#42, Jessi and the Dance School Phantom
I'm gonna give you a ballet snark, then get back to work on the one where they all went to that lodge in Vermont. Winter Vacation.
You know a book will have a lot of dance fail when the very first line makes no sense. Also be prepared to see a lot of dance videos because that's how I roll. I went to the ballet 3 times in this last week alone...because I take performing arts that seriously. Don't ask how many more shows I have lined up right now. I also dance.
Now first, my lovelies, let's snicker at the cover.
That looks like a dank, damp high school locker room out of the 60's. I've never seen a changing area with lockers like that in a ballet studio. Nope. It's more common to have little cubbies, or to just toss all your stuff in your back and toss it in the lobby or somewhere. You shouldn't need full-size lockers for your dance stuff. Also Dawn is in the changing room? No. Wouldn't happen. No one can go into changing areas but the dancers. Even parents have to wait elsewhere, at least at truly serious dance schools, unless you've got a kid who is five, maybe six. Otherwise the dancers are expected to be responsible for themselves. If you want your kid to have the responsibility of going on stage to a performance people pay to see, your kid needs to be able to take off their own pants.
The girls, at least, look right.
But get a load of that hook. Someone, or someTHING...dun dun DUUUUUN! (I should be behind a cut already so I could use that dramatic look rodent) is out to get Jessi!
If I loved you enough, I'd cut this book and save you the suffering. But if I have to suffer, so do you.
There IS a goddess! I opened my .doc of this book, and get the message that OSX doesn't support the fonts named BSCMal, BSCKristy, and BSCStacy (sic), and they were replaced with Helvetica. No bad writing! However it's an Ellen Miles book. Damn.
Chopter waaaahhn, mademoiselles
FML. Right away, we get horrid dialog from Meeem Noelle. Noelle. No Ellen? No Ellen Miles? Damn. Still have Ellen Miles.
"...if you please a pas de bourrée couru, en cinquième, with port de bras, ending in an arabesque..."
I don't know who's stupider here, Meem, or Jessi. Meem just told the girls to do a traveling step that doesn't typically end in an arabesque, and at their supposedly professional level, port de bras (which means carriage of the arms, so use your arms) should go without saying. That en cinquième doesn't make sense. It means "in fifth" in French, but not only does no ballet school say that (they say "in fifth"), but there is no option when it comes to pas de bourrée couru!! Your feet will have to cross in fifth. Yeah, and imagine ending that glide in an arabesque. I trust you know what that is. Leg raised behind. It doesn't work!
But Jessi tells us, "A stranger might have thought they’d wandered into some other world - and in a way, they’d be right. A ballet studio is another world." And here's where I facepalm. If you want into a ballet studio and think you were transported to Mars, you're an idiot. She gets an extra idiot point for telling us that all that up there means, "...what Mme Noelle, our teacher, wanted us to do was to move on our toes across the floor, holding our arms in graceful patterns, and end by standing on one toe with our arms held out to the sides." You left the arabesque out! And an arabesque usually has an arm extended FRONT. What the dancer in that video does is called retiré. And since it's part of pas de bourrée couru, you don't need to say it. I can't stand when people try to make ballet terms sound convoluted to make themselves sound knowledgable!
And we're three paragraphs in. This will get ugly.
After Jessica Rooooomsey waxes purple about Meem's oxcent, it's her turn, and oh, how she's hoping to get cast as Aurora! Damn. I forgot that production is the one in this book. Coppelia is another one then.
Meem tells her to use her ankles. FAIL! FUCKING FAIL!! You don't use your ankles to do more than keep straight while you stand so you don't get hurt! Watch that video again. Watch closely. It's an illusion that she's using her ankles. Her legs and ankles are as straight as she can keep them. If Ann (she put her name on these books, verifying this stuff is her job) couldn't be arsed to talk to a dancer...
I'm going to have to pick and choose what to pick apart, or else I'd rant about how Jessi is now walking in a way that her toes are smaking down like walking in sneakers. But I will snark her snarking someone else because she calls that girl a robot, then tells us why no one would mistake Jessi her for a robot.
"As far as I know, there aren’t too many black robots running around - in fact, there are probably even fewer black robots than there are black ballerinas."
Um. Uh. Wow. Robots are usually silver, so...wow. We just got smacked with race three times. Foreshadowing? Probably. At least she goes on to say that race is no longer an issue when it comes to dancing in professional companies. And that makes me sad. Because it wasn't true. Just two years ago, the top ballet magazine, Pointe, ran an article about the ongoing issue of a lack of racial diversity in so many dance companies. If it's a problem in 2014, it was a bigger problem 23 years earlier. I don't know whether to be releaved that Jessi isn't seeing a problem for once, or sad for the girls who might have dreamed, then found that, no, this book was wrong.
Moving on to snarking the old dancer. Carrie is 13, and needs a resume to get into another dance school. Doesn't work that way. You audition. Not dancing Aurora at the age of 13 won't damage your chances.
Meet Misty Copeland. Misty took her first class at the age of 13. Not having any dance experience at all didn't stop her. She went on to become a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. Being black is just concidental here. I posted this because this book makes it sound like your future is decided at 13.
Oh, and now we get the talk about how racist Stoneybrook is. What is there to say that hasn't been said before? Her family has been embraced in all ways by every regular series character.
Oh--here we get a sudden drop. Jessi is the youngest in this class of older dancers because she's just that good.
*head desk*
Blah blah blah, snarking on other dancers some more...snark among the dancers...Carrie is "over the hill" (gee, 13 is ancient)...more filler.
Remember this for chapter 3:
"Hilary Morgan always has the best of everything. A brand-new leotard every few weeks. New toe shoes as often as she needs them. (The rest of us have to make them last - toe shoes are awfully expensive.)"
Disposable character. Her mom is also an overbearing dance mom. That can't mean anything.
Back in the studio. Meem gathers them on the floor in the center. In their street shoes. NO. You do NOT wear street shoes in the studio. That damages the floors!!
“Zee Sleeping Beauty is one of zee most beautiful ballets in zee world,” she began. “To perform in it is a privilege, no matter how small zee role.”
Carrie (the oooold one) got the part of the Bluebird, widely considered one of the most difficult MALE roles.
Lifts (I call bullshit on ANY dancer at just 13 doing lifts, regardless of sex), major leaps, more leaps. The Bluebird being in this production indicates this isn't the student version. I fairly saw a student version with Ronnie Underwood (any Breaking Pointe fans?) guesting as the prince, but since it was a younger dance school, there was no Bluebird. It was the student production.
More filler...and now “Zere is only one student in zis class who has zee talent and zee je ne sais quois to bring zee role of Princess Aurora to life.” There can be only one. Only one dancer who would possibly dance that role. If you guess that it's anyone but Jessi, turn in your snark-badge on your way to exiting stage right. Make sure your head is hung in shame. The rest of you, keep reading.
"That meant that I had gotten yet another lead in a production! I’d loved dancing in Swan Lake. And playing Swanilda in Coppélia had been pretty incredible. But the Princess Aurora! It was the role of a lifetime."
Another. Of course. If she were real, she'd have a contract to be an apprentice with a major ballet company because this sort of dance history is a dream for even professionals.
Guys, Aurora is considered one the toughest, if not THE toughest, roles in all of classical ballet for a woman to dance. And an 11-year-old supposedly can do it. What an insult to ballet.
Can I use two middle fingers for chapter 2?
JFC, guys. This chapter is a lot of wordy wordness. Typical family congrats, and a long description of the story we ALL know. The Disney movie was surprisingly close to the ballet. In fact, the music in that movie is straight from the ballet. That song "All Hail the Princess Aurora" is from the beginning of the ballet. The waltz, "I Know You," is from the same scene. It's really neat to watch the Disney version and the ballet back to back when all the music is fresh in your mind.
Lots of words could have been cut. Let's just say it sounds like Ann allowed a summary of an encyclopedia article about the production. If I wasn't feeling lazy, I'd go check my encyclopedia set. You know, a couple dozen books on a shelf. From the pre-internet days. Yes, I still have a set.
Ah, some Crapter 2 stuff. Mal gets a whopping FOUR paragraphs dedicated to her, and no "she's a whitey" talk, for once! However, Jessi does tell us something passive aggressive. "With her red hair and freckles, and her glasses and her braces, Mal has a hard time feeling glamorous - even with pierced ears. But you know what? I bet she’s going to be a real knockout someday. She just has to be patient." Take out that last sentence, and that would be so much better. But even then, this is a hurtful sentence. I was once told I have the potential to be beautiful some day, and I still feel hurt thinking about that. It impacted my self esteem, and I still feel it to this day. I only have potential. That's it. That's all I feel, even though complete strangers literally stop me to compliment my looks. I feel they're joking because it's only potential that I have.
NEVER tell someone they have potential to be pretty, or "I bet you'll be pretty one day." It still says "you're ugly now."
Other characters, nothing interesting other than the order. Kristy, Mary Anne, Dawn, Claudia...
"I get the feeling that Claud still misses Mimi all the time; they were very, very close."
No shit? Mimi's passing was recent, and you only get the...*sigh*
Then Stacey, and this chapter is over. Praise his noodly appendage.
I have nothing clever to say for 3
Rehearsals. Jessi tells us the lockers are a good idea because leaving stuff anywhere else means chaos. Strange. My school has no problem. We put our stuff in our dance bags. Our dance bags are tossed to the side of whichever studio we're in (my school, which is at a professional company, has three studios).
She can't find her shoes. Oh to the noez. She couldn't have left her shoes! "Other girls would have to dance with bare legs when they forgot their tights, or in old bathing suits when they’d left their leotards at home."
*insert record scratch*
Who the everlovin' hell packs an old bathing suit, but not a leotard? Also our dance school won't let the school dancers (under adult-level) take class if they don't have their tights and leos. Sound strict? Them's the breaks. It's about teaching responsibility from a young age. If you forget shit before a performance, that's BAD. VERY BAD. So start young on teaching YOU REMEMEBER, NO MATTER WHAT. What kind of crappy school would let a kid dance with bare legs in a bathing suit?
I'm surprised that the shoe info in this book is correct, about breaking them in and their care and how you can't just borrow from each other. Well, Jessi went on stage in borrowed shoes, I believe, so stupidity set in at some point. She also says. "I usually need a new pair every week or so." You just lost the right to snark on Hilary for how often she gets new shoes, and there's no way in hell you're dancing through a pair a week.
Let's say SMS gets out at 3pm. Reasonable for middle school. BSC meetings start 2 1/2 hours later. Let's say half an hour each way to get to her dance school. That leaves 1 1/2 hours in class. No school will start classes out on pointe. Even the professionals start in soft shoes for a good 45 minutes of warm-ups. A legit school with kids will have 1 1/2 hours of class in soft shoes, and pointe AFTER, or, when it's a separate class entirely, usually when you're taking 4 classes or more per week, still 45 minutes of warm-up, and then pointes. There's no way there's enough time to Jessi to be taking pointe. But let's just say she's doing 45 warm-ups, 45 pointe. Let's say she's doing that five days a week. That's less than four hours on a pair of pointes, and since it's not like she's dancing non-stop, her shoes absolutely wouldn't be worn out yet. PROFESSIONALS get more wear out of their shoes.
Do you know how I know what the pros do? Because I know a lot of them who dance for everything from San Francisco Ballet to Oregon Ballet to Dance Theater of Harlem. I also have the extreme privilege of getting to watch a lot of professional company classes.
There's no fucking way Jessi is wearing out a pair of pointes a week, and no way she should be snarking someone else getting new pointes so often.
So her shoes are missing, and Meem says they can't rehearse, NO ONE can rehearse, if Jessi doesn't have her shoes. Bull shit. Demi-pointe is fine even in bare feet, and Aurora isn't even actually most of the show. There is other stuff to rehease, like the Bluebird and Princess Florine's pas de deux. Since her shoes can't be found, rehearsal is cancelled. Meem is SO FUCKING STUPID. DEMI-POINTE. OTHER CHARACTERS!! IDIOT!!!
One more search, and oh! They were in Jessi's bag! "Zee mystery is solved!" Shut up, Meem.
That bad teacher only led some wrongly-described pliés (where you only bend at the knees...not the hips...) and relevés. And believe me when I say we have an overly-long dance class that isn't relevant in any way. It just took up paper. And then after class, oh look, somehow a dancer snuck back into the dressing room to stick a note in Jessi's bag telling her BEWARE.
Ooooooh. Spooky.
Chapter 2-squared?
Because we're getting more chap2 stuff. I swear to the gods. All that stuff in the real chap2 was personal lives. Now we're getting the ZOMG AMAZINGEST IDEA crud and a loooooong rundown on the roles.
After wasting more trees, we get back to the excuse of a plot. A lot of wondering about Jessi's shoes.
“Right, Jessi. Next time will be better,” said Kristy quickly. “Now listen, you guys. I’ve got a great idea.”
"Everybody groaned, just to tease Kristy. How can anyone get so many great ideas all the time? "
Kids, pets, restraining orders. So goes chapter 2. I mean, 4. Joy.
Chapter 1+2*2 (remember your order of operations)
"Princess Prepared" packed two of everything in her bag this time, inclusing two hair ties. I have at least a whole pack of rubber bands, and a pack or two of pins. If you only grab a couple single rubber bands, and that's your idea of extra, you suck.
An editing fail! So Meem has been written as Mme. this whole time. Now she's Madame. Consisti-what?
We don't need two paragraphs about the records she used to listen to in ballet class when she was younger. By the way, our dance school has live piano for every single class, even for the tiny kids who are three (at that age, it's more about creative movement and letting the get used to following directions and learning the beats of music and such). The nationally-ranked schools, which Jessi's is supposed to be, hould have live music.
"tour jeté (toor jet-tay - that’s just a big jump"
No. You don't get to make up meanings. A GRAND jeté is a big jump. Tour on top, grand on bottom.
See? Not the same. Jessi, and Ann, gets so much wrong that I don't even. I just don't even.
"You might think that the other girls in class would think I was weird for looking at myself that way, but no. They were all doing it, too."
She was checking her posture in the mirror. I...I don't even know what to say to Jessi thinking ballet is so weird. When she and Carrie bump into each other, Jessi calls that a "catastrophe." Now THAT is weird. Because thst stuff happens in class and rehearsal.
After class, her spare outfit is missing, and she has a note written in red ink that she thinks is blood. What a fucking... Has that girl ever gone to school? Did teachers correct her papers with blood? Anyway, this one says, "Watch your step."
I swear that pet show subplot (yeah, apparently there's a subplot in this now) is to this book what nitrates and beef anuses are to cheap hotdogs. The rest of this chapter is Becca whining about only having Misty (well, this has gone full circle, if you go back to one of those videos), who is just a measly hamster, including four LONG chapters that she wrote on that hampster's life story. I'm not making that up. Oh, and a rundown on the other animals in the neighborhood.
Chapter hex. Someone's hexing me. Into a migrane. How many sides does a hexagon have?
Oh lordy. This Kristy-chapter can be summed up as: The kids fight over who has the best pet. The end.
Chapter unlucky 7
Hypocrite. Jessi has another new outfit. Remember her snarking on Hilary? Jessi's bitching about how it's not fair that she sometimes has to use her own money for new dance gear she doesn't need. What a little entitled bitch! Yes, I said it. If you want something you don't need for dance class, why shouldn't you have to use your own money for it? My GOD, Girl! Get off the Entitlement Express.
She locked her stuff up, put the key on a chain around her neck, dropped the key, missed an instruction, and thought she knew what to do because Carrie is being set up as the fall-guy. We're expected to think it's Carrie. Which means she's not the one behind this. If she was, then I'd be surprised. It's going to be the character we've never seen before and will never see again.
"Then I took off, running diagonally across the room and executing a perfect tour jeté. (Which is a big, running leap, in case you forgot.)"
I refer you to the previous two videos.
Too bad she biffed the landing since NO ONE noticed a big puddle on the dance floor. And she did the wrong move. Glissade. See? Carrie is being set up in this book.
And since Jessi's now out several days, well, rehearsals aren't cancelled the way they would have been over a pair of missing shoes. Nope, there's a stand-in. And her dad needs to take her to the ER over a strain so light she can still walk on it. And another note in her bag. This one is the "I told you so" variety because of course that's what it says. Hilary, I mean, the phantom, could read the future.
And of course all of this isn't important to tell an adult.
Well, I wanted to finish, but I think this is enough for tonight. Cookies for you if you read all of this. Sorry for being such a ballet geek.
You know a book will have a lot of dance fail when the very first line makes no sense. Also be prepared to see a lot of dance videos because that's how I roll. I went to the ballet 3 times in this last week alone...because I take performing arts that seriously. Don't ask how many more shows I have lined up right now. I also dance.
Now first, my lovelies, let's snicker at the cover.
That looks like a dank, damp high school locker room out of the 60's. I've never seen a changing area with lockers like that in a ballet studio. Nope. It's more common to have little cubbies, or to just toss all your stuff in your back and toss it in the lobby or somewhere. You shouldn't need full-size lockers for your dance stuff. Also Dawn is in the changing room? No. Wouldn't happen. No one can go into changing areas but the dancers. Even parents have to wait elsewhere, at least at truly serious dance schools, unless you've got a kid who is five, maybe six. Otherwise the dancers are expected to be responsible for themselves. If you want your kid to have the responsibility of going on stage to a performance people pay to see, your kid needs to be able to take off their own pants.
The girls, at least, look right.
But get a load of that hook. Someone, or someTHING...dun dun DUUUUUN! (I should be behind a cut already so I could use that dramatic look rodent) is out to get Jessi!
If I loved you enough, I'd cut this book and save you the suffering. But if I have to suffer, so do you.
There IS a goddess! I opened my .doc of this book, and get the message that OSX doesn't support the fonts named BSCMal, BSCKristy, and BSCStacy (sic), and they were replaced with Helvetica. No bad writing! However it's an Ellen Miles book. Damn.
Chopter waaaahhn, mademoiselles
FML. Right away, we get horrid dialog from Meeem Noelle. Noelle. No Ellen? No Ellen Miles? Damn. Still have Ellen Miles.
"...if you please a pas de bourrée couru, en cinquième, with port de bras, ending in an arabesque..."
I don't know who's stupider here, Meem, or Jessi. Meem just told the girls to do a traveling step that doesn't typically end in an arabesque, and at their supposedly professional level, port de bras (which means carriage of the arms, so use your arms) should go without saying. That en cinquième doesn't make sense. It means "in fifth" in French, but not only does no ballet school say that (they say "in fifth"), but there is no option when it comes to pas de bourrée couru!! Your feet will have to cross in fifth. Yeah, and imagine ending that glide in an arabesque. I trust you know what that is. Leg raised behind. It doesn't work!
Click to viewBut Jessi tells us, "A stranger might have thought they’d wandered into some other world - and in a way, they’d be right. A ballet studio is another world." And here's where I facepalm. If you want into a ballet studio and think you were transported to Mars, you're an idiot. She gets an extra idiot point for telling us that all that up there means, "...what Mme Noelle, our teacher, wanted us to do was to move on our toes across the floor, holding our arms in graceful patterns, and end by standing on one toe with our arms held out to the sides." You left the arabesque out! And an arabesque usually has an arm extended FRONT. What the dancer in that video does is called retiré. And since it's part of pas de bourrée couru, you don't need to say it. I can't stand when people try to make ballet terms sound convoluted to make themselves sound knowledgable!
And we're three paragraphs in. This will get ugly.
After Jessica Rooooomsey waxes purple about Meem's oxcent, it's her turn, and oh, how she's hoping to get cast as Aurora! Damn. I forgot that production is the one in this book. Coppelia is another one then.
Meem tells her to use her ankles. FAIL! FUCKING FAIL!! You don't use your ankles to do more than keep straight while you stand so you don't get hurt! Watch that video again. Watch closely. It's an illusion that she's using her ankles. Her legs and ankles are as straight as she can keep them. If Ann (she put her name on these books, verifying this stuff is her job) couldn't be arsed to talk to a dancer...
I'm going to have to pick and choose what to pick apart, or else I'd rant about how Jessi is now walking in a way that her toes are smaking down like walking in sneakers. But I will snark her snarking someone else because she calls that girl a robot, then tells us why no one would mistake Jessi her for a robot.
"As far as I know, there aren’t too many black robots running around - in fact, there are probably even fewer black robots than there are black ballerinas."
Um. Uh. Wow. Robots are usually silver, so...wow. We just got smacked with race three times. Foreshadowing? Probably. At least she goes on to say that race is no longer an issue when it comes to dancing in professional companies. And that makes me sad. Because it wasn't true. Just two years ago, the top ballet magazine, Pointe, ran an article about the ongoing issue of a lack of racial diversity in so many dance companies. If it's a problem in 2014, it was a bigger problem 23 years earlier. I don't know whether to be releaved that Jessi isn't seeing a problem for once, or sad for the girls who might have dreamed, then found that, no, this book was wrong.
Moving on to snarking the old dancer. Carrie is 13, and needs a resume to get into another dance school. Doesn't work that way. You audition. Not dancing Aurora at the age of 13 won't damage your chances.
Meet Misty Copeland. Misty took her first class at the age of 13. Not having any dance experience at all didn't stop her. She went on to become a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. Being black is just concidental here. I posted this because this book makes it sound like your future is decided at 13.
Oh, and now we get the talk about how racist Stoneybrook is. What is there to say that hasn't been said before? Her family has been embraced in all ways by every regular series character.
Oh--here we get a sudden drop. Jessi is the youngest in this class of older dancers because she's just that good.
*head desk*
Blah blah blah, snarking on other dancers some more...snark among the dancers...Carrie is "over the hill" (gee, 13 is ancient)...more filler.
Remember this for chapter 3:
"Hilary Morgan always has the best of everything. A brand-new leotard every few weeks. New toe shoes as often as she needs them. (The rest of us have to make them last - toe shoes are awfully expensive.)"
Disposable character. Her mom is also an overbearing dance mom. That can't mean anything.
Back in the studio. Meem gathers them on the floor in the center. In their street shoes. NO. You do NOT wear street shoes in the studio. That damages the floors!!
“Zee Sleeping Beauty is one of zee most beautiful ballets in zee world,” she began. “To perform in it is a privilege, no matter how small zee role.”
Carrie (the oooold one) got the part of the Bluebird, widely considered one of the most difficult MALE roles.
Lifts (I call bullshit on ANY dancer at just 13 doing lifts, regardless of sex), major leaps, more leaps. The Bluebird being in this production indicates this isn't the student version. I fairly saw a student version with Ronnie Underwood (any Breaking Pointe fans?) guesting as the prince, but since it was a younger dance school, there was no Bluebird. It was the student production.
More filler...and now “Zere is only one student in zis class who has zee talent and zee je ne sais quois to bring zee role of Princess Aurora to life.” There can be only one. Only one dancer who would possibly dance that role. If you guess that it's anyone but Jessi, turn in your snark-badge on your way to exiting stage right. Make sure your head is hung in shame. The rest of you, keep reading.
"That meant that I had gotten yet another lead in a production! I’d loved dancing in Swan Lake. And playing Swanilda in Coppélia had been pretty incredible. But the Princess Aurora! It was the role of a lifetime."
Another. Of course. If she were real, she'd have a contract to be an apprentice with a major ballet company because this sort of dance history is a dream for even professionals.
Guys, Aurora is considered one the toughest, if not THE toughest, roles in all of classical ballet for a woman to dance. And an 11-year-old supposedly can do it. What an insult to ballet.
Can I use two middle fingers for chapter 2?
JFC, guys. This chapter is a lot of wordy wordness. Typical family congrats, and a long description of the story we ALL know. The Disney movie was surprisingly close to the ballet. In fact, the music in that movie is straight from the ballet. That song "All Hail the Princess Aurora" is from the beginning of the ballet. The waltz, "I Know You," is from the same scene. It's really neat to watch the Disney version and the ballet back to back when all the music is fresh in your mind.
Lots of words could have been cut. Let's just say it sounds like Ann allowed a summary of an encyclopedia article about the production. If I wasn't feeling lazy, I'd go check my encyclopedia set. You know, a couple dozen books on a shelf. From the pre-internet days. Yes, I still have a set.
Ah, some Crapter 2 stuff. Mal gets a whopping FOUR paragraphs dedicated to her, and no "she's a whitey" talk, for once! However, Jessi does tell us something passive aggressive. "With her red hair and freckles, and her glasses and her braces, Mal has a hard time feeling glamorous - even with pierced ears. But you know what? I bet she’s going to be a real knockout someday. She just has to be patient." Take out that last sentence, and that would be so much better. But even then, this is a hurtful sentence. I was once told I have the potential to be beautiful some day, and I still feel hurt thinking about that. It impacted my self esteem, and I still feel it to this day. I only have potential. That's it. That's all I feel, even though complete strangers literally stop me to compliment my looks. I feel they're joking because it's only potential that I have.
NEVER tell someone they have potential to be pretty, or "I bet you'll be pretty one day." It still says "you're ugly now."
Other characters, nothing interesting other than the order. Kristy, Mary Anne, Dawn, Claudia...
"I get the feeling that Claud still misses Mimi all the time; they were very, very close."
No shit? Mimi's passing was recent, and you only get the...*sigh*
Then Stacey, and this chapter is over. Praise his noodly appendage.
I have nothing clever to say for 3
Rehearsals. Jessi tells us the lockers are a good idea because leaving stuff anywhere else means chaos. Strange. My school has no problem. We put our stuff in our dance bags. Our dance bags are tossed to the side of whichever studio we're in (my school, which is at a professional company, has three studios).
She can't find her shoes. Oh to the noez. She couldn't have left her shoes! "Other girls would have to dance with bare legs when they forgot their tights, or in old bathing suits when they’d left their leotards at home."
*insert record scratch*
Who the everlovin' hell packs an old bathing suit, but not a leotard? Also our dance school won't let the school dancers (under adult-level) take class if they don't have their tights and leos. Sound strict? Them's the breaks. It's about teaching responsibility from a young age. If you forget shit before a performance, that's BAD. VERY BAD. So start young on teaching YOU REMEMEBER, NO MATTER WHAT. What kind of crappy school would let a kid dance with bare legs in a bathing suit?
I'm surprised that the shoe info in this book is correct, about breaking them in and their care and how you can't just borrow from each other. Well, Jessi went on stage in borrowed shoes, I believe, so stupidity set in at some point. She also says. "I usually need a new pair every week or so." You just lost the right to snark on Hilary for how often she gets new shoes, and there's no way in hell you're dancing through a pair a week.
Let's say SMS gets out at 3pm. Reasonable for middle school. BSC meetings start 2 1/2 hours later. Let's say half an hour each way to get to her dance school. That leaves 1 1/2 hours in class. No school will start classes out on pointe. Even the professionals start in soft shoes for a good 45 minutes of warm-ups. A legit school with kids will have 1 1/2 hours of class in soft shoes, and pointe AFTER, or, when it's a separate class entirely, usually when you're taking 4 classes or more per week, still 45 minutes of warm-up, and then pointes. There's no way there's enough time to Jessi to be taking pointe. But let's just say she's doing 45 warm-ups, 45 pointe. Let's say she's doing that five days a week. That's less than four hours on a pair of pointes, and since it's not like she's dancing non-stop, her shoes absolutely wouldn't be worn out yet. PROFESSIONALS get more wear out of their shoes.
Do you know how I know what the pros do? Because I know a lot of them who dance for everything from San Francisco Ballet to Oregon Ballet to Dance Theater of Harlem. I also have the extreme privilege of getting to watch a lot of professional company classes.
There's no fucking way Jessi is wearing out a pair of pointes a week, and no way she should be snarking someone else getting new pointes so often.
So her shoes are missing, and Meem says they can't rehearse, NO ONE can rehearse, if Jessi doesn't have her shoes. Bull shit. Demi-pointe is fine even in bare feet, and Aurora isn't even actually most of the show. There is other stuff to rehease, like the Bluebird and Princess Florine's pas de deux. Since her shoes can't be found, rehearsal is cancelled. Meem is SO FUCKING STUPID. DEMI-POINTE. OTHER CHARACTERS!! IDIOT!!!
One more search, and oh! They were in Jessi's bag! "Zee mystery is solved!" Shut up, Meem.
That bad teacher only led some wrongly-described pliés (where you only bend at the knees...not the hips...) and relevés. And believe me when I say we have an overly-long dance class that isn't relevant in any way. It just took up paper. And then after class, oh look, somehow a dancer snuck back into the dressing room to stick a note in Jessi's bag telling her BEWARE.
Ooooooh. Spooky.
Chapter 2-squared?
Because we're getting more chap2 stuff. I swear to the gods. All that stuff in the real chap2 was personal lives. Now we're getting the ZOMG AMAZINGEST IDEA crud and a loooooong rundown on the roles.
After wasting more trees, we get back to the excuse of a plot. A lot of wondering about Jessi's shoes.
“Right, Jessi. Next time will be better,” said Kristy quickly. “Now listen, you guys. I’ve got a great idea.”
"Everybody groaned, just to tease Kristy. How can anyone get so many great ideas all the time? "
Kids, pets, restraining orders. So goes chapter 2. I mean, 4. Joy.
Chapter 1+2*2 (remember your order of operations)
"Princess Prepared" packed two of everything in her bag this time, inclusing two hair ties. I have at least a whole pack of rubber bands, and a pack or two of pins. If you only grab a couple single rubber bands, and that's your idea of extra, you suck.
An editing fail! So Meem has been written as Mme. this whole time. Now she's Madame. Consisti-what?
We don't need two paragraphs about the records she used to listen to in ballet class when she was younger. By the way, our dance school has live piano for every single class, even for the tiny kids who are three (at that age, it's more about creative movement and letting the get used to following directions and learning the beats of music and such). The nationally-ranked schools, which Jessi's is supposed to be, hould have live music.
"tour jeté (toor jet-tay - that’s just a big jump"
No. You don't get to make up meanings. A GRAND jeté is a big jump. Tour on top, grand on bottom.
See? Not the same. Jessi, and Ann, gets so much wrong that I don't even. I just don't even.
"You might think that the other girls in class would think I was weird for looking at myself that way, but no. They were all doing it, too."
She was checking her posture in the mirror. I...I don't even know what to say to Jessi thinking ballet is so weird. When she and Carrie bump into each other, Jessi calls that a "catastrophe." Now THAT is weird. Because thst stuff happens in class and rehearsal.
After class, her spare outfit is missing, and she has a note written in red ink that she thinks is blood. What a fucking... Has that girl ever gone to school? Did teachers correct her papers with blood? Anyway, this one says, "Watch your step."
I swear that pet show subplot (yeah, apparently there's a subplot in this now) is to this book what nitrates and beef anuses are to cheap hotdogs. The rest of this chapter is Becca whining about only having Misty (well, this has gone full circle, if you go back to one of those videos), who is just a measly hamster, including four LONG chapters that she wrote on that hampster's life story. I'm not making that up. Oh, and a rundown on the other animals in the neighborhood.
Chapter hex. Someone's hexing me. Into a migrane. How many sides does a hexagon have?
Oh lordy. This Kristy-chapter can be summed up as: The kids fight over who has the best pet. The end.
Chapter unlucky 7
Hypocrite. Jessi has another new outfit. Remember her snarking on Hilary? Jessi's bitching about how it's not fair that she sometimes has to use her own money for new dance gear she doesn't need. What a little entitled bitch! Yes, I said it. If you want something you don't need for dance class, why shouldn't you have to use your own money for it? My GOD, Girl! Get off the Entitlement Express.
She locked her stuff up, put the key on a chain around her neck, dropped the key, missed an instruction, and thought she knew what to do because Carrie is being set up as the fall-guy. We're expected to think it's Carrie. Which means she's not the one behind this. If she was, then I'd be surprised. It's going to be the character we've never seen before and will never see again.
"Then I took off, running diagonally across the room and executing a perfect tour jeté. (Which is a big, running leap, in case you forgot.)"
I refer you to the previous two videos.
Too bad she biffed the landing since NO ONE noticed a big puddle on the dance floor. And she did the wrong move. Glissade. See? Carrie is being set up in this book.
And since Jessi's now out several days, well, rehearsals aren't cancelled the way they would have been over a pair of missing shoes. Nope, there's a stand-in. And her dad needs to take her to the ER over a strain so light she can still walk on it. And another note in her bag. This one is the "I told you so" variety because of course that's what it says. Hilary, I mean, the phantom, could read the future.
And of course all of this isn't important to tell an adult.
Well, I wanted to finish, but I think this is enough for tonight. Cookies for you if you read all of this. Sorry for being such a ballet geek.