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Rites (and Wrongs) of Spring

Rite of Spring

Rite of Spring, Joffrey Ballet
(1913 costume design, Nicholas Roerich)

Paris, 29 May 1913

Everything was beautiful at the ballet. Romantic melodies by Chopin, graceful sylphs shimmered in white, Russian dreamboat Nijinsky danced in the moonlight. The first act at the brand new Théâtre des Champs-Elysées was what everyone expected. But as the music of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) began the second part of the program, the audience twitched, twittered and turned hostile.

“One literally could not, throughout the whole performance, hear the sound of music,” said Gertrude Stein (who actually saw the second performance four days later.) Popular composer Puccini (also attending the second night) called the music cacophonous, “the work of a madman.” Suddenly everyone who was anyone in Paris wanted to see what kind of ballet had caused a riot in the theatre on its opening night.

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On Becoming an Aggressive Homosexual

The Fantasticks“You wonder how these things begin…” muses El Gallo, the handsome narrator in The Fantasticks, the world’s longest-running musical. (The original off-Broadway production opened in 1960 and ran for 42 years, so Les Mis and Phantom don’t even come close!) It was based on Edmond Rostand’s burlesque romantic comedy Les Romansques, which opened at the Theatre Francais in 1894 on May 21st – how’s that for serendipity? “You wonder how these things begin…”

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Drama Queen For A Day

Queen for a Day TV ShowI must admit to a weakness for Reality TV. Not the manipulated “real life” genre usually traced back to Big Brother, which was first broadcast in 1999 on Dutch television. Not the survivors, the amazing races, the housewives, or the shores that followed. The chink in my cultural armor is for programs where contestants battle to be crowned best singer or dancer, most creative cook or savvy apprentice. And I blame it on the immortal question, “Do YOU want to be Queen for a day?”

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Munchkingate: Political Ding-Dong!

Wicked Witch of the EastFor many years I co-hosted a local Amsterdam LGBT radio show called Alien. We broadcast live for two hours every Sunday evening. On April 3rd 2005 we canned our usual extraterrestrial opening jingle. Without warning or explanation of any kind, we simply began with the entire Munchkinland sequence from the film soundtrack of The Wizard of Oz, including the two rousing choruses of Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead. The message was clear: Pope John-Paul II had died the day before.

Disrespectful? Yes. That was the point.

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Meryl Streep Is Dead!

Streep & Thatcher“I love that half of the people posting about the death of Margaret Thatcher are actually posting pictures of Meryl Streep,” wrote gay blogger and author Kergan Edwards-Stout on Facebook. At first I thought he might be joking, but on further reflection I fear not. Social media is full of such inaccuracies and one must admit that Meryl Streep, in her Oscar-winning turn as the Iron Lady, is more photogenic.

“You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good…Joan Crawford is dead. Good.” – Bette Davis (1977)

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