The Jacking Of The Body
Among the many calamities of the pandemic, one of the under-reported ones is the sweeping obliteration of social dance, particularly in its most popular form: dancing to the selections of a DJ.
Yes, it’s the ever-groovy Guardian. Specifically, a piece by Tim Lawrence, a professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London:
Party culture exists on a continuum alongside other activities whose communally based, psycho-acoustic underpinnings provide participants with a dose of natural serotonin, among them music concerts, theatrical performances, sporting events, religious gatherings, choirs and walks in the park.
In terms of “party culture,” I’m not entirely convinced that natural serotonin has been doing the heavy lifting.
Party culture’s kaleidoscopic, connecting potential arguably outstrips these other experiences in terms of immersion, duration and joy.
With the apparently kaleidoscopic joy-inducing effects of natural serotonin, it’s a wonder anyone bothered with ecstasy, cocaine, and nitrous oxide balloons. A few sentences later, Dr Lawrence links to this piece, also from the Guardian, on unauthorised lockdown-era raves – a source of “transformational meaning,” Dr Lawrence informs us – and in which we’re told about “saucer-eyed teenage girls,” who are also doubtless invigorated by that natural serotonin.
David Mancuso, pioneering host of the Loft in New York, even believed that communal dancing amounted to humankind’s best attempt to tune into the underlying essence of the universe, which was born out of sound and amounted to one big party of constantly, intensely vibrating atoms.
Cosmologists take heed.
heavy lifting
Wow. All the pills. 🙂
All fresh and natural.
All fresh and natural.
Is the guy in the background taking a serotonin supplement?
Covid pandemic: clubbers hardest hit.
Bits remembered from a party:
I gift the going-awayee a pricey bottle of vodka; he is so drunk he thinks it is a large firework.
We have the going-awayee down on the lawn, we are binding him with duct tape; one of his new friends from college tries to stop us and is casually sent flying.
I am in my boxer shorts standing on a diving board.
I am dressed again and my whiskey bottle is empty, but I have another.
I am driving a 1967 Chrysler Newport around a soccer field, vigorously; my best friend is in the passenger seat, laughing.
I don’t know what Tim Lawrence thinks a party is, but it isn’t what a party is.
“…transformational meaning…the universe, which was born out of sound…”
That will appeal to the drugged-out seers and sub-80-IQ intellectuals in Portland.
Yet another example of the hardships endured by those who haven’t missed a single paycheck yet. Courage, Professor, courage!
BTW, ecstasy works by enhancing the effects of “natural serotonin” (along with dopamine and norepinephrine). Our groovy Professor is no doubt aware of it. That’s his little nod to the culture.
Is the guy in the background taking a serotonin supplement?
Heh. I’m still tickled by the boosted-up loon offering to deploy his roll-on deodorant and presenting his armpits to anyone within sniffing distance. I mean, it’s almost sweet.
sub-80-IQ intellectuals
There’s the problem, right there.
Party culture’s kaleidoscopic, connecting potential arguably outstrips these other experiences in terms of immersion, duration and joy.
Is there any word in English that does more hard work than “arguably”?
Somewhat related.
Covid pandemic: clubbers hardest hit.
Covid pandemic: clubbers and Dungeon And Deacons players being equally hardest hit . . .
Or at least the shrieking claims of the DMs–Deacon Masters, in these cases—, are certainly being made, repeatedly, and sometimes with interesting implications—Of this last, if the fellow’s C-19 deduction declaration is correct, then apparently he has a husband, even if not named . . .
Of course the ongoing problem with demanding that Dungeons And Deacons Can Not Be Interrupted!!!!, is that there always is that utter gulf between one’s actual religious practice on one hand, and mere faith based LARPing on the other tentacle.
For all of the individuals with an actual religious practice, I rather expect that for all of the annoyances of C-19, there prolly is a particular definite advantage provided by the prevailing circumstances . . . the primary purpose and point of one’s personal religious practice is that the practice is one’s personal practice . . .
Therefore, when just about everyone else is situationally forced to focus on being somewhere else, there can be less of the mere Dungeons And Deacons variety politics of the particular congregation/coven/InsertNameHere/shul . . .
Therefore, that does rather allow the individual to do more of the religious practice . . .
Please comment less, Hal.
somewhat related
Classic meaningless academic crap:
“addresses the role of house music as a nomadic archival institution,” one that is “keeping disco alive through a rhizomic assemblage of its affective memory in the third record of the DJ mix.”
Barkeep, a drink for Microbillionaire.
I misread the post title. I was confused.
I misread the post title. I was confused.
It is, of course, a reference to Mr Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley’s Jack Your Body, the lyrics of which can be found here, and umpteen subsequent tracks, in which various things were jacked, even entire houses, generally with great enthusiasm.
Please comment less, Hal.
Hmmm.
Lessee . . . David opened with about nineteen or so lines.
I’ve posted about fourteen or so lines, including a quote, so I have indeed posted less, so apparently you’re stating that you’re quite happy with that.
Of course if you also have anything else in mind, you really are going to have to spell out, in detail what any such point is, otherwise all we get is a near non sequitur . . .
all we get is a near non sequitur . . .
Just how black is that kettle, Hal?
To wit: your 14 lines start with a link to your personal screed about faith and religion, wherein you not-so-subtly redefine central terms in ways that favor your assertions. Next, a Google search about church leaders asking the government why it punishes church services more severely than other indoor activities (a perfectly reasonable question, in my estimation). Then a number of religious leaders who contracted COVID, though I’m not sure if these links are supposed to prove that the leaders are stupid or hypocritical or if it’s just an assertion that the universe has a sick sense of humor.
Then another link to the same screed about faith and religion. Then a link to religious leaders urging their followers to put fellowship and community and group celebrations on the back burner until things are safer, and finally an assertion that the faithful should feel blessed to have this time of forced isolation when they can focus on individual study of scripture, free of all the horrible distractions that come from having leaders and friends around to help them interpret these teachings.
This series of links may not qualify as complete non-sequiturs, but there is precious little in the way of explanatory language to establish what each link is supposed to add to the argument and how each reference builds upon the others.
Now, let’s imagine a writer capable of clear thought and language; a writer who values the time and attention of his readers. Such a writer might post something like this:
No beating around the bush. No oblique references of varying clarity, where the reader is left to intuit the author’s meaning. No self-flattery and pretense about knowing a profound TRVTH that the rest of the community simply can’t appreciate. Just seven lines putting forward a unique perspective which the rest of the community can discuss, whether they agree with it or no.
You can write clearly, Hal, if you just put your mind to it. You can make arguments and assertions that don’t require readers to follow vague clues to whatever buried treasure you’re trying halfheartedly to lead them to. You don’t have to try to convince the rest of us that you are possessed of a singular wisdom that the rest of us are just too thick to comprehend. I know you have it in you, Hal, if you just give it a try.
Or, you know, you can pluck a couple of phrases out of the above to nitpick and tell me I’m an idiot. Your call!
Mr Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley’s Jack Your Body, the lyrics of which can be found here…
Following the link to the ‘lyrics’, I am given to understand that the series of phonemes accompanying this syncopation were actually written and have been attributed to Mr Hurley, much as past works have been attributed to Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and the like. Life truly is a never-ending learning experience.
Please comment less, Hal.
I’ve been playing D&D for 35 years and I still have no idea WTF I just read.
I hear this article as narrated in the dulcet tones of David Attenborough.
Just how black is that kettle, Hal?
Well, since you ask, you have indeed demonstrated that your hypothetical kettle remains utterly achromatic, doesn’t it.
The only difference—yeah, yeah, aside from choice of words—is that you didn’t include the links that confirm and reinforce the overall statement . . .
Hal, the words “confirm and reinforce” are doing an awful lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
Could somebody please ask Dave Bowman to reboot the HAL 9000?
I hear this article as narrated in the dulcet tones of David Attenborough.
A younger, sexier David Attenborough.
[ Softens lighting. ]
Oh, and Hal, before you start claiming what the “actual religious practice” of Judaism is (your last link with those words points to a Google search on “preserve life covid jewish”), how about you do the barest amount of legwork? You live in the Bay Area. Call up one or another of your local Chabad centers, and you’ll find that they are still holding services (and at the same time making arrangements for those who are housebound). And if you think that Chabad are “LARPers” – they who go off as pioneering young couples into the Jewish equivalent of the Wild West – then that alone shows that you haven’t the faintest notion of anything about contemporary Jewish life.
RBG Tribute bands are a rapidly growing phenomenon…
Interacting with @Hal is the equivalent of wrestling with a pig. Not worth the effort, IMO.
I view him as the crazy guy on the street corner yelling about something that only he sees. I can tell a post is one of his within the first couple of sentences, at which time I normally scroll down to the next post.
the lyrics of which can be found here
Christ, that makes N. Minaj’s Anaconda look like Sondheim in comparison.
This is a safe space, Hal. You fly your mobile-app destroying barely coherent link storm comment flag proudly, sir.
And to all you haters: every good pub has a Hal. And this is a great pub.
“Less” without explicit referent should be taken to mean “Less than the current quantity”, i.e. I wish Hal would post less than he does, which I tried to express as a short direct request, rather than sneering on and on for paragraphs behind a smokescreen. Hal should be smart enough to figure this out if he can use uncommon words like deacon and shul.
Or perhaps Hal is two people – a smart one who writes the screeds, and a dumb one who engages with other commenters. Perhaps “Hal” is a fractional amount of people, like a Russian or Chinese bot farm, where a thousand accounts can be run by a hundred people posting the words of one message massager. His particular brand of Jesuitical casuistry here (should I say pilpul?), and his tap-dancing around the implication that Jew-ish irreligion is the correct form of religion, suggests an Israeli bot farm.
Regardless, since I’m evidently not the only one who feels this way, I shall make my complaint at somewhat greater length. I find Hal’s comments to be frequently tiresome, low quality, unclear, and/or packed with sophistry. His repeated linking back to a website (presumably his own or his master’s) riddled with even more sophistry and a side of argument-by-redefinition borders on spam.
Hal often affects an arrogant, lecturing, hectoring tone as a bringer of wisdom unto the nations when he’s talking, but when someone else is talking, suddenly Hal is an ignoramus who needs things spelled out far more clearly. It has several times seemed to me that Hal mistakes simple vitriol for cutting wit when engaging with other commenters; in this he reminds me of the fallacy Lewis outlines in The Four Loves:
Or perhaps he’s just an ass.
As so often, I understand barely half of what goes on here.
TL;DR
Shorter version: Code-9000, buys.
Boys. Not buys. Coulda been buoys. Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of a spell checker.
Have you tried not typing with your feet?
I cannot type with my feet but back in the day I could tap in morse code.
Tap, not dance. Soft shoe.
Have you tried not typing with your feet?
… I was going to say something about needing to clip my toenails but decided that discretion being the better part of valor…
…I understand barely half of what goes on here.
Implying that what you do understand is a measurable fraction. I’m not sure what I feel more, awe or envy. (I retract that. Envy? What was I thinking?)
RBG Tribute bands are a rapidly growing phenomenon…
Curiously erotic…I’m so ashamed.
Hal should be smart enough to figure this out if he can use uncommon words like deacon and shul.
More like a latter day Oswald Bates.
I find Hal’s comments to be frequently tiresome, low quality, unclear, and/or packed with sophistry. His repeated linking back to a website (presumably his own or his master’s) riddled with even more sophistry and a side of argument-by-redefinition borders on spam.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do. Look, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
Band names:
* the sweeping obliteration of social dance
* psycho-acoustic underpinnings
* humankind’s best attempt
* intensely vibrating atoms
“Is there any word in English that does more hard work than “arguably”?”
It’s debatable.
“Christ, that makes N. Minaj’s Anaconda look like Sondheim in comparison.”
The worst part is that I’ve got the damn thing stuck in my head now.
They take the fun out of everything.
Arguably is a weasel word; it enables the user to say something controversial without burdening them with the responsiblity of having to stand behind it. They are claiming the statement is just something they heard, not that they believe such a thing.
I stand with Sam. Every great pub needs one and dammit, we have ours.
Microbillionaire, you have to get past your Hal obsession; it will only end in tears.
Sorry, I was in the gents. How did the fight break out?
Looks like someone wrote something on the Antarctica coaster with a Sharpie too.
“Less” without explicit referent should be taken to mean . . . .
Yeah, try not typing with your feet . . .
Oh, and I do know Chabad, quite personally in some cases, so that straw man ain’t flying either.
The bottom line will remain that the actually religious are looking at the prevailing pandemic circumstances and treating potential health threats realistically.
The bottom line will remain that the mere D&D faith wavers will continue to be in the same league as the frats and night clubbers . . .
. . . . and screaming at me for merely being able to provide accurate and relevant citations doesn’t fly either, does it . . .