Yesterday was Susan’s last Sunday in Sevilla and she treated me to this fabulously decadent lunch at Manolo León. Some of you may remember that after the erroneous second prognosis last October, when I was told that I maybe had a year to live, we (Nog, Pablo & I) went to Manolo León for a “post-prognosis party” in order to, well, eat like there was no tomorrow and get shit-faced. And so it was nice to go back there under more pleasant circumstances.
Yesterday was also the summer solstice, which ended up feeling a bit like Christmas…
When I was 16, and had already been living on my own for a year, I ended up transferring to an “alternative” highschool in Winnipeg which had an open curriculum and very liberal-minded teachers. At the time I was working evenings and weekends at Canadian Tire to pay the rent (no help from family) and living with my boyfriend Brian. One of the perks at this highschool was that we could sign up for theatre and ballet productions we wanted to see as the school was given comps to distribute. I always signed up for ballet tickets as I still had dreams back then of becoming a dancer (comtemporary, not ballet). Thus I got to see Baryshnikov shortly after he defected in Canada and did a short tour with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. I also got to see the premiere of a ballet by Norbert Vesak called What To Do Till The Messiah Comes, which included a pas de deux called Belong. I remember watching it and thinking I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life and was surprised at the end of it to find my face wet with tears.
Something reminded me of this ballet yesterday and so I looked it up and here it is performed by Evelyn Hart and David Peregrine of the RWB. They were not the couple I’d seen back in 1973, but they went on to make Belong their signature piece and in 1980 won the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Varna, Bulgaria. You can see their performance above. I still think it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life.
(best if you full-screen it and turn up the volume)
The other day Nog finally succumbed after watching me check out my tweets for the umpteenth time and said that he wouldn’t mind having a go. So a few minutes later we had a page set up for him, though he couldn’t get the name he wanted and had to resort to putting an underline in front. He’s still getting the hang of it, but I think quite enjoys the pithyness of the whole thing. Next step will be updating his blog . . .
A blog friend of mine recently had to switch to pre-mod on her blog because of an ugly smelly troll who started bothering her, and I quite understood the reasoning behind that. But I’ve come across several other people whose blogs have this set up and I’ve wondered if they’d had problems in the past or were just being extra careful or … ?
The only problem that I have with pre-mod is that you usually don’t get to see what other people have said before you (because their comments are also awaiting moderation) and for me this kind of takes something away from the whole blogging experience, interrupts the flow or something. I often find the comments (and banter between commenters) just as entertaining as the post itself. Also, when you are “commenting blind” there is the risk of writing something that seriously jars with what others have been saying, or you can inadvertently put your foot in it, depending on what was said just before you.
So, two questions.
If you moderate comments on your blog before publishing them … why have you chosen to do this?
How do you feel about commenting on blogs that hold all comments for moderation?
casa azahar 