. Confession: I've never been there either. It's definitely on the list now.
Prejudice is a tough thing. And you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I deal with the kinds of things the black character was talking about--the sense of always being looked at as inferior. This is a really REALLY feeble comparison, but I've heard one too many dumb blonde jokes to think they're anything but old-fashioned prejudice.
Case in point: Let's go back to Monday night at the Ford's dinner. Guest speakers were a best-selling author and Civil War historian, Jay Winik, and the director of the production of "The Rivalry," Mark Ramont. It was a wonderful opportunity to talk to some interesting people.
Mark was charming over hors d'oeuvres as he described the structure of the three-person play and how he staged it, with the wife of Stephen Douglas as sort of a narrator/go-between between Lincoln and Douglas. I got very excited about that because it reminded me instantly of the structure for Michael Frayn's play of a couple of years ago, "Copenhagen," about Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. So I enthusiastically dropped that comment into the conversation.
Mark did a double take. Literally. He hemmed-hawed a nanosecond, and then said something like, yes, well, except "The Rivalry" won't be quite as "heady" as that.
You know what? That's not exactly the first time a man has done a double-take when I, a tall blonde, demonstrated my mastery of linear thought in the form of a complete sentence or a pertinent reference in conversation. Like, really, you know?
So it should not have surprised me that dry, droll Dr. Winik pretty much laughed at me throughout dinner. Maybe it was because I insulted the intelligence of our most recent former president by saying (or starting to say) that I wouldn't vote for anyone I didn't think was smarter than I am. I'll admit to not being very diplomatic. Oops. But I was making references to books and authors that supported whatever the hell we were talking about, and he (in a very professorial demeanor) challenged me at nearly every turn.
Finally, I was in the middle of making a point about the importance of story telling and started to say "that's what I love about Tolstoy..." when Jay turned to his neighbor and sarcastically remarked, "Did you think you'd be sitting at a dinner where somebody says 'And that's what I love about Tolstoy'?" And to twist the knife, to me: "You'll have to find someone with an IQ of 200 to vote for."
I may not be the brightest penny in the dish, but I know when I'm being laughed at.
But here's where I go back to one New Year's resolution I made a few years ago that I still actually keep fairly well: Laugh.
Someone drops the door in my face? Laugh at that person's clueless rudeness. Insulted? Laugh at the inferiority of manners and self-image. Well, just laugh, because it feels better than being mad.
I don't think that philosophy could have saved the two characters in "Permanent Collection," but it couldn't have hurt.
Like my "beauty therapy" at the ballet, the response of both men to the artists who touched them could have been a place to find common ground. One feels about the Cezannes the way the other feels about the African masks. Start with the beauty and the inspiration, and share that.
Love, hosaa
thinking, feeling, laughing (and way too tired to do links. Google is your friend.)
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Private Lives, redux
Sigh.
Apparently someone wants me to know grizzly "insider" details about one of my heroes. There's a reason they call Private Lives "private," people.
Now, leave Tiger Woods alone!!
love, hosaa
rejecting gossip
Apparently someone wants me to know grizzly "insider" details about one of my heroes. There's a reason they call Private Lives "private," people.
Now, leave Tiger Woods alone!!
love, hosaa
rejecting gossip
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Blundering Gracefully
Dear me, I knew this would happen.
Facebook confuses me with its publicly private world. In the process of trying to follow some of my favorite artists and arts organizations, I accidentally (okay, maybe not very accidentally) clicked on a friend request for a certain dancer.
A week or two passed with the "request pending" still sitting in my Friends list. I thought about deleting it, but would that have seemed rude?
(For the record, there is a friend request of my own sitting in my notifications: the high-school boyfriend who dumped me before prom and took my best friend and who is now a married minister, and a Republican to boot. He only needed three strikes.)
Last night when I got home from the Kaleidoscope skating-for-survivors event with Scott Hamilton, I checked my e-mail and found that I'd had a message from the dancer whose friendship I had blundered into requesting.
It was a very sweet greeting that invited me to join his fan group, which I did right away. This dancer is most certainly a master of the art of the graceful gesture. But I won't get to tell him how much he reminds me of Rudolf Nureyev.
love and big smiles, hosaa
blundering as gracefully as possible
Here's Scottie! [click to enlarge]
Facebook confuses me with its publicly private world. In the process of trying to follow some of my favorite artists and arts organizations, I accidentally (okay, maybe not very accidentally) clicked on a friend request for a certain dancer.
A week or two passed with the "request pending" still sitting in my Friends list. I thought about deleting it, but would that have seemed rude?
(For the record, there is a friend request of my own sitting in my notifications: the high-school boyfriend who dumped me before prom and took my best friend and who is now a married minister, and a Republican to boot. He only needed three strikes.)
Last night when I got home from the Kaleidoscope skating-for-survivors event with Scott Hamilton, I checked my e-mail and found that I'd had a message from the dancer whose friendship I had blundered into requesting.
It was a very sweet greeting that invited me to join his fan group, which I did right away. This dancer is most certainly a master of the art of the graceful gesture. But I won't get to tell him how much he reminds me of Rudolf Nureyev.
love and big smiles, hosaa
blundering as gracefully as possible
Here's Scottie! [click to enlarge]
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