As a general rule, fans and idols should always be kept at arm's length, the length of the arm to be proportionate to the degree of sheer idolatry involved. Don't take a Beatle to lunch. Don't wait up to see if the Easter Bunny is real. Just enjoy the egg hunt.

Until quite recently dance in America was the ragged Cinderella of the arts . . .

the metabolism of a consumer society requires it continually to eat and excrete, every day throwing itself away in plastic bags.

Ballet's image of perfection is fashioned amid a milieu of wracked bodies, fevered imaginations, Balkan intrigue and sulfurous hatreds where anything is likely, and dancers know it.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.

The notion that the great artist requires a great patron has been around since the Pharaohs. That the born patron also needs an artist to patronize is a less-studied phenomenon.

Rumor and gossip, like sound itself, appear to travel by wave-effect, sheer preposterosity being no barrier.