I attended a performance of Prokofiev's Cinderalla by the Amercian Company Ballet.
First, the program. The story of Cinderalla is narrated in this jokey manner which is meant to be funny, but isn't. It's tedious in the extreme.
The actual ballet: I didn't find the music memorable at all. This is apparently the third choreographed version of the ballet. I hated it. The wicked stepsisters and their dates to the ball are presented as buffoons. They take dancing lessons but are terrible. By terrible I mean, they do a slapstick version of bad ballet dancing.
The audience laughed at their antics. But I didn't find it funny at all. You come to a ballet to see, beautiful, elegant dancing, not slapstick. Every now and then, for instance, at the ball, you would get actual ballet dancing, which was a pleasure. I loved the scenes in which the attendees of the ball are dancing in unison. Then the moment would be ruined by the slapstick bad dancing. Ugh!
Another point I don't understand is why the wicked stepsisters were presented as ridiculous. Wickedness is not the same as ridiculousness.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Louvre in Atlanta
Apparently, the Louvre has lost some or all of its public funding, and now has to generate a lot of its own funding. One way to do that is to loan artworks to other museums. That is the Louvre in Atlanta exhibits came to be. The exhibits span three years. Atlanta was chosen because the people at the Louvre figured that as New York and Washington D.C. already have world class museums, there would be much more excitement generated among the hicks in Atlanta. Which is true I think. The exhibit was packed when I went.
I loved the first year's exhibits on paintings collected by Louis XIV-XVI. My favorite is the Union of Drawing and Color by Guido Reni.
I loved the first year's exhibits on paintings collected by Louis XIV-XVI. My favorite is the Union of Drawing and Color by Guido Reni.
Metropolitan Museum of Art
I love the European paintings gallery at the Met.
I love paintings my the old masters. My favorites are Van Dyck, Reni, and Caravaggio.
If I lived in New York City, I would visit this great museum once a month, at least.
I love paintings my the old masters. My favorites are Van Dyck, Reni, and Caravaggio.
If I lived in New York City, I would visit this great museum once a month, at least.
The Drowsy Chaperone: PoMo Musical
"The Drowsy Chaperone," a relatively new Broadway musical is stupid and boring. What makes it utterly abominable is that it is a postmodern musical. It has that knowing, ironic quality about it which I hated.
The play begins as follows: the theater is dark. The omniscent narrator of the play says a small prayer along the lines of, "You're going to a Broadway play. You utter a small prayer. Please god, don't let it be boring. Please god, let it be short." Get it? Here we are at a Broadway play in which the narrator is also talking about seeing a Broadway play.
When the lights come on, we see the sitting room of a small apartment. The narrator is a character of the play. The narrator is meant to be a square boring type. He wears a cardigan and some ill-fitting pants. He looks about 50. He loves Broadway plays. He decides to play the soundtrack of one of his favorite plays from the 1920s, "The Drowsy Chaperone."
As the soundtrack plays, the actual Broadway play takes place in the narrator's living room. The narrator, seated in his armchair in the corner, provides commentary throughout.
The play: Janet Van Der Graaf (sp?) is a movie star and is about to marry a certain person. Her chaperone is the drowsy chaperone, though a more accurate description would be boozy chaperone. She's drawsy because she's drunk.
Wedding preparations: The fiance is also an actor, in toothpaste commercials? He smiles a lot and is generally a foppish ridiculous character. His friend decides to take over the wedding preparations and asks him to leave the premises. In a setpiece which is supposed to be comic but is just stupid in the extreme, the friend puts the fiance on roller skates and blindfolds him. I'm still not sure why. The fiance then sings the song, "I'm an accident waiting to happen."
Janet then decides to test her fiance's love for her by pretending to be someone else and then aggressively coming on to him. The fiance who is blindfolded kisses her. She then leaves and confronts him later and breaks up with him on account of his infidelity.
There is a Latin lover character, a Latin guy with a terrible accent and preposterous romantic pretentions (that is, he thinks he is romantic but is actually absurd). This lover decides to break up the wedding by seducing the bride. He mistakes the chaperone for the bride and ends up seducing the woman who is only too willing.
A series of incredible low points follow. The lowest point is where Janet sings a song to her fiance about her disappointment. The narrator says, though the lyrics are just absurd, the melody is beautiful. The melody, like all the melodies in the play is one of these generic, basically pleasing, 20-ish melodies. But the lyrics: "I put a monkey on a pedestal." To have to listen to such rot!
Janet and the fiance make up. It is at this point I think that we get a long commentary which is purportedly comic but actually tedious from the narrator about how things always work out on Broadway but never in real life. We also learn that he is divorced.
Janet and the fiance marry. The drowsy chaperone and the Latin Lover also marry.
Another pomo moment, Janet asks the chaperone for advice. "L---- while you can", she says. Does she say "leave" or "live?" We don't know because the Latin lover drops his walking stick when she says leave/live. So the narrator "replays" that scene a few times. So we see that line done a few times by the performers.
Then we have the final extravaganza number. I think an "aviatrix" or female pilot shows up. I don't remember why she's there. I think that may have been the point. To have someone there for no reason at all.
I think during the final extravaganza, there's a power outage. So the extravaganza stops. The play has occassionly interrupted by the narrator's phone ringing, so he has unplugged it. Turns out it was the building electrician who had been calling. He comes to the apartment to fix something. He goes through the apartment, which is also the place where the Broadway performers, comeplete with aviatrix's airplane, are standing. He finishes his job and leaves. Again, this scene is meant to be hilarious, but it is just extremely tedious.
The narrator is in anguish. He talks about how awful it is that the moment was ruined. Should he replay the entire record again? Instead he decides to just start where we had left off (thank god!).
Another important pomo moment happens during the intermission. I think a scene change is going on behind the curtain. The narrator eats a power bar because he has a low blood sugar issue ("issue" pronounced with a very sibilant ess sound).
When he puts the second record for the second half of the play onto the phonograph, we get another play, set in China. The narrator has put on the wrong record. The Chinese emperor is played by the Latin lover with the exact same preposterous accent. An English visitor to his court is played by the woman who plays the drowsy chaperone. Why do the Caucasians find the Asians so interesting? the English visitor sings.
The narrator then puts the correct record on.
The play is meant to be funny, but it isn't. The jokes are cringe inducingly bad. The play within a play and the commentary are meant to be clever but aren't.
It is very difficult to come up with a winning musical. Creating a musical out of sneering at a musical doesn't make a good musical. For instance, having to listen to the song "Monkey on a pedastal" was absolute torture. And anyway, I don't think a 1920s musical would have been as stupid as all this.
The narrator says repeatedly that he loves musicals because he finds them transporting. That life is difficult and dull and depressing, but the musical isn't. I agree that the old Broadway musicals are happy, fun, and exciting.
But the problem is his frequent interruptions and commentary on the goings-on and the whole ironic winking pomo quality ruin any chance that the musical has of being transporting (not that the play which unfolds in his living room had much chance of doing that).
Don't see it.
The play begins as follows: the theater is dark. The omniscent narrator of the play says a small prayer along the lines of, "You're going to a Broadway play. You utter a small prayer. Please god, don't let it be boring. Please god, let it be short." Get it? Here we are at a Broadway play in which the narrator is also talking about seeing a Broadway play.
When the lights come on, we see the sitting room of a small apartment. The narrator is a character of the play. The narrator is meant to be a square boring type. He wears a cardigan and some ill-fitting pants. He looks about 50. He loves Broadway plays. He decides to play the soundtrack of one of his favorite plays from the 1920s, "The Drowsy Chaperone."
As the soundtrack plays, the actual Broadway play takes place in the narrator's living room. The narrator, seated in his armchair in the corner, provides commentary throughout.
The play: Janet Van Der Graaf (sp?) is a movie star and is about to marry a certain person. Her chaperone is the drowsy chaperone, though a more accurate description would be boozy chaperone. She's drawsy because she's drunk.
Wedding preparations: The fiance is also an actor, in toothpaste commercials? He smiles a lot and is generally a foppish ridiculous character. His friend decides to take over the wedding preparations and asks him to leave the premises. In a setpiece which is supposed to be comic but is just stupid in the extreme, the friend puts the fiance on roller skates and blindfolds him. I'm still not sure why. The fiance then sings the song, "I'm an accident waiting to happen."
Janet then decides to test her fiance's love for her by pretending to be someone else and then aggressively coming on to him. The fiance who is blindfolded kisses her. She then leaves and confronts him later and breaks up with him on account of his infidelity.
There is a Latin lover character, a Latin guy with a terrible accent and preposterous romantic pretentions (that is, he thinks he is romantic but is actually absurd). This lover decides to break up the wedding by seducing the bride. He mistakes the chaperone for the bride and ends up seducing the woman who is only too willing.
A series of incredible low points follow. The lowest point is where Janet sings a song to her fiance about her disappointment. The narrator says, though the lyrics are just absurd, the melody is beautiful. The melody, like all the melodies in the play is one of these generic, basically pleasing, 20-ish melodies. But the lyrics: "I put a monkey on a pedestal." To have to listen to such rot!
Janet and the fiance make up. It is at this point I think that we get a long commentary which is purportedly comic but actually tedious from the narrator about how things always work out on Broadway but never in real life. We also learn that he is divorced.
Janet and the fiance marry. The drowsy chaperone and the Latin Lover also marry.
Another pomo moment, Janet asks the chaperone for advice. "L---- while you can", she says. Does she say "leave" or "live?" We don't know because the Latin lover drops his walking stick when she says leave/live. So the narrator "replays" that scene a few times. So we see that line done a few times by the performers.
Then we have the final extravaganza number. I think an "aviatrix" or female pilot shows up. I don't remember why she's there. I think that may have been the point. To have someone there for no reason at all.
I think during the final extravaganza, there's a power outage. So the extravaganza stops. The play has occassionly interrupted by the narrator's phone ringing, so he has unplugged it. Turns out it was the building electrician who had been calling. He comes to the apartment to fix something. He goes through the apartment, which is also the place where the Broadway performers, comeplete with aviatrix's airplane, are standing. He finishes his job and leaves. Again, this scene is meant to be hilarious, but it is just extremely tedious.
The narrator is in anguish. He talks about how awful it is that the moment was ruined. Should he replay the entire record again? Instead he decides to just start where we had left off (thank god!).
Another important pomo moment happens during the intermission. I think a scene change is going on behind the curtain. The narrator eats a power bar because he has a low blood sugar issue ("issue" pronounced with a very sibilant ess sound).
When he puts the second record for the second half of the play onto the phonograph, we get another play, set in China. The narrator has put on the wrong record. The Chinese emperor is played by the Latin lover with the exact same preposterous accent. An English visitor to his court is played by the woman who plays the drowsy chaperone. Why do the Caucasians find the Asians so interesting? the English visitor sings.
The narrator then puts the correct record on.
The play is meant to be funny, but it isn't. The jokes are cringe inducingly bad. The play within a play and the commentary are meant to be clever but aren't.
It is very difficult to come up with a winning musical. Creating a musical out of sneering at a musical doesn't make a good musical. For instance, having to listen to the song "Monkey on a pedastal" was absolute torture. And anyway, I don't think a 1920s musical would have been as stupid as all this.
The narrator says repeatedly that he loves musicals because he finds them transporting. That life is difficult and dull and depressing, but the musical isn't. I agree that the old Broadway musicals are happy, fun, and exciting.
But the problem is his frequent interruptions and commentary on the goings-on and the whole ironic winking pomo quality ruin any chance that the musical has of being transporting (not that the play which unfolds in his living room had much chance of doing that).
Don't see it.
Frick House
I love the Frick museum in New York City. Of course, the Metropolitan Museum's art is of the same quality. But what distinguishes the Frick is that you get to see art displayed in a real house, as opposed to a whitewashed room.
My brother said he isn't at all interested in looking at furniture in museums but that he enjoyed the furniture at the Frick exactly for this reason. I agree.
My brother said he isn't at all interested in looking at furniture in museums but that he enjoyed the furniture at the Frick exactly for this reason. I agree.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Live? How live?
Store bought yogurt claims to contain live cultures, but I wonder how it compares to that of home made yogurt. The thing is, when you make yogurt at home, you have to consume it within a few days because the action of the bacteria turns it more and more sour, until at some point it's inedible. But that doesn't seem to happen with store bought yogurt. Or if store bought yogurt does become more sour, it happens much more slowly. So does home made yogurt have a larger bacteria count? I know home made yogurt has a much more diverse set of cultures as opposed to the single digit number of bacterial cultures that store bought yogurt has which are mandated by the government. Or in the production process, are the bacteria in store bought yogurt attenuated somehow? Now, the good bacteria is supposed to be one of yogurt's main plus points. So, is homemade yogurt much healthier than store-bought yogurt?
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Pregnant women shouldn't eat salads?
"The Weighty Responsibility of Drinking for Two"
The most interesting lines, to me, in this article about drinking during pregnancy are:
The most interesting lines, to me, in this article about drinking during pregnancy are:
Just try to buy unpasteurized cheese in England, or to eat salad in France when you’re pregnant,” wrote a friend living in York, England. (Many French obstetricians warn patients that raw vegetables are risky.)I hate salads. I had briefly taken up eating them because it is healthy after all. I'm not pregnant, but after reading this I now have an excuse to stop eating them.
Raw Food Veganism
"Totally Uncooked"
This is another New York Times food article, reprinted at another site. There is apparently a diet in which nothing is cooked, although foods are allowed to be heated to 118 degrees. The reason people give for following this diet is that they think that cooking foods destroys its beneficial enzymes. The tone of the article is very snarky, but the author doesn't emphasize the objections I would have. Here are my main problems with raw food veganism:
1. The whole justification for the diet--enzymes in foods will be preserved--is dubious because, as mentioned in the article, we don't use plant enzymes anyway.
2. Natural toxins in vegetables. From the article: "As for cooked food being poison, raw vegetables turn out to be a veritable trove of toxins. Those parsnips Roxanne Klein is so fond of, for instance, naturally contain small amounts of light-activated carcinogens, whereas the cancer-fighting nutrient in tomatoes is released only when cooked. " Harold McGee says in his "On Food and Cooking" that fruits are the only plant foods that are designed by the plants themselves to be eaten. This is why they taste so good raw (and why they are so sweet). On the other hand, the plants themselves are often laced with varying levels of toxins because they do not want to be eaten. So is it a good idea to eat vegetables, which are various parts of plants (leaves, stems, roots, etc.), raw? Cooking destroys some of these toxins in vegetables.
3. Environmenal toxins in vegetables. With this E. Coli problem affecting vegetables, isn't it a little scary to eat them raw?
4. Not mentioned in the article: A lot of vegetables reduce in volume when cooked. They also become easier to chew and easier to digest. If you are a raw foods vegan, I'm sure you would have to cosume enormous quantities of vegetables. Is it possible to eat such large quantities of raw or dehydrated vegetables? Would anyone want to? From the article: "According to one of the few studies available on raw-foodists, the body-mass indices of a quarter of women and a fifth of men who maintained the diet for an average of four years were below normal, and a third of the women had stopped menstruating. " The article also mentions that one of the star proponents of the diet subsists on 800 calories a day. It doesn't say why exactly these people aren't eating enough calories. But I would think it is because people cannot eat that much raw broccoli or spinach or whatever. Animal and milk products are calorie dense. Fruits and vegetables are not. It is probably very difficult to get all the calories you need from this diet.
5. This point was briefly mentioned. Most vegetables don't taste good raw, but they improve dramatically in taste if you cook them. Personally, I hate the taste of raw vegetables. I'm a vegetarian, and I never eat salads. Traditionally, vegetarian Indians don't eat salads.
6. This point is almost never mentioned in articles about any diet. Will anyone be able to live on this diet day in and day out for the rest of his life? But this diet is so wacky and few people will try it that this point is not relevant.
This is another New York Times food article, reprinted at another site. There is apparently a diet in which nothing is cooked, although foods are allowed to be heated to 118 degrees. The reason people give for following this diet is that they think that cooking foods destroys its beneficial enzymes. The tone of the article is very snarky, but the author doesn't emphasize the objections I would have. Here are my main problems with raw food veganism:
1. The whole justification for the diet--enzymes in foods will be preserved--is dubious because, as mentioned in the article, we don't use plant enzymes anyway.
2. Natural toxins in vegetables. From the article: "As for cooked food being poison, raw vegetables turn out to be a veritable trove of toxins. Those parsnips Roxanne Klein is so fond of, for instance, naturally contain small amounts of light-activated carcinogens, whereas the cancer-fighting nutrient in tomatoes is released only when cooked. " Harold McGee says in his "On Food and Cooking" that fruits are the only plant foods that are designed by the plants themselves to be eaten. This is why they taste so good raw (and why they are so sweet). On the other hand, the plants themselves are often laced with varying levels of toxins because they do not want to be eaten. So is it a good idea to eat vegetables, which are various parts of plants (leaves, stems, roots, etc.), raw? Cooking destroys some of these toxins in vegetables.
3. Environmenal toxins in vegetables. With this E. Coli problem affecting vegetables, isn't it a little scary to eat them raw?
4. Not mentioned in the article: A lot of vegetables reduce in volume when cooked. They also become easier to chew and easier to digest. If you are a raw foods vegan, I'm sure you would have to cosume enormous quantities of vegetables. Is it possible to eat such large quantities of raw or dehydrated vegetables? Would anyone want to? From the article: "According to one of the few studies available on raw-foodists, the body-mass indices of a quarter of women and a fifth of men who maintained the diet for an average of four years were below normal, and a third of the women had stopped menstruating. " The article also mentions that one of the star proponents of the diet subsists on 800 calories a day. It doesn't say why exactly these people aren't eating enough calories. But I would think it is because people cannot eat that much raw broccoli or spinach or whatever. Animal and milk products are calorie dense. Fruits and vegetables are not. It is probably very difficult to get all the calories you need from this diet.
5. This point was briefly mentioned. Most vegetables don't taste good raw, but they improve dramatically in taste if you cook them. Personally, I hate the taste of raw vegetables. I'm a vegetarian, and I never eat salads. Traditionally, vegetarian Indians don't eat salads.
6. This point is almost never mentioned in articles about any diet. Will anyone be able to live on this diet day in and day out for the rest of his life? But this diet is so wacky and few people will try it that this point is not relevant.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Last year I ate: 1,460 chocolates, 51 kilos of yoghurt, 21 kilos of cheese, 7,300 olives ...
I *love* the way the Nigel Slater talks about food:
I object to this bit here though:
I think this is completely wrong. If you are dehydrated, you will feel thirsty. Most likely what is happening is that the water or juice is itself staving off the writer's hunger pangs.
I just don't understand this whole drinking water fad. Drinking something when you are not thirsty is so unpleasant. How does anyone make himself do it? I would have thought a gastronome like this Slater fellow would have recognized that. And the other downside, having to go to the bathroom all the time, is also awful. The few times I've tried to take up drinking 8 glasses of water a day, I've immediately given it up.
The description of the other things he ate is just as good.
"I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love eating. Hot, rustling chips with slightly too much salt on them, a piece of crisp-skinned duck or a round of thick white toast dripping with butter. Sometimes I just have to stop what I am doing and make a bacon sandwich or walk down the road to get a piece of cake. And although I prefer to eat something with a perfect provenance and made with the very best ingredients, I am not half as fussy as I could or should be. The way I look at it is this: a slice of commercially made chocolate cake might not be as good as a home-baked one, but it's better than no chocolate cake at all."
I object to this bit here though:
"I also discovered one or two helpful things. The first was the question of whether I was actually hungry or just thirsty. Now, I like to think I'm a fairly bright guy, but I have to admit to getting these two confused. So often, when I thought I was hungry, my body was just telling me it was dehydrated. This, more than any other single thing , is what has helped me to lose fat. In other words, next time you think you need a Mars bar, a pile of Pringles or a slice of cheesecake in between meals, try a glass of water or juice first. You might be as surprised as I was. To give you a clue, I downed over 600 litres of Evian in 2002...The other thing I discovered was water. There was never a day when I drank less than 1.5 litres of Evian, sometimes as many as three. The downside is that I pee like a horse. "
I think this is completely wrong. If you are dehydrated, you will feel thirsty. Most likely what is happening is that the water or juice is itself staving off the writer's hunger pangs.
I just don't understand this whole drinking water fad. Drinking something when you are not thirsty is so unpleasant. How does anyone make himself do it? I would have thought a gastronome like this Slater fellow would have recognized that. And the other downside, having to go to the bathroom all the time, is also awful. The few times I've tried to take up drinking 8 glasses of water a day, I've immediately given it up.
"Here is exactly what I ate last year...
I ate 72 kilos of fish (not counting 40 fish fingers and 472 pieces of sushi) which is only slightly less than the average polar bear. In fact it actually comes in at just over 200g a day. I should explain, quickly, that fish, rather than meat or poultry is my protein of choice. I love its silky texture and the fact that it is light on the gut. Gram for gram I ate more smoked salmon than almost anything else (9.7kg, I know it's hideously expensive, but I don't smoke or drive a car, so give me a break), hotly followed by rollmop herrings at 7.3kg. The reason for this is my habit of having a little of each as I'm preparing dinner. Light as they are, they soon add up. I also managed to swallow 12kg of mackerel, most of which I grilled so that the skin was all black and toasty, 4kg of halibut (and rather a lot of Hollandaise sauce), 2.5kg of cod, 16 dressed crabs, 17 whole plaice, 13 sea bass, 3.5kg of smoked mackerel and 194 oysters. I saw off 10 squid, five grilled sole, 1.2kg of skate and 500g of salt cod. What I didn't eat much of were scallops (a measly two) and tuna (of which I am honestly not fond). I did manage 472 pieces of sushi, seven bowls of moules marinière (two of which came up again), and 3.7kg of salmon, (which didn't). The best fishy thing I ate all year was a crab salad at Nahm in the Halkin Hotel, though it was difficult to
beat the piece of halibut I cooked at home with bearnaise sauce and green beans
from the garden..."
The description of the other things he ate is just as good.
Diet and Tradition
"EATING MY SPINACH
Four Days on the Uncle Sam Diet ..."
I love this William Grimes article on the 2005 government dietary guidelines, the ones which recommended 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. What I love about this article is that he discusses the role of culture and tradition in maintaining a diet. How are people supposed to stick to a diet day in and day out for the rest of their lives?
Four Days on the Uncle Sam Diet ..."
I love this William Grimes article on the 2005 government dietary guidelines, the ones which recommended 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. What I love about this article is that he discusses the role of culture and tradition in maintaining a diet. How are people supposed to stick to a diet day in and day out for the rest of their lives?
As a cultural document, the guidelines are strange. They set themselves the worthy but futile goal of imposing a style of eating for which Americans have no model. It's all very well to announce that everyone should eat five servings of vegetables a day. But where does that fit in the culinary template that Americans instinctively consult when planning a meal? The typical American dinner is an entrée with a starch and a vegetable, preceded in some cases by a salad or soup and followed with dessert.
For Asians, it's quite normal to eat multiple vegetable dishes at the same meal (even at breakfast), and to prepare very small quantities of fish or meat with much larger quantities of rice. But Americans rarely eat multiple vegetable dishes except on Thanksgiving. If they are going to triple their vegetable consumption, they'll have to greatly enlarge the vegetable portions they do eat, throwing the meal off balance, or else walk around nibbling on carrots and cauliflower florets from a plastic bag.
The new guidelines are not just health policy, they're cultural policy, too. To comply fully, Americans will have to rethink their inherited notions of what makes a meal, and what makes a meal satisfying.
That is a very tall order - even taller than the daily mound of uncooked leafy vegetables that everyone is supposed to eat.
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