Ranting Details

Mini SYTYCD Recap

I mentioned this in my recap last week, but since I've gotten some emails about it, I figured I would remind people that there will be no SYTYCD recap this week.  Because of the nature of my recap, it requires me to have a way to tape the show (whether DVR or VCR) and I didn't have that this week as I am in Seattle.  Not to worry, things will be back to normal next week for the finale. 

But since I can't resist....here are a few thoughts on last night's show: 

1) Tyce Diorio choreographed a decent routine for my reunited golden couple (Katee and Joshua) that didn't include running around the stage or jazz hands!! 

2) Mary decided to wear a disco ball inspired glitter top this week (AGAIN), but Joshua was able to capture the same shimmery effect with only sweat. 

3) The jidges were offering so much praise (really there was hardly any critique) that they failed to mention Courtney appeared to have replaced her feet with 2x4s during the samba. 

4) Mary stood up too many times to count.  It's possible she has hemorrhoids. 

5) Cat Deeley wore a grill last night on the show.  Would it have been too much to ask her to do a performance of "Hot in Herrre"?

6) Mark and Courtney got a great Sonya jazz combination, but I'm never a fan of sitting on the floor, lifting your leg to your shoulder and then headbanging.  I tried it last week at the Ani Difranco concert, and it's more like a raccoon mating call than dance.  However, the mating call could be enough to put one if not both of them in the top 4. 

7) Katee and Joshua got an amazing Paso Doble, even though the lighting almost gave me a seizure.  He's the one I'm rooting for to take the whole thing.  Although, since Nigel managed to pimp his excellence repeatedly last night, he could be in danger.   As for the dance, must the man always drag his partner to the corner afterwards like a piece of meat? 

8) Beatrix and Geronimo delivered a clever, well-executed routine once again last night.  Sure, it wasn't their best, but you can't really go wrong when using an string orchestra version of Janet Jackson's "Control."  I'm just surprised Mandy Moore didn't snatch it up first.  It was 80s fabulous.  And who doesn't love an interview package that allows Twitch to say things like "Put your hands on my baton"?

9) Mark almost gets my vote for entering the top 4 purely for the reason that he chose Robyn as the music for his solo.  Seriously, put us in a boxing ring with trendy music and let us make out have a hair battle!

10) Adam Shankman revealed that he, Tyce Diorio, and Paula Abdul have all been friends since 1990.  He just handed Fox reality TV gold on a platter.  Can we have a "The Girls Next Door," type of show where they move into a house together?  Actually, better yet, why don't the three of them just replace the girls on "The Girls Next Door," next season.  Tyce, Paula, and Adam would make perfect girlfriends for Hugh Hefner.   Who doesn't want to see a Playboy centerfold of the three of them?!

Choices

No matter what project I’m working on, I always have a love/hate relationship with the editing process.  An art unto itself, the act of sitting down and refining a piece of writing, a movement phrase, or cutting photos, takes a keen eye, one able to discern between the smallest differences of detail. 

Over the last few days I endured one of the most numbing experiences of editing in my short relationship with photography.  Almost 1000 photographs dwindled to several hundred, as I combed through pictures I took while photographing the tap dancer Katherine Kramer’s new show. 

My computer screen flooded with limbs jutting out at all angles – light pouring down on them and revealing crevices of muscle, or curls of hair that changed from frame to frame.  The problem when editing photos is that, in most frames, I find something I am attracted to.  There’s a sense of wonder (and self-indulgence) that comes into play when I look at anything I create; it’s an overprotective side that I’m attempting to wean myself away from. 

Since I have a dance background, my first priority is deciding whether or not the performer has achieved the proper line in the photos I’ve captured.  But then the artist in me creeps in, finding beauty in a missed moment where the leg isn’t fully extended, or a face that looks as if it is hooked with a fishing line.  This is the difficulty of photographing movement: it moves so damn much.  Usually, when one person is in pristine form, another lingers to the side of them, looking as if they have been hit by an invisible car. 

I scanned through my collection of photos, pressing the downward cursor and creeping through as images created a choppy flip book.  Occasionally I would get stuck.  What looks better?  A?  Or B?  Suddenly I was in an eye exam, with the lens flipping back and forth, creating an almost indecipherable blur.  One lapse in judgment, and I could end up with the wrong prescription. 

Through the editing process, I find that I must have faith that in letting go of things I love, in an effort to make the final product more powerful.  The more I refine the photos I send to someone to look over, the stronger the impact will be.  But letting go of a frame, or a sentence that I labored over for hours (or days sometimes when revising articles for magazines) can have the immediate feeling of frustration. 

Of course, with writing I often have the help/burden of working with an editor on pieces.  I send it in.  They send it back.  I send it in.  They send it back.  And so on, until the piece is ready for publication. 

This type of interaction with another person when developing work brings about a variety of problems of its own.  Whereas I zone into a mindset when photographing, hopefully getting to an impulsive point where my finger triggers the button in a perfectly timed reaction to movement, with a piece of writing I often have to remove myself from the process for weeks at a time.

There is no doubt that stepping away from a piece of writing has endless benefits in terms of spotting holes in the information, or glaring errors, but when juggling different types of assignments I find it hard to get myself back into a particular “voice.”  Additionally, when I have to add or remove information, it often disrupts the flow I established in a first draft.  Despite my frustration, most of the time things end up for the better (thanks in no small part to editors), but there’s always a moment of frustration where I can’t find the right words to connect from one thought to the next. 

Part of what I love so much about writing is being in control of how the puzzle pieces are presented to the reader, but sometimes when I can’t figure out what the picture is going to be, I feel like jamming the pieces into the wrong positions.  Hopefully as I develop with my writing and photography I will be able to edit more confidently, but I doubt it will ever cease to be the hardest part. 

Kind Of Crazy

I have to admit that I got a bit excited when I walked into a Barnes & Noble in downtown Seattle and saw two magazines that I write for sitting by each other on the shelf!  This month's issue of Dance Spirit (slightly hidden) contains a little page I put together about NYC tips.  Then there is  movmnt, another magazine that I write for, and also edit.  I'm particularly proud of my article "Pan Out," which helped me step out of my comfort zone.  Check out the new issues when you get a chance!

You Know You're In Montana When...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...Montana never ceases to amaze me.  Each time I return, I am dropped into a landscape that, after the cement of Manhattan, seems like a delicacy no one could possibly be so fortunate to experience.  Sure, I've lived here on and off since I was six, but it still takes my breath away. 

Nick and I had a chance to experience some of Montana's beauty on our road trip from Helena to Missoula last week.  Lucky for me, I not only got shots of the beautiful scenery, but some of the ridiculous signs that are posted along the highway.  It's a bit like tatooing a gorgeous body, but perhaps we would have been on landscape overload if not for the occasional billboard.  I truly believe these were put on this planet JUST to grace my "You Know You're In Montana" series. 

(Sure, having Nick in the car was nice, but no road trip is complete without some junk food.)

(Then again, no road trip is complete without the temptation of a luxurious hotel!  PHONES!  CABLE TV!  AND AIR CONDITIONING!!! AND NORMAN BATES (surprisingly absent from the advertisement).)

(I love writing, dancing, and photography, but...)

(A lonely tree.)

(The Montana equivalent of a jungle gym.)

(The Montana equivalent of humor: "World Famous Bullshippers.")

("Ranting Details" headquarters. Please call my secretary, Ted Kaczynski, to make an appointment.)

(I hope to move into a larger space, but I don't want to dream too big.)

(We almost stopped, but then I realized it was a different kind of Testicle Festival than the one on 8th Avenue in Chelsea.  My bad.)

(Any home can be a log home, huh?  But can any apartment be a log apartment?  THEN I'll be impressed.)

(But I guess this was impressive enough to satisfy me for the afternoon.)

 

Baby Blogger

A quick diversion during the summer weekend.  What I want to know is: what did he say that made me do it?

Mush Mosh

I’m usually the awkward guy standing in the center of the crowd at a concert.  The one who, despite his best effort, can’t seem to achieve the casual, yet engaged, head bob.  The one standing right in front of you, who might catch your group of friends’ attention, only for you to notice I’m gawking at another person in front of me.  After all, between music, beer, standing for long periods of time, and more beer, concerts have a way of morphing upstanding citizens into Class A specimens for sober people watchers, like myself.   

What I thought was a prime seat in the second row at a recent Ani Difranco concert, turned into a fifteenth row standing room location – prime mosh pit watching territory.  Right in front of me was contact improv replica of the Montana landscape: a rolling mountain of lesbians with Ani Difranco starring as the sun, just peeking over the horizon. 

The weight shifts that are a benchmark of contact improv were there, possibly induced by the prop they had brought to their jam session: a flask.  During the course of the opening band, a children’s group excelling at “Bio Mimicry,” (a fancy name for making animal sounds, like in “Old McDonald”) the ladies passed around their silver flask, taking swigs and then contorting their faces, as the burn of alcohol traveled down their chests.  By the time Difranco took the stage, the group had expanded to ten ladies.  Excuse me…ten drunk ladies. 

It became obvious they wanted the crowd to know that their dedication to Difranco surpassed anyone around them.  As she took the stage, to shattering cheers from the sold-out crowd, the ringleader, a tall blonde with heavy eyes, made it her sole purpose to flag down Ani and make contact with her.  Difranco seemed to look anywhere but. 

While most were enjoying the delight of rapid paced guitar strumming, the ringleader lifted her arm adorned with hemp bracelets and started waving.  Back.  And Forth.  Back.  And Forth.  Only to stop momentarily as the communal flask made its rounds.  The burn hit her chest, and there was only one remedy: kissing as many girls around her as possible. 

Any head bobbing I had in me ceased, as the stultifying behavior a few feet away detracted from my experience of the music.  Just over their heads I could see Difranco, an amalgam of different musical and movement styles, partnering her guitar with a delicate forcefulness.  It was a reminder of the concert that could have been.

She glided back and forth from the microphone, as drums pounded, urging the crowd of ladies to accelerate their movements.  And despite the tone of the song, they did just that.  One thrashed her head, as she lifted a lighter to the roof, during the most somber of numbers about an ex-lover.  Another took a literal approach during one of Difranco’s signature numbers, “Both Hands,” by using both hands to crush her beer can overhead and hurl it to the ground. 

For a group that wanted to prove how connected they were to the performer, they seemed as far away from the performance as possible.  Subsequently, so was I.   There was the movement on stage, Difranco’s fingers blazing on the guitar, mouth spitting out lyrics in a race with her fingers.  There was the mountain of ladies, matted hair and buzz cuts mingling as tongues locked together.  And then me, bobbing my head, not because of the music, but out of sheer dizziness caused by the proceedings.  Maybe you saw me.  I was the surprisingly normal guy in the center of the crowd. 

Faces

Started a Flickr slideshow of a new series of photographs, "Faces."  Check it out! 

Picture of the Day: 07/24/08

(Backyard.  Slightly more nature than on my fire escape.)

(Semi) Live Blogging SYTYCD: 7/23/08

10 last week.  8 this week.  It’s getting dangerously close to finale time.  Which can only mean that each couple will dance five pieces tonight, while continuously doing the Macarena (and twirling a baton) on the perimeter of the stage whenever they aren’t performing.  Gotta get that aerobic exercise up!  It’s time for “So You Think You Can What What!”

8:00- Katee comes out in the intros wearing a hairdo that looks strangely reminiscent of Amy Winehouse’s signature beehive.  Will she do a crack dance tonight?  That’s like a hipster rain dance. 

8:01- Joshua takes his ripple breaking easy this week, instead showing a beautiful sense of unusual musicality. 

8:02-Just when I thought the wardrobe supervisor was going to ruin my night by putting Cat Deeley in a simple black mini dress, she turns around to reveal a sunburst of large (plastic) diamonds beneath a low cut back.  Cat rocks the tramp stamp too…but hers is made of jewels. 

8:03- The jidging panel tonight includes a dashing looking Nigel, in a pink shirt and white suit, that woman in the middle, and Toni Basil (of the 1980s song “Mickey”…seriously) rocking an up-do that looks as if she couldn’t figure out where the back of her head was, so she just tied buns everywhere to be sure that one of them was in the right place. 

8:04- UPDATE: There may also be Mickey Mouse ears somewhere in her hairdo.  Can’t be sure. 

So You Think You Can...

Wait, wait?  Like last week, life has gotten in the way of LIVE blogging tonight's events.  Not to worry, it will be up by the end of the evening  Top eight here I come! 

(NOTE:  THERE WILL BE NO LIVE BLOG NEXT WEEK!  SORRY!!!)