(this started out as a by request blog about the new Belle and Sebastian record from Dame Champagne…and devolves into a bitter and angry/envious rant about dancing…. Ill wait till Stuart Murdoch writes about my new record.)
I can’t dance. But when I did dance, it was to Belle and Sebastian. But not their new record. Which I like a lot, btw.
No. I was being beguiled and beaten down by a graceful friend in a fairly enclosed space. She moved with liquidity, perfect poses in 4/4 time. And I sat there. Watching. And if you can’t dance (and we know some of you can’t. Sorry. Consider this the cold splash of reason).
And if a graceful friend dances before you, you have two choices: get out a roll of singles or try and dance. This was not that kind of graceful friend, so I (appropriately knackered) gave it a go.
I stood and moved close. I looked fairly beguiling myself. Right up until it was time to start moving.
Damn these feet. The stupid German clodhopper feet. Heavy as Chaney’s Frankenstein, immovable as the Sphinx. From the knees up, I am a Mighty Fucking Baryshnikov. Admire these champions calves (I have the calves of a greek God…OK, calf. Just the right one. No clue why.). I can keep time with a walloping stomp (for reference, I will note the entire Grimm Generation catalog). I can shake a maraca and tambourine in perfect time.
My feet are my Achilles heel. In my personal geography as well as popular usage.
I know this. I slow dance with a lot of eye contact. Just to distract from my feet dragging zombie-ish to and fro. I go to shows and shake a leg, stomp a foot, never let the wild rhythms carry me so far as to move my hips. What would the Guv’ner say? I calculate my moves so as to appear like actual movement versus the slow draw across the songs finish line.
But in such an enclosed space, with a single other party goer, it was harder to hide. But the lechery of watching her move and sitting and smiling just got creepy.
So I stood…and she started to sway…and I started to sway. My hips were in check. Shoulders slunk appropriately. Still lots of eye contact like I was trying to hypnotize her into a nice cuppa tea. And my feet never moved, like they were providing personal protest to the whole series of actions. My feet are dicks. Opinionated dicks.
The music was ‘something dancey’ which personally cuts a wide swath from Donna Summer to Kid A. (‘dancey’ music basically means ‘music I don’t understand.’). But on shuffle. I worked though the song, my graceful friend was sweet not to laugh out loud (though her bemused looks were almost bursting through her skin) and I just looked and laugh chock full of embarrassment.
Suddenly curious where my roll of singles was. You gotta dance with the one that brung ya.
Then…then….shuffle Gods rejoice. I believe it was ‘Sleep The Clock Around’. It coulda been ‘Judy and Her Dream Of Horses’. Belle and Sebastian gallops in. And though I’m not convinced this is dance music…I am dancing. Maybe the sleepy rhythms awoke my sleepy feet. Maybe it was just because I love this music so deeply, I forgot I couldn’t dance. But suddenly Im doing The Pony and Im doing The Hop, a full body dance.
My graceful friend was stumped. Apparently Belle and Sebastian is NOT dance music. I think this broke her spirit just a bit.
But I just put the full ‘If Your Feeling Sinister’ and ‘Dear Catastrophe Waitress’ records and moved. I may have lifted my arms at one point. I may have whooped. And that was my last dance lesson.
My point: Belle and Sebastian puts out a new records informed by Joy Division keyboards and disco beats and they are hailed as ‘brave’ and ‘pre post modern’ (i think I made that up. Patent Pending!).
But the real hero is me, dancing to Belle and Sebastian was a psychic trick proving I am a seer of great power and a master of predicting the culture. Your welcome, creepy Scottish kids.
Note: If you see me at a wedding, look away. Just walk on by….
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