Dear Diary,
A lovely day of concentration and sloth. Slept until 11:00. Arose at noon.
Three interviews about upcoming work in Houston, Texas, where we’re going next week and in Wellington, New Zealand, where Tina is setting a ballet of mine. The ballet is called Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes, to music by Virgil Thomson, and I made it on American Ballet Theater years ago when Mr. Baryshnikov ran that company. He and I became good friends and went on to start the White Oak Dance Project together. He’s an awfully good dancer.
Back to interviews: I give a lot of them, so I try to respond freshly, honestly, and non-automatically when I’m asked repeat questions. It does happen. I like to talk about my work, but I won’t give a play-by-play. It’s a dance, right?
Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique is a fabulous book.
I’ll be going soon to Japan, to see where the company will be performing with Yo-Yo Ma: a Buddhist temple in Nara City. After that I go to the New Zealand Ballet to rehearse. That’s a lot of flying.
Charlotte Church makes me nervous.
I listened to some exciting Romanian folk-music today. Beautiful heavy rhythms and great hyper-velocity fiddle virtuosity. Then more Satie, following along with a score. He wrote mysterious and funny asides in some of his music, meant only for the eyes of the pianist: “Fairly slow, if you don’t mind … Distant and bored … Very light … Heavy … Without your finger blushing.” I come back to Satie’s music periodically and with a refreshed pleasure. I think he was something of a kook.
Please reread The Banquet Years by Roger Shattuck, right away.
After Jeopardy!, I cooked a delicious chicken dinner. Pinot noir. The glacier pace of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire (I don’t think it has a question mark) is somehow mesmerizing, and I saw a fellow actually win it all. Hurray!
I left my apartment once today, for about 20 minutes, to buy a dead chicken.
Very satisfying.
Until tomorrow,
Mark
