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April 25, 2021:

DANCE BELTS

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, okay, it’s time to discuss something that has been on my mind since beginning my ballet journey into ballet, which has been a journey, as you know from reading these here notes. And what has been on my mind, you may ask, and I may tell you because, well, I just brought it up and it would be unseemly not to. Dance belts. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, dance belts. Male dancers wear them, let’s not kid ourselves. No underpants lines, but like thongs, just the thin part going into the butt. And yet, the ballerinas all have leotards and those have leotard lines, so I guess what’s good for the males is not good for the females, and I’m jiggy with that. But in these ballets, these here dance belts are so bulging with purpose that it’s completely distracting and irritating. I understand their purpose, of course, but I’m telling you that what I’m seeing looks like they’ve stuffed a Volkswagen in there or a full turkey dinner. Is there a cup in there? Not every male is built the same way, you know, but you’d never know that from these dance belts. Are they stuffed? Are they designed to be like this and if so, why? I mean, Gene Kelly wore a dance belt and even in the tightest clothes in An American in Paris there is no Volkswagen in front. The line of his clothes is smooth, as it should be. Last night, while watching a musical dance number in Call Me Madam (The Ocarina), all the boys are in very tight pants – no Volkswagens in sight – smooth fronts. So, when did these gigantor dance belts become such a thing? I’ve seen older ballet videos and it’s nothing like what I’m seeing in these recent videos. I mean, their pelvises precede them onto the stage. The ladies all look perfectly lovely in their leotards, they don’t stuff the tops to make them look like Jayne Mansfield, although I’m constantly amazed that ballet dancers don’t seem to have tops at all, if you get my meaning, which I know you do because you dear readers are with it and happening. So, can anyone shed some light on these fully packed and front loaded and wacky dance belts? And why they’re that way in tights but in classic film dance also in tights, nada. Look at Kiss Me, Kate when Fosse, Bobby Van, and Tommy Rall are in tights. No Volkswagens, not turkey dinners. If the idea is to watch, you know, the DANCING, these unnaturally humongous Godzilla dance belts are completely distracting from that. Perhaps from the audience vantage point it’s not so distracting, but with Mr. Ross MacGibbon at the helm, it’s like watching The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in tights. What the HELL am I talking about? I do think I’m on the verge of an allergy attack, though. Was that a segue? That felt like a segue to me.

Pardon me whilst I take a pill, my last, so today it’s a visit to CVS because I get my monthly ten dollars off any item discount. Thanks to Lydia Geissman, I have also discovered the joys, and yes, they are joys, of Sparkling Ice, a liquid refreshment with zero sugar that includes antioxidants and vitamins. These come in 17 oz. thin bottles and the entire bottle has but five calories and no carbs. Best of all, they’re GOOD. I mean, really GOOD. You can’t really finish an entire bottle in one sitting either. It took three days to finish the first one I had, which was lemonade flavor and excellent. Now I’ve moved onto grape raspberry and it is quite refreshing in a refreshing way.

Yesterday was certainly better than the Doozy Day, that much I can tell you and have told you. I was up at eight-thirty and on my way to Hugo’s at 9:10. There was practically no one there when I arrived. I ordered my omelet with bacon and cheese – six dollars less than Art’s and MUCH better and much bigger, rather like an omelet version of a dance belt. I ordered tomatoes with it, which arrived, rather oddly, chopped up in bits in a cup. The omelet was great and not too filling. I didn’t eat much of the tomatoes. I managed to kill ninety minutes there, then headed over to the mail place and arrived there right after the USPS person had delivered, so I picked up the two packages that were there, killed a bit more time, and then came home.

I listened to two CDs from a “label” called Kipepeo Publishing. They’re quite the joke and quite illegal and shoddy to boot. I didn’t remember who they were when I purchased the three CDs I got, all conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos, one of my favorites, and all mono and early recordings. Well, I think they’ve grabbed these from YouTube people who’ve posted them (in fact, one YouTube fellow came out and confirmed they’d taken stuff from his channel), these are CD-Rs, so the files are slapped on haphazardly and the quality varies wildly based on the source. You do get the original cover art, which they probably grab from somewhere on the Internet. On their website, they cagily don’t mention where they’re based, because if they were in the EU these would be legal in the sense that they fall under the old EU 50-year copyright rule. But if they were based there they would say so. They don’t. They’re right here in the U.S.A. and these are bootlegs, plain and simple. The Prokofiev third piano concerto is a twenty-six-minute CD. The Rimsky-Korsakov Le Coq d’or suite is all of seventeen-minutes. They’re not expensive or anything and I’m glad to have heard the performances, certainly, but they are the WORST.

Then I watched the Royal Ballet The Nutcracker, choreographed by Peter Wright. For me, it wasn’t nearly as magical as the Balanchine, nor as fun. First off, having an adult play a child isn’t a good idea. In the Balanchine it’s a real child and that child in the Blu-ray that I saw, was adorable and a very good dancer – I believe she was around twelve at the time. There are nice things in this one every now and then, one of them being Lauren Cuthbertson, but I just wasn’t as entranced as I was with the Balanchine. And the magic? A little lame – some glitter every now and then, and a couple of other lame effects that are, in fact, completely ruined by the as always inept go-to Ross MacGibbon, who is too close and reveals the deal.

Once that was done, I had a long telephonic conversation, and then I had to get ready for my early dinner at 5:00. I shaved and showered and dressed, thought about wearing a dance belt but didn’t, and then I moseyed on over to Stanley’s and met my old friend. She’s come to a few Kritzerland shows over the years, but we’ve rarely had two seconds to chat. It was fun catching up – she’d contributed to the Indiegogo campaign, so I brought her perk with me. We talked of the old days and the current days, and the most fun parts were talking about ballet, because she’s a ballet person and has taken from very well-known teachers over the years and has choreographed children’s ballet companies. I had a new thing I’ve never had there – a chopped salad with turkey, salami, and tomatoes (I had them leave out the garbanzo beans) in a Dijon vinaigrette that was very light, had a nice tang, and the whole thing wasn’t huge, and it was most excellent, and I ate every bite of it. I can now add that one to my other Stanley’s salads so that’s a nice variety if I do them every other day. So, no real carbs for the day, save for the net two carbs from the ubiquitous Atkins bar, which I’ve grown very fond of because it does take care of whatever sweet craving I have.

I went to Ralph’s to use the DMV kiosk to do the vehicle registration, but unfortunately the car place didn’t return the form to me and that has the bar code you need. I have no idea if they tossed it or what, so I just came home and did it online and they say the tags and card will be mailed within five days, so that’s fine. Then I sat on my couch like so much fish.

Last night, I watched a motion picture musical comedy on DVD entitled Call Me Madam. It’s not one of my favorites, plus it has several songs that weren’t in the show. Merman is fun but the camera just doesn’t care for her. Vera-Ellen is good (and is dubbed), George Sanders has some charm, Billy DeWolfe is Billy DeWolfe, and Donald O’Connor’s dancing is the highlight of the film. And, of course, there was George Chakiris front and center in The Ocarina number. It seems like he was in every movie choregraphed by Robert Alton and Jack Cole back then. You can’t miss him. The transfer is mediocre.

After that, I listened to music a bit and had some of my grape raspberry Sparkling Ice drink.

Today, I’ll be up by ten or so because I have to do a Zoom thing with some guy from Facebook – it WILL be brief, I can assure you. Then I’m having a ME day, period. I’ll eat something (not sure what), but mostly I will relax and try not to feel stress and worry about the upcoming move. I need a day to simply unwind. At some point, I’ll watch, listen, and relax.

And then we begin the week, which will be filled with Indiegogo perk organization, Kritzerland show stuff, and then the big move.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten or thereabouts, do a quick Zoom thing, and then have a ME day – to unwind, hopefully have some stress release, eat, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland where I shall hopefully not ponder the stuffed dance belt.

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