Today I had one of those horrible headaches (woke me up at 5:21 a.m., which I find to be extremely rude) and it is finally, finally going away.
But it was one of those mornings where it would have been very nice to swap heads (put this one in the shop for repairs, have it back next Tuesday, thanks!) or just pull a Salome on myself where I would also be John the Baptist.
And that thought made me instantly want to be in Paris (it's Tara's fault, too, with her photos today) and if I was there, I would go straightaway to the Gustave Moreau museum and dawdle because it's just one of my favorite places to be, with all of the light and the super tall ceilings and the most incredible paintings on every wall in gigantic gilded frames all the way up to the tippy top.
And then it further dawned on me that I have seen not one but two famous Salomes in my life so far: the one at the Gustave Moreau museum and the Gustave Klimt Salome at the Ca'Pesaro in Venice. Two Gustaves, two Salomes.
And that made me not want to cut off my head, but instead to plan to see all of the Salomes of the Western World, because all in all I bet Salome was a hot babe who probably looked great in a sweater and liked to dance for her own pleasure, and certainly those types of girls get a very bad rap by the boys who write the history books.
Which reminds me that if you want to read a really fantastic book about women and the history of dance, run right out and get Something in the Way She Moves, by Wendy Buonaventura, which is a fascinating, fun read and you'll learn a lot about history, dance and its place in society, and sassy, wonderful women.
Lovely Cyd Charisse now lives on only on the big screen.
For those of you who enjoyed this clip, and this one, you might want to read about Cyd from her obit in the New York Times.
Although the Times highlights some other of her more famous movies, I've included another scene that I think is completely fabulous and shouldn't be missed.
(And, if you didn't know that Ricardo Montalban was as gorgeous and as hot as can be--your only recollections of him are from Star Trek II and Fantasy Island--then you are in for a huge Latin treat.)
But perhaps this is the most romantic remembrance of Cyd (I think):
Oh, to be that beautiful and graceful. She was a goddess.
"Your hands should move like doves." -- from Carlos Saura's Flamenco
One of the myriad of things I am learning to do in flamenco is move my arms and hands carefully and gracefully. In flamenco, you make these undulating and flowing embellishments with your hands. They are called floreo.
The flowering of the hands.
I like practicing these movements because I happen to like my hands a lot. They have always been one of my favorite parts of me.
When I was little, I used to twirl my hands and wrists and watch them move like they had a life of their own. Like they were sea creatures swimming or ribbons made of silk.
I have been making flamenco hands my whole life and I didn't even know it until now.
Below are two excerpts from the movie Flamenco that beautifully illustrate the concept of the floreo.
The Boy is always asking me Why do you love to dance? What is it about dancing? What is it about girls and dancing? Why do girls love to dance?
The Boy has a curious nature and those are perfectly legitimate questions, considering how much time and money I put into my dancing endeavors.
When I try to explain myself, though, it just comes out sounding silly. I say things like When you hear music, doesn't it just make you want to get up and move? That's how I feel when I hear certain kinds of music. I can't keep still.
His answer is No. But he loves to listen to music. It's just that the music doesn't make him want to jump out of his chair and move about.
I usually counter with Why do you love baseball so much? I ask this question in return not because I'm trying to be argumentative, but because sometimes it's hard to explain why you love something (or someone, for that matter) and I'm trying to illustrate a point. Because one person's love of something is another person's total mystification or non-love. The only thing I like about going to a baseball game are a certain kind of bratwurst that they sell at the Giants stadium.
Some things can't be explained rationally. They are either experienced or they aren't. They either resonate or they don't.
***
The picture above is me at the ripe old age of two. It must be my second birthday because the floor in the photo is littered with gift wrap and ribbons, and the baby stroller with the doll in it that I am feverishly pushing must be a present. (That is probably one of the few photos of me in actual contact with a doll. Not too much later, I dumped the dolls in favor of my Tasco microscope and fossil collection. I always thought dolls were pretty boring.)
The reason for the photo is not to prove that I once played with a doll, but because it shows me in my leg braces that I wore until I was three. I was born with developmental hip dysplasia, a condition that's not too uncommon, especially in baby girls, and has a genetic component. (My mom and sister both had it too, so obviously more than blue eyes run in my family.)
If detected early, the child's recovery can be total. In my case, the hip dysplasia wasn't diagnosed for a while which, had it been any later, I would have had to had surgery, which is the least desirable treatment. So I ended up in leg braces that I wore day and night until my third birthday.
I don't remember being in the leg braces, and from what my mom tells me, they didn't hurt. They just looked like they were painful and I guess people used to ask my mom if I was a cripple (that was the term used in the pre-PC days of my babyhood), which I'm sure made her feel terrible.
I was thinking about The Boy's question, and my braces, and wondering if the two are connected in some deep, mysterious way, in my way back memories, my inner life. Like I said, I don't remember wearing the braces, but that doesn't mean that they didn't make an impression on my psyche in some way. Maybe I couldn't wait to bust out of those things and get moving like everyone else. Get dancing. Get down!
Whatever the reason is for my dancing, the fact that I can walk and dance and move--that's entirely due to my mom's persistence and insistance that her baby girl get the right treatment that she herself never got. My mom had some half-assed surgery when she was seven, and now has a fused hip and arthritis for which she can't be treated. She bears it well, with the good humor and patience that makes her so special and she doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about the things she can't do.
So I'd like to think that maybe I dance for me because I love it, and also for my mom. Because she made it so that I can.
Thanks, Mommy, for everything, including my dancing legs. I love you.
***
And just because there's nothing wrong with a little gratuitous ABBA whenever possible, please enjoy Dancing Queen, embellished with Japanese subtitles, no less!
Today I had one of those horrible headaches (woke me up at 5:21 a.m., which I find to be extremely rude) and it is finally, finally going away.
And then it further dawned on me that I have seen not one but two famous Salomes in my life so far: the one at the Gustave Moreau museum and the Gustave Klimt Salome at the Ca'Pesaro in Venice. Two Gustaves, two Salomes.
