Documentary review in one tweet

Experience the beautiful insanity of youth ballet from the comfort of your own living room. Also, a disgusting montage of injured feet.

Favorite Quote

"I guess that's flexible. It's pretty gross." - Rebecca Houseknecht, 17 year old ballet dancer, as she lifts her leg over her head to the point where it looks like her hip will immediately explode and send fragments of bone spraying around her house. Sorry to put that image in your head.

Review

At the highest levels, all sports are insane.

For most of my life, I assumed that money was the cause of sports insanity, that the professionals of the NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA, PGA, etc, etc, were all nuts because of how much money was involved in their sport, and how much pressure that put on them to be the best.

But after watching First Position, it seems like this is true of even fringier sports like ballet, that there's something about being at the highest levels of anything that requires a kind of fierce and slightly crazy devotion, a devotion to what is, in the end, a physical performance based around an arbitrary system of rules. But this is all a bit intellectual. Let's look at the movie another way.

1. It is beautiful.

Bess Kargman, who directs First Position, somehow manages to find seven of the most beautiful people I've ever seen on screen, ranging in ages from 10 to 17. And yes, I'm aware it is odd for a 27-year-old man to call a bunch of kids beautiful, but that's really the only word that describes them. They hail from all over the world, as well, from Columbia to Maryland to Israel to Sierra Leone, and watching them dance is like watching Derrick Rose score. You want to cheer and cringe and gasp, all at the same time, because it looks like they are doing something that almost certainly has to destroy their body at any moment. The word beautiful is the only word I can use, and it still seems a little inadequate.

It also doesn't hurt that the movie includes the most adorable 11-year-old boyfriend/girlfriend couple in human history. Just watch it and tell me I'm wrong.

2. It is funny.

Mostly because of Jules Fogarty, a ten-year-old boy who is probably the only one who doesn't actually want to do ballet. His sister Miko is the real devotee, along with his mother Satoko, and so poor Jules gets dragged along with them, half-heartedly jumping and dancing his way through Swan Lake. He's probably best summarized in the following exchange, between him and his trainer.

Trainer: What part of ballet do you think you're best at, Jules?

Jules: Um, probably smiling

Jules is my favorite.

3. It is crazy.

Did I mention this earlier? I enjoyed this documentary thoroughly, but it pretty much guaranteed that my kids will never do ballet at the highest levels. Not only is the sport super time consuming (40 hours or more per week for some of the dancers) and expensive ($1500 - $2000 per tutu, $80 for a pair of ballet shoes that often wear out in a single day), but it is also incredibly harsh on the body. Most of the dancers had multiple injuries over the course of their careers, and the disgusting montage of feet I mentioned above is enough to keep my kid away from it all by itself.

The dancers all have different reasons for putting themselves through all this pain and expense. The big prize for the older dancers is a job with a ballet company; for the younger it's a scholarship to a prestigious school. But I can't believe those rather modest and uncertain rewards are enough to spur most of them through all the hardship. Mostly, I have to believe they do it because they love ballet, and because, again, they are a little crazy.

Final Rating

9 cold, frosty beers (out of 10)

Apart from Happy, this is definitely my favorite Netflix documentary so far. Every single one of the seven dancers has a different story, and all of them are fascinating. It also has a happy ending, which is an often underrated aspect of documentaries, which tend to be a bit depressing. It's worth your hour and a half.

The big day is finally here! Three fun things are happening today:

The Towers

Fun thing one - The Towers is finally available for order. There are a couple different ways you can get a copy, all of which are detailed on my new Shop page.

• Read The Towers

Both paperback and ebook copies are available. Currently, you can buy the ebook versions from Smashwords or Amazon's Kindle Store.

Smashwords has every kind of ebook version you could need (.mobi, .epub, .pdf, .etc), so if you want to read it on your Nook, Kobo, or iBook app, then Smashwords is where you want to look. The Towers will eventually be available in the Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and iBooks stores, but as of this writing, the book is not yet posted to those sites. I will update this site and various social media channels when that changes.

New website design

Fun thing two - The Double-J has a bit of a new look now, mostly because I actually have a navigation at the top of the page. I also have a new About page as well as the aforementioned Shop page. But don't worry, the light gray background will remain a cornerstone of my design for years to come.

Birthday

Fun thing three - It's my 27th birthday today. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this at year's end, but this has been without a doubt the weirdest and most rewarding year of my life. Thank you to everyone reading this, and everyone who has ever read any of the silly or serious things I've written.

And most of all, thanks to my wife, without whom The Towers (and this whole website really) would not be possible. Looking forward to sharing a piece of cake with you today. One of many more to come.

If you missed it, go to my Shop page to read The Towers. It really is a good book. I wouldn't ask for money for it if I didn't think so. And you know that's true because of how free everything else on the Double-J is. Extremely free. So give it a try.

As some of you know, I've spent a lot of time finishing up The Towers over the last few weeks - editing, formatting, praying, re-editing, re-formatting, and drinking copious amounts of orange juice. Though The Towers isn't my first novel, it is my first novel worth reading, and I think it's good enough that I would recommend it to you, especially if you like fantasy.

So I'm quite happy and relieved to be able to announce a release date for The Towers - Monday, November 18. The book will be available from a number of retailers in print and all ebook formats. A full list of ordering options will be posted to this website on Nov. 18. Until then, I won't be posting any new stories on the Double-J (That's what I call this website; I hope it catches on.), but you can expect a brand new story to come your way on November 20.

Here's a bit about what The Towers is about:

The Towers

Neither more nor less than one hundred towers shall shield you from the Nightmare. For each tower is a Prohibition, and each Prohibition is a tower. And the towers alone can save you from the death the Nightmare brings.

- The First Prohibition

For generations, the mountain people of Cairn Meridia have lived free, defending themselves from the dark army of the Nightmare with the strength of their towers, the wisdom of the Prohibitions, and the magic of shame and grace. But now, as a masked rebellion festers in the heart of the city, the Nightmare comes again, twenty years too soon, and the fate of Cairn Meridia hangs upon a terrible choice. Here is a tale of lies, loyalty, and above all love.

Jordan Jeffers would like to take this opportunity to tell you that this is his last signature in third person. From now on, I won't pretend to be an editor. Feel free to give me electronic encouragement via the little Facebook and Twitter buttons below. It means more to me than you might think.