Cry Wolf

So.

It looks like Bench manipulated your outrage after all.

Quelle, quelle surprise.

The Clique of Claqueurs.

"Everything's beautiful at the ballet...hey," sang the character Sheila in A Chorus Line.


And it is.

Mostly.


If you ever saw Black Swan, you'd have had some idea how ruthless things can get in the business of producing ephemeral works of art and beauty. And as if to drive home that point, in Russia, there is a middle-aged clique who controls the professional-applause racket at the Bolshoi.

That's right. This is a thing.

"Don't cry. Pay."

If the Chinese have professional Crying Ladies, the Russians have professional Applauders. And while the very idea sounds farcical at first thought, giving credit where credit is due was not always the norm in the performing arts:

The idea that applause in response to performance should be spontaneous is a relatively new one. Roman emperors trained professionals to mingle with crowds at key moments, encouraging the dull roar of approval that speaks of a mandate. This behavior was refined in the theaters of 18th- and 19th-century France, where the term “claque” — from the phrase “to clap” — was coined. At the Paris Opera, claqueurs became mighty arbiters of theatrical success; Balzac writes in “La Comédie Humaine” that the chief of the claque had “the endorsement of the boulevard playwrights, all of whom have an account with him, as they would with a banker.”

And even in this late day and age, the modern claqueurs wield enough power to actually sabotage a danseur's performance:

It is possible, for instance, to clap off-rhythm when a dancer is performing the series of difficult turns called fouettés, he said. “Kolya fell down because of us many times, because I was at war with him for years and arranged these things for him,” he said, of Mr. Tsiskaridze. “Poor guy, in ‘Raymonda’ he screwed up the whole variation and flew off and ended up with his nose on the floor. In ‘Nutcracker’ once, I made him drop his fouetté, from way up high, and he sat down on his bottom, butt facing the hall. And we all laughed.”

Faux-pas de deux?

Read more at the link. 


In the meantime, this gives me a deliciously wicked idea for Giselle tomorrow night.

Trés Misérables

Burn, bitches.

Like my good friend Maleficent and, probably, you, I was not invited to Resorts Worlds Manila's formal-attire only gala premiere of Tom Hooper's Les Misérables.

But fear not. There was no need to cast curses involving spindles and eighteen-year olds falling asleep for a hundred years.

Because schadenfreude is my middle name, I simply wonder - with much concern and sadness, to be sure - how tres misérable the chi-chi crowd felt at last night's disastrous non-showing of that famous film. 

Lame Misérables, as a pundit acquaintance of mine put it.

Technical difficulties, indeed. I understand Wilson Tieng looked ready to burst several blood vessels after this major major social snafu, the poor dear. All those VIPs dressed to the nines, with Christian Bautista, Karylle, Audie Gemora and other singers performing live numbers from the musical (accompanied on piano by no less than Ryan Cayabyab!) as a front act to a gala that was not to be.

Alors, alors, c'est-la vie, oui?

Et parce que plus de choses changent, plus ils restent le méme, regardez-vous cette nouvelle caravane pour Les Misérables: la nouvelle adaptation cinematographique de Tom Hooper. Avec Hugh Jackman étoile comme Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe étoile comme Javert, Anne Hathaway comme Fantine, et Amanda Seyfried comme Cosette.

Je ne connais pas la fille que joue Eponine ( Samantha Barks, en remplancement de Taylor Swift et Scarlett Johansson), mais n'en faire pas.

Oui, oui, j'adore, j'adore!

Glory Be

This being a Sunday, here's a Missouri pastor thundering on about gay rights going 


"...against the plain truth of the word of God. As one preacher warns, Man, in overstepping the boundary lines God has drawn by making special rights for gays and lesbians, has taken another step in the direction of inviting the judgment of God upon our land. This step of gay rights is but another stepping-stone toward the immorality and lawlessness that'll be characteristic of the last days. This ordinance represents a denial of all that we believe in and no one should force it on us.

It's not that we don't care about homosexuals, but it's that our rights will be taken away, and un-Christian views will be forced on us and our children, for we'll be forced to go against our personal morals. Outside government agents are endeavoring to disturb God's established order; it is not in line with the Bible. Do not let people lead you astray. The liberals leading this movement do not believe the Bible any longer but every good, substantial, Bible-believing intelligent Orthodox Christian can read the word of God and know what is happening is not of God. 

When you run into conflict with God's established order, you have trouble. You do not produce harmony. You produce destruction and trouble, and our city is in the greatest danger that it has ever been in in its history. The reason is that we have gotten away from the Bible of our forefathers."




And now that you're frothing at the mouth, be sure to watch until the end of the speech for the surprising twist.

Rated X-tianity.

Well, this seems like as appropriate a season as any.

HuffPo reports of a billboard in New Zealand featuring Joseph and Mary in a rather...compromising position which has had devout Xtians Christians up in arms.

Okay, so this is supposed to be...sacrilegious.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — A billboard at a New Zealand church depicting a downcast Joseph lying beside Mary in bed and the heading "God is a hard act to follow" provoked more than the intended reconsideration of the meaning of Christmas.

The sign was defaced by a paint-wielding vandal just hours after it was erected Thursday outside the St. Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church in Auckland, and triggered passionate and sometimes angry debate on talk radio and the Internet.

The billboard was commissioned by the church and was the work of  M&C Saatchi.  According to the HuffPo story:

Church vicar Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the billboard was intended to challenge stereotypes about the way Jesus was conceived and get people talking about the Christmas story.

"This billboard is trying to lampoon and ridicule the very literal idea that God is a male and somehow this male God impregnated Mary," said Cardy, who described his church as having very liberal ideas about Christianity.

"We would question the Virgin Birth in any literal sense. We would question the maleness of God in any literal sense," he said.

On the opposing side, Auckland Catholic Diocese spokesperson Lyndsay Freer said

"...the billboard implied the Virgin Mary and Joseph had just had sex and was inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive to Christians.

'We would see a billboard like that being used by an anti-Christian group to actually poke fun at the divinity of Christ,' Freer told National Radio."

Strictly as an ad man, I consider the billboard in bad taste. A cheap shot, a lazy execution, even though it got a chuckle out of me. Then again, Kiwis - like their Aussie neighbors - have always struck me as having a refreshingly irreverent sense of humor. Be that as it may, while the offending billboard certainly has generated attention and interest, I'm unsure if it was the kind the church was aiming for. Judging by the response thus far, instead of thought it seems to have provoked anger instead. Way to lose your target audience, Saatchi.

But what do you call throwing brown paint over an image of the BVM, then?

Mmm I wonder if these guys ever surfed LOLJesus. They only have 30 piddling entries in their Hate Mail section as of presstime. Whatever stripe of Christian you are, you just gotta love their tagline: Dedicated to Damnation. That's as truthful a disclaimer as there ever was.

However, if you value your eternal soul, maybe you better not click on that link. Just stick with seancody or xtube or chat away on mIRC. These fine alternative sites are supposed to roast you in hellfire forever and ever the same way, anyhow - but with less LOLs and more tiKOLs.

In the meantime, I look forward to your knee-jerk reactions the same way I am looking forward to my family Christmas reunion tomorrow. Because if ever there is a hell, that annual event comes closest to it.