and All That Jazz

I watched the Miami City Ballet doing Ballanchine and Twyla Tharp on PBS. I recalled when they came to Israel in 1987. Both L.D. and Becca were taking ballet at the time, probably because I always wished to take ballet lessons as a child and was fulfilling my childhood fantasies by giving them things I couldn't have as a child. I dragged them to see Nureyev, the Stuttgart, Kirov, Israel and London Festival ballets, and when the Miami City Ballet came to town (Jerusalem, at the time), I paid extra so they could meet Edward Villella, who was the founder and still Creative Director.
I told him that L.D. was the only boy in his class and he gave him lots of encouragement. He said that when he announced to his parents that he wanted to study ballet, they were horrified and pictured him in a tutu. He told L.D. how hard it was for a kid growing up in New York being the only boy in his neighborhood taking ballet lessons.
After that, Joe Namath, the famous Jets quarterback, took ballet lessons and it became acceptable for sports figures to take lessons to improve their strength, agility and coordination. I'm sure that it helped L.D. become an accomplished snowboarder and Thai kick boxer.
Then, while flipping through the channels, I caught the great "All That Jazz", which was about the great choreographer, Bob Fosse, and enjoyed it as much as I did when I first saw it in 1979. I think it was Roy Scheider's best role and the rest of the cast is great also. You can catch the incomparable Ann Reinking dancing a great top hat and tails number with a young Elizsabet Foldi on YouTube. It will definitely lift your spirits!
It also reminded me of the huge poster I bought when I was in my twenties, I think, of this gorgeous male dancer from the Joffrey Ballet leaping in the air. It was then that I think I developed my admiration of the human form, especially that of male dancers, and eventually led to becoming a figurative sculptor. I'd love to get back to it someday before I forget how to do it!

How Steve Jobs changed my life

I was never conscious of Apple computers and Steve Jobs until the 1990's. My son, L.D. was on the computer at the age of three. I remember him banging on the keyboard and crying in frustration when it wouldn't do what he wanted it to do. Over the years, he and his friends were on the cutting edge of the computer age, and he became my guru (and still is) of anything computer related.
I decided to get into computers more seriously when I was sculpting in stone and was frustrated with making models in clay and then trying to recreate my sculpture in stone. I contacted a brilliant graphics designer, Mark Weinberg, now Principal Design Consultant at Amdocs, who had a small design studio/school, and took lessons from him. I decided to start a company, Anigrafix, which was comprised of a school of computer and graphics design, website development and marketing, and computer graphics, and Mark was my partner. My son, L.D., who was a young teenager, was already developing computer games and consulting with a major game developer who found him on a Compuserve forum and building IBM clones with his friend, Ben, another budding teenage computer genius. They worked for me at Anigrafix and were my web masters and helped develop websites. I learned at the time that a lot of graphics designers and people in the publishing industry used Macs, as did several of my good friends, including the brilliant photographer, Harry Zeitlin, but we ended up using IBM clones at Anigrafix,
mostly because the Macs were more expensive and didn't support some of the software we were using.
I never gave Apple much thought until I got my i-Pod (I have the Classic). I leave it in my car because I like to listen to books on tape and taking it with me when I shop so I can listen to my favorite music. I think I have almost 70 gigs of stuff on it, and I even take it with me when I travel and pick only rental cars that have the hole to plug it in.
A couple of years ago, my son convinced me to buy my I-phone. He knows I am not the swiftest person in the world when it comes to technology, so he reassured me that, even though it would take me a while to adjust to it, I would love it, and I do. I don't go anywhere without it and will probably upgrade at some point. I am really excited about Siri in particular.
I stood in line with my walker and pain pills just three days after my back surgery to buy my i-Pad and I don't go anywhere, including the bathroom if I am going to be there a while, without it. I have a desktop computer and a laptop, but I love to read in bed and have my i-Pad next to me when I am watching tv, in case I need to look something up or check my e-mail. I know why it was one of Oprah's Favorite Things becuse it certainly is mine. I am always looking at the newest apps and games and since I am a news junkie, I love having the latest news and blogs at my fingertips.
I am also a huge fan of Pixar and animated films. My life would have definitely been less rich without all of their wonderful feature films. My personal favorite is WALL-E.
I will miss Steve Jobs. It is sad to lose such a creative genius and visionary, but it feels more like losing a member of my family.
If there is a hereafter, it would be nice to imagine Steve up there redesigning Heaven.

You can't argue with free

A couple of years ago, I started entering online sweepstakes. So far, I have won 10 sweepstakes. The biggest one was a Canon/NFL sweepstakes which included a very nice Can Rebel Xti camera with a big lens and bag, 4 tickets to a Dolphins game, a pair of Canon binoculars and the opportunity to join the press corps on the sidelines for a quarter and shoot pictures. One of my pictures was featured on the NFL website.
I have also won money, gift certificates for restaurants and for merchandise, CDs, and beauty products.
Altogether, I have won thousands of dollars of free stuff. Well, not exactly free, because you do have to report winnings over a certain dollar amount to the IRS and pay taxes on it. Canon was kind enough to send a check to pay the taxes on their prizes.
I enter ones I see advertised on tv and others I find on sweepstakes sites online. If it is a recurring contest, I bookmark it with the ending date and every day. I run through the bookmarked entries and send in my entries. When they expire, I delete them. It probably takes me about 20 minutes a day. Some people actually do this as a job and sell the stuff they win on Craigslist or e-Bay. There is even a new series on one of the cable channel about sweepers, as we call ourselves.
Just today, I got a call from HGTV that I had won a $100 gift certificate!
One of these days, I hope to win a trip or a car or a dream home. After all, someone has to win and it might as well be me!