This September as I was coming back through Washington, DC on my way back to London I stopped to see "Diaghilev and the Ballet Russes, 1909-1929: When Art Danced with Music" at the National Gallery of Art. A version of the show had been at the V&A in 2010-2011 (when I was still living in Turkey), but I had heard a lot of buzz about the National Gallery iteration during the summer, especially from folks at Bread and Puppet, to whom it was of special interest because it dealt with a historical crossroads of theater with fine art, and of the mainstream with the avant garde. As I was coming from the creative atmosphere of Bread and Puppet when I saw the show, and I was already explicitly thinking about how to use more costume-, mask-, and puppet-making and performance in my own work, I'm sure that had an impact on how I perceived it (I found it to be jaw-droppingly amazing and relevant, and the objects in to have been fabulously well curated -- given that there must have been an almost infinite number of beautiful and relevant objects that could have been selected for inclusion), but I'm also certain it would have been fantastic anyway. It's amazing (and important) to consider how n a dynamic phase of European history, the Ballets Russes was bringing together all the best possible representatives of the art world to create a complete experience, which from being very edgy (the New York Times' review of the show says: "Audiences went to the Ballets Russes to discover novelty, sensation, shock, the changing world of 1909-29.") in turn influenced fashion and popular culture for years afterward.