Saturday 21 March 2009

Better without sequins



Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Spent my crazy Friday night naughtily drinking some of my 2005 claret, three years too early, (it’s the best vintage since the turn of the century, and I should make myself wait until 2011 for it to reach its perfect pitch, but sometimes I just can’t) and watching a rather touching film called Shall We Dance, while the dogs slumbered beside me on the sofa. When they sleep, they lie curled into each other like two inverted commas. Such is my wild life. My life was once wild, but more of that much later. Now I live off my hump, like a camel.

Anyway, the film was not Ingmar Bergman, the kind of thing that culture snobs would sniff madly at with their sniffy noses. (I am not one of those for whom elitism is a dirty word; bring on the elitists I say. But I also see no reason why a girl cannot enjoy The Seventh Seal and Sex and the City. Although possibly not at the same time.) It is set in a down at heel ballroom dancing school, and there is a scene in it which made me realise that old-fashioned dancing, cheek to cheek, is one of the great lost arts. The whole Strictly Come Dancing phenom has brought the tango and the rumba and the waltz snaking back into the public consciousness, but it is all about the spangly costumes and the celebrity spats and tears, and not really about the grace of the dance. In the film, there is a lovely moment when Jennifer Lopez (whom I also realise is better without sequins) does a little dance, just wearing a plain skirt and a serious face, and it is a thing of such grace and beauty that I suddenly realised why everyone fell in love at the Cafe de Paris in the thirties.

I am still learning about the art of the blog. I am not quite certain how to do it or why I am doing it or what it is all about or how to get up there with the best of them. Now I think: just write the fucker. It does not have to be perfect. It might be better without sequins.

5 comments:

  1. I think everybody gives La J-Lo too hard a time for being a bit diva-ish (well, quite a lot diva-ish in fact) when we all forget that she's actually quite a good actress sometimes - just saw "Out Of Sight" again the other night and she really was very good in it. Great film all round, actually.
    Sequins are pretty darn fab though.

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  2. Lucy - slightly overwhelmed to find you commenting on my fledgling blog when you are a top blogger in your field.

    Completely agree about sequins - in their rightful place. Although one can have too much of a good thing. J-Lo definitely at her best when understated. Out of Sight makes my stomach twist, especially the scene in the bar. Makes me want to break out the bourbon.

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  3. The business of blogging always reminds me of that Heaney line: "I rhyme to find myself/ To set the darkness echoing". It's an interesting collision of the public and the private, though , isn't it?

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  4. Erm, meant to say that I Agree 'better without sequins', but then I remembered that my writing is all spangle and no dress...

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  5. Your blog is fine, do not worry I enjoy your writing immensely. Didn't read the article from The Times though, thought I would weep buckets.

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