An Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Gurkha, a Latvian, a Turk, an Aussie, a German, a Yank, an Egyptian, a Japanese, a Mexican, a Spaniard, a Russian, a Pole, a Lithuanian, a Swede, a Finn, an Israeli, a Romanian, a Bulgarian, a Serb, a Swiss, a Greek, a Singaporean, an Italian, a Norwegian, a Libyan, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Zulu, an Indabele, a Xhosa, an Afrikaner, and an Ethiopian walked into a bar.
The bouncer said, "Sorry, I can't let you in without a Thai."
Context: Filmmaker Lars von Trier had been declared "persona non grata" by the Cannes Film Festival after making some unfortunate comments about his understanding of Hitler. Apparently not everyone likes his "joke" ("OK, I'm a Nazi"), especially in France, a country occupied by Nazis during WWII.
Mais la journée n'est pas terminée pour Hitler!! Il a aussi rencontré Dominique Strauss-Kahn, l'ex-patron de la FMI, qui est actuellement en libération conditionnelle à New York, pour une agression sexuelle présumée contre une femme de chambre de son hôtel.
Anyway, since I will not be among the saved, and neither will you, I'll see you at Kam Fung Restaurant on Sunday, noonish, for dim sum. The crowd should be much smaller, now that all the righteous ones would have been raptured away. See you on Sunday!
This is a viral video made and uploaded to YouTube by a 14-year old boy living in Ottawa. The backlash has been predictably ferocious: publication of his name, address and other personal info, death threats, the family had to change their phone number, etc.. You know the drill.
I just wanted to add this clip to my list of stoopid people, this one belonging to the category of morons caught spouting racist rants and getting all surprised and devastated when the bomb they set explodes in their face. I know, I know, he's only 14 years old. There was also that 18 year old girl in the States who made a viral video ranting against Orientals ("ching chong", she said to imitate them. Classy, right?). I wonder how many more of shitstorms like this before people - young and old - realize that if you don't want your life to become a living hell, YOU DON'T MAKE A VIDEO OF YOURSELF BEING AN ASSHOLE AND PUBLICIZE IT FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO KNOW!!
This is one of innumerable examples of human stupidity. In this specific case, the victim is not particularly to blame because he's only 7 years old, and one has to wonder where was his accompanying adult, but I'm sure you've heard of many cases of drunk young males climbing into lions, tigers and bears cages, often on a dare, and getting deservedly mauled.
One has to ask oneself: what is it, in this day and age where news are spread almost instantaneously all over the globe and one can no longer plead ignorance, what is it, I say, that makes some people willfully and blindly make the same mistakes that other people have already made before them with disastrous consequences?
How often did you read about these incidents and slap your forehead, saying to yourself: "What were they thinking?"
- Kids playing and getting shot with parent's loaded guns, left lying around or in unlocked drawers.
- People riding skidoos on frozen lakes and sinking in frozen water after the ice cracked. It happens every spring when the ice begins to melt.
- Caucasian women marrying Iranian, Pakistani, Syrian,etc. husbands, then acting all surprised and devastated when beaten up by husbands, when finding out husbands have many other wives, and/or when their children are taken away from them by husbands.
- Old Vietnamese retirees going back to Vietnam to find a young wife/mistress and acting all surprised and devastated when their sweethearts go from "love you long time" to "no money no honey".
- All these people who still believe in Nigerian letters offering them millions of free money (Nigerian is used here as a generic term to identify all these strangers writing identical tales of family misfortunes and/or deadly sickness in hilariously quaint English).
This is a famous picture showing the Obama Administration key players watching on a screen, in real time, the raid on Osama Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.
A lot has been said about Mrs Clinton's reaction, her hand covering her mouth apparently indicating her fear and horror. The usual political analysts concluded that Clinton's demonstration of fear/repulsion is due to the fact that she is a woman , while all the manly men in the same room only showed interest and concentration. To ward off any potential accusation of sissyness ("Women are too weak and sensitive to be part of an administration at the highest levels"), Clinton's cabinet promptly issued a denial, explaining that she was actually repressing a sneeze due to spring allergy.
This is all nonsense, of course. Maybe some men also expressed horror but no pictures were taken then, maybe Mrs Clinton was repressing a yawn, not a sneeze, because this happened in the middle of the night, etc.. Who cares, really.
What's more interesting, in my opinion, is the fact that President Obama seems to be cowering in the corner, sitting on a low chair on the side, while a military man is occupying the central executive chair. Obama looked like a child at his parents' dinner party: he just sneaked in the living room, undetected, to listen on the grownups' conversation. His presence is ignored, at best barely tolerated.
I don't know what to make of it, but I remember an episode of the Fox TV show "Lie To Me", where one of the characters, Dr. Gillian Foster, can detect the real leader in a group, by watching the order in which each member enters a room (spoiler: contrary to popular belief, the man who enters first is not the leader). It would be interesting to have the Lie To Me team analyze the picture.
There are two women visible in the photo: Hillary Clinton sitting in front at the table, and Audrey Tomasen, standing in the back (she's a counterterrorism analyst whom the media had never heard of before). A Brooklyn-based Hasidic newspaper, Der Zeitung, decided to photoshop the two women out of the picture. Apparently, "the religious paper never publishes pictures of women, as they could be considered 'sexually suggestive'."
Here is the doctored shot in Der Zeitung, as captured by the blog Failed Messiah:
Does anybody need more proof that religion makes people stupid?
I bought tickets, months and months in advance, to see famous choreographer Edouard Lock's new work (called "New Work"). And now it's finally coming to Montreal.
Lock's opus premiered in Amsterdam. Here's the review (from The Gazette):
La La La Human Steps began its fourth decade auspiciously in Amsterdam this week with the world premiere of Edouard Lock's latest major work largely involving new dancers, a distinguished guest artist in the person of Diana Vishneva of Russia's Maryinsky Ballet, and, most significantly, choreography of great depth, subtlety, range of movement and emotional resonance. Publicized rather oddly only as "Edouard Lock's New Work," the 95-minute piece could well be his finest creation.
On Thursday, throughout the second performance of the three-day Amsterdam run, there was evidence that Lock pushed beyond the parameters that he established in Amelia (2002) and Amjad (2007), works that emphasized brilliant duets for men fiercely gesticulating and women on point spinning like tops.
Never fear, the new work had plenty of gesticulation and fantastic spinning by both the women on point as well as the men -the 12-member cast outfitted in familiar La La La black was a marvel. But at times for purposes of dramatic contrast, Lock allowed body lines to become looser, more relaxed, without the relentless tension seen in the earlier works. Instead of extended clinches, couples in duets separated for longer intervals and at a farther distance on the big Het Muziektheater stage (comparable to Salle Wilfrid Pelletier's).
Lock also unusually had his dancers often sprawling on the floor. Indeed, after the on-stage four-member band played an overture of Gavin Bryars' music (his pseudo-Baroque score was a highlight throughout the work, with a particularly poignant saxophone), the curtain rose on the floor-bound arched figure of Talia Evtushenko, her arm raised plaintively. Regularly the floor came into play during intense exchanges between couples.
Each time that the dancers came together after separating or rose up from the floor to find each other, there was dramatic, emotional reconciliation (frequently followed immediately by another breakup -these were people bound by an emotional vicious circle). Lock is the most unsentimental of choreographers, but his work nonetheless regularly shows people trying desperately to make connections with other people, however brief or in vain.
This was certainly evident in this latest piece, which was inspired, according to the publicity, by two classic tales of love, Dido and Aeneas, and Orfeo and Eurydice. Lock took not their plots, but their evocation of passion and poignant awareness that all relations, not matter how intense, are slaves of human mortality. At intervals, two large vertical screens were lowered in parallel showing a pretty young woman on one side in a touching visual conversation with a version of her old self on the other. Aging and its ultimate end were inevitable, and no amount of spinning or vigorous movement, the entire work implied, could delay one's fate.
The final statement on this came in a closing duet with Vishneva and veteran company member Jason Shipley-Holmes, the coolest and most reliable of partners. With a lyricism unusual for Lock, the two calmly bid an extended farewell, Vishneva demonstrating the relaxed ease, fine line and expressiveness that make her outstanding as Giselle and Odette-Odile. The last image of Vishneva alone on the ground, her body arched over her one extended leg, patently evoked the Dying Swan, a coy but highly effective little homage from Lock.
The participation of the world-famous artist came after she searched for some high-profile choreographers to prepare pieces for her in a one-off show. Lock was considered. Although the two were unable to collaborate on that show, Lock felt there was potential to work together.
Vishneva spent an intensive month in Montreal preparing her role. Rehearsals regularly lasted until midnight. Though she was accustomed to memorizing big parts (she's performing three large-scale classical ballets this year including La Bayadere with the Maryinsky in Ottawa in February), Lock's work was demanding even for her.
"This feels like ballet for the 21st century," Vishneva said in a back-stage interview after the show. "After this, classical ballet feels like slow motion."
Almost everything connected with the rehearsal was a challenge.
"First I learned the steps slowly, but then I was having sleepless nights wondering how I could ever perform them fast the next day. And we rehearsed without mirrors or music. Never had I worked that way! I heard the music for the final duet just two days before the premiere. But Edouard asked me to trust him, and I did. I danced through his eyes."
Vishneva will dance in selected cities on the company's European tour and also in Montreal in May (but not in Toronto). Undoubtedly Lock will fiddle with the work before it gets to Montreal, hopefully adding a slow duet for Vishneva that was dropped because of an injury to her partner. But the performance this week showed unusual polish for a Lock premiere.
Equally up to the challenge were the splendid company members hired last year -Diego Castro, Mi Deng, Sandra Muhlbauer, Marcio Vinicius Paulino Silveira, Grace-Anne Powers, Alejandra Salamanca Lopez, William Lee Smith and Kai Zhang. Statuesque veteran Zofia Tujaka rounded out the formidable cast.
And here's a first peek of some of the pieces, performed in New York:
