Althouse: "I for one do not dance to dance music; disco for me is a lofty metaphysical mode that induces contemplation."

December 2, 2005

"I for one do not dance to dance music; disco for me is a lofty metaphysical mode that induces contemplation."

Camille Paglia sniffs at Madonna's new "Confessions on a Dance Floor."

You decide if it's worth paying for a Salon subscription or watching a commercial to read the whole thing. If I'm watching a commercial and I think it's too long, it doesn't help my mood that the name of the product is Infiniti.

You know, I don't dance to dance music either. I've been at concerts where I'm just standing there like a statue and some stranger says to me "How can you not dance?" My answer: "I'm an intellectual!" Yeah, I'm in a metaphysical mode, man. You're intruding on my contemplation.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ron quotes Nietzsche, connecting dancing and intellectualism.

23 comments:

Icepick said...: "How can you not dance?" My answer: "I'm an intellectual!" Yeah, I'm in a metaphysical mode, man. You're intruding on my contemplation.

Which reminds me of the weirdest thing I've ever seen at a concert: At a show on Ozzy Osbourne's No More Tours Tour, a woman sitting in the row in front of us spent the whole concert reading a book on transendental meditation. She never looked up.; 12/2/05, 9:32 AM
reader_iam said...: It's just that her pubic bone is connected directly to her cranium.

Stranger: That may be the funniest darn quip, bar none, I've ever read on a blog.

I'm not worthy ...; 12/2/05, 9:59 AM
P_J said...: Stranger: LOL.

Disco at its best is a neurological event, a shamanistic vehicle of space-time travel.

Whoa. That's like, so deep! I didn't know disco had become the subject of academic research. I just thought it was good dance music.

This sounds like a high-brow dismissal of middle-brows appreciating the fun of this music. "No, no. Madonna's new album isn't neurological enough. She hasn't regained her inner shaman."

Icepick reminds me of the scene in Animal House when the guys have taken their "dates" to an all black bar where Otis Day is playing. As the band rocks on and the regulars enjoy the music, Pinto asks a serious, progressive co-ed, "What are you studying?" To which she replies flatly, "Primitive cultures."

Sometimes a dance is just a dance.; 12/2/05, 10:36 AM
Anonymous said...: I hope Camille is not going all prim or psuedo-intellectual on us! Her zest for life and expansiveness made her opinions all the more enjoyable.
I do wonder what age group is buying Madonna's music nowadays.; 12/2/05, 10:46 AM
Finn Alexander Kristiansen said...: Paglia says, "Disco is visceral -- a quality missing here"

Finn says, "Mmm,I did not know that."

Paglia says, "Disco at its best is a neurological event.

Finn says,"Oh shut up and just enjoy the music and stop contradicting yourself"; 12/2/05, 11:16 AM
Finn Alexander Kristiansen said...: Oh, and on Salon ads, don't watch them, click "next" when it appears--speeds up the process into two seconds (unless you are feeling ethical, then ignore that).

Paglia is making the same sort of complaint made about every artist who has had a long career and is not producing music that makes the critic feel like she is 21 again.

I was just downloading a bunch of songs for my niece's 16th birthday, as she is having an 80's theme, so Madonna's "Everybody" and "Get into the Groove" were among the cuts she wanted. But I think young people today, as suggested by the article, would put Beyonce and Mariah, especially Mariah, far above anything by Madonna, who is, a curiosity along the lines of, "This is what momma listened to in high school while wearing leg warmers."; 12/2/05, 11:24 AM
Finn Alexander Kristiansen said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 12/2/05, 11:27 AM
Finn Alexander Kristiansen said...: Dave, everything is neurological cause we have heads on our shoulders piloting our bodies.

My feeling is that she is suggesting that music should be more intellectual, and contemplated more, but she is at the same time saying it should be obtained through intuition rather than from reasoning or observation.

That's just my reading of it.; 12/2/05, 11:32 AM
Commander Carrots said...: Funny, I was reading that article on Salon today but stopped after reading that exact quote! I'm not much of a Camille Paglia fan, I guess...

For what it's worth, though, I'd like to point out that a Salon subscription buys you a lot more than articles such this Camille Paglia stuff.

I've subscribed for 3 years now - mainly to avoid the annoying popup ads, but also to support an independent media source that provides good solid journalism.; 12/2/05, 11:41 AM
P_J said...: Finn: "This is what momma listened to in high school while wearing leg warmers."

LOL! Ah, the memories. If only I could forget my brief but ill-considered Indiana Jones boots and fedora phase.; 12/2/05, 11:43 AM
Ron said...: Feh! Intellectual!

"One need only read German books: there is no longer the remotest recollection that thinking requires a technique, a teaching curriculum, a will to mastery—that thinking wants to be learned like dancing, as a kind of dancing ... Who among Germans still knows from experience the delicate shudder which light feet in spiritual matters send into every muscle!...
For one cannot subtract dancing in every form from a noble education—to be able to dance with one's feet, with concepts, with words: need I still add that one must be able to dance with the pen too"

Nietzsche -- Twilight of the Idols, "What the Germans lack" #7.

C'mon, Ann, Vogue!; 12/2/05, 12:29 PM
Wade Garrett said...: Finally, another non-dancer!

A lot of people think I'm a stick-in-the-mud for never dancing! Its not because I'm white, or a klutz or anything like that; when I dance at weddings or whatever I don't care what other people think of my dancing; its just not a form of expression that generally appeals to me. I'm a big music fan and have my headphones or stereo on at least six or seven hours a day, but I just don't like to dance! I prefer to just tap my foot.

I'm glad to hear I've got some fellow-travelers out there.; 12/2/05, 1:06 PM
XWL said...: After some thought and consideration I think I've managed to decode what really disturbs Camille Paglia about Madonna's current iteration.

The Bette Davis and Joan Crawford references give her away.

It's not the music, it's the appearance. I can here Paglia's subconscious revulsion poke through the text. I can here her think 'How can someone I've always thought of as a kid, someone much younger than myself, someone so healthy seeming, be aging so gracelessly?'.

I know I feel somewhat similar feelings seeing professional athletes younger than myself already broken down physically and retired from sport.

And as an aside, Paglia's list of significant disco music isn't very good.; 12/2/05, 1:40 PM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: Fellow-NON-Traveller is more like it!

Honestly, Ann, not dancing is fine, but not dancing in the middle of a group of dancers is just rude. It violates the energy shared between the dancers and the performers, and is just wrong.

Chalking up an inability to cut loose to "intellectualism" is just wack.

New York is well-known for having hipper-than-thou audiences who are too cool to dance, laugh, or participate in any way with the vulgar revelers that surround them. But I guess even midwestern college towns have their own share... they are speedbumps and buzzkills and should be ostracized as such.; 12/2/05, 4:30 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Jeff: Why do you assume I was in the middle, as opposed to at the edge? And it's not always dancing. It's often that swaying or bopping thing people do when listening to music, as if the effect was automatic. I don't do that.; 12/2/05, 5:13 PM
Ann Althouse said...: And keep in mind that I was often the MUCH older person who had given young folks a ride to concerts. Give me some credit for being the over 40 woman who drove a carful of young teenage boys from Madison to Milwaukee many times so they could see Green Day and Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth and that sort of thing-- and I enjoyed it. From the edges.; 12/2/05, 5:18 PM
amba said...: I thought one of the funniest quips I'd seen on a blog was Ann's about the Infiniti ad. I linked it as line of the day.; 12/2/05, 8:18 PM
Ron said...: Ann: Green Day, Sonic Youth, (I could see you singing, "Cool Thing!") muy neat-o...but we commenters like to think you don't have lawprof rhythm, even on the sidelines! You've got the Electric Boogaloo of blogs workin' here, (go ahead...put that on top of the page) so don't go and hide in the corner, and age has nothing to do with it!; 12/2/05, 8:21 PM
Ron said...: Man, Nietzsche, Sonic Youth, Electric Boogaloo...gimme a minute and I'll work in some vulgar aphorisms from Martial or La Rouchefoucauld or Ol' Dirty Bastard just to round out the thread!

Ahh...the non-squisms threads...and no PJM either! Bliss.

I must make hay...soon we'll be Alito-ed to death as the hearings open up! (not that I mind!); 12/2/05, 8:29 PM
Meade said...: saul is right about Michelle Shocked. You'll do more than sway and bop.; 12/2/05, 9:25 PM
Ron said...: What will be left to revive?
Why --- the rivivals themselves!

Think that's not going to happen? People have nostalgia for Happy Days a '70's TV show that's nostalgic about the '50's!

We sit and spin...; 12/3/05, 9:09 AM
J. T. BLEU said...: Camille loves Madonna -- read it again.

Oh, man, if you just could’ve heard her yesterday. I, mean, sometimes, man, she walks by you and she doesn’t see you, other times…

Here's the essence, I think, of what Camille considers is missing from Madonna's last effort; (hint: Camille's title gives it away), DANCING AS FAST AS SHE CAN.

It has to do with what the poet John Keats called NEGATIVE CAPABILITY, and what he felt was characteristic in every great poet.

A “work nazi,” like Madonna, is not subject to the alternating moods of activity and indolence, being, in fact, the rhythm of the mind and life necessary for the exercise of NEGATIVE CAPABILITY.

Creation, writing, rejecting, and editing needs to be balanced with equal states of “wise passiveness” and “receptive indolence” to overcome a sense of feverishness in a work of art, and to imbue the work with an enduring life and soul, as it were, this is called NEGATIVE CAPABILITY.; 12/9/05, 1:57 AM
somercet said...: xwl: "After some thought and consideration I think I've managed to decode what really disturbs Camille Paglia about Madonna's current iteration.... The Bette Davis and Joan Crawford references give her away."

Though I, like sex advice columnist Dan Savage, hate "dance music" (as opposed to dancing to music), I can say that Madonna has gone seriously downhill. What was fun, youthful energy has become frenetic activity (to keep age away?).

jonathon: "If a commenter complained about your blog you might tell him to get his own blog. How is it different with music (and other) critics?"

So... You read a review... of a review... of a music recording... so you leave a review... of the review... of the review... of the recording... so everyone knows you think reviewing is... stupid.

Did I get that right...?; 1/2/06, 6:19 PM