Go you Chickenfat, Go!

Groooooooaaaaaaan. I love Thanksgiving but I always eat too much.

Does anyone else remember this? We were still doing it in the early 70's in gym class occasionally. Yes it was actually commissioned by President Kennedy for his new physical fitness program and sent to every school district. Let's hope President Obama doesn't get any hot ideas like this one.



If you've never heard it before, sorry! You'll never forget it now. And just think, it went on for at least another three minutes. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope all of you have a safe and happy holiday.

The following is from one of my favorite television Thanksgivings:

The Story of Forgetting

When my Grandma Irene lay dying in 1993 at the age of 82, she was surrounded by her seven living children but she knew none of them. Diagnosed with Alzheimers in her early 70's, she slowly slipped away, changing from a woman who learned to drive late in life to a woman who couldn't perform the most basic of functions.

While reading Stefan Merrill Block's novel The Story of Forgetting, I found myself grateful that she was able to live at least 70 of those years with her abilities intact. How much worse for those with familial early-onset Alzheimers, not to mention their families, who begin to show symptoms in their mid-thirties.



Block's novel intertwines three stories: Abel, an old man in Texas hanging onto a family homestead even though his entire family is gone; Seth, a teenager in another part of Texas whose mother has been diagnosed with familial early onset Alzheimers; and Lord Alban Mapplethorpe (and his descendents), the man in whom (according to this novel) the first genetic mutation occurred that created familial early onset Alzheimers.

These three fictional stories are bound together by another fictional story that each family group knows - the story of the mythical kingdom of Isodora, a land without memory, where every need is met and every sadness is forgotten.

This could be a sad and depressing novel (and don't get me wrong, there were difficult moments) but Block also manages to make it a surprisingly optimistic story. And even the difficult times are interspersed with humor. I particularly enjoyed Seth's observations that the doctors spoke to my dad in medical language, which sounded like English but wasn't anything I recognized.

I also liked Block's effort to show that each sufferer of the disease is unique. He puts Seth, in an effort to understand the disease, on a quest to meet other sufferers and Seth encounters a variety of Alzheimers patients: Mr. Hamner, an artist who tells him that Willem de Kooning created his best work after falling victim to Alzheimers; the three Llewellyn sisters who exhibit three different stages of Alzheimers - mild forgetfullness, anger and happiness; and Mr and Mrs. Bennington who met each other at an Alzheimers support group and married each other.

I didn't think the novel was successful in all ways - the intertwining of four stories was sometimes disorienting. She spent quite a bit of time on Abel's current circumstances and it didn't become apparent until the end why she did that. He is the last member of the family living on a ranch in Texas and he slowly sells off the land to survive and the owners of the McMansions that begin to crop up on his former land do not appreciate the dilapidated old ranch house in their midst. It was an interesting commentary on how newcomers can change land-use in a way that drives out the oldsters, but I found myself wondering why she was going into this side story.

I've never liked fairy tales and I found myself skimming the story of Isodora but others might not feel the same way. The novel is also full of a lot of scientific information about Alzheimers that I wasn't sure I could completely trust (this was a novel after all, not a medical textbook). But, despite the flaws, I found myself caught up in Seth and Abel's emotional worlds and that carried me on to the end.

Paul Taylor

The Paul Taylor Dance Company was in St. Louis last weekend. According to the promoter’s website:

St. Louis scores a Super-Bowl-size touchdown by legendary dancemaker Paul Taylor—the world premiere of his newest work! The 78-year-old choreographer is making a rare foray out of New York to come to our city himself to direct this epochal event. The program will also feature Esplanade, Taylor’s exuberant J.S. Bach classic from 1975, and other masterworks from the astounding career that has led Time magazine to hail Taylor as "the reigning master of modern dance."

Well, that sounded exciting. Of course, I had tickets for Saturday night, not Friday night, so I didn't see the actual premiere. But I was there for the premiere weekend.


Paul Taylor made his debut in the 1950's with Merce Cunningham’s company, but almost immediately became a lead dancer for Martha Graham’s company. Soon, though, he set out on his own, forming his own company and choreographing works which have shaped American Dance.

While Graham's style focused on the intricate movements of the lower body, Taylor's work is distinguished by lively gestures of the upper torso that are fluid and multidimensional.

His style has been called buoyant, sometimes flowing, and witty. He is known for using “everyday gestures” rather than dance moves.

The program both Friday and Saturday night began with Esplanade, a work he choreographed in 1975 which is performed to the Bach concertos in E Major and D Minor. It is a lively piece that is exhausting to watch, involving very natural movements such as running and skipping and jumping performed in natural patterns that made me think of children frolicing in a back yard. The signature moment from the piece comes when most of the cast lies down in a row, on their stomachs, up on their elbows, while the remaining cast member jumps over them in a hopscotch-type manner.

The second work performed was Scudorama, a piece Taylor choreographed in 1963 using music by Clarence Jackson. The epigram for the work is from Dante: "What souls are these who run through this black haze?" And he to me: "these are the nearly soulless whose lives concluded neither blame nor praise." An earlier work than Esplanade, and a much darker work, it still involved natural movement including people jumping over other people. Taylor received a grant to recreate this work this year and what an excellent use of funds that was. Called a seminal work that explores the essence of our humanity,

Scudorama finds that some people lack purpose and will, that their blasted souls can entertain no beneficence. The dance has not been performed in more than 30 years but retains its power to engage audiences and enable them to see our world through Mr. Taylor’s compelling and unique vision.

So we had a lighthearted piece in Esplanade and a dark, perhaps even satirical piece, in Scudorama. It turned out the they were the perfect introduction to the new work, Beloved Renegade. Using the beautiful Poulenc Gloria, the piece is an interpretation of, or perhaps an homage to, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. It was the most populated of the works, I counted 15 dancers on stage.

It opened in almost classical form with I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul, lighthearted in a poetic way. But as the piece moves on it becomes darker. The principal male dancer (Walt Whitman? Paul Taylor?)at first observes the other dancers as they frolic, and as one couple dances lovingly (young love?) and then another couple in which the man collapses and appears to be dying. Then a female dancer in almost classical ballerina style shows up to lead the male dancer through his own difficult times - we assumed she was supposed to be death. But maybe she was the poet's muse. At the end the dancer appears to die while death/the muse poses above him. It seemed a thoughtful piece for the 78 year old Taylor. I am not a dancer so I can't expound on Beloved Renegade from a technical point of view, but I can say that I enjoyed it very much and would like to see it again.

Here's a taste (I think this was from when he was a Kennedy Center honoree):

Dollhouse

Steve Benen says that Fox has it slotted into the 9:00 (eastern) spot on Friday nights beginning February 13 which, he correctly notes, is a black hole where shows go to die. Sigh.

If Joss Whedon would do a new show on cable, I'd break down and get cable. I don't know why he insists on going with networks. They never understand his stuff.