Californians tend to be outspoken. When the great migration began, the more timid people must have stayed home, and the bolder ones headed west.

The rich plankton of pop heroes and pop villains on which we Americans are accustomed to feed, the daily media soup of sports figures, ax murderers, politicians, and rock singers, the ever-running river of celebs, heavies, and oddballs that we use to spice up our own relatively humdrum lives has of late become a very watery gruel. Where have all the good guys and bad guys gone? Why does everyone out there look so gray?

Tourists moved over the piazza like drugged insects on a painted plate.

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.

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.

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

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