It’s hard to believe that I started this blog four (4!) years ago today. I was so timid about publishing my first post. Ha! Timid no more. That’s for sure.
To ensure that I don’t take myself (or what I write) too seriously, I’m reviving that first post from January 1, 2012. Light in word count (?!), but it launched me into the blogosphere. And that’s what counts.
Thank you all for being part of this wonderful journey.
There’s a glorious full moon tonight … a marvelous night for a moonwalk. No, not on the surface of the moon … the dance move Michael Jackson made famous in 1983.
For anyone who’s too young to remember Michael Jackson, or is just unfamiliar with the illusive dance technique, the moonwalk — when done well — creates the illusion of the dancer sliding backwards while attempting to walk forward.
But just like the moon in tonight’s sky, the moonwalk was around long before Michael Jackson…
Who invented the Moonwalk?
Proof-positive recordings only go as far back as recording technology. I, however, wouldn’t be surprised if the moonwalk originated centuries before the first film recording. Anyway…
Here’s what we know for sure:
Cab Calloway, the famous jazz singer and bandleader, was recorded moonwalking back as 1932. Calloway is noted to have said that back in the 1930s, the dance move was called “The Buzz”.
Americans weren’t the only ones to incorporate the enigmatic dance move into their routines. The famous French mime, Marcel Marceau, used the moonwalk throughout his career, starting in the 1940s. In Marceau’s famous “Walking Against the Wind” routine, he moonwalked as he pretended to be pushed backwards by a gust of wind, as he tried to walk forward.
There were more contemporary performers, such as David Bowie, who performed the moonwalk before Michael Jackson busted the move on MTV in 1983. Still, there’s no question that Michael Jackson was the one who made the moonwalk famous for our generation, and a few more to come.
Michael Jackson Moonwalk: In Slow-Mo (MTV)
Pretty awesome. The first time I saw that move I thought, “I want to learn how do that!” And now, with the help of YouTube, we CAN!
Today is the 1 Year Bloggaversary of my first blog post ever. Moonlight Serenade was a minimalist post, the sole feature being a video of an elegant tap dancing cow. To be honest, I was terrified of blogging and that was all I could eek out for a first post. I didn’t think about the statement the video was making at the time. But in retrospect, I see it as a symbol of dancing into a new endeavor where I’d meet a terrific group of new friends.
So that’s why I’m making it a bloggaversary standard. It’s a festive way to mark a truly life-changing occasion.
Because nothing says awesome like a tap dancing cow!
Thank you all for your enthusiastic support, making this past year (and the days to come) utterly AWESOME!
Now go grab a cup of hot chocolate, compliments of my tap dancing guest, sit back and watch her light up the dance floor in true Ginger-Rogers style. Eat your heart out Fred Astaire! [Image credit: Wikipedia]
The disease starts innocuously enough. That’s the rub. You’re hunched over your keyboard hour after hour, day after day determined to make that deadline.
The walls of your writer’s cave close in on you. The deadline approaches faster than is relatively possible (what did Einstein know about time anyway?). The pressure builds until things get so intense that you don’t know whether to light your hair on fire or run up the walls, full-on Matrix style. Because if you don’t, your head will explode.
Yeah, been there. Write long enough, and we all go there eventually. It seemed like a hazard of our trade. Then I discovered that this sickness has plagued mankind from the time the first ships dared to sail out to sea. But back then, they called it Cabin Fever. And it was the Muppets who found THE cure!
No hoax, folks! I wouldn’t mess with you. Honest! [Image credits: Muppet Treasure Island]
Here’s all you have to do:
Click the START arrow on the following video and crank up the sound FULL VOLUME.
Wear any extraneous fruit (uneaten, of course) lying around your writer’s cave as head ornamentation.
Jump around, shaking your pirate booty in rhythm to the music (or however you damn well please). Let loose! No one’s watching (we hope).
Use any and all solid objects as implements of percussion.
Because Fridays are always better with a Happy Dance!
Or … maybe … because my previous post on Animated Storytelling is the perfect excuse set up for posting a dance sequence that ALWAYS makes me laugh ... The dancing penguins sequence from Walt Disney’s “Mary Poppins”!
I especially love the penguin who toboggans off-screen, and then – try as he might – can never get back in sync with the group. I think that’s because I frequently feel like I’ve gone barreling off the map and am forever out of step with everyone else!
Though, a dancing elephant pretty much rocks my world any day of the week! Looking down a long holiday weekend or not.
But I may be prejudiced in that department, elephants being one of my favorite animals and all. Still, this little guy’s Singing in the Rain dance-out has the entire jungle in awe. So it can’t be just me.
In my humble opinion… “The Glee! team won’t shoot to Hollywood super-stardom without this guy.” Seriously. The little pachyderm has a soft shoe Gene Kelly would have envied. And with a trunk like that, he’s got to have a voice with more reach than Rachel’s. I’m just saying… But you decide.
What about you?
What makes your heart sing … in the rain or otherwise?
The inspirational Laird Sapir passed on this too-funny-for-words trailer for the (real!) movie Frazier Park (The FP). I’m blogging about The FP, because this movie embraces the Positive Power of Desperation on steriods … with dance boots, gold teeth, eye patches, and a rainbow clown wig! You have to see it to believe it folks. Seriously.
Think ROCKY meets FLASHDANCE on a D-List budget!
Rated “R”
for Ridiculous!
What’s your fave dance movie … good or comically bad?
In keeping with the Mystical Force of Music I talked about in my previous post, these videos of Andre Rieu and his orchestra show the true Magic of Music. The ability to make us smile…
Yackety Sax and All That
One toe tappin’ time!
Colonel Bogey … You try NOT whistling…
The people in the audience aren’t the only ones having fun here!
Get Down with Glenn Miller
WARNING: This video has been known to result in serious Smiling and Dancing!
Devil’s Kiss Giveaway WINNER!
And the winner of the signed copy of Devil’s Kiss by Sarwat Chadda is…
…DRUM ROLL…
Tami Clayton
Please step up and send me your snail mail information!
YES, this is a serious post. And no, I am not under the influence of anything! Honest. There really is a point. And it will make perfect sense in the end. No Koolaid required.
What do aliens, aborigines, and the Waltz King all have in common?
NO, not a mountain-shaped pile of mashed potatoes.
It’s the one universal language … Music.
Music as an alien language…
At the end of Close Encounters, the aliens communicate with us earthlings using musical notes. OK. I know. That’s science fiction, but it rings true for a reason. Music is precise, like mathematics, and follows strict rules. Yet we’re able to appreciate music, whether we comprehend the rules or not. We “feel” music. It speaks to us intuitively as well as physically. Music is a way to communicate without words. Got it? OK, let’s move on…
Music as a mystical force…
In the movie Australia, the aboriginal Shaman uses music to guide and direct people and things. The Shaman and his grandson Nullah (a shaman in the making) have the power to “sing” things to or away from them. In one scene Nullah changes the course of a stampeding herd of cattle through song, and in another scene he brings his beloved adoptive family back together with music. That might have sounded far fetched before quantum physics came along. But quantum physics proved that everything is energy, vibrating at different frequencies. Somethings vibrate faster, other things slower. Music is sound waves, sound that connects all life. In the following film clip, Nullah “sings” Sarah (Nicole Kidman) back to to him and Drover (Hugh Jackman). Still with me? Good. Still skeptical? Hear me out…
Music as pure emotion…
If the other examples were too “Hollywood” for you, maybe this will get you on board. Would you believe in the universal power of music if you witnessed stadiums packed with everyone smiling and dancing in the aisles, country after country, all to the same music? Andre Rieu (the Waltz King) and his orchestra elicit that response from audiences all over the world on a regular basis. Seeing the effect his music has on people, no matter where they live or what language they speak, made me realize music is a true universal language. This coming Wednesday I’ll feature several clips from Andre Rieu concerts around the world, so you can see (and decide) for yourself.
