Exuberant Haydn: Symphony No. 87 of the "Paris Symphonies" (82-87)

Unfortunately over-enthusiastic youtubers' lack of knowledge prevents
some from providing us with important details like dates of performances
and names of orchestras. In this case, all we know about the above
performance is that the conductor is the Dutch Hubert Soudant.

One other interesting item (unexplained by the above youtube poster) is the
"Hoboken 1/87" reference. Anthony Hoboken a Dutch collector and musicologist:

is best known for his J. Haydn, Thematisch-bibliographisches Werkverzeichnis (published 1957), or Hoboken-Verzeichnis, a catalogue of the compositions of Joseph Haydn. Haydn's works are often referred to by their "Hoboken number" (usually abbreviated to "Hob" or just "H"), taken from this catalogue.

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In these strange days of interminable cold days, and promises (at least here in Toronto) of even worse snow storms for February, there is always music. Here is one of Haydn's symphonies from the "Paris" collection (No. 82-87).

The one above is no. 87, the sixth and last. It interesting that the first and last movements are a lively Vivace, which add to the light and cheerful overall tone of the symphony, portraying a glittering and confident Paris. The Adagio has lovely, open and fresh French horns, and the unlikely combinations of flutes and oboes. Bassoons gently fill in the melodies. Although slower, this second movement still has a joyful, optimistic air, aided by the major key. The Minuet is sprightlier (and livelier) still.

One thing I've always loved about watching (and listening) to orchestras is the movements of the musicians, and of course the conductor. There is always a ballet going on as musicians position their bows and bodies ready to strike a note, and some moving (movingly) to the music. The first violinist is especially exuberant in the above video - but, he is also partly the leader, and has to set the tone for the rest of the orchestra.

The conductor's movements are as important as his "metronome", and Soudant's especially inspired movements help the musicians to add vigor and dynamism to the mechanical 2/2, 3/4 and 4/4 beats. We normally can't see this from the audience, but a flurry of hands seen from behind transmit that energy to us.

Variations on Chantilly

Chantilly Perfume and Chantilly Lace

The life of Chantilly perfume is a complicated meander. Here is some background:

Chantilly, created by perfumer Marcel Billot, was introduced by [the House of] Houbigant in 1941 as an up-market fragrance. Over the years, as Houbignat fought to remain solvent, Chantilly made its way down market and today, marketed by the "new" Dana company, is most likely to be found in drug stores.

Chantilly was licensed to the Dana Perfume Corporation some time between 1994 and 1996. In a 2003 lawsuit, Houbigant (Houbigant, Inc. and Establissement Houbigant) accused Dana (the "old" Dana) of selling a watered-down version of Chantilly and of allowing the formula to be given to unlicensed producers. Dana, at this point, was bankrupt and Houbigant brought the suit against Dana's insurers, Federal Insurance and Fireman's Fund. Eventually settlements were reached.

The perfumer-creator of Chantilly, Marcel Billot, founded the French Society of Perfumers in 1943 and became its first president.

Here were some of Houbigant's patrons:

Clients included Queen Marie-Antoinette of France; two French emperors; Princess Adélaïde d'Orléans (1829); Princess Dagmar of Denmark, wife of emperor Alexander III of Russia (1890); Madame Du Barry, mistress of King Louis XV of France; and Queen Victoria of England.

Quite some company Chantilly kept - Marie Antoinette, Madame du Barry, and even the staid Queen Victoria. Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where Houbigant launched his store, is as stylish as the name implies.

Houbigant has a history of his own:

Jean-François Houbigant (1752-1807) launched his perfume business at 19, Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, in 1775. Houbigant was twenty three years old at the time and — so it is said — arrived at the location of his new business with a basket of flowers. The Basket of Flowers became the sign over his shop and, for many years, the address given at the top of his invoices.

Enrolled in the appropriate guild — the Perfumers and Glovemakers — Houbigant was permitted, under law, "to make and sell all kinds of scents, powders, pomades, pastes to whiten and clense the skin, soaps, toilet-waters, gloves, mittens and skin material."

An 1801 Houbigant handbill advertised that:

At the Sign of the Basket of Flowers,

Grande-Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré

Houbigant

Merchant - Perfumer

Manufactures and Sells Gloves, Powders, Pomades and Perfumes also the genuine vegetable Rouge which he has perfected to the highest degree. He makes and supplies Corbeilles de mariage et Baptêmes with every requisite.

Chantilly is sold in drug stores now, and at an incredibly reduced price ( around $20), like that other classic Elizabeth Arden's 5th Avenue, but that doesn't diminish its fragrance. In our contemporary era of slap-dash "celebrity" scents, Chantilly is a breath of fresh air (and sophistication). One of these days, it will come out of hiding from its corner in the drug store, and sit where it belongs.

A longtime Chantilly user (Kiku) compares two variations of Chantilly at Fragrantica, an online perfume forum:

My favorite. I've worn Chantilly for 45 years and although I love to try new fragrances this is the one I always come back to.

The original Chantilly was a true oriental: warm, sweet, thick, and spicy. The opening was an explosion of oranges. The heart was more oranges with sweet Middle Eastern spices. The drydown was a soft powdery vanilla and sandalwood mix.

Today's Chantilly is a reformulation. The original notes are still there but much softer and lighter. Much cooler too thanks to a heavy addition of cedar(a note that I love, I don't think it's used enough in women's fragrances) in the drydown. I'm not sure Chantilly is still an oriental. With that predominant coolness it now has it is more of a chypre/chypre floral. It is reminiscent of Aphrodisia, Crepe de Chine, or L'Air du Temps. Despite the changes I still consider it the most wonderful of all perfumes, the always and forever star of my perfume wardrobe.

The drug store version starts off with a light lemony whiff, then finishes of with powdery florals, so I'm assuming it is the latest "chypre/chypre floral" as the commentator above describes.

The perfume bottle has also gone through quite an evolution, although I prefer the latest version.

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- Chantilly Lace
- Chantilly Cream
- Chantilly, France
- Chantilly Lace (song)

Mozart's Birthday, and a Mysterious Grand Piano

Yesterday, I posted on a grand piano which appeared mysteriously on a beach in Miami, although the mystery has now been solved.

And today is Mozart's birthday.

I've posted above Mozart's Piano Sonata in A Major (K331); Menuetto from my Camera Musica Youtube channel.

A Grand Piano on a Strip of Sand

No-one could at first explain how the grand piano (pictured above) appeared on a sandbar in a Miami bay on this New Year's Eve. The image is so Felliniesque. Later on, this mystery (unfortunately, a mystery can be a good thing sometimes) was solved. It was simply a couple of teenagers who thought to display it as some kind of art piece. I think their idea did succeed somewhat, at least conjuring images of Fellini films for me. There was also some fire (and burning) involved, but I won't go into speculations about the symbolism of all that - this article does so quite well.

And the Ship Sails On is a Fellini film where the ship's passengers have come together in memory of a deceased opera singer. Many are artists and musicians, and present their eulogies in their respective art disciplines. The beautiful and the absurd are often juxtaposed in the film, as in this scene in the ships boiler room, where I wrote:

The ship's upper class, mostly musicians and artists, decide to go down to the netherworlds of the boiler room. One of the laborers asks them to sing. This sets off a rivalry between the singers - like some kind of operatic duel. But, still in this moment of aggression and competition, the beautiful music shines through, and the laborers below cheer with appreciation.

Part of the intrigue of the above image is that a grand piano - associated with great art - sits by the ocean on a thin insignificant strip of empty beach. The grand and the mundane joined together, like in Fellini's successful films, provide for imaginative journeys. The surrealists, after all, thought that one way to make art was to deliberately place unlikely imagery together, releasing the audiences imagination to come up with new explanations and perceptions. Dali was the master of that. His grand piano piece in Un Chien Andalou involved dead donkeys.

"Yes Sir, That's My Baby"

A Thousand Renditions
Orignal sheet music cover for
"Yes Sir, That's My Baby", by Sidney Leff

Yes Sir, That's My Baby

Lyrics: Gus Kahn
Music: Walter Donaldson

Yes sir, that's my baby
No sir, I don't mean maybe
Yes sir, that's my baby now

Yes, ma'm, we've decided
No ma'm, we ain't gonna hide it
Yes, ma'm, you're invited now

By the way, by the way
When we walk up to the preacher I'll say

Yes sir, that's my baby
No sir, I don't mean maybe
Yes sir, that's my baby now

By the way, by the way
When we run into the preacher I'll say

I'll say yes sir, that's my baby
No sir, I don't mean maybe
Yes sir, that's my baby now
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A few days ago, I posted a video from my music and film archives where the two (now fairly unknown) actors, Jason Robards and and a young Barry Gordon, sang "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" - Gordon playing the ukulele with great flourish - from the 1965 movie A Thousand Clowns. The song is an old one, composed in 1925 by Walter Donaldson, with lyrics by Gus Khan. I looked up other versions to this song, since a good melody is here to stay. And it's surprising that such simple (circular) lyrics found their way to so many singers. Here's some of what I found:

- Pianola roll - 1920s
- Ace Brigode, band leader in the 1925, made it a hit
- Gene Austin in 1925
- Bennie Krueger (with the saxophone), 1925
- Eddie Cantor, 1930
- Charleston version
- The Sensations, 1955
- Ricky Nelson, rockabilly in 1960
- Frank Sinatra sings it in in his inimitable style in 1966. He also sang it with his daughter Nancy
- Unlikely Frank Sinatra fan (home video)
- Another lounge singer (Buddy Greco in Las Vegas)
- Date with Soul, 1960s - why so slow?
- Ruth Brown, 1969
- The Wiyos...?  "vaudevillian ragtime-jugband-blues and hillbilly swing" , 2007
- Marimba band
- Dixie
- Polka featuring the ...accordion
- Aka: Kuess mich Schnucki-Putzi in German
- Swedish wedding band
- Four [English] Blokes Singing American Barbershop Quartet style with full-on American accent. (Better stop listening halfway!)
- These barbershop quartet kids are much better, but the recording isn't that good
- Jenison Male Chorus
- Curtain Call, mall girls quartet (with mall fashion sense) - good, notwithstanding first visual impression
- Seattle Jazz Singers
- Cecil Young Quartet , 1952 (Progressive Jazz)
- Ukulele amateur (amateur in the original sense - "lover of"), with a...kazoo? - very good (voice too)
- Baritone ukulele - who knew?
- Baritone Banjolee
- Babies!
- Ringo the Racoon (The baby is in the eyes of the beholder.)

- Here is more from a list on Wikipedia

Murray and Nick singing "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" in
A Thousand Clowns

A Thousand Clowns - Film and Songs

Looking through my film and music archive, I found the 1965 film A Thousand Clowns.
Murray and Nick sing "Yes, sir, that's my baby" in "A Thousand Clowns"
"Yes, sir, that's my baby" (1925), music by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by Gus Kahn

I tried to find out more about the actors.

- Barry Gordon, who plays the young boy Nick, went into politics, ran for Congress as a Democrat, then went on to teach political science. I wonder why he stopped acting? Perhaps he was just too young when he started. I though he was pretty good, and funny.

- Jason Robards, who plays Nick's uncle Murray, continued acting in secondary roles until his death in 2000. I thought he was better than a "supporting actor" but Hollywood can be fickle. But, he had a long career including stage acting.

- Barbara Harris, the social worker who comes to take Nick away from his wayward uncle, also has had a long acting career, in theater, Broadway, film and television. But, she never became famous, although she has acted in many well-known films.

- Martin Balsam is probably the most famous actor of the group, though hardly a blockbuster star.

But, this enchanting little film was probably the bright star in their acting lives. All the actors are unique and "quirky" as the Wikipedia profile describes Barbara Harris. Maybe they were a little too quirky for Hollywood.

Here are the awards the film won:

- Martin Balsam won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
- Jason Robards was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actor - Musical/Comedy
- Barbra Harris was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress - Musical/Comedy
- Herb Gardner won the 1965 WGA Award for Best Written American Comedy.
- Ralph Rosenblum was nominated for the American Cinema Editors 1966 "Golden Eddie" award for film editing.
- The film was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Music (Scoring of Music, Adaptation, or Treatment), and Best Writing (Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium) at the Oscars

The film's title A Thousand Clowns is also the title of the theme song.

A Thousand Clowns Lyrics by Judy Holliday

A thousand clowns I'll bring you
Just to make you laugh
A blue baboon
And a red raccoon
A lavender giraffe

A thousand stars I'll string you
To weave into a crown
And pale perfume
From a rose's bloom
And a peacock-feather coat

A thousand songs I'll sing you
To help you with your dreams
Of rainbow's ends
And loving friends
And sparkling silver streams

A thousand years I'll love you
Our love will never die
And when a thousand years from now
They're looking at the sky

They'll see two stars together
As close as they could be
One star will be you my love
The other will be me

I've reposted my original post below, including a video of Nick and Murray singing "Yes Sir, That's My Baby."
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A Thousand Clowns
A whacky film from NYC
Camera Lucida
March 01, 2009

Murray and Nick sing "Yes, sir, that's my baby" to the social worker
"Yes, sir, that's my baby" (1925), music by Walter Donaldson, lyrics by Gus Kahn

I've always thought that there is something about black and white film that somehow makes for beautiful imagery. I think it is the glittering contrast of the light and dark, the shimmering grays, the lines (like a black and white drawing) which allows us to focus on the images than when the film is so cluttered with color.

Anyway, this funny, at times sad, film A thousand clowns made in 1965 is about the maturation of a middle-aged man who has to follow conventions in order to keep his twelve-year-old nephew with him, and not have him whisked away by do-gooders from the child welfare agency.

The film was also a lovely opportunity to see the sights of the city: the rivers and harbors, Central Park, Lincoln Center (as it was being built!), Brooklyn Bridge, brownstone buildings and the solid, stately apartment buildings whose beautiful architecture always surprises me.

There was a scene where Murray (the eccentric uncle) was sitting by the glittering river, head in hand, gulls flying around him, when he had to decide that his behavior had to change in order to keep his beloved nephew Nick. There was no sound, but the flurry of gulls' wings around him, which reflected his state of mind. The director filmed it just slightly slow-motion giving a touch of heaviness to the scene (imagine gulls taking off in "slightly slow-motion"), indicating once again Murray's burdened mind. There were many editing and filmic devices such as this that the director used to make similar symbolic or metaphoric statements.

For all his clowning around, Murray (Jason Robards) has a great voice, a little of which you can listen to in the above YouTube, where he sings the film's signature "Yes, Sir, that's my baby".

Michelle Ma Belle - Revisited

Michelle Obama at the State Dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao

[Cross-posted at Our Changing Landscape]

I had vowed not to do anymore fashion pieces on Michelle Obama. But this takes the cake. The dress she wore to the State Dinner for China's President Hu Jintao looks like some kind of modern tied-dye African costume, clumsily cut as though somewhat was "cut happy" with the scissors, and with parts which look like they were assembled together with safety pins. There is that odd asymmetrical, off-the-shoulder look that Obama seems to like so much. And she's holding some kind of miniature shawl (scroll down to the second image) which has no relation, either in design or in proportion, to the rest of the dress. Bloggers (and Drudge) are calling this her tribute to "China Red", but I don't see that, especially with all the black "tie-dye" criss-crossing pattern.

It always surprises me when Obama comes out with her dresses. I can find no way to relate to them, and their strangeness strikes me each time. Perhaps this really is her, unique, sense of dress. But, I will go further, as I have before, that she has nowhere to pull from that will give her good judgment on her choices. She might be the most visual (yet thoroughly ignored) manifestation of the Obama government. A government which bows down, literally, to foreign leaders, channeling something that is not at all an American tradition. In fact, it is so strangely alien, that it could be why people (journalists, bloggers) are stunned into silence by this behavior.

Just like Michelle's odd, culturally unrecognizable, dresses.

The dress was designed by Alexander McQueen's replacement, and long-time design partner, Sarah Burton. McQueen, a flamboyant homosexual, committed suicide in 2010. Burton designs these amorphous gowns with unrecognizable patterns It looks like she takes some rough shape and simply replicates it through mirroring and repeats

Burton was recently featured in January 2011's Vogue (US). The image below is a spread in the magazine. At first glance, the gowns looks impressive, dramatic even. But, fashion magazine buyers (like me, at least) look at details from shoes to buttons. Add to that my experience with textile design, and all I could say was 'This is fluff."


Look at this dress (it easier to work with) from the Paris Fashion Week (via the Los Angeles Times):


There is no discernible pattern, other than dramatic strokes (which look like flames, or a giant flower, but we're still not clear what it is). And I've added a red line in the middle where the image has clearly been mirrored on to the other side.

Such design techniques are rudimentary and basic. This is one of the first things I did when I started my studies. Just quickly draw rough brush strokes, and mirror-copy them with the "mirror" angled at ninety, forty-five, etc. degrees.

Burton also seems to channel some kind of ethnic or multicultural sources. Here is a fashion blog Styling Delux who has posted some of Burton's designs. Two of them look like kimono-type gowns, and there is the dress Michelle wore which looks like an elaborate African-style gown. But, even African fashion is more sophisticated than that.

Burns is British. I seem to want to associate her with that British faux-artiste Damien Hirst, and his famous Butterfly Series, which he did with real live (dead) butterflies, which he also elaborated using mirror-imaging techniques. Burns also has a butterfly dress, replete with 3-D butterflies, which I hope are not real.

Belly Dance Aficionadas

In my article I posted on Yale University professor/memoir writer Chinese-American Amy Chua, A Sino-Draconian-mission, I linked to my (unpublished) article on belly dancing.

I have been writing quite a bit recently on the "frivolous" arts like fashion, and perhaps the belly dance article shows how we go from ballet to belly dance in the minds of many "belly dance aficionadas".

I wrote the article in 2005, after about two years of diligent belly dance instructions, first as a form of exercise, then as a way to perfect a dance form. Yes, I would have liked the sequined costume that I about write below, but the reason I quit cold is because I realized the limited art in the field. The hype (sequins) was much bigger than the content.
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The Underbelly of Belly Dance
There is a curious phenomenon that has been going on in North America and Europe for the past few decades. Thousands of women are "shamelessly displaying their femininity" through a Middle Eastern dance form more dubiously known as belly dance.

The "Finding your Femininity through Belly Dance" hype is actually the last vestiges of the so-called female liberation’s movement. Belly dance is advertised to Western women to release their apparent inhibitions regarding their bodies. The undulations, body waves, hip circles and other abdomen-centric movements appear to glorify the unique feminine body. If you are not embarrassed at moving in these overtly erotic ways ( there is no other word to describe the movements in belly dance but as erotic), then you have come a long way, seems to be the message.

Many belly dance aficionados have tried to historically disassociate the dance from its erotic nature. An ancient Egyptian woman called the Almeh, who was well versed in poetry, music dance and other intellectual stimuli, is portrayed as having been the sophisticated cultivator of the dance. Yet, this description fits perfectly with the modern Japanese Geisha, who is a sexualized entertainer of men despite her erudition and education. The prestigious Almeh no longer exists in modern Egypt, if she ever really existed before.

The belly dance craze in North America started gaining momentum in the seventies and has been growing steadily since. Recently, belly dance schools have tapped onto the extraordinary success of the fitness movements. Gyms started giving belly dance classes along side aerobics. Even yoga centers brought in their belly dance teachers. Still, most women attend classes in belly dance schools at many convenient (and sometimes quite inconvenient) locations. Finally, the convergence into popular culture was sealed when overt eroticism became a daily routine on TV and in the movies. Belly dancing became something to do.

The majority of women say they started belly dancing to make themselves feel better. They’re searching for some kind of uninhibited narcissism – a feel good about their body - while doing all these undulations and shimmies. Their ultimate proclamation is "we don’t need men to make ourselves feel better" slogan that came out of the feminist movement. Yet quite contrary to this much advertised slogan, it is the poor men who become subjugated to the girl-power type of behavior (exhibited by grandmothers and granddaughters alike) and who end up supporting the dancers.

There is also the unexpected (or probably quite expected) competition. The urge to be a belly dancer can be a cut-throat experience. Gilded in clenched smiles and girlish voices, what everyone really wants is to stand center stage in full sequined costume. As with every activity which does not quite reach the level of art, the acrobatics and costumes in belly dance act as substitutes for artistic sublimities. Belly dancing styles become a contortionist’s feat of moving as many parts of the stomach muscles as possible. In fact, its initiation into North America was at Chicago's "World's Columbian Exposition" in 1893, which introduced to the American public the "dancing girls of the Middle East", whose huge popularity was mainly as a circus act, along with the hoochy koochy label.

Many North American professional belly dancers guard closely that they hail from the much more artistic and cultivated discipline of ballet. They started dancing very young, as is required of ballet, and were rejected an entrance into this elite art form. Belly dancing offered them a chance to script their own standards, where the rigorous ballet judges cannot criticize them – what do they know about belly dance anyway?

The overriding promise of belly dance is that "you will feel better about all the failures that have derailed your life no matter what they are" is really a message about masks and camouflage. The real issues are not addressed and resolved. What better way to forget the past than to immerse oneself in something so foreign that all those forgone defeats can be forgotten. Ironically, far from giving them the self-worth they crave, it puts them in an ambiguous relationship with the dance. Even in Middle Eastern circles, where belly dancers are hired for weddings and other festivities, it is still a dance that is frowned upon. Dancers are forever trying to find euphemisms for belly dance, emphasizing its folk nature, or its erudite beginnings, or as a dance for pregnant women. Unlike ballet, a belly dancer can never proudly and publicly proclaim her profession.

Reference:
- Donna Carlton. Looking for Little Egypt. Bloomington, Ind. : IDD Books, 1994

Country Strong?

Gwyneth Paltrow is the left's new favorite actress, like Meryl Streep was for a while. Both their acting involves quite a bit of indulgence in "self-expression". And Paltrow has perfected that in her new movie Country Strong, where she plays an alcoholic country star just out of "rehab" and trying to get back on the big stage.

Hollywood these days is doing a lot of song and dance acts, and Paltrow just won't be left out. Paltrow took on her singing role in Country Strong most likely because it focused on a "serious" topic like alcoholism and suicide, but the musical role must have been attractive.

Paltrow had a voice coach to help her with Country Strong. She does have musical talent, yet she is lazy about it (the way she phrases the melodies is slack and careless). I cannot see her as the bejeweled stars of old Hollywood, who sparkled as they sang, danced and acted.

Classic Hollywood stars have often had (and were trained for) the whole package - look at Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. And for some reason, modern Hollywood is trying to bring that back. But what we get now are stuffy and self-indulgent liberal actresses, who take all the glamor and creativity out of Hollywood, and give us sordid "reality" instead.

Meryl Streep relentlessly uses accents at the expense of acting to form her various roles. From guru cook Julia Childs to the Italian woman in Bridges of Madison County, almost all her roles involve changing her natural speaking voice and impersonating another.

I think all those accents are a substitute for singing - one needs a good ear to figure out and replicate (sing) accents. Streep's biography shows that as a young girl she had regular private operatic instructions from famous voice teacher Estelle Liebling, who also coached Beverly Sills. At thirteen Streep simply quit her voice lessons. It could have been a rebellion against her strict schedule. Such high-level musical coaching is grueling. Or, Streep instinctively felt she wouldn't make it as an opera singer. I think her acting talents are overrated, and she most likely realized that she wasn't as artistic as she was made out (or expected) to be.

Streep says about herself "I was an ugly little kid with a big mouth, an obnoxious show-off". Another source writes: "By high school, shedding her braces and a dark-haired, bespectacled appearance, she willed herself into a dynamic, blond-haired social butterfly, cheer leading and swimming on the Bernards High School squads and ultimately becoming its homecoming queen." Acting provides this outlet for constant attention and adoration.

Streep uses her musical background to reproduce (or recreate) the accents of her characters. These accents act as easy substitutes for the hard work of getting into character. Streep simply has to reproduce (for entire, interminable movies) Julia Childs' voice we're so familiar with from her cooking shows, or provide a strong Italian accent for Francesca in Bridges of Madison County, and we are temporarily fooled. A closer analysis shows that Streep subtly over-plays her roles, as though she is afraid we won't get them unless she exaggerates them for us. Film fits Streep's narcissism to a hilt. She uses her musical talents with her accent tricks, and can be admired and watched by the whole world.

Paltrow and Streep demonstrate what is amiss in the modern Western culture. The newest interpretation of Western ideas has subscribed to liberal ways, where immediate gratification and an underlying narcissism guides many people's decisions. Rather than pursue the rigorous Western excellence, these two actresses catapulted to their base indulgences. Yet, they are not fully to blame. They have been fed the liberal mantra that the (conservative) West is an abusive, elitist, racist, fascist, misogynistic and altogether inhuman enterprise. Hard work, rigorous training, following subscribed (true and tested) directions all collided with individual expression. This usually translates, at least in the arts, to a slack individualism where expertise and study are shunned for personal interpretations. And for Paltrow and Streep, their superficial meandering around various artistic territories is also to hold the bright, but ever-vacillating, attention of their "fans".

A Sino-Draconian Mission

This unflattering portrayal of author Amy Chua
is posted in the the British leftist newspaper the Guardian.
The paper labels the image with a quote from Chua's book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother:
"The solution to substandard performance is always to excoriate, punish and shame the child"
Incriminating imagery of a Western-culture denouncing non-white in a leftist newspaper? Chua is too much even for the Guardian

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[Cross-posted at Our Changing Landscape]

I've noticed (and noted) a strange sinophilism going around these days. It doesn't matter if it is a left-wing or a right-wing commentator, the consensus seems to be that the Chinese (culture, at least) has got it right. One of these manifestations is the white male/Chinese female coupling I see all around me, which I've discussed here. In another post I discuss how Janice Stein, a University of Toronto academic who often appears on news shows as a political expert, excuses China's draconian measures towards its own work force by saying "that's the only way things can get done." Such behavior apparently translates down to family interactions, where Amy Chau, a Yale University law professor discloses her harsh intimidation methods to get her daughters to achieve "perfection" in her memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

I skimmed through a book review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother in the January 2011 issue of Elle Magazine, but lost interest (or more like rolled my eyes), and stopped reading after the introductory paragraph:

A hyperachieving law prof and author from a cosmopolitan Chinese clan lays out a fearsome child-rearing philosophy.

Another Amy Tan type of book glorifying abusive Chinese mothers, I though.

Steve Sailer, from the anti-immigration website Vdare, which purports to eschew Western values, has posted a blog praising Amy Chau, and her draconian mothering and child-rearing techniques.

Sailer quotes from the New York Times review of Chua's memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother:

"In retrospect, these coaching suggestions seem a bit extreme," [Chua] writes in the book after describing how she once threatened to burn her daughter’s stuffed animals if she did not play a piano composition perfectly. "On the other hand, they were highly effective."

In interviews, she comes off as unresolved. "I think I pulled back at the right time," she said. "I do not think there was anything abusive in my house." Yet, she added, "I stand by a lot of my critiques of Western parenting. I think there’s a lot of questions about how you instill true self-esteem."

Sailer adds a one-line comment:

One thing you can say for Ms. Chua is that she’s got guts.

Guts to bully and intimidate her children into becoming classical pianists?

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is getting complementary reviews in many other venues.

- The Wall Street Journal ran an excerpt from Chua's book in early January. And allowed her to rebut the many negative comments she got from readers. Rather than write their own review, the editorial group at WSJ simply left the floor open to Chua. This is not a book review, but an underhanded way of giving a book a "pass".

- The reviewer from Macleans magazine from Canada, a spineless Joan Latmer writes, "I can’t think of a better rehab warden than Chua. The smart money’s on Tiger Mother."

- The Globe and Mail's Margaret Wente goes all out and praises non-white, non-Western parenting techniques which border on child abuse. Here's what she says about Andre Agassi's Iranian father's training techniques:

Mike Agassi, a first-generation immigrant from Iran, taped Ping-Pong paddles to his son’s hands when he was just a toddler. At 6, Andre was practicing four or five hours a day.

Agassi later confessed that he’s always hated tennis "with a dark and secret passion."

Wente writes about Chua:

Instead of false praise, [Chua] believes in high standards and criticism. She once rejected a hastily scrawled birthday card that one of her daughters had made for her. "This is garbage," she said. "You can do better."

The snarky Wente continues:

Cruel? Maybe. But her older daughter, Sophia, has already played at Carnegie Hall. Your children probably haven’t.

Yes, anything to glorify the glorious non-West, and demonize the West, for these leftist Globe and Mail writers.

Chua relaxed her draconian methods and let her younger daughter give up piano for tennis. But, it's not necessarily generosity (or motherly love) that made her cede, but simply that she couldn't squeeze enough talent out of her unobliging daughter. Instead, she seems to have focused her classical-pianist-for-a-daughter needs on the eldest daughter.

But so far, Chua's "prodigy" has only played once at Carnegie Hall, and she's already eighteen. She's placed high in a couple of parochial competitions: second in a piano competition in the Greater Bridgeport Symphony competition for young musicians in 2010, and first at the Music Teachers National Association piano competition in 2006. She is no child prodigy, and might turn out to be a competent pianist, and end up in her mother's alma mater as the next best thing to a performer - a music teacher.

Part of the joy of perfecting something is because one loves it, or is encouraged to love it. Grueling practice sessions, time away from friends and play, and overcoming jittery nerves before performances are then usually worth the effort. I would wager that artists are willing to spend years of financial and social insecurity because they love their craft, and are willing to sacrifice other comforts to express that love. They could not function with a stick waving above their head.

When I was started to study ballet at a young age, I was so scared of my teacher (a Bulgarian communist who would tap my knee with a stick, "your k-nee, Kidist, your k-nee") that I failed miserably and was further humiliated at being removed from a school pageant. Yet later on, while a slightly older girl in the British school system, my teachers commended my grace (I also won a third-place prize at a local, regional competition). Later still, I joined many other dance groups, including a Mexican folk dance group often as a partner to the dance instructor/leader, an American modern dance ensemble where audience members would search for me to give me compliments, and even a belly dance group (I quit that one finding little art in it). I even organized and choreographed small groups for dance performances in college.

I never became a dancer, since I didn't have enough talent, and who knows what other social reasons excluded me from this art (including an emphasis on academics rather than the arts in my family), but I was never that incompetent young girl doing plies at the mercy of a teacher's stick. And many generous teachers instilled in me a love of dance which effaced the memory of the stick, and allowed me to continue to be thrilled by it all my life. I decided to enter an art-related field, and sometimes use music and dance (pattern) analogies to "compose" my work. Relying on that stick would have killed all of that.

Chua's unobliging daughter chose tennis for her second chance at doing something well. It is interesting that the similarity between her choice of music and sport is not that the fields are related, but that they have a psychological connection. Competition seems to be the overriding factor for her in both: to "play" and and to win. Perhaps it was in her nature to be athletically competitive, and piano playing couldn't give her that. But, perhaps her mother's draconian (evil) methods that art is associated with pain, and even hate, simply clinched her decision.

"Youth, Change the World!"

Liberal/Fascist/Elitist Race-baiter Spike Lee

I posted recently on Spike Lee's and his wife's foray into children's books with their newly released Giant Steps to Change the World. "Youth" figure high in liberal and fascists ideology, and Lee is no exception. But Lee, like all black elites, is rife with hypocrisy. Liberal elites, like Lee, don't really want for themselves what they pitch to the masses. Their talk about equality is a blatant lie.

Here is what I wrote about liberal elites at Our Changing Landscape:

[Jim] Kalb writes:

[Facism]'s a nice clear system, and it's got some logic behind it, but it doesn't work very well. It was tried and it lost. For that reason, the liberal solution won out.

That solution is a bit more complicated. It starts by noting that all our purposes are equally purposes, and infers that everybody's purposes equally confer value. Each of us is equally able to make things good or bad just by thinking of them as good or bad. That makes each of us in a sense divine. Our will creates moral reality. Instead of the wonder-working leader of fascism you get the divine me of liberalism. It's every man his own Jesus.

So how do liberal leaders get all these equally stationed demi-gods to follow them? It is still sheer will, I would think, of maintaining a semblance of liberal equality, but working with (and secretly ruling with) brute fascistic superiority, through a lot of lying and deceiving.

My post on Lee's children's books discusses his very white-looking "black" wife, yet all of his career and politics is about the evils done to blacks by whites. The book Giant Steps to Change the World isreviewed by its (liberal) publisher as "an inspirational picture book about activism and taking the big steps to set things right." Setting things right really means getting back at whites who've oppressed blacks for so long. And Lee starts the indoctrination of his brigade at pre-school age.

Lee doesn't seem to have done too badly under white oppression, racking in millions from his white oppressors for books (and films) like this, and marrying what really is his (and blacks') epitome of success - a white woman (or the less painfully hypocritical substitute, a white-looking black woman).

From my previous post on Spike Lee:

[J]ust like Hitler's youth brigade, "youth" is a recurring and important category that liberals love to use, as though they are benign, protective adults. Instead, what they are doing is systematically, through schools and various media including children's books, building their army of fascist children, who are trained to be foaming at the mouth, and to destroy then rebuild society according to the gospel of their liberal/fascist parents.

Blues at The Cotton Club

[Below is a Youtube recording of Diane Lane
singing "Am I Blue" in the movie The Cotton Club]

Diane Lane was in the 1984 hit movie The Cotton Club, about the Harlem jazz club popular in the 1920s and 1930s, which originally excluded blacks unless they were jazz musicians or dancers. Richard Gere co-stars, where he plays the trumpet pretty competently. He also acted (and sang and danced) in another film of the same era - Chicago. It is always surprising to see movie stars who actually have skills other than speaking their lines charismatically. But, that is what old time Hollywood was all about. The stars were performers, and not mere actors. We seem to have forgotten that.

Duke Ellington led the band in the Cotton Club from 1927-1930, and his compositions make up about 80% of the songs in the film.

But with all the glamor also came sordid gambling, mobs, and call girls camouflaged as dancing girls. Gere plays the part of a musician at the club who is also involved with the Harlem mobs during the prohibition era.

Here are some taglines from the movie:

- It was the jazz age. It was an era of elegance and violence. The action was gambling. The stakes were life and death.

- Where crime lords rub elbows with the rich and famous!

- Welcome to The Cotton Club. Where Crime Lords rub elbows with the rich and famous. Where deals are made, lives are traded. And the legends of jazz light up the night.

Diane Lane sings "Am I Blue" accompanied by Richard Gere's trumpet. The song was composed by Henry Ankst, and sang by stars such as Billie Holiday, Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald. Lauren Bacall joins in to sing with the piano player in the 1944 film To have and Have Not, with Humphrey Bogart hovering jealously in the background. Even Cher tries her hand at singing it. And there were many twenties and thirties recordings by singers I haven't heard of. I could go on with the references. Whenever there is a good thing - a good melody, it seems to fit any type of voice, of any era.

Diane Lane does a great job of singing it straight, keeping the emotions (the blues) in the melody rather than in the performance. I prefer hers to blues greats like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald (links are to recordings by the two singers), who embellished it a little too much, and sang it a little too slow.

Below is the Youtube recording of Diane Lane singing the song in The Cotton Club, with Richard Gere's trumpet accompaniment.

Spike Lee's Mantra to the "youth": "Change the World"

Spike Lee with his two-last-named mulatta wife
and the criminal race-baiter Al Sharpton

Just yesterday, I wrote about Helen Mirren's rejection of beauty (and embrace of ugliness):

Once again, Mirren has that "I'm such a nice person" expression, which camouflages a steely, liberal, determination to change the world order.

Spike Lee, the ultimate black liberal/racist, has co-written a children's book with his wife titled, Giant Steps to Change the World [the bold is my emphasis]. Here is a review:

Following the success of their much beloved picture books, Please, Baby, Please and Please, Puppy, Please; Academy Award nominated director Spike Lee, and his talented wife Tonya Lewis Lee offer up an inspirational picture book about activism and taking the big steps to set things right set to beautiful illustrations by the award-winning Sean Qualls. Using examples of people throughout history who have taken "giant steps", this book urges kids to follow in their footsteps and not be hindered by fear or a sense that you are not good enough. Despite the challenges, even the smallest step can change the world. So, what's your next step going to be?

I've noticed, just like Hitler's youth brigade, "youth" is a recurring and important category that liberals love to use, as though they are benign, protective adults. Instead, what they are doing is systematically, through schools and various media including children's books, building their army of fascist children, who are trained to be foaming at the mouth, and to destroy then rebuild society according to the gospel of their liberal/fascist parents.

On another, but very much related note, Lee makes his awful films basically denouncing whites wherever he can and writes children's books about black supremacy, yet he marries the whitest looking mulatta black woman he can find, with green eyes no less. I've looked all over the Internet to see what Lewis's racial background is, even for some indirect reference, like what I found about the actress Kelly MacDonald in No Country for Old Men, but to no avail. The liberal media, which includes most of what is on the Internet, hate to get into the nitty-gritty of race, since they are all about reconstruction of humanity anyway. I would venture to say that Lewis has a parent, or a close ancestor (like a grandparent) who is white.

This begs the question why Lee married an attractive, white-looking woman. What is wrong with the very dark Negro women that comprise the "black race" that Lee so tirelessly and vociferously portrays as sacrosanct examples?

I think the reason why Lee married Lewis is because she looks white, and is more attractive. "White" and "more attractive" are intertwined in the subconscious of his subjective aesthetics, as they are probably objectively true also. Like all liberal elites, he often doesn't want what he's advocating for his lowly black comrades, ready to throw them the crumbs of his failed ideologies. They can be authentic to the cause, he will be authentic to himself.

That is why I call the liberal world order a fascist order. Liberal elites will get what they want, including the cream of the crop, so to speak, and destroy (and rebuild) society according to their whims and desires. And their highest desire for the rest of the world is equality, but clearly not in their own lives. I don't think they are fully aware of this hypocrisy (or to be generous, this fallacy). Or more accurately, they wouldn't consider it hypocritical, with all the lies and deceits they have to go through to combine together all these warring elements.

Lee has named his daughter after black baseball player Satchel Paige. She is his eldest child, and I can deduce that he simply gave her the name he would have given a first-born boy. Immediate fulfillment of whims and desires, leading to hypocrisy, always creeps in unawares in the life of liberals. Lee could have waited for a son, which he eventually did have, to name after the baseball star. But since Lee is guided by a lofty sense of equality - for others, of course, not for him - his reasoning likely is that his daughter won't mind have a masculine name, since after all he's honoring her the way he would his (equally important) son. Yet a first born son continues to be coveted, even by equality trumpeting liberals like Lee, who wishes to magically transform his daughter into a son, at least in name.

Children like his daughter (and son) make up the audience that will be at the receiving end of Lee and his wife's book on "change". They are the future brigade that Lee and his wife (and their liberal entourage) believe (hope) they are creating. But eventually, someone will catch on, and reject it (and him) with fury, and it could well be his daughter who was ceremoniously named after the nickname of a black male athlete.

Down-Sizing Beauty

Here is more of the sexagenarian Helen "I just want want to look young" Mirren. She was at a recent film premier in Palm Springs in the above photo. She's once again in a disheveled peroxide blond/gray hairstyle - if it can be called a style. She is wearing a too-tight, glittery, unflattering satin dress, with an odd pleated attachment just below the knees. Satin is a difficult material to pull off since it can look like cheap, gaudy polyester, or even lewd. The red lipstick, which people incorrectly think goes with everything, looks garish with that metallic purple. She should have opted for a more subdued, even beige, look.

Mirren looks like those Madames in Western brothels. I don't think that is her intention, though. The underlying problem, as with all liberals, is that she's simply not in touch with beauty and its standards, and can be lured into wearing whatever contemporary stylists, who themselves are hostile towards beauty, pull out for her.

Our stars (if they can be called that now) are failing us, with their lack of glamor and simple confidence. Paradoxically, they want to look young, which is perhaps their one last grasp at trying to look good without outright surrender to beauty. Of course, they just come off as elderly (older) women trying to look young. The answer would be for them to embrace their age, as I write here. Sophistication goes a long way towards recovering beauty lost due to youth. It is hard to imagine Elizabeth Taylor (even in her troubled later years), the inimitable Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman, and a myriad of classic Hollywood stars in their fifties and sixties looking like Mirren. Our contemporary age has waged a bitter battle against beauty.

Once again, Mirren has that "I'm such a nice person" expression, which camouflages a steely, liberal, determination to change the world order. Such rejection of beauty (and even prettiness) is not an accident. Anything that speaks of an absolute, like truth or beauty, is shunned. The world is full of relatives for these equal-opportunity style-setters. And that means that beauty has to be down-sized.

But the more these stars (and other individuals who have somehow entered leadership realms) try to reject these hierarchies, the less they are admired by ordinary people, who still need certain hierarchies they can look up to. It is up to those leaders to fulfill their roles with decorum and, paradoxically, with humility.

How a Focus on Culture Might Get at Imperceptible Societal Changes Quicker than Focusing Only on Politics

Politically-oriented magazines like Frontpage Magazine and American Thinker won't accept my "cultural" articles like The Structure of a Perfume: 5th Avenue by Elizabeth Arden, which I posted yesterday, unless I explicitly focus on politics.

I've tried to write purely political pieces since I understand we have an emergency in our hands:

- Muslim numbers in the West are increasing by the day
- Their actions are getting bolder, where they interject, with impunity, their social, legal, cultural and political structures into our Western societies
- Our streets are changing by the minute
- We have Chinese inundating our neighborhoods, arrogantly and loudly proclaiming their presence in their languages
- They are cleverly allowing their women to marry white men (the strange converse is not Chinese men with white women, but I'm seeing more and more of them with dark, black women).
- Chinese/white and Chinese/black will ultimately side against whites, and Western civilization. The reasons are complex, but I've observed this for many years now.
- All other non-white cultural groups will ultimately fight against Western civilization, however much they give a semblance of alliance for now. They realize the risks they're taking, running dry their water source. But they're willing to take the risk.
-Immigration is one of the reasons for this demographic and social change. And even second and third generation non-white immigrants have refused to adapt to the West. They take what they need, pay lip service where necessary, but continue with their determined (often unrecognized, even by them) task of changing the society to fit them.

But, I think the manifestation of these changes creeps into culture and society in imperceptible ways, at least to the layman. I think that such changes precede political articulations and manifestations. That is why I spend so much of my time assessing our culture and society with seemingly frivolous topics like fashion, design, Hollywood films, television, and so on. They show me that standards are being lowered. Hundreds of years of Western culture is being dismantled in the name of equality and multiculturalism. And no-one is immune. Spending thousands of dollars for what one would consider an authentic Christian Dior is really paying designers to play out their destructive fantasies - just look at John Galliano. And finally we have the real thing, Vera Wang, a Chinese-American designer.

Hitler didn't try to change Germany simply with political manipulations. He dug into the German culture, to destroy it. Then Germans became too weak to defend their civilization. We are getting at such a serious juncture in our era with Islam and Muslims specifically, and immigration in general.

The Structure of a Perfume: 5th Avenue by Elizabeth Arden

Left: From My Window At The Shelton, North (1931), By Alfred Stieglizt
(The image is #6 in the linked slide show)
Center: 5th Avenue by Elizabeth Arden
Right: Sarah Jessica Parker in a Halston Heritage gown  in front of
Lincoln Center

5th Avenue's notes are:
Top notes: Lilac, linden blossom, dewy magnolia, mandarin and bergamot
Middle notes: Bulgarian pink violet, ylang-ylang, jasmine, Indian tuberose, peach, carnation and nutmeg
Base notes: Amber, Tibetan musk, sandalwood, iris and vanilla

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Elizabeth Arden's perfume 5th Avenue was outrageously marked down to a mere $12 (Canadian) during the holiday season. Whoever heard of a classic perfume selling for pennies? Nina Ricci's perennially popular L'Air du Temps was also packaged for less than fifty dollars. Part of the problem is that perfume houses are being out-sourced, so to speak, to celebrity fragrances (I hate to call them perfumes). Halle Berry, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and many more, have taken on the lofty position of the arbitrators of our scents. And not with much success, after the initial euphoria (exhibited mostly by adolescent fans).

I've written about the complicated task of choosing scents in my blog post "Chanel's Concoctions." In Chanel's Art Deco era, perfume was associated with high art, not the pop art we have now. Classical musicians and composers, painters and sculptors, all contributed to the "lesser" arts of fashion and home decor. Shalimar's perfume, which was exhibited at the famous Paris International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in 1925, was a small masterpiece combining the senses and the arts (I argue this in "Shalimar: Senses in a Bottle"). Chanel, although not in the exhibition, was part of this Art Deco movement.

The contemporary stars Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears have not only produced mediocre scents, their bottles are also inferior. Britney's foray into bottle design consists of crudely aligned "gemstones" and Jennifer Lopez's bottle looks like Dior's J'Adore knock-off. J'Adore came out in 1999, and Glow was on the market in 2003.

Coty is behind J'Adore's bottle design and Lopez's Glow perfume, so I wasn't so far off in the "associations" I saw between Glow and J'Adore. Shame on Coty, which has a long history of working with perfume bottle giants like Lalique, and creates fragrances for discerning clients! Still, design and art in some respects never lie. What Coty gave Lopez is mediocrity, a mere imitation, perhaps commenting on the product as a whole. Lopez is an aggressive (Latina) celebrity, and Coty may have found it difficult to refuse her patronage.

In my modest survey of current celebrity perfumes and fashion promoters, Sarah Jessica Parker is the winner. And as I've written here about her perfume Lovely, even her bottle design is attractive, true to the memory of the vanguard perfume creators of the past.

Lovely's bottle is gently-rounded, like a water/perfume droplet. The pale pink bottle is complemented with a light gray ribbon around the neck. The only fault I find with Lovely, both in scent and design, is that it doesn't have a the "presence" of Shalimar, or much of a concept other than prettiness.

Sarah Jessica Parker is still quite a step above pop star designers like Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears. She is now the Chief Creative Officer at Halston, a respectable, classic fashion house. Perhaps she will start her own clothing line, following in the footsteps of such untiring creators of the past as Chanel.

5th Avenue, on the other hand, does have a presence. It's bottle delicately conjures the sleek, elongated structures of New York City's sky scrapers. I tried to find a building that might fit its structure, and while looking at turn-of-the-century photographs of New York by Alfred Stieglitz, I came up with the RCA tower posted above.

Even 5th Avenue's scent is a whirlwind of florals; eleven according to the perfume website Fragrantica, which are interspersed in all three of its notes. It is, like the sky scraper, an ambitious idea.


5th Avenue is clearly a reference to Chanel No. 5. The symmetrical, unadorned, modernist bottle from Chanel No. 5 has been elongated into the 5th Avenue flask. The bottle stoppers are also very similar. Chanel named her perfume after the laboratory vial labeled No. 5, which contained the scent that she chose for her perfume.

The five in 5th Avenue is also a systematic way of labeling, this time the long streets in New York City. 5th Avenue is where Arden opened her first store independently. It is also the center of fashion in the fashion center, New York City. It is thus an apt name for a perfume that references a famous fashion predecessor.

Yet despite the restraint in the bottles' adornments, and even names, the scents of both Chanel No. 5 and 5th Avenue are complex and unrestrained. 5th Avenue, on a conservative count, has seventeen ingredients (listed above). The original No. 5 had 31 ingredients.

Although it is a shame that classic perfumes like 5th Avenue have to marked down to such give-away prices, it suits me fine! It is hard to commit to an expensive perfume. And especially these days, marked down classics are one way to discover new (old) fragrances. It is a clever marketing tactic. Classics may wane, but they will never disappear.

Posts on perfumes at Camera Lucida:
- Lovely
- Perfume Experts, Online
- Lalique and Chanel: A Natural Partnership
- Reliving the 1920s through Perfume
- Chanel's Concoctions
- Shalimar: Senses in a Bottle

Music from You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

I've downloaded some of the music (minus the classical and the nightclub music, although I don't by any means put them in the same category as each other) from Woody Allen's latest film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

Here's the list:

- When You Wish Upon A Star - Leon Redbone

- When My Baby Smiles At Me - Tom Sharpsteen and His Orlandos

- My Sin - Tom Sharpsteen and His Orlandos

- I'll See You In My Dreams - Django Reinhardt

- If I had you - Benny Goodman

- Only You (And You Alone) - Tom Sharpsteen and His Orlandos

You can listen to them continuously by downloading them into itunes or realplayer.

When You Wish Upon a Star

When You Wish Upon a Star, as sung by Leon Redbone,
who also sings in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Woody Allen is back. In a modest and sweet way. He's brought his ironic, but profoundly romantic, slant back to his film-making in his latest film You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.

I think true romantics have to be a little ironic and even cynical at heart. The real world is not quite good enough and they have to live on their dosage of sweet romance. Yet, that is what makes the world go round, isn't it? A little bit of fantasy, once in while.

Of course, Allen being the modern romantic that he is, loads us more with the irony than with the romance in his new film. There are many laugh out loud moments, as in the scene when a female character says that she'd rather meet the "stranger" from the tall dark list.

More on the film later. I wonder if Allen is leaving that incestuous relationship of his (replete with newly adopted children) which started with him having an affair with his mistresses' adopted Korean daughter, all in the same roof? His films since his "marriage" to his daughter have been failures. Perhaps his new movie is a result of a clean slate and mind.

One pleasant decision is that Allen refrained from acting in this film, so we are relieved from his incessant pecking around in his irritating voice.

I wrote about Anjelina Jolie's experiments in life, from adopting babies to stealing Brad Pitt from his wife Jennifer Aniston. There were stories that Pitt recently cheated on Jolie. I tend to believe such rumors. Deny, deny is the reaction by adulterers, but many turn out to be true. Jolie's recent film tanked, but I think that has more to do with her lack of talent, combined with her evil life choices, than just her evil life choices distracting her from acting.

And Allen's talent is undeniable. It is good to see him back. And the song he chose for his film is the melodic When You Wish Upon a Star from the Disney animated film Pinocchio. Perhaps Allen is regressing back to some idyllic childhood. But, the sweet song fits the bittersweet irony that permeates throughout the film.

On another note, reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritics have given this film a low average of 46% and 51% receptively. I think it falls in the high 80s. The modern world hates romance, and sweetness. And most likely, irony coupled with romance is just too subtle. It would rather, as I wrote recently, horrifying violence to spark its deadened senses.

Elimination of Beauty

Instyle Magazine's coveted back-page review (link here) of a "celebrity",
has featured Helen Mirren in its New Year issue (January 2011)

Mirren tells us her:
- Red carpet secret
- What she's most afraid of
- Her style icon ...Helena Bonham Carter!

[Click on image to see larger version, and read the
adolescent responses of this 65-year-old actress]

Helen Mirren recently played as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen,
and as Elizabeth I in a TV mini-series, Elizabeth I. Lofty roles for an actress
who wants to star with the gargoylic Bonham Carter, and act in a film by the
violence-obsessed filmmaker Quentine Tarrantino.

This is the kind of wisdom nonchalantly meted out by our reigning, seasoned celebrities.

Helena Bonham-Carter at a recent red carpet event
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ugliness rules. In clothing, in films, in art and even in our "representatives" of beauty. I don't think it is a lack of knowledge about beauty. We've developed standards and often unanimous agreement about what constitutes the beautiful. So I'm not going to into the beauty-hater's argument that beauty is relative; beauty can be objectively measured. What's going on is that people are hating beauty. It is a form of envy. If I cannot be beautiful, then why is she beautiful? It is like wealth, or intelligence, or a sense of entitlement to live anywhere one pleases. Spread the wealth, accept I.Q.ers of 91 into Harvard, let everyone from every corner of the world come into the prosperous West. Or youth. Why cannot I be as young (and attractive) as any fifteen-year-old, at my ripe old age of seventy? Such are the mantra of the equal-opportunity narcissists.

So, in order to fit in with their lowered standards, beauty magazines are (actually they have been, for decades now) publicizing ugliness in their fashion shoots, their models, and even with the "celebrities" and film actors they promote. There was a time when actresses like Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and many more appeared in immaculate clothing, looking ethereally beautiful, at any age. And we admired them.

Now, we get Lindsay Lohan, whose pretty features at twenty have deteriorated into the haggard face of a drunk and drug addict. The fashion literati are so mercilessly attacking this young woman that it cannot be anything else but malice - envy. Let's make this pretty girl into a monster. Unfortunately, Lohan, for lack of guidance and role models, obliges them with the images they can gloat over.

Magazines just love the emaciated and ugly third world-baby-collecting, wife stealing Angelina Jolie (today's crimes of the so-called beautiful film actresses is exponentially higher than anything we've seen before). And the infantile costumes the gaga Gaga showcases gets highest honor and is copied by fashion designers. And Mirren admires this gaga. The list goes on but it is too painful to expand upon.

Our supposed icons and vanguards of beauty, who should be celebrating their femininity and aging gracefully, are as much caught in the traps of ugliness as is our modern, liberal, world. In order to be progressive, these modern, liberal actresses have to embrace what's out there, part of which they themselves have determined. So, they have to succumb to this ugliness in order to look acceptable. At the same time, with their naked, makeup-less faces and lost-innocent looks (they really are lost, but not at all innocent) they are also aspiring to look young. And since youth is no longer beauty, youth has become ugliness. And not because the youth necessarily want it this way, but because their role models have said it is so.

Hence, the disheveled, badly colored (yet I think this is deliberate, she is obviously "proud" to be gray, but also wants the look of a peroxide blond) hair of actress Helen Mirren who is the focus of the popular fashion magazine Instyle this new year.

We have come a long way!

Helen Mirren in forty years of photos. From the "English Rose"
of the 1970s to the disheveled senior citizen in 2011.

Notice also the "nice" expression that Mirren holds in her 65-year-old pose, in 2011, as she gazes into the camera.

"I just want to look young and pretty."

What went wrong?