art, communication, dogs

German choreographer takes a big dump on his own reputation…

The day is still somewhat young, and I’ve already been engaged in an online debate with someone. This person saw an article I shared on Facebook about a German choreographer named Marco Goecke who was in the news because he smeared dog shit on Wiebke Hüster, a German dance critic. Ms. Hüster had been watching a ballet on Saturday night, and was taking a break from the performance, when Mr. Goecke suddenly appeared in front of her and did the disgusting deed.

Just that morning, Ms. Hüster’s negative review of Goecke’s latest dance, “In the Dutch Mountains”, was published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Mr. Goecke, who is the ballet director of the Hanover State Opera, is 50 years old and has a pet dachshund named Gustav. He confronted the dance critic, asking her why she had written such a negative review of his work. Then he pulled out a bag of excrement– presumably from Gustav– and smeared some of it on Hüster’s face.

Ms. Hüster, naturally, was shocked and started to scream. She has reported the incident to the police, and said that although she will still be a dance critic, her days of watching and reviewing Marco Goecke’s dances are over. Many people in the German dance world are left bewildered. From the article:

…much of Germany’s dance world is trying to understand why a respected choreographer would attack a critic, and whether it represented a sign of a damaging shift in how artists view criticism.

Prior to this incident, Goecke was a very highly respected choreographer. According to the article:

Manuel Brug, a critic for the German newspaper Die Welt, said in an interview that Mr. Goecke was “the most important ballet choreographer in Germany.” His signature style, Mr. Brug added, involving rapid arm movements, makes dancers look “like flying birds.”

I suspect Mr. Goecke will face some shitty consequences for his stunt. He has already been suspended from his job with the Hanover State Opera. In addition, Mr. Goecke is the associate choreographer at the Nederlands Dans Theater. Representatives from the Nederlands Dans Theater have stated that Goecke’s actions are contrary to their values. They have not yet decided what repercussions, if any, he will face for his antics. I doubt he will go to prison for smearing shit on a critic, but he’ll probably face fines and other unpleasant sanctions. We’ll see.

My position is that Mr. Goecke was absolutely wrong to physically attack Ms. Hüster over her review of his work. My friend’s position is that Ms. Hüster “had it coming”. So we had a bit of a back and forth about that. My friend’s take is that critics make a living “tearing down other people’s work.” My friend wondered how critics can sleep at night, earning money expressing negative views of people’s art.

I vehemently disagree that all critics make a living tearing down people’s work. In fact, given that critics are usually writers, I would say that what they do is also artistic. It takes talent and skill to write well constructed and reasoned opinions that interest other people. Moreover, no one is forced to read or heed the critic’s opinions. I have read plenty of opinions with which I disagreed. I have never felt it would be appropriate to physically attack the person with whom I disagreed, even if I was extremely opposed their views.

I used to write a lot of product reviews. I tried hard to be fair and balanced when I shared my opinions. It was very rare occasion that I couldn’t find something positive to include in my reviews, even if I really didn’t like something. I knew that my reviews helped people make buying decisions, but it certainly wasn’t the deciding factor. I’ve enjoyed entertainment that a whole lot of critics didn’t like. Their opinions didn’t stop me from enjoying things. They just offered a perspective. I am very opposed to the idea of squelching opinions, even if they’re negative.

My friend doesn’t like James Taylor’s music. I have never known this person to hold back opinions, so they were very comfortable letting me know that James Taylor isn’t their cup of tea. A few months ago, this friend also stated that they thought the beautifully prepared trout I was enjoying for lunch looked like someone had vomited on the plate. Personally, I disagreed with both of those opinions and actually felt a little hurt regarding the trout. It was delicious and beautifully presented, in my view. It’s not nice to yuck on other people’s yum, you know. But the idea that expressing negative opinions might be hurtful to me didn’t stop my friend from commenting.

What’s the difference? A talented newspaper journalist makes a living writing reviews. Some people care about their opinions, but a lot of people don’t. It’s a living. What they do is also creative.

As someone who makes his living in the arts, it should have been very obvious to him that alienating critics is not the best move for a choreographer. At the very least, it was completely unprofessional and embarrassing for the dance company, which is competing for audiences against a lot of other companies. At the worst, it was psychologically damaging and humiliating for Ms. Hüster, not to mention unsanitary and potentially unsafe.

It’s been said that all publicity is positive publicity. One might not like reading a negative review about one’s own work, but I think when it comes to the arts, a negative review is better than being ignored. Ms. Hüster is a respected dance critic who works for a major newspaper. She has said she won’t give Marco Goecke another chance. That means less publicity for Goecke AND the dancers, who are already in a tough business. Less publicity means less money. We all know that money is very important. Indeed, it makes the world go around. 😉

What Marco Goecke did may also have a “chilling effect” on other critics, which isn’t a good thing. It’s never a good thing to make people afraid to share their opinions. Sometimes, someone’s well-considered and constructive opinion leads to better and nicer things for everyone. In a free society, people should be free to express themselves and share ideas and opinions. If the opinion is that poorly considered, I would expect that Ms. Hüster would face consequences in the form of a demotion or job loss. She shouldn’t have to worry about her physical safety for practicing her craft as a journalist.

I would have been much more impressed by Marco Goecke if his response to Ms. Hüster’s criticism of his dance had been more like Tim Minchin’s. Tim once got a bad review by a journalist at The Guardian named Phil Daoust. Did Tim smear shit on Mr. Daoust for sharing his views? No… Instead, he used that review as fuel for another project. Behold:

Tim Minchin channeled his anger at Phil Daoust’s review into creating a new song… no shit involved, unless you count where he refers to Daoust as a “fucking poo face.” We all had a good laugh out of that, and Tim Minchin made some more money and fame.

You see, I think the sign of a true artist is channeling what they feel into something else. There’s nothing creative or artistic about Marco Goecke smearing shit on a woman’s face while she’s in public. There is no excuse for that conduct, even if some people think it was a funny thing to do (and it really isn’t– people laughing at this would NOT be laughing if it happened to them).

Marco Goecke should use his considerable artistic abilities to be constructive, stop dumping on his own reputation, and save the dog shit for the gray bin. That’s my critical opinion. 😉

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communication, condescending twatbags, modern problems, social media, stupid people

Be careful, now. Nobody is “too fat” for a knuckle sandwich…

I am currently in dog crap hell. For once, Arran isn’t the culprit. About a half hour ago, Noyzi came to me and put his head in my lap, a sign that he wanted to go outside. I let him go out while I checked on the progress of the laundry in the dryer. When I came back, Noyzi was still outside, distracted from taking care of his business. I waited a few more minutes before finally shooing him inside. It’s really cold outside, and I saw a pile of crap in the yard. I figured Noyzi was done.

After a few minutes at my computer, I realized I needed to visit the loo myself. I was wearing slippers when I felt that awful sensation, and the aroma assaulted my olfactory bulb. Noyzi had left a large pile of crap right at the door to my office. And because he never has accidents in the house, I was not expecting it. I cleaned up what I thought was all of it, cringing as the smell wafted into my office. I got up again and my bare foot found the one turd I hadn’t seen. It was cold and squishy, and since I had smashed it, the smell got worse. I started yelling out swear words as Noyzi slunk away, guiltily.

He really is a good dog. We’ve had him since October 2020, and I can count on one hand the number of times he’s had an accident in the house. Arran, on the other hand, has never been 100 percent accurate about housetraining. Arran, however, has the experience and good sense to know to do it downstairs, where I won’t immediately discover it, and will smell it long before I step in it.

I think the smell of dog shit has finally dissipated. My slippers are getting a wash. Now I’m ready to write about an article I saw in The Irish Times yesterday. Actually, now that I think about it, the fact that I started this post with an anecdote about dog shit seems especially appropriate. To me, a lot of cheese smells like shit. I don’t like most cheeses. Most of the ones I will eat must be melted first. But a lot of people do love to eat cheese. Sometimes, they’ll eat it in lieu of dessert.

Irish Times writer Róisín Ingle published a piece yesterday about a horrifying incident she experienced at a restaurant. Ingle explains that she’s been “judged” for her weight all of her life. She’s developed admiration for the singer, Lizzo, a Black, zaftig, flute playing wonder, who has become an inspiration for many people, including those who struggle with obesity. One day, a Lizzo t-shirt showed up in the mail. Ingle wondered if maybe she’d ordered it late at night after drinking too much wine. Later, a friend clarified that she’d sent the t-shirt as a way of boosting Ingle’s spirits.

Ingle writes: I put my Lizzo T-shirt on to watch her win Record of the Year at the Grammys over the weekend. She sang her self-love anthem Special surrounded by a gospel choir. “Fame is pretty new but I’ve been used to people judging me/That’s why I move the way I move and why I’m so in love with me.”

Ingle continues…

Lizzo moves through the world in her body with no apologies. The classically trained flautist has been playing the same tune for years, telling fans they should love themselves, celebrate their talents and reject societal expectations. She started to become a sort of mentor to me when she talked about her fitness regime a few years ago around the time I had started to exercise regularly for the first time in my life. “It may come as a surprise to some of y’all, that I’m not working out to have your ideal body type. I’m working out to have my ideal body type. And you know what type that is? None of your f**king business.”

As someone who has also been harassed about my weight, I am highly inclined to agree. Fat shamers and concern trolls can just fuck right off. And that’s exactly how I felt as Ingle wrote about what happened to her when she was celebrating at a restaurant with her mother and, evidently, some other people who didn’t know or care about her.

Ingle writes: It was a jolly occasion, a gathering of fun, clever people. We were choosing what to order and I was musing aloud about whether to have dessert. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so I asked the waiter whether I could have a bit of cheese instead. He was about to answer but a woman at the table intervened.

Uh oh… this doesn’t sound good at all! And it wasn’t. According to Ingle, the woman roared, “No, you mustn’t have cheese! You are too fat for cheese! No cheese for you!”

Ingle sat there and “took in” what had just transpired. The woman apparently realized that she’d shocked and offended her target, as Ingle writes that she’d “insisted she was coming from a ‘good’ place”. The fat shaming concern troll explained that she was “worried” about Ingle’s health as she aged. Evidently, the fat shamer had been overweight all her life, and felt she must warn the writer of the doom that awaited her if she ate cheese during a celebratory lunch with her mother.

Ingle handled the interaction better than I probably would have. She wrote that in the past, she might have left the table, gone to the toilets to cry, starved herself for a couple of days, or engaged in some combination of those actions. But this time, she simply responded calmly to the woman, saying “what she had said was unnecessary. I told her that she didn’t know what might be going on for the person she was cheese-shaming. I pointed out that the psychological stress caused by her comments could be far worse for a person than a few slices of Brie. I told her that ultimately, my body, other people’s bodies, were none of her fecking business.”

And then, to my surprise, Ingle wrote She said nothing for a few moments. “I’d never thought of it quite like that,” she said. She had done this kind of thing before, she told me. I don’t think she’ll do it again.

This response from Ingle, while very mature, is not very satisfying to me. I can’t stand concern trolls. I don’t believe for a minute that people who make rude comments about other people’s bodies care at all about them. They certainly don’t care about the psychological damage they do to people who are struggling with their body image. Telling someone they are “too fat for cheese”, especially in front of a crowd, will do nothing but ruin the person’s day and give them bad memories.

My title suggests that I might be inclined toward violence if someone did this to me. Rest assured, I probably would not have given the woman a knuckle sandwich. She wouldn’t have been worth going to jail over. But you can bet that I would make her think twice about ever making a comment like that to me again. That’s if I ever again allowed her to be in my presence after that incident.

I generally get a kick out of the comments from Irish readers. Sure enough, they didn’t disappoint. I even added one of my own.

I think I would tell the cheese shaming buttinski that her health is far more at risk by butting into other people’s business than it is to eat all the cheese she could ever want for the rest of her life. She might just be trading her cheese habit for a knuckle sandwich.

However, I couldn’t help but notice one guy, name of Mel O’Brien from Cork, who left some very rude comments. He left so many of them that I felt compelled to check out his Facebook profile. Mr. O’Brien has just fifteen friends, and has made a lot of his comments public. I guess his fat shaming didn’t go over well with some readers…

Mel wrote several comments like the ones above. At first, I just thought he was a fucking jerk. Now, I think he’s crazy. Behold…

I’ve been suspended from FACEBOOK, again, with no way of responding to this bullshit. So all I say to FB and the person or persons who complained about some comment I made, is FUCK OFF!

I kept scrolling and saw lots of pro Russia posts, along with conspiracy theories about the COVID vaccines. Obviously, Mel doesn’t play with a full deck. Yet some people still want to be friends with him. Here’s what he posted a couple of days ago.

Just to make things clear: I’m on FB to keep in touch with people who are already my friends. I’m not looking for new friends, and most of the friend requests I’ve received in the past couple of years have been men masquerading as women. I don’t want to be friends with anyone from the LGBT crowd, since I’m offended by this “pride” nonsense. What do they have to be proud about? So please don’t send me a friends request unless we know each other from the past. Thanks.

Below is a post from January 1, 2023…

I’m a bit pissed off today, January 1, because I post videos that I believe to be important, but last year virtually no one watched any of them. Too busy getting their jabs, I guess.

Another reason I’m annoyed is YouTube ending the suspension of my comments, due to some comment I made “may offend” community guidelines. They never told me which comment “may offend” someone. An evil bunch, probably members of the mentally-ill LGBT crowd. I’ve received several warnings, and a threat of removing my site in 2022. So much for freedom of expressing my beliefs

Facebook also doesn’t like my comments, and I’ve been suspended a couple of times last year. More evil people.

I was permanently banned from Twitter in 2019, but they had the gall to email me last year informing me that my ban had ended. Needless to say, I won’t be going back to their garbage.

THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE I KNOW WHO GOT JABS BOTH DIED LAST YEAR SUDDENLY OF HEART ATTACKS. COINCIDENCE, EH? SCAMDEMIC.

This planet is controlled by the forces of evil, which control is made easier by compliant sheeple who believe anything they’re told, forgetting the lesson of the WMD.

THINGS ARE GETTING WORSE, NOT BETTER.

It’s sad and scary that there are so many people in the world who feel so entitled to share their ugliness with everyone. And then when they get called out for it, they continue to be ugly. Not only is Mr. O’Brien a fat shamer; he’s also a homophobe.

I generally enjoy The Irish Times. I think the journalism is excellent and often very entertaining. I also enjoy reading comments from the Irish, who are often hilariously witty. On the other hand, I’ve noticed that quite a few of them admire Donald Trump, promote conspiracy theories and other stupid nonsense, and opine about things about which they apparently know little. It occurs to me that the last time I was in Ireland, I saw a Confederate Battle Flag. It was a sticker on the back of a taxi cab. And now that I think about it, quite a lot of American Trump supporters are people with ancestral backgrounds like mine. 😉

Anyway, good on Róisín Ingle for responding diplomatically to the fat shamer who tried to deprive her of Gouda. I used to care a lot more about what people thought of my body, too. I think I got over that when I realized how short life really is.

In 2021, a former Peace Corps colleague of mine celebrated his birthday with friends and family. Then, as he was walking home, he got hit by a car and was left for dead. Sadly, he did die of his injuries, and at just 58 years of age. He was a bright, vibrant person who touched many people over his lifetime. I don’t think he had a weight problem when he passed. In fact, I like to think that he was happy when he left this world… having just spent his last hours with people he loved, celebrating his birthday, rather than languishing from a chronic illness for months on end.

I think of my old friend, and realize that while it’s always a good and wise thing to take care of your health, it’s also a good and wise thing to enjoy your life. Because now, more than ever, you just never know when your life will end. So I say, eat the cheese if you want it. Tell the fat shamers like Mel O’Brien to fuck right off. Try not to give anyone a knuckle sandwich, though… unless they really, really deserve one. 😉 In the case of the fat shaming idiot Ingle encountered at her lunch celebration, I would not have faulted her…

Incidentally, as I was writing this, we got a delivery of Dutch cheeses. I don’t eat much cheese, so it’s mostly for Bill, who loves cheese. I’m sure he will be delighted to try them later…

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