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Do shit.
a kick in the ass that i, as usual, needed:
I don’t understand why people decline to do things, or put off doing things, when they have no real reason not to. Or sometimes they’ll just make up a reason not to, which usually revolves around things like “I need to get some sleep” or “I don’t want to pay for gas” or some shit like that.
I don’t understand this. I basically will not decline any invitation to a potentially positive experience, and I don’t hesitate to pull the trigger on something if I’m aware it’s something I want to actually do. So when I hear people declining to do things because they want to get 7 hours of sleep instead of 5, or put off doing something because they’re not “ready” to pull the trigger yet, it just frustrates me.
You will always feel groggy some days, and you will never be able to adequately prepare yourself for anything. Drink from the hose.
what my dancers are into
olga sorokina is rad ass bad ass lady who organizes THE BODY WORD festival in saint petersburg, along with drinking a lot of black tea with sugar, detailing the entire plot of pixar films in accented english, laughing heartily, and refusing to tell me what she plans to perform at the dance showcase at the Baryshinikov Center next week that I’ve spent months planning for her & the crew:
the target of the festival is to explore the relationship between innovative forms of
dance and literature. We would like to represent the bridge between the art of literature,
where the main tool is the written word, and the art of dance, where the main tool is the
human body.
the purposes of the festival are:
- popularisation of different kind of a serious literature, from classical to
contemporary
- popularisation of the innovative forms of dance
- to create a precedent of holding a non- profit dance festival
- to create interest in the press and mass-media
- to represent new sides of intercultural cooperation
- to show the potential synergy between old and new, classical and innovative in
culture and art .
Kaliningrad
Just because Vitaly Glukhov deserves a shout out…
…and to elucidate my comment, below, on Kaliningrad.
hanging with the russians at American Dance Festival
Yeah…
Latest assignment:
Cover four Russians as they navigate the insanity of a festival on the Duke campus that hosts like 600 contemporary dancers from all over the US/World.
It’s really quite a genius scheme on the part of the US gov’t: pay for artists from Russia to come here on the pretext of professional development; I show them how rad america(ns) can be; they get a taste for the international arts scene which holds infinately more promise than, say, that of Kaliningrad (who puts a city in a spot where it doesn’t even touch the rest of the country anyway??); eventually, if said dance artists are motivated, they defect to new york, where, like baryshnikov, komar & melamid, brodsky, etc etc. Okay, so obviously i’m over-stating the reconossaince nature of my job for comedic value, and at the end of the day, all the artists are excited mostly by the prospect of meeting colleagues and potential collaborators from around the world, showing their work to entirely new audiences, and, um a free trip to a rad spot.
Anyway, major observations so far:
who knew that russian dancers don’t get to dance with live musicians pretty much ever, when it’s par for the course around here?
body language = everything ursula the sea witch promised
the adf, as with most large, well-funded arts institutions, tends to be more conservative than its participants (i.e. the productions in the festival program are awesome, but mostly not on the avant garde end of the spectrum)
New York Students' Test Scores Improve in Reading and Math
Relatedly, critical thinking ablities, sense of individuality, passion for learning decline.
Today my boss said she'd hate to think that MObama really made those comments about white people...
I search the blogosphere for reassurance that there are sane, welll-informed, even-minded people out there.
And not without salvation: this link kept my spirits bouyant long enough to complete three or four more mundane tasks.
Thanks again, world wide web!!!
So, Mike says that he’s lame duck (“your pronoun usage is confusing” -Mike) and can’t really do anything, but umm, I still kind of want to die? I don’t know, what do you think…
So, I was wrong about the arctic drilling:
According to NPR this morning, Obama responded to the Republican’s call to legalize new drilling zones with a statement that:
1. Passing such legislation WILL NOT lower oil prices for consumers in the near (read: conceivable) future, and,
2. In the long run it will degrade the quality of life for all Americans.
Yeah. Um, guess I’m just not used to hearing judicious, reasonable responses to republican cajoling. One more fist pump for Barack.
DIY Political Advertising
Worth noting:
“The standard tricks of political ads are no secret: Black-and-white imagery conveys negative associations, as does slow-motion video that makes people look like sloth-y monsters. Numbers, whether percentages or dollar amounts, included in mostly unqualified statements, convey the idea that something is factual, whether positive or negative. Smiling people surrounding a candidate conveys happiness, good times, and generally congenial thoughts. Close-ups on faces convey ugliness. Oh, and fear!”
