A handwritten, personal letter has become a genuine modern-day luxury, like a child's pony ride. Shana Alexander More Quotes by Shana Alexander More Quotes From Shana Alexander Until quite recently dance in America was the ragged Cinderella of the arts . . . Shana Alexander ragged america art 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. Shana Alexander pharaohs artist needs The Federal Building's large Ceremonial Courtroom, reserved for show trials, is veneered in executive teak. Bench, counsel tables, jury boxes, entrances, and exits -- all are as formally arranged as an Elizabethan stage. Only the drama is shapeless, at least to those of us who have never seen a trial before. We see only random movements, sequences, comings and goings, no form or agenda apparent. To us the action is less like watching a play than watching an aquarium. Shana Alexander aquariums play drama Tourists moved over the piazza like drugged insects on a painted plate. Shana Alexander insects tourists travel Letters are expectation packaged in an envelope. Shana Alexander envelopes expectations letters We are on a sexual binge in this country. ... One consequence of this binge is that while people now get into bed more readily and a lot more naturally than they once did, what happens there often seems less important. Shana Alexander country sex people Good drama should sandpaper the mind. Shana Alexander should mind drama 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. Shana Alexander dancer imagination perfection Rome's riches are in too immediate juxtaposition. Under the lid of awful August heat, one moves dizzily from church to palace to fountain to ruin, a single fly at a banquet, not knowing where to light. Shana Alexander rome light moving Ireland is not at all a simple place, and in many ways it is spare and sad. It has no wealth, no power, no stability, no influence, no fashion, no size. Its only real arts are song and drama and poem. But Limerick alone has two thousand ruined castles and surely that many practicing poets. Shana Alexander fashion song art 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. Shana Alexander easter real idols Mind and body are not to be taken lightly. Their connection is intimate and mysterious, and better mapped by poets than pornographers. Shana Alexander connections taken mind 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? Shana Alexander hero running sports The price of shallow sex may be a corresponding loss of capacity for deep love. Shana Alexander deep-love loss sex The difficulty with becoming a patient is that as soon as you get horizontal, part of your being yearns, not for a doctor, but for a medicine man. Shana Alexander doctors medicine men The real trouble with the doctor image in America is that it has been grayed by the image of the doctor-as-businessman, the doctor-as-bureaucrat, the doctor-as-medical-robot, and the doctor-as-terrified-victim-of-malpractice-suits. Shana Alexander doctors real america The law changes and flows like water, and . . . the stream of women's rights law has become a sudden rushing torrent. Shana Alexander change rights law Rumor and gossip, like sound itself, appear to travel by wave-effect, sheer preposterosity being no barrier. Shana Alexander rumor gossip sound Faithful horoscope-watching, practiced daily, provides just the sort of small but warm and infinitely reassuring fillip that gets matters off to a spirited start. Shana Alexander astrology faith matter Ours was the Togetherness Generation. We equated togetherness with salvation, and expected so much from it that it was bound to let us down. Companionship, security, lifelong physical and spiritual and emotional warmth - all were to be had for the twist of a ring and the breathing of a vow. And to be had no other way. Shana Alexander marriage emotional spiritual