HEY, YOU WITH THE STARS IN YOUR EYES: I'll be quick because I know how few of you care! But All That Skate was amazing. Nothing can compare to the immediacy of live skating or the camaraderie of the live skating audience. So here are a few snapshots from a sparkly, incandescent, cheesy, hilarious, sublime evening. I am so grateful to all of these skaters for their performances.

I had heard that Shen & Zhao had pulled out of the LA show. So when the announcer said (something like), "They are the reigning Olympic champions in pairs skating...", I literally gasped. Words are inadequate; I can only say that their first program was one of my favorites, and their second gave me chills. They actually embody the danger in love every time they skate.

Stephane Lambiel and Michelle Kwan were the other showstoppers. Lambiel is just a joy to watch as he does these incomprehensibly brilliant spins, plays to the audience, sings along with his music, and generally looks like he's having the time of his life. The fair is a veritable smorgasbord, orgasbord, orgasbord, to him! (Here's a great Lambiel show program if you want to know what he's like.) I had never really connected with Kwan's skating before, despite acknowledging her prowess, but seeing her do some of the best jumps and spins and spirals in the show made me realize what a trouper she really is. I mean this in absolutely the best way: She was almost as good in ATS:LA2010 as she was in her Olympics exhibition skate back in 2002. Expressive and powerful and clean, every inch the role model Yu-Na Kim loves her as.

Ashley Wagner, and the pairs team of Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy, were both terrific. I'd never seen them before, and now I know I need to look them up on YouTube. Wagner, especially, skated like she had something to prove, and I respect that a lot.

Johnny Weir, my actual favorite skater in the history of ever, more or less fumbled his second program. He hurt his hip in rehearsal, and it showed. He had noticeably more verve in the group numbers. And you know, Weir on an off night still provides moments of genuine bliss due to his ability to connect with the audience and act. So while this really was an off night for him, it only strengthened my resolve to make sure I can scrape up the cash to see his next show on the East Coast.

(If you want to know why I'm so convinced that I will love the next Weir show I see, here are some links: a vastly better performance of "Poker Face" than the one he showed at ATSLA Day 1; the performance which hooked me on figure skating; his astounding "Swan" program; "Feeling Good," in which he absolutely owns the music and the emotion and the ice; "I Love You, I Hate You," in a performance I entirely love; and a performance to "Bad Romance" which is so awesome that it overcomes both my hatred of his furry lizard costume and my helpless dislike of Lady Gaga. And I would be happy to supply many more links to programs where you can watch Weir push skating forward. You're welcome!)

DEAL OR NO DEAL: Just finished The Second Mark, Joy Goodwin's terrific book ostensibly about the Salt Lake City Olympics pairs skating scandal. Its actual subjects include, among many other things, the rocky transition from the Soviet Union to the "new Russia"; a brief history of modern China, as told by small children in a cold climate; the ways culture and politics affect our aesthetic judgments; the messiness of skating judging at the best of times; and the ways--good, bad, and very much both at once--in which women understand, accept, and adjust to suffering.

All of this in fluid and unobtrusive prose. I checked it out of the library because it promised background on Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao, the Chinese pairs champions, but I'd recommend it even to people with no especial interest in figure skating. (But if you want to know why Shen and Zhao are so great, try this, this, and this!)