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   M3GA

  2011-12-25 1:35PM [举报]

  M3GA <3
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  alivenotdead

  2010-12-31 4:19AM [举报]

  Happy New Years from everyone at alivenotdead.com!
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   Marie Jost

  2010-07-09 6:42AM [举报]

  Charles--
  
  Are you over in Durham at the American Dance Festival?  I'm in Chapel Hill.  Let's try and connect if you're here in NC.
  
  Marie
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   rottendoubt

  2009-02-25 11:29AM [举报]

  did you watch "the curious case of benjamin button"?  cate blanchett's character is a ballerina and she talks about balanchine...
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   Marie Jost

  2009-02-23 7:39PM [举报]

  The situation for Spain is really screwy.  Flamenco is an Andalucian art form.  Andalucia is the strong hold of the Communists and Socialists in Spain.  When the right wing was in power (and they were all northerners), there was virtually no government funding for flamenco, not performance, not archives and not television documentary series (I knew a producer who explained this all to me).  Then the Socialists came to power, and the candidate was from Andalucia--so money flowed for flamenco again.  Alfonso Eduardo explained that, if you know the regional minister of culture personally (due to political affiliation), you had a good chance of getting funding.  If you didn't, then you were out of luck.  This is a very Mediterranean way of doing business, based on the "boss" principle.  It isn't only the Mafia that works this way.  It goes back to Ancient Rome and the political Big Men in Republican Rome.  The system is still with us today because, like every system that has survived for so long, it works, for some people, some of the time.
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   Marie Jost

  2009-02-10 7:27PM [举报]

  Jane Eyre is a good read.  It is actually quite a subversive book in many ways.  Imagine that wicked Jane, having thoughts for herself and putting her "betters" in their place by her superior reasoning and moral standards!  There is also a lot in the book about being true to one's moral compass.  I think the book has endured because it is about so much more than just "romance".  In many ways, it was an antidote to the kind of Romantic thinking of the time, that a grand passion justified anything and everything.
  
  I have read the book 3 times:  first at 16, then in my 20s, and later in my late 30s.  Each time, it was like reading a completely different book--different elements would stand out.  I would say this is the mark of a great piece of literature.
  
  I tried to read Mishima's "Forbidden Colors.  Parts of it were very good, and parts of it were a bit pedestrian.  I have one chapter left to read.  I've had one chapter left to read for 3 months.  I think that tells you something....
  
  Now I'm reading queer theory on Hong Kong and greater Chinese films.  Sometimes this stuff is unintentionally humorous.  But I have found a few Asian academics whose vision and deft handling of this difficult subject laudable.  I had never realized before how so many of the constructs dealing with same-sex desire were squarely American- and Euro-centric.  Asian academics have, in recent years, taken on the task of providing something of a corrective by looking at this issue from their own unique cultural perspective.  It makes watching Asian films a completely different experience now.  I can never look at He's a Woman, She's a Man in quite the same way again now that I see Anita Yuen's disguise is, in many ways, patterned after HK's own Tomboys, with a few twists, of course, for heightened comic effect.
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   Marie Jost

  2009-01-22 6:41AM [举报]

  "Stay tuned...I'm going to start doing reviews of Britney Spears' music videos.  It's time."
  
  You wicked man. ;-)
  
  And, hey, even very talented artists can make very bad music videos:  especially in the 1980s.  (Of course, Ms. Spears doesn't belong in such august company.)  I highlighted one of the most howlingly bad MVs of all time on my blog a while back.  I love Leslie Cheung, and he did make some astonishingly good music videos.  The one I highlighted, however, was not one of them.  Watch out for any director who goes from putting the cameraman in the cherry picker to putting the singer in it.  Its all downhill from there!
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   Marie Jost

  2009-01-21 8:04PM [举报]

  How's NC?  Cold, snowy and icy!  We haven't had measurable snow in this area for neigh on 4 years.  I think we are making up for it now.  This morning, tonight and tomorrow morning, it is the black ice we are concerned with.
  
  I do think it is possible to produce art on demand and do so with integrity.  Most great visual art before the mid-19th century was produced on commission.  Ditto music and dance.  Architecture is always the product of a commission.  When someone commissions a work, they expect the artist to be able to produce what they want, when they want it, and for a set price.  In some ways, those constraints (and having to produce something that fits another's idea of what the product should be) have helped artists do some of their best work.  It takes some of the decisions out of the hands of the artist, introduces some constraints, and perhaps this gives the artist more room to work and focus on the areas they do have control over.  Just a thought.
  
  It doesn't always work, though.  Look at the lame inaugural poem that was read yesterday.  That was the result of the commission process.  It would have been better to have had a contest and opened up it to all, especially students, to come up with a worthy inaugural poem.  I bet they could have found 100 better poems by the process.  Instead, a poet who teaches at Yale produced something so bad that I, as a poet, had to leave the room and try not to hear it after the first 30 seconds or so.  I have a very low tolerance for bad poetry and this sorry thing fit my definition of bad poetry.  Too bad it just reconfirms people's conceptions of poetry.  There are plenty of contemporary poets, to say nothing of past ones, that are worth reading and listening to.  Too bad they couldn't have chosen one of those for this historic event with worldwide coverage.  Why not a Maya Angelou or a Lee Young-Li?   As artists, they could have risen to the magnitude and historical resonance of the occasion and produced a poem that would have burrowed under the listener's skin, seducing the ear and the mind, and delivering a potent kicker of a message in an unexpected way.  Instead, we got pedestrian drivel from a woman who must make close to 6 figures teaching others to be bad poets at Yale.  Why am I not surprised?
• 
  snowduck

  2008-11-14 4:08AM [举报]

  Hi Charles :-)
  
  Thx for hopping by. I have one other Sontag publication here " Regarding the Pain of Others" (unread though, the pile of books is just too high. Sigh.) about war photographers. I bought it after attending the screening of Barbara Kopple's documentary about five female frontline journalists "Bearing Witness" and the documentary "War Photographer" about James Nachtwey. BTW: Kopple is the director behind the documentary about the Dixie Chicks "Shut Up & Sing" - all very recommendable!
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    閻小樂

  2008-08-28 8:43AM [举报]

  It's nice meeting you!
  Hope and you communicate with much
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   Marie Jost

  2008-08-09 6:03AM [举报]

  Yes, I read "On Photography", but in 1979, while I was in college, and I didn't really appreciate the argument then.  Must carve out some time to read it again.  I also want to read some other post-modern things that I didn't get around to in grad school, Mulvey's landmark work, some gender stuff, all for a specific project that isn't going to be presented in that context, but could benefit from expanded inquiry while I research the topic and formulate what I think I'm seeing.  In art history, I was working in a field (medieval architecture and architectural sculpture) where these methodologies weren't useful, so I never looked too deeply into them before.  I learned early on that your method must arise out of what you are studying, not the other way around.  Otherwise, a method will really limit what you see and how you interpret it.  It is tougher to come at a subject that way--but, in the end, much more fruitful.   But now that I'm dealing with the contemporary artistic expression of a very gender fluid performer, and am looking at video and live performance, these critical works might help me frame the work in some useful ways.  The only way to find out is to give it a try.  I'll know right away if the inquiry is fruitful, or simply a waste of time.
  
  Oh, this is really making me shake off the cobwebs.  It has been years since I've thought about art history.  You're more immersed in these current methodologies than I ever was.  Also, you're studies are about 25 years younger than mine.  A lot has changed in the liberal arts in terms of the canon of theorists since the early 80s.
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    梁菲

  2008-07-24 10:20PM [举报]

  hey there, just watched your video, is so cool...actually i'm a ballet dancer too, and i'm looking for the music for my new dance. wonder if you can help me up here...thanks
• 
  butter

  2008-07-09 5:41AM [举报]

  Hi Charles, thanks for dropping by.  Amelie is one of my favorite movies too :)
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   Lydia Kuan

  2008-07-07 4:05AM [举报]

  great stuff
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   Marie Jost

  2008-07-06 9:02AM [举报]

  Charles,
  
  Thank you for your very meaty and well considered reply to my tirade.  (Yes, I knew it was a tirade at the time, but sometimes just being passionate and speaking from the heart, and not the head, is important, too.)  I will think on it and reply to specific ideas soon.  (You have given me a lot to think about, which is wonderful.  Thank you!)
  
  I did want to bring to your attention a report that was in NPR earlier this week about art in nineteenth century America.  As soon as I heard the report, I thought about your blog.  In it, a historian of Shakespeare in America talks about the amazing period in American history when Shakespeare was popular entertainment that was embraced wholeheartedly by the working class.  Two rival actors, one American born and the other from England, were representatives of two camps in a debate on the role of art in society.  The English classically trained actor was the champion of the upper class, who felt that art should be the preserve of the educated classes.  His rival was a native-born American who was known more for his passionate performances than for his high art presentation.  There was an actual riot in New York between the camps of these two actors and the outcome changed the role of art in America forever after.  Here is the URL for the report:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92126509
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   吳迪

  2008-07-01 1:04PM [举报]

  thanks for the add man !!!
  cheers ...
• 
  Linghu_Chong

  2008-05-19 5:09PM [举报]

  Welcome to AnD!
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   rottendoubt

  2008-05-15 12:03PM [举报]

  welcome to alivenotdead!  =)
• 
   吳迪

  2008-05-08 11:34PM [举报]

  Welcome to alivenotdead.com!
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   Marie Jost

  2008-05-02 11:04PM [举报]

  Welcome!  Its great to see a modern dancer and choreographer on AnD.  I see you were involved with the American Dance Festival.  Was it the one in Durham, NC or NYC?  I live in Chapel Hill, which is just down the road from Durham.
  
  I love all forms of dance and, until February, I was dancing flamenco.  I still dance Argentine tango and did modern in college.  Never good enough to pursue dance professionally, though.  I hope you'll be able to post some videos so I can take a look at your work.

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