The Fat Lady Sings

Spider Silk Tapestry

I’ve never seen the like.  Talk about gossamer wings.  What I wouldn’t give for a dress made of spiders dreams.  The material kind of glows from within. It doesn’t look really real, if you know what I mean – more like some kind of fantasy creation. I would so love to touch something like that - to see if it really floats, like the man said. Exquisite.

Donatella Versace showed her 2009 Atelier collection recently. Each dress is its own unique and striking work of art....I can't help but think how some of them might look using this material. The heart almost stops at the thought.

We all need a little beauty in our lives.

 

Pain

Dear god today has been a nightmare!  From last night till now I've been crippled with pain.  I wander the house like a ghost - screaming, unable to leave my body, searching for a way to become unconscious - anything to escape.  I finally had to wake my husband - I was too frightened to be alone.  How he can sleep through my bouts of screaming and weeping I'll never know.  Not that he can do anything except take me to the hospital - and even that's not really an option.  Our local emergency room told me to go find another hospital to treat my medical problems.  The doctor in charge said they don't treat overweight people.  He said I should find a bariatric facility willing to treat 'my kind'.  So if the pain gets bad enough - I can either wait and pray it passes - or drive on to the next nearest hospital and hope they'll not turn me away. 

Jesus wept it hurts! 

Happy Christmas!!!

Thank god there are still people out there for whom Christmas is a joy.  Have a merry one, my friends!

Mark Kanemura (***UPDATE)

The definition of lyrical perfection

Uploaded by krunkyou

Who else sees dance as sculpture?  I love the inside of this guys head

Uploaded by krunkyou

Videos courtesy of MJ from MJ's Big Blog

The show is 'So You Think You Can Dance'.  Mark's partner is Courtney Galliano, and I am truly smitten with and by this man.  Back in my performing days I was blessed to work with some truly great dancers and performers (Tommy Tune, Jeffrey Hornaday, Steve Merritt, Jeff Risk, Marc Pluff) – and none (not a one) - had the musicality of this intriguing, graceful man.

With Mark - it's all about feeling – for him and his audience.  When I watch Mark move - I feel with him.  There's a frisson that shivers down my spine - sense and emotion sparking one off the other.  I understand what moves him (literally).  That feeling you get when the music vibrates inside your chest - running along your skin like water....your blood thrumming with millions of tiny heartbeats.  It's talking to god with your body.  Musical emotion fuels each move - your physical self stretches out into eternity…..and when it stops, you almost want to cry.  I used to stand right next to the speakers at Stones concerts.  I liked the way the music felt from the inside.  I danced the same way – feeling the beat pulse through my feet up into my body.  My teachers could never get me into shoes.  I needed to feel the floor.  It not only grounded me – it fed my ability to move.

Let’s talk about skill for a moment. Mark’s center is very, very tight.  And I’m so impressed with how he matches and balances his partners.  That’s hard – Ginger Rodgers hard (a la doing everything backwards and in high heels).  I’ve perused his online choreography – and I’m flat out enthralled. Check out what he does with his arms here (Mark's the tall guy on the right).  Pay especial attention to 0:22 – 0:25.  That transition blows me away every time I see it (and I’ve seen it a hell of a lot). Smooth, flowing - yet every tiny (coordinated) shift is sharp and clear – and on the beat.  Being on the beat, falling off and into the next motion is kinda like waiting for the laugh when you’re on stage.  You either have the knack – or you don’t.  Comedy’s not mathematical (counting moments after one line and before you say the next - though some lesser actors do just that).  An audience is a living organism.  You have to feel your way along.  You say something or look a certain way and people laugh….making the next move or saying the next line at the exactly appropriate moment is instinctual – it cannot be taught.  Mark has that instinct musically – and he can choreograph it – which is a stone bitch to manage.  I really hope he continues posting his work – ‘cause I’m hooked.

Are any of you familiar with Maya Deren?  She was an experimental filmmaker.  Back in the 1940’s she created a series of visual meditations on movement.  Gene Kelley himself consulted her on the best way to film dance (he was getting ready to make ‘Invitation to the Dance’).  Two of Deren’s films, ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ and even more so ‘Divine Horsemen’ look at motion from an organic perspective.  There was nothing like it anywhere at the time.  She filmed ‘Horsemen’ in Haiti, chronicling traditional voudun practitioners.  That movement is exactly what I'm talking about – it’s inspired.  Mark moves like that – from the heart, from the gut – through the music…..and that does make him neither fish nor fowl where So You Think You Can Dance’s judges are concerned.  It’s “Strictly Ballroom” to them.  The 'Tina Sparkle’s' are rewarded.  Anything else – not so much. 

But dancing isn’t about mathematics (any more than comedy is).  For me - all art is fluid.  There isn’t a writer, dancer or film-maker I know who sets their work in stone.  I look back over shows I’ve directed, roles I’ve performed or stories I’ve written – and there’s always some new insight, some new take or approach.  There's no repetition.  Art follows the artist's trains of thought, their eddies of emotion.  Mark's movement impresses me that way.  He makes it seem like he’s inventing every move on the spot; that the movement grows out of his personal communication with the heart of the music (even when the choreography’s not his).  There’s flexibility there – and not only in the physicality.  I love Mark’s esthetic – how he sees himself within the dance: creative, sinuous - and blatantly, unapologetically, unabashedly sexual.   

Frankly – I don’t remember the last time an artist captured my interest this completely. Mark glides through music like its water – I’ve never seen the like.  It’s different – and different isn’t always all that accepted at first.  He’s definitely not usual.  Mark claims that all his life he’s been slightly left of center – that his world boasts different hues and shapes than the rest of us. Left of center, says he?  Well color me there, my friends – ‘cause as far as I’m concerned - ‘slightly left of center’ just became the new black! 

***Well - he's off the show.  I should have guessed.  The Barry Fife's and Tina Sparkle's have won the field (for now).  'So You Think You Can Dance' just won't be the same for me.  I looked forward to Mark's fire and originality each and every week.  Well....hopefully he will continue to post his choreography.  Frankly - the man needs a real website - someplace Mark Kanemura fans can connect and touch base.  One stop shopping, as it were.  There are lots of us, you know.  I'd like to give a big shout out to the fandango crowd over at TWOP and Marks Marker's at Idol Forums.  We are truly fierce! 

And Mark?  You go, baby!  Go far.  I've been in this business all of my life (since I was 11).  You have that magical something most performers only dream of: You're a star.  So get a good agent and/or manager.  Find a coach who'll help bring out the best in your work.  I know a little something about that.  I've not only taught master classes for actors honing their craft - I've coached dancers as well.  You need someone else with a good eye towards what suits you.

Go ahead - take my advice, bucko.  After all - it's freely given, from a deep well of admiration and respect.  Aloha (you sexy thing!).

So You Think You Can Dance

I don't know how many of you are following this show.  It's kinda like Project Runway.  The initial attraction for me was I'd been there.  I'd studied costume design under Patricia Zipprodt - designed and directed any number of shows.  Same thing with dance - only that hurts a hell of a lot more these days.  I used to be a dancer, you see - musical theatre.  I was what they call a triple threat - singer, dancer, actor.  Of the three - I'd have sold my soul for the dance.  That feeling you get when the music vibrates inside your chest - running along your skin like water....Imagine your blood thrumming with millions of tiny heartbeats - it's talking to god with your body.  The only time I felt more alive was during sex.  Musical emotion fuels each move - your physical self stretches out into eternity.  When it stops, you want to cry.

Bleeding Love (You will note that I've inserted different clips.  YouTube took down my originals - so I had to do some editing.  These new ones include the intro packages as well as all the judges commentary)

I used to like to twirl.  I can't any more.  My body barely responds when I ask it to put one foot in front of the other.  I can feel the surgical steel holding my leg and arm together.  The edges push the skin out.  I can actually feel the screw heads with little effort.  My arm's purely decorative now.  I'm unable to even pick up a gallon of milk.  That shatters my heart.  Me - a woman who defined her life through movement - a creature of the senses - no longer able.  So I watch - I watch them dance - and with some, my soul shifts from me towards them, fluttering softly alongside, touching and being touched.  It's an addictive form of fantasy.  My mind is able to escape my body for those few minutes onstage.  I wonder if Stephen Hawking feels like this when looking up at the stars.

Beautiful

This year's show has its share of wonderful dancers - but two in particular stand out for me.  The girl, Chlesie Hightower, is a Dresden doll - tiny perfection - but don't let those looks fool you.  Underneath lies tensile steel.  That that steel is clothed in heated emotion makes her exciting to watch.  As for her partner, Mark Kanemura.....let's just say I am well and truly smitten (that's his picture above).  I would give anything to dance with that man for five minutes.  He's different, quirky.....perfect.  Look how he meets his partners every shift of mood and emotion.  He explodes when he moves - and each movement has a reason - there's no 'Hokey-Pokey, put your foot there' in what he does.  Frankly - I cannot take my eyes off him - even when standing still.  Her either.  It's called 'star quality'.

I'm a Woman

For example - there's a dancer this season that everyone's fawning over.  Technically perfect - I think he dances without emotion.  I literally feel nothing when I watch him move.  I am completely disengaged.  The man could be peeling potatoes for all I care.  Mark, on the other hand, draws me in.  When his hands move down his partner's body - I can feel them on mine.  Now that's dancing. 

Pic of the Day

Here's a great big bumble bee on an allium.

Good Planets are Hard to Find

The Gypsy's Caravan will be hosting Good Planets this month. Take a few moments to enjoy gorgeous pics from all over the planet!

Baby Sumos...

                                    
Tokyo, Japan

Amateur sumo wrestlers try their hardest to make babies cry during the Nakizumo, or "crying sumo" competition at Sensoji Temple. With a priest taunting and tormenting the infants, the winner is the first one who cries. In the case of a tie, the louder wailer wins.

The belief in Japan is that crying is good for babies, so the ceremony is meant to bestow wishes of health.

I am not in the picture by the way!

Vogue

I just started reading Vogue magazine again after years of defection.  The reading of magazines is, after all, a luxury.  It bespeaks sitting or reclining contemplatively – the fingering and assessment of each glossy page before turning…..magazines devour time; and my time became compromised many years ago.  So one by one my individual passions fell by the wayside – National Geographic, Architectural Digest (my all-time favorite) and Vogue – until Entertainment Weekly was all that remained.  I had begun reading Entertainment Weekly religiously throughout the years it published the names of artists and entertainers dead from the AIDS epidemic.  It’s how I learned Steve Merritt had died.  That about stripped me bare.  I ran upstairs into the library and wept.  He choreographed me in ‘Hello Dolly!’ when I was 16 years old.  Steve was demanding and talented and kind.  There were other names, faces – people I’d worked with, people I’d known - perhaps a dozen as the years passed.  But Steve’s death hit me the hardest – I don’t know why.  Maybe because Steve represented my youth.  Entertainment Weekly – well, let’s say it kept me apprised.  Now I read it as a distant way of keeping in touch with a profession I have left very far behind.

The Eclipse

Last Sunday the moon went into total eclipse.  It was beautiful.  Such a clear night - cold, crisp.  We set up our telescope and took some pictures.  They aren't developed yet - but I thought I'd post those few I was able to get with my digital camera.  We truly live on a beautiful world. (Clicking on each picture will open them up).

And so it begins.  Just a sliver is revealed.  So lovely - almost magical.

And now you can see more.  The color is lovely - a burnt orange.  You can see the craters limed with shadow.  It seems almost alive to me here.  As if - were I to reach out and touch it - it would retreat from my hand like a coral anemone.

You can see more now.  Those dark spaces look a bit lichenous - don't you think?   As if the moon were caparisoned like the north side of some giant tree.

Now we can see much more!  Notice that red star in the lower left hand side of the picture?  I notice that little baby every time we have a full moon.  I wish I knew what it was called.  I love its ruby glow - and it seems to pulsate like it has a heart that's beating.

Now - look at the transformation!  The eclipe has almost passed - just that one section remains covered.  It looks sickly - doesn't it?  As if the moon had some terrible wasting disease; or perhaps a dragon flew by and took a bite.

And so it ends.  Just that tiny corner still shrouded in darkness.  The rest of the moon shines bright as a new penny.  Amazing, isn't it?  What our part of the universe can get up to in its spare time?