Thursday, August 30, 2012

Pinteresting

In the interest of blogistic research I peruse Jessica Dube's pinterest from time to time both to note continued sham placemarks (such as Monaco, and Mexico - although she doesn't seem to shout out the Dominican) and to check the inspirational words board for possible indicators about the upcoming competitive figure skating season, as any good creeping skating fan would do.

So far, based on themes running through the bumper sticker sayings of the day, it's possible to speculate that she is trying to let criticism about dumping Bryce roll off her shoulders while bravely going forward with the brave decisions she's made; also maybe looking back nostalgically while resolutely looking ahead; easy to see that she is determined to supplement her rigorous figure skating training regimen with as many targeted keep-fit tips as she can find, bolstered by delicious and easy recipe ideas; and yet at times one wonders if she and Sebastien are unexpectedly history, leaving her to scan the pinterest mantra-and-motto universe for reassurance that the future still holds great promise.

So, in terms of hints about the upcoming season, pinterest is not too helpful, although I always come away feeling very, as the saying goes, special snowflake-y after reading the copious number of affirmations and I'm-okay-and-if-you-don't-agree-you're-not-worth-it type virtual pep talks.* And in fairness, much of this is de rigueur for all pinterest users, not particular to Jessica.

But, I do feel as if other parts of her pinterest sheds further light onto why she and Bryce perhaps didn't progress as far as their potential led people, including Bryce, to hope they would. 

Back when the blog began, I posted this:

I'm scrolling through Jessica Dube's pinterest and there's this:

Style ideas: 
So many ideas.
Or hair (a/k/a "beauty"):
Which should she choose?
I feel less than clean making fun, but in a way I can't quite put my finger on it's like things just keep circling around and around and around a pretty narrow circumference without developing and there's something familiar about it all, skating-wise, without my being able to bullet point it yet. Not just stylistically, but with how her actual skating has developed and grown (or not) versus her claims about it.

I mean okay, long, bouncy, messy, beachy-textured dark-toned brown hair! Let's placehold that ninety times and also, incidentally, routinely repost the same photo several times because it's not recognized as the same old photo you've already posted?

I could pull up a "braids" section too that could turn your eyeballs to pinwheels, but pretty much the point is, how much do you need to twiddle over the idea of a hair style that looks exactly like your current hair worn exactly the same by 10 different demi celebrities and upload them all to remind yourself you like it? Don't you make yourself catatonic at some point?

How would it be if Scott were on pinterest and he had to upload stuff to a board called "Photo Ideas" before he was able to pose for facebook?

Scott's Facial Expression Ideas:
Decisions, decisions.
Without pinterest, would he forget to remember to do this?
Would never happen. He has douche-faces cold.
Or this?




I want Tessa on pinterest so I can lull myself to sleep with a board called "shoes":

The shoes are really pretty but as they're variations on the same shoe by the same label, I don't think she'd need to pin every shoe.

That last phrase is getting closer to the running theme in Jessica's figure skating that I keep seeing, but I'll keep working on it. Maybe it has something to do with believing you've got a fresh idea or are doing something new but when you circle back it turns out you're at the same place and are stagnating, and insufficiently motivated to recognize this. You see "change" and "the same" as equivalent, or you make them equivalent.

This (the mood and expression), I understand. Same spiral.
One to Umbrellas of Cherbourg the other to The Way We Were -
It could be argued that the spiral occurs at similar mood points
 in otherwise divergent programs.Who knows? Both are schmaltzy.
Annie Barabe said the programs with Sebastien would not be love stories.
We clearly see this difference between D&D and D&W. On the right is D&D's
3-hankie Way We Were, Jessica pre-swoon, preparing to heave a large sigh
 as she and Bryce set sail for memory lane. On the left, Sebastien and
Jessica begin their abstract long program to the minimalist, dissonant
composer Philip Glass's theme music from "Heroes", while Jessica swoons
and sighs with the delight of expanding her stylistic horizons.

Most figure skaters have characteristic facial expressions during certain programs. Speaking literally, we all only have the one face. Therefore, when Scott Moir skates Umbrella of Cherbourg, Mahler, and Valse Triste, his aspect of romantic yearning is going to look similar in all three during the parts where he's supposed to be yearning romantically. Likewise, when Scott skates a non-party Latin-esque cd, od, sd or lp, hair slicked, eyes bearing down on Tessa, in all of them he's pretty much going to look as if he's not about to let lunch - nor dessert - get away.

So, too, with Jessica:


Left is D&W's sultry, athletic, playful blues short. Center is D&D's 
intense, dramatic, angsty, angry short. Right is D&W's 
abstract, non-dramatic, minimalist long.
One can certainly see why there are fans who insist Jessica dumping Bryce and partnering with Sebastien has reinvigorated her figure skating. She's practically born-again.

One also understands the fans who insist Jessica and Scott had to have been real. For one, they're a perfect fit. Jessica is never boring**, and Scott is, if nothing else, the poster child for patience. Second, even if things became a little dicey over time, in a male-centric sport like figure skating, there would be no other opportunities for a heterosexual 20something male World and Olympie Scott to have sex other than with an accident-prone teammate based at a training center 575 miles away.
______________________
*no better way to convince everyone how little your critics matter than to pin virtual posters about how little they matter. Such a poster conveys your conviction that you've got a lot of critics, but if you put up a poster about how much you don't care, everyone will realize you're above it all. It doesn't in any way communicate a put-upon, pissed off and overly self-involved personality.
**"Age cannot wither, nor custom stale, her infinite variety". It's like Shakespeare knew she'd come along.

14 comments:

  1. i can not stand it when she puts her hand up to their faces as if trying to say "you cant kiss me" and the fact she did it with bryce and now sebastien....just screams creativity... 0.o

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    1. HPC is almost here, that weekend when Skate Canada gets to hand out opinions on skaters' programs. Over the years of course they saw Jessica skate practically the same thing over and over. They must have been fine with things in the Dube camp. They've heaped praise on her for years.
      Oh yeah--she was Scott Moir's gf. Wonder if that made up for any incentive to do somethng about the skating.

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    2. The blues program was choreographed by Marina Zoueva (although Tracy Wilson claimed "David Wilson" for the large national audience watching and recording 2012 Canadians - why was that?). Requiem for a Dream was choreographed by Pasquale Carmelengo. Way We Were was David Wilson. How do three such disparate choreographers end up with Jessica a la martyr face and talk-to-the hand in the exact same pose? Cause it's Jessica.

      Choreographing for her must be the easiest money David Wilson makes every year. All he has to do is cut new music. The program and performance stays the same.

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    3. Anon 5:25 - I actually wonder if most of Skate Canada's promotional energy will be focused on promoting Piper and Paul, Piper with all the mysteriously "indescribable" "undefinable" magic qualities she brings to the partnership. Qualities that don't include speed, the ability to transition into and out of lifts with control, the ability to carry herself as well as the top skaters nor skate in unison with Paul. Qualities that don't include quality edgework or securely executed elements. I believe that boiled down, the primary magical quality G&P bring to the table is the label of a Canadian-coached SC team, and possibly SC has determined that W&P will never rise to inherit the VM mantle but maybe they can bamboozle the international judges into believing Piper and Paul, absent actual skating quality as a team but loaded with intangibles, can. That's what I think we should look for at HPC.

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  2. OC 6:41

    You forgot to mention "refreshing". That COP category that will give G/P extra points over blase teams like VM.
    *rolleyes*

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    1. "Refreshing" is an unbelieveably insulting label because it's comparative. Compared to WHOM are G&P "refreshing"? All those sterile ice-dance teams who are sterile because they skate well, have good run of blade, controlled body line, track each other well, execute difficult content with speed and finesse and a high level of difficulty? We all know that possessing those qualities mean you lack personality. Thank the lord G&P came along with Paul doing 3/4ths of the work because finally there's refreshing personality in ice dance. Can't wait to see how that's reflected in the protocols.

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  3. I question whether Scott ever dated Jessica too, but.....99 percent of people outside of the very small and isolated world of figure skating, think all male figure skaters are gay, so I can see Scott having considerably fewer interested adult women. Scott is also not that tall and many western women do not like short guys. However, I'm sure Scott is flooded with adoration from 10 year old girls and Asian women who still think like 10 year old girls.

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    1. I see your larger point but we're talking one presumably single champion figure skater and national sports hero looking for love and finding his only opportunity is a dreary high maintenance moody teammate in Quebec. That's been the rationale for some "wordly" sham believers. Sex. Despite him being a shorter guy and a figure skater, Scott actually knows people besides fans who'd presume he's gay. His circle of acquaintance is enormous. Somehow, some way, he'd find somebody to date, just like short, presumed gay Scott Hamilton and all of his good looking girlfriends before he found his good looking wife. Of course, the reality is Scott Moir is with his gorgeous and charming partner and has been set on that score for almost half his young life at this point, and knew what he wanted prior to even that.

      There are lots of people in the lives of all these skaters besides fans and people who think like fans. People their own age, in their own communities.

      Fanthink has always been an eye roller. In some places on the web, people simultaneously hold the view that Tessa, because she's well-spoken, responsible, well-groomed and fair skinned and has a good eye for costuming, is a virgin, while simultaneously possessing the ability to attract Fedor Andreev, David Pelletier and Ryan Semple. Hell, the way she carries herself actually puts clothes on her that aren't there, according to some fans who find her prudish. A funny thing to say about a woman who has shown a lot of skin in her eligible skating career, but maybe the people who claim she's prudish think if you're not vulger, you must be over-modest.

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  4. It is not the figure skating fans who presume Scott or all male figure skaters are gay, quite the opposite. The figure skating fans are the ones who insist almost all male figure skaters are straight, even though they are wrong in many cases. Johnny Weirs sexuality was genuinely a shock to many figure skating fans.

    Non figure skating fans, are the ones who assume all male figure skaters are gay.

    Straight or not, Scott Moir is not exactly a Vin Diesel, while, like it or not, in the real world outside of figure skating fan opinions, Tessa Virtue is uber hot. If neither were figure skaters, Tessa Virtue would be out of Scott Moirs league.

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    1. I don't think Tessa is out of Scott's league at all. He might not be all that tall but he's certainly getting handsome as he gets older. Plus his body is killer.

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    2. Plus this is getting outside the margins. The essential point being, a lot of fans justify Jessica by explaining that Scott is a young dude, Tessa isn't "that kind of girl", Jessica is, hence, Scott sustained a 5 year relationship with a girl he wasn't crazy about. Pat Scott's head, boys will be boys, in due course he'll mature.

      Setting aside the condescending out-of-it-ness of that perspective, the bottom line is, Scott Moir could have gotten laid basically as often as he wanted, without shackling himself to Jessica Dube. But many fans disregard this, imagining that both Michigan and Ontario are bereft of woman willing to give a short, successful, talented elite athlete a shot. The rest is just "eh". I believe that the original anon's perspective is too romance novel and not real life.

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    3. I think basically everything's been covered here already, but just wanted to make one more point - even if most females presumed Scott was gay, he wouldn't be able to convince one he was attracted to otherwise?? I mean (before his official coming out), if Anderson Cooper had hit on me, I wouldn't have said "um no way dude, you're supposed to be gay"

      OK, another thing - I personally think Scott is very attractive, but even if Tessa might be more so, once you reach a certain plateau does the "league" thing really still count? No, at least not when you have dozens of other outstanding qualities. Scott didn't just get lucky, he and Tessa are equally and perfectly matched.

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  5. [The blues program was choreographed by Marina Zoueva (although Tracy Wilson claimed "David Wilson" for the large national audience watching and recording 2012 Canadians - why was that?)]

    I had forgotten about that choreographer switch during Canadians. Also, during Jessica's brief return-to-singles career, first it was said Scott Moir ("the boyfriend") was choreographing her SP, then it was switched to someone else but that Scott was still doing some step-sequence, or linking-steps, or something.

    Why all the changes? Did it depend on who they thought the audience was? I'm still trying to figure this out. It was weird. And if this coming season SC will be more focused on Gilles/Poirier than other skaters, what becomes of Dube/Wolf, who have enjoyed all of SC's backing? (And I'd love to know who is said to have done their choreography this year.)

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    1. I think it depends on who the audience was - that was the main thing with "Scott" doing Jessica's step sequences (he got the credit, put it that way. What someone does and what's said they've done aren't often connected with the sham). I also think that's why suddenly David Wilson was credited with the blues program for Canadians - perhaps they were trying to back out of the Canton/Dube connection as that sort of gambit was becoming plain old vulgar in the eyes of many people who knew Scott and Tessa's real life status.

      And about Scott choreographing Jessica's short, perhaps it also belatedly reached Skate Canada that fans reacted poorly to the publicity. D&D fans were pissed. Something awful happened to Bryce and SC was capitalizing on it to promote the Jessica/Scott relationship, when every D&D fan out there was under the impression Jessica had dumped Bryce for Scott, destroying the Scott/Bryce friendship, then rubbed his face in it while Bryce remained devoted and loyal as a friend and skating partner to Jessica. So in that context - context being a word Skate Canada has no understanding of whatsoever - it was so so gross. As they tend to be with a lot of their p.r.

      GP are dance and DW are pairs so there is no promotional or political conflict there. I'm also fairly eagerly awaiting confirmation that DW still exist as a pair. And after that, to see what music they set the same old same old lp to this time.

      I'm actually curious to see which pair SC tries to push. Will they actually take MTM seriously or are they entrenched in a taken-for-granted/they'll-never-really-get-there mentality? Duhamel/Radford have difficult program content and do a lot of stuff well but sometimes I feel as if they're navigating a high wire, that they're skating right at the edge of what they can do and sometimes over it. I also think because D&D had a "personal story" that SC was overly enamored of it, as the personal story - SC version of it - could be marketed exactly as SC enjoyed marketing things, an unseemly soup of TMI, gossip rag, inane psychobabble and insincerity.

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