mirth

Wanton Mirth

Garota Bailerina de Ipanema

In article <199704031805.NAA14611@europe.std.com>, Paola Secchin Braga

paolasb@Montreal.com.br> writes:

Over here in Rio we even go to the beach wearing our pointe shoes! The only problem is that, even with GMs we can't go into the sea...

Yo! The Ballerina from Ipanema!

Hard and pink and young and skinny

she ties her shoes an gets real spinny

and when she bourrees the boys say hooray for she..

In the bag in the back of her little red car a

leopard print gold lame thong tiara

She stands in the sand and the sun, en raccourci

Oh, but she's so very turned out.....

From sun and classes she's not burned out

I try to speak but what the hey -

She clouts me with a quick grand jete....

Vive le Bain de Soleil!

DRAGNETTE! (On the Role of Ballet in Police Work)

There are a million libretti in this city.. this is one of them.

My name’s Frappe. I'm a fop. I wear a tutu.

(music up, Beethoven's 5th)

It was 9:19, on the morning of January 22 (I know that because it was Balanchine’s birthday! Mother always took us to Ballet Store on that day.). My partner Albrecht and I were working out of costuming, embroidery detail when the call came in.

She was pretty hysterical, but it sounded like a 4338B+. Leotard larceny. A closet crasher, a wardrobe robber, a trunk diver, a Ballets Russes boost. Some loser out to swipe a barrel of Farrell apparel. Just another pathetic Lycra junkie stretching his luck.

Eeeew.

Ick.

4:17 pm. We did croissants on the sun deck with the girls from the SWAT team, popped in to Grishko for a few things, ticketed some white-haired ladies triple-parked on Rodeo Drive (they bought orchestra seats for the whole Sunday Matinee series and two extra performances of Nutz!) and then proceeded to the corner of Trockadero™ and La Somnambula to a declasse little fish dive called the Adagio Barre.

"Where were you guys? I called seven hours ago!!! Nice tights, copper."

"Thanks. I wanted to come. My hair didn’t. What seems to be the problem here m’am?"

"Well, our percussionist invites my dog and me over to his place today and when I come back the alarm is screaming like a wet willi with her bottom in a bank of Lekos and twenty-two costumes and pairs of shoes for the performance are gone! We can’t go on without those outfits, and who straggles in here about two thousand measures late? Two gimpy flatfoots in pink leotards! You can’t wear those in here!"

"I wouldn’t say that if I were you m’am"

"What?"

"Flatfoot."

"Why not?"

"Take a close look at these arches."

"Whoa. Gaw-geuss. Those shoes hide them though. Want to try on some of these pumps?"

"Just the flats, please, m’am. Who’s this percussionist?"

"Tito"

"He Mexican?"

"Si si. Thai too."

"What did he ask you over for?"

"To tea"

"What kind of outfits were taken, m’am?"

"Tutus"

"And the shoes?"

"Toe"

"They got everything?"

"Tout perdu"

"What ballet?"

"Bugaku"

"The alarm, what did it sound like?"

"TOOOT TOOOO"

"And your little dog’s name wouldn’t be…."

"Fred. Just Fred. Like Astaire."

"Well, that should give us enough to go on. We’ll call if we need anything else m’am"

"Oh, one more thing, Mssr. le Flic-flac…"

"What’s that, m’am?"

"I think you’re looking for a dancer this time. I got a glimpse of his feet as he was leaving, I got like eyes in the back of my head…….."

"Tendu?"

"Sous-sous"

"Ta ta"

"Adieu, you two"

SOMEBODY STOP ME!!!! I HAVE TO WORK TOMORROW!!! I NEED AN AAB ANONYMOUS MEETING!

This was a true story. Only the dance belts were changed to prevent chafing.

Ms. Fecit, your T-shirts are Ready

In article <19970810143601.KAA05350@ladder02.news.aol.com>, nanatchka@aol.com (Nanatchka) writes:

>I am delighted to see that once again your newsgroup is involved with

>t-shirts,

Dear Ms. Fecit;

All of us here at Bourree FantasTeeQ are glad to hear from you just as our Fall catalog is hitting the streets. Unfortunately, due to the UPS strike we are unable to deliver your large order immediately. Please download the attached file. It contains 300 "virtual" garments in vivid recently-dyed dancer colors and sizes; you may print these directly on your body for a thirty day trial period. Scan yourself thus adorned and if we like the effect maybe we’ll trust you with the real thing.

New this year (pending the final vote on AAB) (better make that next year):

The NYCB Blue t-shirt, as seen on the new Fox network guns n’ gargoulliades hit

The L’Eggs warmup bra, meticulously hand crafted from a select pair of used pantyhose

The Patagonia pantyhose, meticulously hand-crafted from a high-quality used warmup shirt

The NEA Budget T; you are free to choose sizes 0, miniscule, or inadequate

CATS ™ pajamas, so you can stand out as a hick on Broadway even in your sleep

The Lord of the Dance sweatshirt, constructed entirely of beefy, doubleknit sweat.

The Gaynor-Minden T, scientifically manufactured of space-age materials that mold to your body’s dimensions, correct your arms in seconde, change color automatically when your company hires a new LD, appear new for performances but ragged for rehearsal, release timed dosages of Advil and caffeine through the skin, stop projectiles up to 45 caliber, taste great on rye bread with a little mustard, and continuously remind you how good you look for your age.

Sincerely;

Mark Tertlnek

Director, Customer Dilations

Bourree FantasTeeQ,

Yomamma, Indiana

Not Tonight, Dear, I Have a Lobotomy - Tylenol Wars

Dear Tylenol Mailbots;

Regarding your company’s "no ballet tonight, honey, I've got a lobotomy" ad.

We know the bottom-feeders at your ad agency play to the least common denominator. We know ballet is a huge joke over on the left side of the bell-curve. Millions of honest pill-chomping citizens must have chuckled at your "Tylenol cures ballet boredom" ad til the snot just ran off their chins.

If you really had some huevos, headachey hubby would be simpering "Whew, I guess we won't be able to go to CHURCH after all!" in thirty major markets fifty times a day. Your focus group would find that PLENTY of American males get bored in church. Or that lots of married males in key categories love ballet. Or that Moses was a trained nectarine, if that's what you paid them to prove.

Or what if SHE said "Wow, babe, guess we gotta put the tractor pull on a back burner til you sober up a little". A LOT more Americans would relate to merry spousal banter like THAT.

Nah, let's bash ballet. Everybody's doing it. Those morons spend DECADES preparing to perform; we give INSTANT relief! It's intellectual, it's old, it’s elitist (hell, WE even go once a year!), they do it to classical music, we can't bottle it for two cents on the dollar, and it's RUSSIAN fer chrissakes. Dancers can't afford pants, much less legal counsel. AND they're an insignificant (lessee, .031% as of 9:00) share of our market. Easy pickings. Blow 'em out of the water. Then we'll send a couple bucks to the ballet companies so they can build our image while we trash theirs!

You're a genius, C.B. Here's your check. Oh, your third wife called. She says little Meghan has attempted suicide with a pound of Ex-Lax (tm) because her ballet school closed last week, Trevor just quit Johns-Hopkins to join the ABT, and she still has her headache.... uh no, sir, you're not holding any Ex-Lax options, I’ll call your broker

Keith R. Knox

Section on Community Education - Dancer’s Anti-Defamation League

Kimberly Seibel <arclight@atlcom.net> writes:

>I would love to see what response you get!

I'll post it if/when I get one. Meanhwile I drafted a little note for Whitehall-Robins, the manufacturer of Advil. They have a website, but without an email button. The company domain is thepark.com, but I haven't turned up a specific address. Any technical assistance on reaching them would be greatly appreciated.

Dear friends;

A number of us over on Alt.Arts.Ballet have gotten pretty steamed about the recent ad for Tylenol that showed a husband trying to wiggle out of going to the ballet, thwarted by his wife's taking Tylenol, and then offering him some to stave off the inevitable boredom of the performance.

Tylenol responded to our complaints that they contribute to the performing arts. Which is to say that they use ballet to improve their image while destroying ours.

We originally discussed a boycott of Tylenol, but that became pointless when discussion disclosed that *serious dancers* (i.e. all of us) and other athletes do not use acetaminophen, because it does not reduce inflammation. Many thousand dancers around the world got a very clear message about what pain reliever to use.

I for one would *love* to see the following ad;

Hub: "gee, hon, how are you going to be able to *perform* tonight with that sore knee? Did you try taking Tylenol?"

Wife: "No, that doesn't help with inflammation. I took *Advil*."

Cut to ballet performance, beaming wife bows, hubby standing in audience applauding.

This would;

1. Give ballet dancers their proper image as *superb* athletes, rather than the butt of ambiguous slurs like Tylenol's campaign.

2. Instantly buy you whatever market share Tylenol got by slandering dancers.

3. Take advantage of the *positive* image that ballet has.

4. Educate the public about an essential difference in the properties of these two medications.

5. Give us a real satisfying feeling.

The thread discussing this matter is on the newsgroup Alt.Arts.Ballet. It's called "Tired Tylenol ad" if you'd like to check it out. There are probably a lot of people in the group who would be more than happy to consult with you on creating the ad, including hundreds of dancers, dance videographers, choreographers, sports medicine professionals, and even a lot of PR folks (we advertise too!).

Best regards;

Keith R. Knox

Denouement: Although I did not receive a response to either email (Tylenol had sent out a form letter to everyone else), the Tylenol ad went off the air and Advil ran a beautiful ad a few months later (during the World Series! Otherwise I wouldn't have seen it!) showing ballet dancers taking the product, warming up, and performing, intercut with shots of a mountain climber and an older surfer! The message was "Advil lets you do what you want to do". So I declare it an unconditional capitulation of the Tylenolistas and a mighty victory Allied Forces.

Soviet Defectors

Subject: Re: PLEASE HELP! Soviet defectors 1979 From: pumukau@aol.com Date: 12 Dec 1996 15:39:10 GMT

Jessica Schein writes;

>This is not funny. All of you who gave silly answers should be >ashamed. Please you do not know asked a serious question and they >deserve a proper answer.

>GROW UP

I and the other friends of Ivana Slopsinka Baliya and Valeri Idigadich Sachzov would like to thank the posters of Alt.Arts.Ballet for your "silly" answers, as well as the other disinformation about the so-called "Kozlovs" and other spurious names that you so courageously provided. All to no avail. Ms, Schein and the other well-meaning souls of AAB have been duped into revealing critical information to a fanatical expatriate KGB cell bent on revenge for what they deemed to be excessive government support to the fine arts during the waning decades of the Soviet era. Indeed, it is NOT funny. Jessica, you of all people should have seen through this flimsy ruse! Trivia contest. How many times have you told us ***NOTHING IS TRIVIAL IN BALLET!!!***?

Now it can be told. Valeri Sachzov realized early in the ‘79 season at the Minsk Ballet that his passion for artistic freedom and his personal integrity would not allow him to dance another year there. Although he was the company’s star danseur and an "A" student, permission from the Commissariat for him to wear a ramie miniskirt in the role of Rothbart in Swan Lake was slow in coming. "Here, of all places, to suffer rejection for being a little pinko.." he lamented. Gathering his beloved Ivana and a few belongings into a rented Skoda, he made his break

The border guards were immediately suspicious when they were handed a crude, cast-iron videocassette instead of passport pictures ("the lighting just isn’t the same" one observed). Though the papers said the couple were English, it was obvious even to the untutored eyes of the guards (both of whom had failed their technical exams in the ninth year at the Maryinsky Academy) that they were dancing in Russian (you roll your ars more). Matters came to a head when four mastiffs posted at Checkpoint Charlie began sniffing Ivana’s shoes excitedly. Deftly abandoning the braunschweiger-stuffed wedgies to the advancing curs, they made a run for a gigantic Scotch pine that had suddenly sprouted beside the wall.

Tragically, neither Valeri nor Ivana had any experience at running more than thirty feet in a straight line. When a searchlight hit Valeri he instinctively strode back to the gate for a standing ovation, two encores of the solo from La Bayadere, and a hail of bullets. "Ah, freedom" he uttered as he lay dying, "nyet again shoogarplomb!". Valeri’s performance received mixed reviews, but the tree, as usual, was given the keys to the city, inducted into the Academie Francaise, received a grant from the Whitney foundation, and was honorably, um, decorated.

All was not lost, for Valeri’s beloved bride of two days evaded the guards and made her way to the United States. Ivana Baliya-Sachzov lived in obscurity for a time in north-central Wisconsin, employed as a sleeveless taxi-dancer at the Wabeno Casino. In 1983 her name reemerged as an answer on Jeopardy, and in order to escape her pursuers again she took on a series of new identities assigned to her by the Ballerina Underground Relocation Program. Her list of pseudonyms became so extensive that at one point she was actually understudying herself in Cincinnati, but it paid off when she collected a fortune after discovering that she was all of the original names 1 through 6 on the now famous TRY THIS! IT REALLY WORK$$!!!! post.

But now, dear friends, her cover is blown again. She is a hunted woman. Just because somebody on this group had to show off. Well I hope you’re pleased.

On the Intelligence of Dancers

This subject fascinates me, and I was very interested to read the scientific evidence in this thread. But in AAB tradition of balancing scholarly erudition with blatantly uninformed, irrational, unprovable and biased opinions, the following is a reprint of a post I wrote last year:

"Dan Shea" writes of ballet dancers:

> Of course, there's no guarantee they would offer stimulating conversation. is there? I gather we have a gathering of high school graduates here and not much

beyond. Or am I being too harsh?

Daniel;

I gather you gather your information where redundant repetitive, repetitive redundancy is emphasized and stressed again and again as a mark of sagacity wisdom and intelligence.

Are dancers smart?

It is invariably a shock to the system to see last night's sugar plum fairy in sweat pants, eating a hamburger, outflanking you in her rusty Ford Fiesta for the last parking space a half hour before curtain. But that begs the equally compelling question "Are they human?" which is different from "Are they smart?".

If you mean how do they do on IQ tests, probably average...but how many people do you know who really made it big in the IQ-test-taking field? If you mean making conversation, well, drag up the last three years of AAB and see what you think. It ranges everywhere from the smallest of small talk (a not-insignificant skill) to a great many truly brilliant observations on life, art, the universe, and everything.

I often think, when my teacher rattles off some tauntingly difficult 35-step combination, that ballet at Fontainebleau must have been a vastly superior precursor of our S.A.T.

If "how far have they gone in the American educational process?" is your creterion (that was a typo, but I think I'll let it stand) then *we* don't have much to discuss.

It would be interesting to sort of backward-engineer a definition of intelligence based on human accomplishments in the world, the ones that fill us with wonder (as NYCB has for you) . For me these include ballet, baseball, and sailing. It has something to do with freedom and discipline.

I remember reading a treatise on the intelligence of dolphins (Encyclopaedia Britannica? Mine is 1965 edition) that posited that the more that animals have evolved moving in three dimensions, the smarter they are. The neural circuitry they develop is of a higher order. A creature that interacts with information in two dimensions will learn X squared in a situation where one with one-dimensional throughput will learn X. To my mind, this is a better way to compare species, which is really what you're doing, than the sort of pedestrian analytical skills that appear in IQ tests and at university.

This would arguably give us an intelligence hierarchy along the lines of;

1. Rush Limbaugh

2. People who spend all their lives looking at TV, spreadsheets, or computer code (shut up and eat yer applesauce)

3. Tax attorneys

4. Yeast

5. Cab drivers

6. Sailors, fighter pilots

7. Fish , birds

8. Ballet dancers

Add to the three normal dimensions a fourth, the sort of spiritual depth that one masters by observing highly evolved three-dimensional creatures, and you get;

9. Choreographers, dance videographers, and LD's (you owe me one now Jeff)

10. The Dalai Lama and Henry Aaron (together at last!)

11. Dance teachers over 60 and Lincoln Kirstein

12. The Omnipotent Deity of Your Choice

Vive la Danse

Keith