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The Playground Model
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I would personally like an MMO that lets me level up and gear up doing nothing but playing Battlegrounds. Warhammer Online came close to that ideal but had too many faults to be the solution.
The game in RPGs is to empower your character with gear, talents, levels, etc. There are right ways and wrong ways to go about it--good players know the right ways, i.e. picking the right instance with the right boss that drops the right staff and then doing it until you get the high roll. Pretty much you are strategizing how to budget your time for the highest payoff (though, honestly, nearly always the best solution is to forget about gear and just grind levels). If you are cool with that then RPGs are perfectly good entertainment and generally deliver a lot more hours of single-player fun per purchase, way more, than pretty much any other game type.
My favorite part of gameplay in an MMO is that which involves a casual group of people working together to accomplish a moderately challenging dungeon. I think Pre-Buring Crusade WoW is a great example. A very high percentage of players were leveling so the whole world was being used. I think a couple things should be instituted with MMOs that would work exceptionally well with allowing new players to participate with older players.
Level Sync was first seen in FFXI and in my opinion is one of the best aspects of that game. Can't get a group together in a zone because you are short a damage dealer? Is there a higher level one wanting to group for something? Have them come join you and sync down to your group's level. He get's the same exp you do because he temporarily levels down to where you are, and your group fills up allowing all the other lowbies to fight over gear. There are some flaws with this system but it works more often than not.
The Second thing I think should be transposed into other MMOs from FFXI is level capped dungeons. These were very difficult fights that require a lot of cooperation. The lowest level ones started at level 20 when the level cap is 75. This allows higher level players the challenge of the fight and lower level players don't have to wait as long as say WoW to get into a raid difficulty fight.
I like the idea of a playground, though I do think there needs to be at least some way to tell a player that a certain aspect of the game requires this entry level task. We don't want to toss new players that don't understand class roles in a group that requires a lot of knowledge with the class of choice. It isn't fair to the new player getting the hate from others.
Want a playground MMO just wait for Mortal Online to be released, its currently in open beta.
World of Warcraft is a playground where you have to play on the spring horse for 80 levels-- though if you find 4 other people you can occasionally use the slide. Now at level 80 you can use the swings and jungle gym, but you have to find a group of 20 others to do it.
Warhammer Online is a playground where you can use all the equipment, but the swing lag, the sea saw is broken in half, and somebody barfed on the slide--so everybody just gets in the middle and beats up each other.
Champions Online's playground has one sea saw, one swing, and one spring horse. But everyone is dressed up in cool costumes and pretending they are super heroes.
Eve Online's playground is an empty grass field, where you can dig holes and chase the occasional squirrel. Now you've heard there are swings and seasaw's somewhere, and you keep reading how awesome they are, but hell if you've ever seen them.
The spring riders add an appeance of variation and choice to the otherwise climbing-frame filled park.
I totaly agree, I think war did the best of any mmo Ive played of balancing out the experiance, it just needed a bigger player base or for ea to wise up and get word about it out again
Lately I've been getting into Mabinogi because of this very reason - it offers a whole lot of different attractions at once. It's mostly combat and crafting but there's a lot of different kinds of crafting.
The game actually pretty heavily encourages diversification of activities via making some of them be rigged up to a game day cycle. My daily cycle (which takes about 30-60 minutes of real time) might go:
Noon - 8pm: Run a dungeon/explore wilderness performing quests. Combat is actually unusually satisfying here in that it's a rock/paper/scissors combat and timing mechanism where paying attention to the enemy's posture is vital. It's very challenging, battles can be lost in a blink if you screw up.
8pm - Midnight: Collect an inventory full of trade resources. There's a lot of collection activities from harvesting from plants, shearing sheep, collecting spider cobwebs, ect.
Midnight - 4am: Convert collected trade resources into trade goods using trade skill. Trade skills, incidentally, often have a challenging minigame attached.
4am - 7am: Cash in some quests, perhaps engage in a little fishing or manage my pets.
This is an unusually varied day, usually I'll just be doing one activity and try to make time to get my daily Part Time Job in since that's a good source of gold. Really, for a day that runs 30-60 minutes that's diversification enough. You might say that this game has a tremendous grind in that gold, levels, and skill use advancement is always going on, and mastery is rarely ever accomplished, but here's the kicker: given the high variation of activities, it really doesn't bother me at all.
So I'd say Shamus has at least one good example in Mabinogi to point out he's right in what he's saying here about giving players lots of activities and the freedom to switch between them as they see fit.
I want to play an MMO that doesn't have levels at all everyone starts out exactly the same level and they all stay that way the only way you can improve is by getting "levelled" gear either by buying it, crafting it or looting it.
I've said before I'd love to play a western MMO where you can pretty much do whatever you like as it's a player run economy, I'd love to have my own weapon shop where I gather resources and then craft guns to sell in it, but if you want to be a bad ass you can become a train robber or something but be careful about your bounty level, if it's super high player controlled lawmen might come for you and can give you a permanent death. That's the kind of game I want.
Shamus, this ideology will never change until developers finally realise MMORPGs are not Dungeons and Dragons. Get rid of the leveling concept if you want your grind gone for good. It's one of the main deterrents gameplay-wise freeform MMOs like Runescape carry.
Wow, I'd never thought of it that way, but that's a pretty good analogy. Great read!
I'm not sure if the escapist lets me post an article from cracked but it explains this perfectly
the article is brilliant and disturbing.
the only mmo I ever played (for few days) was dead frontier online, it was because I knew the offline precedessors. I'd say there has to be environment populated with enemies for the gory stuff done with modern weapons to get me in.
Too bad it sucks. Yes, I can say that since I wasted part of my life testing the game.
To answer your question:
Crafting, crafting and more crafting. Some gathering thrown in too, but that's to get at the crafting. hence why I enjoyed Everquest 2 so much. Not only was crafting a whole mini-game of its own, but being a woodworker allowed you to make stuff for your own home. Which was great :)
Oh and dressing up is fun too.
I remember a few years back when I finally had the computer to be able to play GW. All my friends had been playing it for a long time, so I knew what I was getting into. The first few months whenever my ex boyfriend wasn't pestering me about doing the main storyline, I'd just explore. Sure, I died all the time because I mostly tried to avoid engaging enemies and when it failed I'd die because I didn't have the party or the skills to stay alive.
I guess what I still love about GW, and what I hope they'll bring into GW2, is the big open world. And the fact that they actually have a bunch of outposts or hilariously named bosses out there that you would never find if you only did the main storyline.
And yeah, in a way the analogy works. Still, I wonder if streamlining mmos into more playgroundish behavior would remove all the sense of achievent. Because as it stands, everything worth having is worth fighting(grinding) for.
Personally, i enjoy the leveling the most in MMO's. Hitting a new level brings new skills and gear to get/exploit and new regions to rumage around in. Once you hit the levelcap, your basically stuck doing the same things: raiding and Pvp. That gets old for me after a while.
I guess im more of a explorer, i want to see the world the developers made, doesn't matter if it's new abilities to get or regions to see.
Ok here's something I've been saving for an article of my own (someday). I'm going to share because Shamus rocks and maybe he'll pick up the idea, thus saving me the trouble of writing the whole article :D
Consider the source of our MMOs and their environment and motivations as they create . Do those people work directly with gamers, or do they work directly with co-workers in a cubicle environment?
My take is that virtually all of our problems with failed games are attributable to the work environment. You can't immerse someone in a place which forces them to personally behave according to one ruleset and then expect them to have an easy time of creating a place with a ruleset from the entire other side of the spectrum ( maybe alternate universe would be a better metaphor). That's a hard enough job as it is, imho.
I mean seriously, we're talking about people who are forced to schedule meetings to discuss what's going to be fun in their game. While some may be able to work with that, they have to be the exception that proves the rule. I think we'd get better games if they took any and all meetings about gameplay and held them out of the office just to get people out of the "work" mindset.
Don't forget the fixed-rate skill gain system makes it like having to wait to physically grow up before you can move up in the pecking order. "Small ships are valuable in PvP" blah. That means you get to sit on gatecamps being "valuable" while the bigger kids build their empires via the alts they bought on CCP's forum with isk they bought via game time cards (although a veteran player has likely raised their own alts by now).
Your only way out of this trap is to buy yourself some game time cards and trade them for isk to buy some alt characters and gear so you can start playing at a higher level :(
Well, I want to start off by saying that WoW does acknowledge your exploration in the form of achievements, after you explore a certain area of the map fully. That being said, I completely agree with you. I hate having to grind, I hate having to rely on other peoples professions (or the auction house, but people quickly realized what was necessary for other professions, so usually these are grossly overpriced) to be able to advance mine, and I hate, I really hate, being forced to team.
Actually, WoW -does- give you achievements for exploring, true, this only came later with Wrath, but it's there. You even get a nice tabard and title.
Edit: Beaten to it, but the point stands ^^'
I actually love crafting, if i could I'd just be an NPC who tells others to go get me stuff just so I can make it but you need inordinate amounts of money for that so I go and destroy the flying machine
I LOVE to boldly explore new areas. I can't stand having to grind for stuff. I dunno why but every time I'm 20 levels below where I should be and I'm running for dear life, it's a thrill than killing everything, taking the loot, and selling it indefinitely.
Maybe it's the fact that I've burnt myself out but if you're where you're supposed to be in level, where's the challenge?
What I like about MMO's:
-Character development. While classes and races tend to be very strict in their paths of progression in most of the MMO's I've played, they tend to include a lot of options anyway. There's usually an "optimal" talent setup for leveling in WoW, but you can mess around with your talents and abilities to make some interesting alternatives if you just fiddle with it enough. Some classes might not feel very different in one tree compared to another (warriors always felt like warriors to me regardless of being fury or arms, though prot's another bag), but going from a feral druid to a balance druid is practically an entire class switch. This is also what I enjoy about leveling up as I like unlocking new abilities and adding them to my current strategies to see what I can improve as I go on.
-Outfitting. What can I say, I like to play dress-up with my characters. Sue me.
-Space to RP. Not everyone does, and this obviously does require other players around somewhat - though it can be amusing to RP on your own with the NPCs in response to their sheer weirdness (much like Shamus's stories do, basically, except writing that humorous little story for your own amusement) - but when it works it can be quite satisfying.
What I dislike about MMO's:
-Raiding. I play games to have fun. I don't want to feel obligated to play a game. This transforms fun into a responsibility, which saps the fun out of it. Raiding is less of a game and more of a job. LK Naxx aside (lul), raiding generally requires you to be at the top of your game and focused for several hours at a stretch to be successful. It's tedious, lengthy, monotonous and stressful. All that and you still fail if the rest of your raid isn't up to par. I can't recall how many times my raid team wiped on Archimonde because of people not paying any attention to doomfire crawling toward them, not activating their tears before making little player-sized craters in the ground, not popping potions/healthstones to survive if someone was a second or two late decursing them, etc., and there wasn't anything I could do about that. There were always people behind on DPS who, even after I tried advising them on various ways to improve, never showed significant progress. It was an exercise in frustration trying to complete a goal that, if it was something I could have done alone, I might have been able to do, but being unable to do so because of some team members holding us back. Could I have joined a more serious raid team? Probably, but that would have led to an even more rigorous raid schedule and required leaving behind the people on my team who I liked and with whom I joked around - the people who made raiding bearable at all. Moving to a "serious" raid team would have crushed out any remaining interest in raiding - a self-defeating prospect.
-PvP. I'm sure the basics of this argument are already understood so I'll just say this: it's never balanced, it never will be balanced, and competition with variance in lag is always rage-inducing even in a balanced environment. No thank you. No.
-"Random" quest drops. Someone mentioned this above. If you give me a quest to kill monsters for their organs, make them drop the bloody organs. A quest to kill # of monsters is infinitely preferable to a quest to kill ?# of monsters until they drop # of macguffins to complete the quest unless those items are a 100% chance to drop on each kill. Making them an arbitrary chance to drop is bull - cut it out. At the very least make a maximum kill limit: after X kills you're guaranteed to get all your drops. More than once I've gotten 9/10 items I need only to then get stuck killing upwards of fifty (sadly not exaggerating - sometimes the dice just SUCK) additional monsters to get one more item to finish the quest. It eases the tedium to just think of this as grinding monsters with a bonus waiting at the end, but only a little, and self-discipline of that sort only goes so far. It shouldn't be needed for a game in the first place, of course, given a game is supposed to be fun, yes?
-Endgame in general. I've learned all my class abilities, I've explored the whole map, and seeing the final story-related bosses requires getting upwards of 9 other players of similar power and skill to cooperate with me for hours at a time. All that's left to do is get shinier gear...for no reason, since my current gear is obviously enough to do the available solo content since, well, I'm at the end of it already. Bored now. If only I could see that raid content without needing an entire gang to do it...hm...
Eh...I could probably go on but it'd be getting into nitpicks. That probably covers the broad strokes. I'm indifferent to crafting, for instance: it's more a means to an end than an end in itself for me.
I immediately must bring up my favourite example here, Tibia, that is Tibia before they sold out and decided to become JUST LIKE WOW in order to rake in as much cash from newbies as possible.
In ye olden days, Tibia didn't have any linear progression. No helpful guides pointing you in the direction you needed to go to most effectively progress to the next level. No quest logs letting you know EXACTLY how to solve the "mystery" of the treasure. It was a vast open landscape, and you were free to explore at your leisure, which people did, because that is what was fun. When people didn't want to explore, they organized games, like a crude version of football constructed from stacking boxes around a rectangular area and pushing a bear carcass around (that is, until the devs took notice and implemented an actual football). There was a sense of community, unlike stuff like WoW where you press the dungeon-button and get paired up with 4 strangers from different servers to unlock that next elusive achievement and piece of worthless equipment.
People in Tibia would stand by the beaches and fish all day, just socializing and using the "broadcast" spell (since defunct because of newbies) to communicate over longer distances. There were quests, one-of-a-kind items protected by fierce demons or a clever trail of well-hidden clues, that would not instantly respawn and reward the next player with the exact same thing for his skills at reading a quest-log or wiki-page.
I understand that things like this are hard to implement in a high-player environment, but I believe developers REALLY need to think things over. If they do really want to steal so many hours out of the life of youngsters, they could at least do it well, really giving the feeling of an alternate universe, instead of a linear grind-fest where every player can reach exactly the same goals and never pose a threat to one another or really matter, even in the game universe, like f***ing World of Warcraft.
Though it may not seem like a decent way at all to keep players engaged, forcing them to level tediously, while making most players quit before 20 in a small f2p title, actually keeps the hardcore gamers engaged longer. I don't like it, and I have quit many games simply because the grind was too much... but I've also played games that dumped you into the endgame without so much as a second of work. It's fun at first... and... maybe if we were all kids, the endgame could keep us occupied for a long time. Simply put: as gamers, most of us get bored easily. If we're simply handed all of the content from the start, we'd sample it, and in most cases, move on. In a multimillion dollar heavily designed project... they don't want us to just run around a playstructure a few times and go "this is boring," then walk off. Theoretically, if the playstructure really was that great, that it could keep all the angsty 16-24 players busy, then handing it to them from the start would work.
What makes an MMORPG an MMORPG, simply put, is the, whether I like it or not, fact that you have to work to get to the good stuff in it. It keeps a number of players constantly engaged and keeps them more inclined not to leave once they hit endgame and actually see it all. There are, however, a few examples where handing players the endgame early has worked... kinda. Guild Wars has a level cap of 20 but keeps players engaged through thousands of quests to gear up. It's a PvP game, however. Aika took the step of giving its players good solo content so they can enjoy their long, long trip to endgame alittle more. The giant World of Warcraft has 80 slow levels for the aforementioned reasons, as well. There's a sense of progress in it; it feels more like an RPG than a game where you go and press buttons till other things die. Maybe I'm wrong, however. I tend to quit both the games that require levelling, and those that hand me endgame content equally. It's a paradox, and I say, it comes down to the quality of the content more than anything.
Exploring is by far my FAVORITE part. In the first world of WOW (Not the expansions.) there were these little engineering shops. They were hidden all over the world. I loved finding them, but there was something more. These little secret engineering shops had schematics that I could sell for a profit in the auction house. I think it was an accident, seeing as how they don't exist in the expansions, but they are some of the most fun I have had while playing a game.
"What gameplay drives you to play an MMOG? What parts do you dislike or avoid?"
I'm an explorer. Many times in WoW I did go into harder regions when my curiosity got the better of me. It actually also helped me understand aggro radius a lot better to the point I could ninja through a region that was even 20 levels over me. Took time and wasn't foolproof. There is always the chance of the creature you don't see.
I am so with you on that one. Sometimes I even used to think, it woould be better if they just asked for
I am so with you. Sometimes I would think why didnt they just ask for 100 Pristine Cleft Hoof of Doom, each boar dropping one, then making me killing loads till it actually would drop. The drop rate might be 1% but i could either be lucky and get it on first 10 kills or be extremely unlucky and having to kill more then one thousand.
EVE is getting a lot of love in this thread already but it's still worth mentioning that it's probably got the biggest exploration element of all the MMOs.
Exploration was the entire point of nullsec space before it became the personal stomping grounds of huge alliances and in the current iteration of the game wormhole discovery and exploration serve the same purpose but with the added excitement of not knowing when the wormhole back to safety is going to collapse and strand you Lost in Space style leaving you to survive with only your wits and whatever resources you happened to have with you as you begin a desperate search for a way home.
EQ2's crafting was definitely the best out of any MMO I've tried. I used to get a huge kick out of inspecting random people milling about and seeing them wearing a piece of armor that I'd made, and the crafting and gathering itself felt involved enough to be interesting and yet not so much as to be annoying.
Unrelated to the quoted post: good article and good analogy. It's a shame that WoW will need to die before any other developers can try something new without it being doomed to failure before it's conceived. It could take years.
Treat article, The Secret World seems to be doing something like this. No levels or actual classes and you can build how you want. Don't know if it will hold up to the promises though...
I think you meant to say "The game begins at 80"
When I started playing WoW in 2005 there wasn't much pressure to reach the level cap. There were only a couple of raids available. So I had 60 levels of content to play with and I was pretty happy with all of it. Solo, grouping, PvP, exploring, gathering and crafting never feel like a grind. I even enjoyed fishing. If I ever got bored, I would roll up a new character and play in a different part of the world.
The only two things I hated was grinding reputations and quest lines that required multiple dungeon dives. Killing the same mobs over and over again just to unlock content or get access to rep rewards is slow torture. While having a quest line that requires you to go right back into a dungeon you just cleared, means you are going to group with people that want to skip all the content. Many times I grouped with "GodIHateThisPlace" and never got to look around because he's got a key to the back door and knows a way to sneak around the mobs.
In Cataclysm, I think Blizzard is trying to deflect the race to the level cap mentality. You level out after five levels but then a new mechanic opens up to improve and customize your character. We have to see if this keeps the game interesting or turns out to be grind.
As an analogy-based thinker/writer myself, I have to say this is one of the most entertaining beautiful analogies I have read in a long time, bravo.
It also highlights my central problem with MMORPG's, in the fact that you have to do chores and pay a monthly fee to do them.
Bravo sir, bravo.
Devs, please don't change grinding! Think about how adicting these games would be without grinding??? Think about the children!
Good day!
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ACTING FOR THE DANCER by Hilary Harper-Wilcoxen
Shut out — unable to buy a ticket to the Paris Opera's performance of Othello because it was sold out; an opera! — like a rock concert in the States. I doubted whether too many operas were ever sold out back home; maybe at the Met . . . maybe not.
So why did I care? I had plenty to keep me busy while in Paris, but I was truly disappointed at not being able to see Othello, and I'm not even that big an opera fan. The answer was obvious: Othello is a great story, told by a master. I had recently seen the original Shakespeare version directed by that most quixotic and surprising of theatre/opera directors, Peter Sellars. I had loved it. Iago stayed with me, as did Desdemona. That's my personal test of great theatre; does it change me while I'm at the theatre and, then, most important of all, does it stick with me months after — that performance had. So, what had made it so powerful? And then it hit me: the subtlety and complexity of Shakespeare's Othello derives from the fact that his characters are human; they are rich, contradictory and layered; we can relate to them on a very personal level.
This is not an article on Shakespeare, it is an article on ballet and ballet dancers. In this essay I will make the case for actor training for ballet dancers. I will use examples from Antony Tudor's work and my teaching experience and suggest that teaching ballet dancers to be strong actors is both necessary and teachable.
Back to Shakespeare. Here's the connection: when ballet enables us to empathize fully with the characters we are watching we leave better for it; changed, challenged. However, and this is where the two diverge, when it is solely about beautiful bodies doing amazing things in fabulous costumes we do not necessarily leave with, as dance historian Judith Bennehum puts it, " a heightened sense of who we are and what we represent". This is a critical point, and one which I believe is often overlooked.
Ballet is many things to many people. For me, it is a way to communicate without the need for speech; to find freedom through its seeming opposite — dedication and discipline; to approach universal ideals of beauty, control and grace. It is also a unique opportunity to engage others in thinking about the human condition, if approached with that intention. Unfortunately, it rarely is. Most ballets lack the emotional depth of Shakespeare; they are more interested in technique and less in character development. This should come as no surprise, given ballet's origins when the importance of display and elegance often took precedence over the intrinsic potential of the art form. Of course, ballet has come a long way since Catherine de Medici and the court of the Sun King; but we can go further.
In the world of ballet, the 20th century English choreographer Antony Tudor stands out as a shining example of a choreographer who went further, who got what Shakespeare was after: the turmoil and transcendent possibilities of the human condition; the inevitable consequences of both duty and selfishness, hope and despair. Tudor brought real people to the stage through his characters, and had them reveal their inner lives to us, the audience, through the unlikely medium of classical ballet. Whether the ballet is about a forced marriage in Edwardian England (Jardin aux Lilas) or heinous war crimes during the German occupation in WWII (Echoing of Trumpets), we care about the story that is unfolding, care about the individual lives it reveals. Tudor accomplished what all great artists seek to accomplish: to make the story unfolding on stage relevant to the audience; to have them respond to the universal truths, trials, and triumphs which define each one of us.
Tudor was also a master of comedy. Another mark of greatness for, through humour, we also find truth; often more easily, though not always less painfully. His comedies were poignant, sardonic peeks at the less glamorous side of things. From the ironic characterizations of diva ballerinas in Gala Performance to the somewhat pathetic attempts at seduction in Judgment of Paris he saw with a laser-like eye what comedy always looks for– the asymmetry of life, the contradictions and the touching nuances . . . the unexpected.
So where does all this take us? Although Tudor died in 1987 his work is consistently presented in such companies as American Ballet Theatre and throughout the world. He continues to be considered the "Stanislavsky of ballet " a reference to the great Russian actor who founded the technique associated with honest gesture and powerful character development. His musicality (The Leaves are Fading) and complex narrative (Pillar of Fire) are still stunning examples of a great artist's work within the ballet genre. But his reputation is transient, as is so often the case in dance. Unlike the master works of visual artists, musicians and writers, ballets are quickly lost if not painstakingly videotaped and notated. The Antony Tudor Ballet Trust is doing an extraordinary job of preserving and sharing Tudor's masterpieces under the energetic and visionary direction of Sally Brayley Bliss. This work is critical in large part because of Tudor's masterly use of character. He is considered the Proust of ballet because of the strong development of narrative and character that identifies every masterpiece we know as "Tudor's".
By contrast, many classical ballets use the characters involved as a way to move the plot along; to serve as scaffolding for the choreography. They don't really matter, they simply exist as tools, not as people.
On the other hand, Tudor has characters as real and tormented as any Lady Macbeth or Iago in almost every one of his dramatic ballets. Because of this 'playwright-esque' ability to create powerful characters within ballet choreography Tudor deserves to be studied in the same way as an art student studies (and copies) Rembrandt, or a music student Beethoven, or a theatre student, that's right, Shakespeare. As it turns out, Mr. Tudor is the perfect choreographer for college and university dance programs because of his proclivity towards delving into deep, sociologically rich themes. For him it was not simply about technique or entertainment; it was about meaning. He meant for us to care about his narrative line, not simply follow it. It is the stuff of great literature, music and art — all of which he loved. It is still hard to define exactly where Tudor fits in today's world of classical ballet, but he does clearly belong there; if nothing else, as an example of how it can be done . . . how it was done.
My personal experience with Mr. Tudor goes back to my childhood. My mother studied with him both at Jacob's Pillow and at the Metropolitan in NYC. She had been a theatre major in college and came to ballet quite late for a dancer. For exactly these reasons, Mr. Tudor was the perfect teacher for her. I grew up hearing stories about how he would single her out during class and say, "Now everyone, watch Trude run, she actually looks like she's going somewhere! That's what I want." That interest in honest movement (movement that had a motivation and a need) was quintessential Tudor.
Today's dancers need that kind of attention to detail and motivation as much now as they did then. In our "continuous partial attention" 1 culture we can hardly wonder that our dancers seem lost when we ask them to fully engage in the moment . . . in one moment, not four scattered, disparate moments of multi-tasking-communication. The building blocks for powerfully projecting character on stage have not changed: To be fully in the moment; to be both kinesthetically and emotionally aware of your surroundings; to find honest gesture. These are skills I find are sorely lacking in most dancers these days. But they are skills, not gifts from above and, as such, I believe they can be learned.
The lack of artistry or the inability to embody a character as a dancer, are common complaints among many dance professionals. As a dance professor at Principia College (a small Midwestern, liberal arts college) I teach theatre movement, as well as dance, to both actors and dancers. I have observed this need for what I will call "artistry" first hand. I have also observed how it can be addressed, specifically for ballet dancers, but it can extend to all dancers. I believe that Antony Tudor's oeuvre and legacy has much to teach us, and that exploring his work can bring illumination to the training of today's dancers (and future choreographers); to make them artists, rather than simply athletes. I also believe, and have experienced this in my classes, that a combination of Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, good old-fashioned Stanislavsky intention work and small doses of Alexander alignment can also work wonders.
For the last three summers I have had the privilege of guest teaching at L'Academie Americaine de Danse de Paris in the peaceful residential 16th arr. It has been a transformative experience as an artist/educator mainly because the Director, Brooke Desnoës, has allowed me autonomy in teaching the four week International Summer Intensive dancers in my "Acting for the Dancer" classes. Our philosophies for teaching dance are eerily similar. In her own words, "Respect, honesty and hard work are at the centre of everything we do. Classes are kept small and instructors get to know each student individually, in turn students are provided with encouragement and confidence to challenge themselves in new artistic ways."
Part of my guest teaching while at AADP included a traditional ballet class; this has enabled me to experiment with how best to coordinate the two so that the students learn in a circular pattern. The last two summers I introduced Laban's eight effort actions, some Bartenieff Fundamentals and a few Alexander exercises. We did some character work with the Laban effort actions (i.e. wring, press and float to name a few), as I do with my theatre movement students. I also had the dancers do some work outside the classroom — observing gesture and movement in strangers. This year, however, was the breakthrough.
Having worked all year with the Tudor Trust Committee on the innovative Antony Tudor Dance Studies Curriculum for Colleges and Universities headed up by Sally Bliss, I was more fully aware of some aspects of Tudor's work that I had not fully appreciated before. For one thing; his fascination with dancers who could embody their role was a defining factor in his process. This took me back to Tudor's roots: he trained as an actor before he ever trained as a ballet dancer, and he studied music from a very young age. Therefore, I gave my dance students a scenario in which to work; something all actors are well acquainted with. We were not working with actual Tudor choreography as I am not a Tudor repetiteur, and, anyway, I wanted them to find honest gesture on their own to begin with . . . to realize what that meant and how it felt; not an easy task for most ballet dancers. Based on the concept that their movements should have meaning, should express something about the character they had chosen for themselves, I asked them to come up with pedestrian movement that was real. They were given a beginning, middle and end point, and a partner, but that was all. This autonomy enabled them to have some ownership of the process, a key component in higher modes of learning. They also had to find a reason for their movement. I kept reminding them of the Tudor "mantra" which is to let the movement do the communicating and the facial expressions and other needed expression will follow. I had showed them excerpts from Jardin aux Lilas at the beginning of our time together and I kept referencing what they had seen, and playing bits of it again (specifically the opening scene) for clarification. They were not to recreate it, but to use it in their own work of creating honest gesture.
They quickly learned to open up, to become less concerned with "getting it right" and more concerned with just doing it wholeheartedly. I explained that that sort of approach inevitably leads to honesty, as it is inherently honest. As one student who had trouble finding expression in her dancing put it, "I learned that I must immerse my whole self and go past the point at which I feel "comfortable"."2
The final two days of classes included a scenario which I choreographed for them. The scenario follows:
You are alone in a forest, sleeping; a noise wakes you; you get up and look for what it might have been. While searching you are startled by another noise; you slowly move away but are drawn back to see if you can discover what it was; you do, and flee in horror, exiting stage left.
I introduced this scenario in stages, giving some of the steps in technique class earlier on and then incorporating them into the final 72 count phrase. Repetition was critical as dancers are so accustomed to it, and especially need it when trying something new like this. Some of the comments from the group of older dancers with whom I worked the most are included below:
From a French student: "Il faut effectuer les gestes sur scene sans les anticiper" or "You must not anticipate your gestures on stage." 3 This idea of not anticipating what you know is coming is critical for honest responses on stage (sur scene). It is also very difficult and requires the dancer to understand and be able to recreate, time and again, the ability to be "in the moment" — a concept that seems harder for dancers to grasp than it is for actors. Perhaps it's because, as my mentor in theatre movement Margaret Eginton from Asolo Conservatory explains, "dancers speak with steps and so need more in the moment preparation of their instrument
Another important piece of this puzzle is how dancers approach the work itself. They are typically uncomfortable with "acting". . . and rightly so. To be told to "Look happy now" or, "You need to look scared here" is very unnatural for dancers. They have been trained to do the steps well and to listen to the music, but mostly so that they will be on the beat with the others on stage; not as a catalyst for emotion. To graft onto a difficult combination of steps a feeling is hard for them and usually turns out badly; as I often say in class, "That was fake". We worked a lot with this issue right from the start. One of my students from the intensive puts it far better than I could:
"I was never presented with the opportunity to be a character so fully that I truly felt I was that person. It is a completely different world. Your exercises present dancers with a difficult challenge that is as much about self exploration as it is about discovering different characters. …I tried to embody the music. We learned to constantly dance in the moment and to observe those around us in order to comprehend the meaning or emotion behind a certain gesture." 4
As Desnoës puts it, " "Incorporating "Acting for the Dancer" classes into the summer curriculum has helped the young dancers to get ever so close to that artistic freedom experienced when one "becomes" a character. It is delightful to watch their faces when they are able to feel that for the first time. I am certain that this connection between dance and feeling the character remains with them as they continue their dance studies and, more importantly, kindles the artistic process inside them."
That "artistic process" is really what this work is all about. It has a lot to do with both discovering how to become a character and to embody the music, that elusive element that was also a key concept throughout their training. To really hear and feel the music, not just count it is something of an anomaly for many dancers today. Like the character work, however, it can be learned. Many times I have found that all a dancer needs is explicit permission to "let the music move you" from the choreographer or teacher and they are eager to do so. All of the dancers found a road they could travel to find expressive gesture and honest movement . . . my basic goals for the class.
Antony Tudor is not the only ballet choreographer who has ever worked to find honesty in movement; but using Mr. Tudor's works as an example of where this can be found in classical ballet has been most helpful. For today's college dancer the use of various techniques to achieve this end seems both logical and in tune with the ideals of a liberal arts education. In exploring these paths some of them came from reading or hearing about exercises Mr. Tudor had used in his technique classes; some I observed while Tudor repetiteurs Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner worked with my dancers at Principia College. Other ideas came from Margaret Eginton's coaching and observing her classes and my graduate work on my MFA where my thesis was on how to incorporate Laban Movement Analysis in my work with actors and dancers. Years of teaching theatre movement, choreographing and teaching ballet have also informed this practice and lead me in new and different ways.
The overarching goal of training more artistic dancers through giving them a way to find expressive gesture is ongoing. In this age, dancers in university programs need to have both a goal and a map: the goal is to be able to fully express any character they may be asked to embody through their movement. The map is a clearly articulated yet flexible set of exercises and approaches that enable the dancer to arrive at honest gesture and let go of self-imposed limitations and fears. I don't know if Mr. Tudor would be pleased if we reached this goal, but I know I would.
- "Does America Have ADD?," U.S. News and World Report, March 26,2001, 24.
- Camille Kemache at AADP workshop, summer 2011, Paris, France
- Fanny Serenque at AADP workshop, summer 2011, Paris, France
- Mikkailla Bolotenko at AADP workshop, summer 2011, Paris, France
This speech is how my life, from very humble beginnings in Halifax, NS, Canada became interwoven with one of the great master choreographers of the 20th Century.
Antony Tudor: …my mother mentioned his name to me when I was a dance student, approximately ten years old. My teachers were Latvian immigrants. They were Russian trained and certainly had never heard of him.
Tudor was an important choreographer in my mother's world. I don't know why she knew about him, but she was a true Balletomane, the name for lovers of Ballet in those days. But she knew all about his ballets: Lilac Garden, Dark Elegies, and more. At that time in Canada, Celia Franca, a former dancer with The Rambert Ballet during Tudor's time there who then went on to dance with The Royal Ballet, formerly called Sadler's Wells Ballet, was brought to Canada to found a National Ballet.
Celia had worked with Tudor and danced in his ballets at Rambert. She revered him. Upon founding the NBC, besides the classical repertoire, she brought in four Tudor works: Lilac Garden, Dark Elegies, Gala Performance, and Offenbach in the Underworld, a work he created for a small company in Philadelphia. Resetting it for Canada he developed and refined the work and it became an established ballet in NBC's repertoire.
I joined the company and had the honor of dancing in 3 of those 4 ballets in the repertoire at that time. My mother was to me amazing, having known of him from when he first arrived in the U.S., and opening my mind to this great choreographer, was pretty special.
How interesting a young dancer, born in London, living in Nova Scotia, Canada in the late 40s, early 50s, by a twist of fate, meets this great chorographer of the 20th century; and how my life connected with him throughout my career! He is the Godfather of my eldest son, Mark, and I have been given the task of sustaining his legacy for future generations of dancers.
I had six great years with NBC and decided I really wanted to move to NY to study. I did visit New York before moving and I remember my first class with Tudor: I stood in the back, hoping to hide, then I heard "Hey, Maple Leaf Forever, come up here!" I was petrified! How he knew I was from Canada so quickly I'll never know.
I moved to New York in 1962 and was accepted as a dancer into the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. At that time the new the Director of the Ballet, was Dame Alicia Markova, whom I loved. She was funny, respectful, taught a terrible ballet class, but that was ok because we had most of our classes with Antony Tudor and Margaret Craske.
I had the honor of dancing the Prelude from Les Sylphides with her coaching was me. Remarkably, Les Sylphides was the very first ballet I saw at age 5. Markova was dancing the same prelude, and here she was twenty years later coaching me in that same part. Markova was a great friend of, guess who… ? Antony Tudor, who created the role of Juliet in his magnificent Romeo & Juliet for her.
Markova created "Ballet Evenings" for the Metropolitan Opera Ballet and they were creative with major ballets. Our first evening was Les Sylphides, then small works such as Dolin's Pas de Quartre, Petipa's Rose Adagio, and we closed with Folkine's Scheherazade. But the third ballet evening was very exciting. Markova convinced Tudor to do the American premiere of his work Echoing of Trumpets that he created on the Royal Swedish Ballet. But best of all she somehow convinced him to create a brand new work on us. It was called Concerning Oracles and the evening ballet closed with Bournonville's ballet, La Ventana.
This was maybe highlight of my life. I was cast in both the Tudor ballets and La Ventana, and not only that, he had me learn every part in both ballets, except the little girl in Trumpets (I was 5'8", and not a little girl type…). For at least eight weeks we worked with him around the clock. We would stop only to dance in the Opera Ballets, come off stage, and go to work until midnight (no unions at that time). Can you imagine what an incredibly exciting learning experience this was for all of us? This period is still in my memory. In the end I danced the tough woman in Echoing of Trumpets, and an incredible pas de deux in Concerning Oracles. In the last scene, Lance Westergard was a young boy; we were a family picnicking in a French garden. I was an old, dowdy aunt and for some odd reason Lance dreamt of me as a sexy lady. I stripped down from my dowdy clothes to a frilly, pink peignoir and we danced this pas de deux which kept building, and every time the audience was expecting Lance to lift me, I lifted him. He was 5'5" and I was 5'8". It was hilarious and actually brought the house down. Lance and I were totally in the dark while learning it. We had no idea it was funny. Imagine having a ballet by Antony Tudor created on you?
During my tenure at the Met, there were highlights and lowlights: Franco Zeffirelli took me up to wardrobe and designed my costume for the opening night of the new Met's Anthony & Cleopatra, with choreography by Alvin Ailey.
In the ballet in the Opera La Pericole, I was dancing the lead, and the English actor, Cyril Richard, playing a comedic role, joined me in a partnered cartwheel at the ballet's end; and, somehow he ended up on top of me, flat out, my tutu over my head. We looked at each other and with no music, got up, did it again perfectly.
The second opening of the new Met was La Giaconda. It's a long story, but my partner drank himself into oblivion and dropped me on every lift – a disaster – a moment I will never forget. It's funny now….
It was around this time I married Anthony Bliss and felt it important for me to leave the Met. Tudor was about to restage Echoing of Trumpets for Ballet Theatre and convinced Lucia Chase to take me into the company, and I danced the same role – the tough woman.
After one season, which was again a great experience, Robert Joffrey asked me to join his company to dance the leads in six ballets. His Pas des desses, Taglioni, Arpino's Viva Vilvaldi and Elegy, and Ruthanna Boris's Cakewalk in the part of Venus, Balanchine's Scotch Symphony, and Lew Christianson's Jinx. I couldn't resist the offer and so accepted the invitation. I danced the season five months pregnant with my 1st son.
Under Robert Joffrey's direction, I danced two seasons with NYCO as leading dancer in Joffrey's Manon & Arabella, Frank Cosaro's Trovatori and Prince Igor with Edward Villella. (I can't remember for the life of me who choreographed…).
At that time the great dance educator, Lillian Moore, retired and Robert Joffrey asked Jonathan Watts and me (both of had just retired) to take over the apprentice program at The Joffrey School. This turned into a very productive second company, The Joffrey II Dancers. Jonathan left and for the next 15 years I developed a successful company of emerging dancers, choreographers, designers, composers and administrators. We did a number of Tudor ballets coached by Tudor himself. We commissioned five new works a year, which we produced, and we did ballets by Joffrey and Arpino. We toured many months of the year and many alumni went on to great success: Eileen Brady, Billy Forsythe, Choo San Goh, Tina La Blanc, Elizabeth Parkinson, Glen Edgerton, to name but a few..
During the beginning of the 80s, I went down to the Joffrey School to pick new dancers (Bob had taken about eight of my 12). I was intrigued by this young boy who jumped like an antelope. He was very green but I liked him. After I picked him I found out he was Ronald Reagan's son, Ron. That was a trip. We lived through the campaign, secret service, the inauguration, Ron's elopement, and the shooting of the President. Ironically, we were on tour in "Lincoln" Nebraska the day it happened. Ron went on to the 1st company and did well, but left for a more lucrative career in the media.
During this time I was on the board of NARB, later and now called RDA, where I adjudicated festivals – 2 in the PNW, one S.E., one N.E. and the mid-states for the 1st national conference. I also taught at many of these festivals. These festivals were a very important part of the development of dance in America.
After these fifteen years, it was time for me to move on. I continued teaching, advising, consulting, and making speeches, and my first love, encouraging young dancers and choreographers to continue in their profession.
In 1987 I was appointed by President Reagan to be a member of the National Council on the Arts for six years: we were the Board of Directors for the NEA. It was very hard work and a fragile time. The right-wing wanted to do away with government funding for the Arts. Jesse Helms was the outspoken hero for the right. It was so stressful. To be honest, with a lot of hard work the Endowments does still exist, but it remains tenuous. That whole experience could be a speech on its own. If nothing else, I learned one hell of a lot. I'm honored to have been there but it was probably one of the most difficult experiences of my life.
My mentors, Antony Tudor, died in the spring of 1987; Alvin Ailey, died in 1988, and Robert Joffrey died in 1989; and my husband and father died in 1991, within a week of each other. This time was sad for me, but it was a busy time and probably good.
Upon Tudor's death, I was appointed co-executor of his Estate, and named sole Trustee of his ballets, which became The Antony Tudor Ballet Trust. This entails that his ballets are staged and performed as near to his expectations as possible. I have répétiteurs who stage his works all over the world.
It is my mantra to make sure Tudor's ballets are seen worldwide and never lose their artistic integrity. His ballets are not about steps; they are about nuance, gesture, soul, quality of movement, and musicality. The Trust has excellent répétiteurs, many of whom worked with Tudor when he was staging, creating and coaching.
We held a centennial conference at Juilliard, Lincoln Center, New York in 2008. We had approximately 300 attendees. It was very successful with Tudor classes, taught by former Tudor students; panel discussions with Tudor dancers and with writers and musicians; workshop performances of four of his works : excerpts of Undertow, Juilliard; Little Improvisations, JKO School; Continuo, ABT II; and Judgment of Paris, New York Theatre Ballet. We had a wonderful reception for everyone to get together, which culminated in a performance by the Juilliard students in his great masterpiece, Dark Elegies. Maybe most special were the remembrances which we videotaped with each attendee, their thoughts and memories, many of which brought tears to our eyes; as did the remembrances of Tudor's relatives, who traveled all the way from New Zealand to our event.
Out of this we have created a video of the event, and best of all a book. If you are interested, we have them for sale on our website http://antonytudor.org/store.html. The proceeds for the sale of this book and DVD will fund an endowed scholarship in Tudor's name at Juilliard.
We are at this time developing and launching The Antony Tudor Dance Studies Curriculum for college and university dance programs. We will discuss this tomorrow.
In 1995 I was asked to be Executive Director of Dance St. Louis, one of the few dance only presenters in the country. We started a unique educational program throughout the state. We raised funds to bring all kinds of dance to St. Louis, the best in every field: Rennee Harris, HipHop; ABT, full length Romeo & Juliet; Nacho Duardo's company from Madrid; Paul Taylor; Hubbard Street; San Francisco Ballet; The National Ballet of Mexico; Tango Times II; Groupo Corpo, Brazil; Sydney Dance Theatre; Miami City Ballet; Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre; Mark Morris; and Pibololus. We brought these companies back many times during my tenure, and through this work we developed a very intelligent dance audience. They know what's good and bad. I'm proud of this legacy. What is really important is that there is dance audience out there – east coast, west coast and mid-states.
Before I close, I've had the honor of serving on many Boards including: The Board of The Joffrey Ballet; Chairman of the Board of Visitors of the North Carolina School of the Arts; Board of Trustees of New England College, Henniker, New Hampshire; Advisory Board of the Kathryn and Gilbert Miller Health Institute for Performing Artists; The Dance USA Board, and The Paul Taylor Dance Company, among others. I've been thrilled to receive many wonderful national and local awards as well.
Antony Tudor has been the thread throughout our life in dance. Are we lucky? Yes! Are we finished? No! There is always so much more to do. This is my "Examining of Tradition and Innovation" throughout our careers, and Antony Tudor is the legacy. We want his legacy to continue forever. He was a genius and he must not be forgotten.
Sally Brayley Bliss: State of the Trust
So much has been happening with The Trust that it's time to update everyone.I'll go back to mid-March with Colorado Ballet's excellent performance of Tudor's Echoing of Trumpets. This great ballet does not get performed often. Some people worry about the subject: war. To me, it is a timeless work and very apropos. It is with great respect that I applaud Gil Boggs, Director of Colorado Ballet for presenting Echoing of Trumpets. Donald Mahler did an exceptional restaging of the work. The dancers really rose to the occasion and danced with a rare sensitivity, intelligence; and, brought such life to the work. Bravo to Gil Boggs, his staff, and dancers for their great performances.
I returned to St. Louis and continued working on Little Improvisations with COCA (Center Of Creative Arts), a very good performing arts school which has developed a much improved dance program. They did a fine job with Little Improvisations. There were 3 casts of girls and one boy who danced all performances. I was so proud of these young dancers (see pictures). This wasCOCA's first time to work on a master choreographer's ballet. For me, the fulfillment of seeing these young dancers develop from their first rehearsal through their performances was amazing. Again, having intelligence, while learning and dancing a Tudor ballet, is of vital importance. These dancers were totally there.
A perfect segue into my next report: two marathon meetings on my daunting idea to create a Tudor curriculum for university, college and conservatory dance programs. As I've travelled from universities to colleges through the years, I realized how perfect Tudor's ballets (not all), his classes, his production classes, his use of music, and his use of gesture, and, the drama of his works, are a natural for dance programs. So here we are, and a lot of Tudor dancers agree, it might work. A year from now we would like to launch with the CORPS (Council of Organized Researchers for Pedagogical Study) Conference, June 22-25, 2011, Kansas/ City, MO headed by University of Missouri, Kansas, Dance Chair, and President of this organization, Paula Weber. This school will implement the program and test the Tudor Curriculum. They will learn & perform Dark Elegies as part of the pilot program.
The Curriculum Committee is myself, Sally Brayley Bliss, Trustee, The Antony Tudor Ballet Trust; Hilary Harper-Wilcoxen, Chair, Dance Program, Principia College, Ilsa, IL; Christine Knoblauch-O'Neal, Ballet Faculty, Washington University; James Jordan, Repetiteur, Tudor Trust & Ballet Master, Kansas City Ballet; and, Amanda McKerrow, Repetiteur, Tudor Trust. As we develop we will add university/college/conservatory dance faculty and Chairs. This is a taste of what is in the future. As we move along we will keep updating you.
A few other items to report: I was honored to be given St. Louis's Grand Center Visionary Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. I was thrilled to be included among so many distinguish artists and supporters of the Arts.
I am on the board of the "National Society of Arts and Letters," and will be heading up a committee of former dancers in their choreography competition in February of 2010.
I was also on an adjudication committee for Grand Center's September 25th "Dancing in the Streets" here in St. Louis. It will be its fourth year and plethora of dance companies and schools will perform on four different stages in the Arts area called Grand Center. It lasts all day into the evening. Thousands of people turn out, not only from St. Louis but from other states, towns and cities. It's a grand event. Most importantly, it introduces dance to a non-dance audience and, hopefully, develops tastes of new audiences for the future.
I'm now in Prince Edward Island, Canada, my summer home for over 40 years. It's beautiful (As you may have seen on Regis & Kelly recently!) I'm working on all the projects you have just read about. I'll keep you all updated as best I can.
Sally Brayley Bliss


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Dartmouth Events
Dickey Center Public Event
Speaker: General James Mattis In the Midst of the Storm: A US Commander's View of the Changing Middle East
PUBLIC LECTURE: Wednesday, September 25, Location TBD
Gen. James Mattis, retired commander of U.S. Central Command, will be the Class of 1950 Senior Foreign Affairs Fellow this fall at the Dickey Center for International Understanding. Mattis, a 41-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, retired in March as commander of CENTCOM, which covers American military activities in the Middle East and Western and Central Asia, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
"I am delighted that Gen. Mattis is joining us this fall," says Daniel Benjamin, Director of the Dickey Center. Before coming to Dartmouth, Benjamin served as the U.S. State Department's top counterterrorism official. "I worked closely with Jim Mattis while I was in government, and I know him to be one of the deepest military thinkers and strongest leaders of his generation," Benjamin says.
"The Dickey Center aims to bring more outstanding practitioners and scholars of national renown to campus for stays ranging from two weeks to a full term during the fall, winter, and spring terms," Benjamin adds. "These distinguished visitors will interact with undergraduate and graduate students and faculty. Gen. Mattis' visit is a model of what we want at Dickey."
Mattis will be in residence at Dartmouth from September 18 through October 7. He will deliver a public address, and he'll meet with the Dickey Center's War and Peace Fellows, Great Issues Scholars, and other student groups. He will also be a guest lecturer in a number of courses and meet with the Dickey Fellows, the center's postdoctoral scholars.
Read about this event in Dartmouth Now: Dartmouth to Host Retired Commander of U.S. Central Command
View photos of this event on Flickr
View a recording of this event:
Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.


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Baby-faced singing sensation Charice was going to be a big enough deal when she entered the "Glee" world. But the fact that the star has created controversy over Botox -- at the tender age of 18 -- has made her upcoming Glee appearances must watch television.
First we have the 18-year-old Filipino with the magical voice who has generated tremendous buzz after career-making appearances on Oprah and Ellen Degeneres' talk shows. Then we get the news that Charice will be appearing on "Glee," offering Glee Club competition to Lea Michelle on the show. It already has the makings of great show drama.
Then Charice announces that she prepared for her debut by getting Botox and an anti-aging procedure, according to the AP. How can you possibly miss this television appearance?
Her celebrity cosmetic surgeon told a television station that the young star underwent a 30-minute Thermage skin-tightening procedure and Botox injections to make her "naturally round face" more narrow.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
"All people will be anticipating how will Charice look? Is she good enough to pit against Rachel Berry (Lea)? So of course there is tremendous pressure," Charice said, according to the AP.
Charice's U.S. rep, sensing a crisis that went beyond teenage wrinkles, immediately kicked it into gear. Liz Rosenberg told the AP in an email that the Botox was "absolutely not cosmetic" and said the treatment was for muscle pain in her jaw.
Somehow you get the feeling we haven't heard the last of this.


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Slash Joins Brian May to Record Benefit Song 'The Badger Swagger'
Slash recently joined forces with fellow guitarist and Queen virtuoso Brian May to record a song called 'The Badger Swagger,' heard above. The song was written and recorded in hopes of raising awareness regarding the slaughter of badgers in England.
Slash and Brian May recorded the song with singer Kerry Ellis and producer by Rob Cass. Slash, who recorded his parts remotely from Los Angeles, recently posted on Twitter, "Just heard a mix of 'Badger Swagger.' Sounds great." He also commented on the all-star collaboration, saying, "Such an honor to be on a record w/ @DrBrianMay & Sir Richard Attenborough."
The song is out today (June 4) as part of the activists' campaign. Coining themselves Artful Badger and Friends, the collaboration supports Team Badger and the "Stop the Cull" petition asking the government to stop their planned deaths and promoting vaccinations instead. Read more about it and sign the petition here.
According to reports, badgers carrying tuberculosis are being blamed for the loss of close to 40 thousand cattle slaughtered in England. May has been lending his support to the badgers for quite some time, making appearances at protests and recording past songs for the cause.


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I don't know about you but I can't believe it's already November. I just love the fact that all my favorite blogs are in a "thankful" mood. We have so much to be thankful for and to kick off things I wanted to share with you this amazing "Blessing Board" that Heather from Whipperberry created. I just love everything she does. ( did you see the sweater flowers?Oh boy!!)
You can read more about it here.
I already know what my next project is. Michael's here we go…
Happy Monday y'all!!


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The Euro – Going From Bad to Worse
Posted by Ram Kumar Shrestha on April 27, 2012
By Sir Christopher Meyer, Former British Ambassador to the United States and Germany, former Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission
The markets have steadied a bit after their loss of nerve on Monday. But you can't help feeling that it is a bit like a climber, sliding down a glacier to his inevitable doom, who breaks his fall for a while on a crumbling ledge that soon will give way.
Things in Euroland have taken a bad turn for the worse – and it's the politics, stupid. It is not just the uncertainty about the second round of French presidential elections on 6 May. François Hollande, the Socialist leader, will probably win, because it will be easier for him than for Nicolas Sarkozy to pick up votes from those whose candidates were knocked out in the first round. But the energetic Sarko should never be underestimated. He is pitching his campaign hard to gain votes from the hard Right supporters of Marine Le Pen. Herein lies the problem for the euro and for Germany.
It almost doesn't matter who wins the election. The fiscal compact agreed in principle by 25 out of 27 European leaders in January – "a kind of German straitjacket for the fiscally wayward", to quote Stephen King, group chief economist of HSBC – is Angela Merkel's pride and joy, her answer to all the eurozone's difficulties. Typically, like the euro itself, it has been designed to make everyone more like Germany. Hollande has already made it a plank of his campaign to renegotiate the compact. Meanwhile, as Sarkozy moves ever rightwards, striking a strongly nationalist tone (and risking the estrangement of centrist voters), he puts himself increasingly at odds with a compact designed to create greater fiscal union on German terms. If Sarko wins, it is hard to see how Merkozy, never the warmest of unions, can simply pick up where they left off.
This is very bad news for Berlin; and could mean uncertain French intentions continuing long after the elections. Might the fiscal compact be derailed altogether? Given the collapse of the Dutch coalition government as well, this is a real possibility. The Netherlands is no flaky Mediterranean economy, but, with Germany, one of the most solid citizens of the eurozone.
Yet, it has been hit by a strain of euro-contagion. This has nothing to do with debt mountains, deficits or default. The contagion is political and it is this. People are simply not prepared to wear the German hair shirt any longer. The demands of austerity have gone beyond what societies and parliamentary democracies will tolerate. There is a direct link between riots in Madrid, a collapsing coalition in the Netherlands and the deep unpopularity of the whole European project.
For all the crises and endless euro-summits the moment of truth for Europe has not yet arrived.
But it is discernible in the intolerable tension between economics and politics, a tension that has already exploded in Greece, Italy, the Iberian states and now the Netherlands, with France on the brink. The danger in this lies not just in economic dislocation; but in a loss of faith in democracy itself as a system of government that can deliver prosperity, stability and security. In his brilliantThe Dark Continent, a history of Europe in the 20th century, Mark Mazower argues that it was by no means inevitable that parliamentary democracy would defeat dictatorship.
Today, it is by no means inevitable that people, widely disillusioned with the political classes and battered by austerity, will retain their affection for democracy and not look for salvation in different and less savoury forms of government.


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(visited by Ross Finlayson)
29-Jun-2006 -- Although this confluence is quite far from the nearest major (or minor) highway, it is surprisingly easy to reach, because there are several dirt roads nearby. My GPS receiver's navigation software found the same dirt road used by the previous visitors - one that passes just 0.3 miles west of the confluence point, leading to an easy hike across flat terrain.
The confluence point lies in a flat desert area, with short scrubby vegetation growing in sandy soil with a thin crust. It is clear that - in the distant past - this area was all underwater. Much more recently, there has been lots of human presence in this area. Not only did I see the coax cable reported by Jack Frickey and Shawn Fleming, but I also found a rusted pipe fixture lying just feet from the confluence point.


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Show you care: 6 incredible causes to support
Keep History Alive
If you're a history buff, then the Civil War Trust is your charity. The group is dedicated to
protecting the battlefields of the Civil War, and it also works to educate
visitors about the importance of that moment in U.S. history. Currently, only
about 20 percent of the war's battlefields are preserved, and more than 32,000
acres of that is thanks to the Civil War Trust. The organization has created
apps and plain old maps that guide visitors through those historical sites, and
it even helps to keep the areas clean so that tourists can have the best
experiences possible.
Go Wild
Love trips to the zoo, volunteering at shelters and your own furry housemates? Then you've gotta check out the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The organization works to save endangered species and habitats, and it helps communities to work with nature instead of against it. WWF supports all kinds of critters, from African elephants to spectacled bears to marine turtles. It is also dedicated to helping large companies reduce their negative impact on the environment, so that decades from now, there will still be plenty of natural places, like the Congo Basin and the Chihuahuan Desert, for people to enjoy.
Let's Play!
Wanna share your love of athletics? Then support Grassroot Soccer, an organization
dedicated to stopping the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa. To do that, the group
has come up with an educational program for 12 to 18-year-olds that revolves
around soccer, using the skills from the game as rules for living a healthy,
goal-oriented life. It even brings pro soccer players to places like Zambia,
Zimbabwe and South Africa to talk to kids about how to stay safe and healthy.
Save Lives
You love taking care of people, and seeing someone hurting
is just too much to bear. So help save lives with Direct Relief International, a non-profit that provides medicine
and health care to poor people, people affected by natural disasters, and
people in war-torn areas. The organization mainly supports programs for mothers
and their children, areas suffering from disease, and emergency relief. It
doesn't just help Americans, either – medicine is sent to places all over the
world, like Haiti, Japan and Bolivia.
Share Knowledge
In science class, you're totally fascinated by what your
teacher has to say, and the idea of coming up with new technology to help
people gets you super psyched. Well, check out the Society for Science & the Public to see how it's spreading a
love for science all over the country. Since the 1920s, the group has reported the
latest scientific discoveries in the form of a magazine, which has shown up in
schools, libraries and houses across the states. The society also sponsors
scholarships and science fair programs for guys and gals like you who are
already comin' up with awesome new ideas before they're even outta school.
Stars And Stripes Forever
You love showin' people that this land is your land, and
you're all about the red, white, and blue. So help say thanks to the people
that protect the old US of A by supporting Hope
For the Warriors, an organization that provides all kinds of programs for
post-9/11 servicemen and their families. The non-profit holds counseling
retreats, gives out scholarships, organizes athletic events, and provides
financial aid for those who have been wounded, mentally or physically, in the
line of duty. It also helps active servicemen, veterans, and families of the
fallen, so that they know how much we appreciate their contribution to this
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Ergotron, Inc. announces its Unilateral Minimum Advertised Price Policy ("UMAP Policy") for its products that are sold in the United States and Canada, effective October 30, 2013. The UMAP Policy is designed to help Ergotron resellers maintain the long-term strength and equity of the Ergotron brand by helping them engage in advertising that best conveys to customers the value of Ergotron's products.
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The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 was designed to increase the amount of information made available by retailers and manufacturers regarding their efforts to address human trafficking and slavery, thereby allowing consumers to make better and more informed choices regarding the products they buy and the companies they choose to support.
We at Ergotron, Inc. and our affiliated companies (collectively, "Ergotron") believe that workers at our facilities and at our suppliers' facilities have the right to freely choose employment and not be subjected to exploitation as a condition of employment. Ergotron is committed to providing a supportive, professional, and respectful work environment for our own employees, and we would never knowingly conduct business with a supplier who engages in forced labor, child labor, human trafficking, or slavery. To this end, we have taken steps to better ensure the absence of these prohibited activities in our supply chain.
Our Supply Partners Code of Conduct (the "Supply Partner Code") seeks to proactively combat the problem of human trafficking and slavery by holding our supply partners accountable to take greater social responsibility for their participation in the global economy. As part of a collaborative effort to ensure that forced labor and human trafficking do not occur in the supply chain, the Supply Partner Code requires that our partners:
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This notice was last revised February 2016.
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Reviewing a "Twilight" movie is kind of like giving Lindsay Lohan a jail sentence; it's pointless. Addicts only change once they decide to, until that point, you're shouting on deaf ears.
As gagillions of "Twilight" fans have proven time and again, it doesn't matter how clumsily hewn the film adaptations of Stephenie Meyer's stratospherically popular books are, just as long as Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are chastely gazing into each other's eyes, professing and suppressing their undying (undead?) love.
Though "Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Part One" ("Part Two" lands in theaters November 2012) might underwhelm neophytes with wan acting, laughably bad CGI (one scene of animated wolves communicating telepathically raised howls of laughter) and a plodding pace, fans of the franchise get to witness Bella's marriage, honeymoon and pregnancy — three major pay-offs for the series.
U.S. & World
After four movies, what everyone wants to see is Bella and Edward in bed together, and "Breaking Dawn" boasts a much-ballyhooed honeymoon scene featuring a broken headboard and quite a bit of implied thrusting given its PG-13 rating. Recalled in a series of flashbacks that play as a tween version of Diane Lane's train ride in "Unfaithful," a "Twilight" love scene is certain to earn whoops and cheers from devout audiences (sans Team Jacob), even if it does feel as over-produced as a Justin Bieber song.
However, for filmgoers who aren't already fans of the "Twilight" saga, "Breaking Dawn" can be vexingly tedious — not to mention sodden with preachy life lessons better served by Dr. Drew on a "Teen Mom" reunion. Director Bill Condon ("Dreamgirls," "Gods and Monsters") beautifies each frame as best he can, but a number of "Breaking Dawn"'s problems (like wooden acting, clumsily shoe-horned exposition and bizarre hair and makeup) can be blamed on the bad decisions that Catherine Hardwicke made when she directed the series' first film and all the films' directors since have made, too.
Not that any of that matters to the five billion Twi-hards who have yet to hit bottom and realize they are powerless against their addiction.
"Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part One" is currently in theaters.


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Am I a Candidate for Minimal Access Surgery?
When a patient is considering the possibility of surgery, the least invasive approach possible is often preferred. In some cases a patient may not be eligible, or there may be other reasons that a traditional approach would be advised. Patients may be referred to the Minimal Access Surgery Program by other surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia if they are candidates for minimal access procedures. Patients considering surgery for GERD, weight loss, gall bladder removal, appendectomy, or other procedures are also welcome to inquire directly for evaluation at our program.
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