Fighting them on the (cultural) beachheads

This is a very nice article about how cool German culture has become (even being 'embraced' in the UK...who'd have guessed?); however, did they really need to use the word 'invasion'?

And, to me, the combination of text and image suggests that Germany's 'big shift' has involved making half-naked people stand in very, very uncomfortable positions.

I'm struggling to find this complimentary.

(Not quite) Starting Something

Far from wanting to diminish the talent of Michael Jackson (he was, after all -- at least for a long period of his life -- a very talented and charismatic figure), I thought this video of earlier choreography helps to make the point that what he was doing, while innovative, was not entirely new. (It is also, on its own, quite an enjoyable few minutes.)



I've been interested in historical continuities recently. Human nature, standing on the shoulders of giants, and the like.

(Via Boing Boing)

"The hideous writhings and wigglings of the Huggie Bear or Argentine Tango"

Continuing the things-found-while-researching series (to see the others, click on the 'historical bycatch' tag), today's offering is a dispatch from a now-forgotten front in the War to Maintain Decency:

REVOLT AGAINST FREAK DANCES

HOSTESSES’ BAN ON BARNYARD ANTICS

HIDEOUS WRITHINGS

The advent of the ‘Turkey Trot’ dance has sounded the death knell of ballroom hooliganism, for hostesses are declaring war on freak dances.

For several months they have been watching the growth of the new style of dancing with suspicious eyes.

First the sinuous sway of the Boston supplanted the sober pleasures of the time-honoured waltz, and then came the kangaroo-like measures of the Argentine Tango and Dandy Dance, which turned the ballrooms into veritable bear gardens.

Hostesses suffered all these innovations in silence, but now the “Turkey Trot” has made its appearance there has been a general revolt, and they have declared that tangoes and trots alike shall be forbidden for the future.

“‘Beastly dances’ is the only suitable way of describing them,” said Mr. R. M. Crompton, vice-president of the International Union of Dance Teachers’ Societies, to an “Express” representative on Saturday.

“No words are too strong to condemn the hideous writhings and wigglings of the Huggie Bear or Argentine Tango,” he continued, “and to see our young people bouncing about imitating the cries of a turkey in the ‘Turkey Trot,’ is a deplorable spectacle.

“The reason these dances have become so popular is that they are so easy to learn. The one step, for instance, would be much more appropriately named if it were called the ‘no-step’ for the dancer can do almost any weird and unconventional steps he likes.”

The “Turkey Trot,” which was first introduced by Oscar and Suzette at the Hippodrome, seems to have few friends, for Oscar had nothing to say in its favour when interviewed by an “Express” representative.

“Personally I think it is a hideous dance,” he said: “in fact, I do not think it can be called a dance at all, but the public wish to see these extraordinary dances, so, of course, I dance them.

“I am inundated with letters from people who long to perform the Argentine Tango, and am giving lessons every day.”

“The Boston and one-step have undoubtedly affected the popularity of the two-step and waltz, but I expect freak dances will be short-lived.”

Inquiries at various dancing schools showed that the freak dances are being completely banned by most hostesses and the objectionable movements are never taught.

-------------------------

HOSTESSES’ STANDPOINT

By Pearl Humphry

The new dances are an orgy of vulgarity, and will kill dancing in England if allowed to go unchecked.

If the London County Council were favoured with a private view of a modern dance they would be chagrined at being unable to refuse a licence.

Fresh young girls are taught a set of expurgated steps which high spirits and the example of their partners soon release from the slight restraint which the dancing master has thought well to lend them.

They swoop and curve their bodies about, clutch their partners in a close embrace, and allow themselves to be hauled about in a manner which would not only have startled our much-quoted grandparents, but even shocked the liberal minded chaperon of to-day.

The hostess of the moment is in a difficult position. What is a woman to do who invites her friends to a dance, provides them with waltz, two-step and one-step music, and then finds them indulging in all kinds of steps which at the best are ugly and eccentric, and at the worst make her blood cold and her cheeks hot?

Is she to say: “Stop! I will not have this”? Her interpretation of the laws of hospitality forbids this. She can only conclude that she had better not give another dance.

On even the most ordinary grounds the new dances are to be objected to, as they seriously inconvenience other dancers. A couple waltzing will find themselves sent flying by a clucking, swooping young woman or a young man who bears his body before him and his hands behind his head in an attitude which no negro could recognise.

Or a pair will step down the room opposite each other, staring in each other’s eyes with an expression of ferocious hatred. At the most unexpected moment the girl will fling herself bodily into the man’s arms; he clutches her round the shoulders—the movements are best described by any realistic French novelist.

A hostess sees some of her guests, perhaps even her daughters, light-heartedly behaving like a set of drunken women from Montmartre. What can she do but refuse to give any more dances? It seems the only remedy.

(Daily Express, Monday, 19 February 1912, p. 8)

And here, a related post from the archives.

Year of the dead?

Rather like Harald Martenstein, Charlie Brooker does not expect 2009 to be, as Ol' Blue Eyes once put it, a very good year.

Dim your lights. Here's the highlights reel. The worst recession in 60 years. Broken windows and artless graffiti. Howling winds blowing empty cans past boarded-up shopfronts. Feral children eating sloppy handfuls of decomposed-pigeon-and-baked-bean mulch scraped from the bottom of dustbins in a desperate bid to survive. The pound worth less than the acorn. The City worth less than the pound. Your house worth so little it'll collapse out of shame, crushing you in your bed.

It goes downhill from there (the year, I mean, not the enjoyment of Booker's prose), though even a pessimist like me doubts whether my relatives will actually have to sleep on brain-stained bedclothes, "shivering in the dark as they hear bombs dipped in bird flu dropping on the shattered remains of the desiccated city above."

But it's the thought that counts, I suppose.

So, the new year is already looking pretty nightmarish, which is one of the reasons I decided to ring it in by spending its first few evenings re-watching George Romero's zombie trilogy.

There are few things like a good old fashioned zombie apocalypse to cheer a body up: the world may be bad, you think, but at least I'm not trapped in a shopping mall trying to keep my entrails from being ripped out and eaten by the undead.

Yeah. A little perspective is always useful.

Something else that might also help you get through the grim times to come might be a couple of wonderful (and quite remarkably zombie-like) photos of party-goers offered to us by Sorry I Missed Your Party (previously celebrated on this blog here.)

There will be many moments in 2009 when you need a little cheering up, a little, you know, laughter.

Just bookmark this page and come back whenever you need that little lift.

Enjoy...



Don't you feel better now? Good.

And remember: when it comes to real zombies, aim for the head.

(Image sources: here and here. Frightening combination thereof: here.)

Dance, dance, dance little doctors

You learn something new every day. For instance, that in the US there is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sponsored competition called "Dance Your Ph.D." in which scientists do precisely that: dance their doctoral dissertations. According to an article in Stern, competitors are judged by the expressiveness of their product and its ability to bring across the project's central message.

I don't think Francis Sedgemore will be impressed by the efforts (or their heuristic value, for that matter). But see and judge for yourselves:

Here's Vince LiCata and team dancing "Resolving Pathways of Functional Coupling in Human Hemoglobin Using Quantitative Low Temperature Isoelectric Focusing of Asymmetric Mutant Hybrids"



Closet patriot that I am, I was particularly happy to see that there's a winner from Germany: Miriam Sach from the University of Düsseldorf, dancing "Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography. A comparison between single subject and group analysis"



She clearly has a background in classical ballet, fruitfully spiked here with a good dose of Pina Bausch.

More videos can be found here.

I can't think of any of my colleagues who'd be willing to do something quite as compromising AND post it on YouTube. But one may dream, mayn't one?

At this point I would have liked to post a clip of Landlord Marty's dance from The Big Lebowski, but sadly none could be found in the infinite depths of the World Wide Web. So you have to imagine.