>>>>Veering away from books to another passion : I just finished watching the DVD of Every Little Step - the documentary of the casting for the remake of Chorus Line on Broadway.
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>>>>My nephew dances with the San Jose Ballet ( spent his 23rd birthday dancing two leads in Carmina Burana on opening night in Shanghai ) and I've watched his progress since he was a kid. It is like watching people become Olympians. Magical. He smiles at the line in "What I did for love" - "the gift was ours to borrow."
>>>>
>>>>I am a complete sucker for that musical anyway, saw three different casts in the original run. I'm also a process junkie ( Top Chef, Project Runway whatever ) especially in areas where I have little knowledge and no expertise, so this kind of stuff is catnip for me. Highly recommended.
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>>>Wow, you sure are an eclectic guy! Who woulda thunk you'd be into ballet and musicals? I like musicals (movies mainly, haven't seen many theater productions), but ballet is definitely not my cuppa tea. Not that there's anything wrong with that! <g>
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>>>~~Bonnie
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>>I was the gayest straight guy in San Francisco <bg> I had season tickets for San Franscisco Ballet in the mid 70s when Michael Smuin had just taken it over. Saw some amazing stuff, including the touring companies like Joffrey, Bolshoi, Kirov and ABT. Got hooked - but also got priced out of my season tickets when SF ballet really took off and suddenly there was a suggested $2000 contribution required to renew my tickets. <s> (ballet thought of PSLs before the NFL did)
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>>In SF I had the best of both worlds - all the culture that came with the gay golden age - and all the best looking guys cruising all the other best looking guys. I had to compete with three other straight guys for the women. <s> ( also a good place to buy clothes - the jacket in the picture was purchased at Hard On Leather on Polk Street <bg> )
>
>A friend of mine, female, used to go to the SF Ballet a lot. She said it was quite amusing when one of the male dancers did a jumping split and the air went out of the house ;-) She described it more vividly but I think you get the idea.
>
>San Francisco is a great city. Our most romantic depending on how one feels about New Orleans. When I was in my early 20s I was given responsibility for the Safeway account and flew up there once a quarter or so. Great times. No walks on the wide side, it wasn't like that. Just a really, really romantic city.

There used to be a joke that SF was the one town where at the ballet there were more straight men on stage than in the audience. One of the disadvantages of being outed as straight was you couldn't be a "walker". A lot of my gay friends always got to sit in boxes at the opera and the ballet as they escorted society women whose husbands had no interest in either. Since the NYSE opened at 6 am PST a lot of very rich San Fransciscans went to bed very early, so during the week ( I can't remember but I think Thursday was society night ) it was all walkers or young gay execs who did a lot of coke.

And getting back on topic : Tales of the City, by Armistad Maupin, which originally ran as a daily roman a clef in the San Francisco Chronicle is every bit as brilliant as anything Henry James ever did and perfectly captures San Francisco in the 70s. The most ritualized behavior of every San Fransciscan of every walk of life for a number of years was to read Herb Caen and Maupin and figure out who was who.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_the_City_%28novel%29