Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Since news of skaters' music choices for the upcoming Olympic season has started to hit the presses, the prevalent theme of such music choices has not quite been La La Land to the extent I'd expected, but rather recycling--that is, re-using previously-done programs and/or music. For example, off the top of my head:

• Yuzuru Hanyu is re-using his Chopin's Ballade No. 1 SP and Seimei LP*
• Duhamel/Radford are recycling their old Muse LP
• Shoma Uno is returning to his Turandot LP
• Mirai Nagasu is re-using her Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor SP
• Elena Radionova is repurposing her Porgy and Bess SP
• Ashley Wagner is recycling her Hip Hip Chin Chin SP
• Polina Tsurskaya is re-using her Light of the Seven SP
• Alina Zagitova is returning to her Don Quixote LP
• Javier Fernandez is reusing Chaplin music for one of his programs,
• . . . and so on. 

In other words, typical Olympic season.

As noted previously, skaters generally eschew avant-garde artistic concepts or groundbreaking music choices during the Olympic season. The stakes are just too high, given that the chance for a coveted Olympic spot--much less an Olympic medal!--inconveniently only comes around once every four years. Moreover, the temptation to return to a previously-successful music choice is understandably quite strong in light of the rather conservative figure skating judging establishment, which seemingly never tires of yet another Carmen or Phantom of the Opera program.

Super Steps

**This post is dedicated to Hakkai**

Given how fashionable it is to blame IJS for a wide assortment of figure skating maladies (including but not limited to ruining spins in the ever-contorted quest for levels, fan spirals, and the sorry state of pairs skating), I am aware of the fact that having the opinion that IJS step sequences are generally an improvement on their 6.0 counterparts is a controversial one likely to draw scorn, something akin to believing in the tooth fairy as an adult or thinking that tartan pairs very well with paisley. But that is indeed an opinion I hold, and I will now defend it the only way I know how: verbiage with bits of video footage liberally interspersed in between.

What I'm Watching...2.0

I'm currently lying in bed feeling sorry for myself, nursing an upset stomach after ingesting a large bowl of overly-spicy (but delicious) beef rendang earlier tonight. Here's what I'm watching to make myself feel better:

What I'm Watching.....

Currently suffering from huge, crippling writer's block. I can only offer short, incoherent posts on the things I am fixated on right now:

Black Swan(s)

In honor of Darren Aronofsky's movie Black Swan starring Natalie Portman as a ballerina toeing the line of sanity (watch it, it's great), here is a short post on figure skating's own black swans, albeit perhaps in a more literal sense--that is, skaters who have skated to Tchaikovsky's famous Black Swan Pas de deux from that beloved old warhorse, Swan Lake.