Some fascinating photography and dance at the Louvre...

... in this new Beyonce and Jay-Z video, which is called "Apeshit":



There's lots of "Mona Lisa" in that video, but there's other Louvre art shown very well. Watch for "The Coronation of Napoleon" (beginning at 1:37 and then at 4:01). And the "Winged Victory of Samothrace" and the museum's beautiful staircase make a stage set for lots of interesting dancing.

I've got nothing to say about the music, because I don't listen to this kind of music enough to be able to hear it, let alone have an opinion, but I'm extremely interested in the use of artwork — the long views, the closeups, the combination with dancers.

I can hear some of the words, and they seem to be just expressing gratitude about having become rich and famous. The title — which had me thinking about Roseanne's recent ape-related screwup — seems to be simply a reference to the enthusiasm of Beyonce and Jay-Z's fans — "Have you ever seen a crowd going apeshit?"

Let me look up the lyrics and read them. Here. I see there's something about pay equity:

Rah, gimme my check
Put some respeck on my check
Or pay me in equity, pay me in equity
Or watch me reverse out the dick (skrrt)

The annotation explains that last line as "a simple threat: she’ll leave projects and especially men that are cutting her a less-than-satisfactory check for her work."

He wanna go with me (go with me)
He like to roll the weed (roll with me)
He wanna be with me (be with me)
He wanna give me that vitamin D (D!)

I did not need to click on the annotation or use Urban Dictionary to understand the term "vitamin D."

When Jay-Z finally gets his closeup, he begins:

I'm a gorilla in the fuckin' coop
Finna pull up in the zoo
I'm like Chief Keef meet Rafiki
Who been Lion King to you
Pocket watch it like kangaroos
Tell these clowns we ain't amused
Banana clips for that monkey business...
Last night was a fuckin' zoo
Stagedivin' in a pool of people
Ran through Liverpool like a fuckin' Beatle
Smoke gorilla glue like it's fuckin' legal....

All that "ape" and "gorilla" business seems like an invitation to white people to Roseanne ourselves. According to the annotation at the lyrics link:

Jay directly quotes rapper, Chief Keef’s “Faneto”, the first of many animal references he makes throughout this verse.

I’m a gorilla in a fuckin' coupe, finna pull up to the zoo...

“Gorilla” is a racial slur directed towards black people who are perceived by some to be primitive or ape-like. Jay embraces this word proudly and uses it as a sense of empowerment.

“Coupe” or “Coop” are interchangeable. The latter continues Jay’s animalistic theme, saying he is a Gorilla among chickens.

ADDED: This is missing all the art, but musically, it's so much more my style (from 1970):



The lyrics are as fresh as ever:

I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized
'Cause I'm a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don't feel safe in this world no more
I don't want to die in a nuclear war
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an ape man

We had crazy politicians and a threat of nuclear war back in 1970s. That's not just some new thing cooked up for you kids today.

"Salon became a hardcore racist mag so gradually I barely noticed."

Observes Instapundit, linking to a Salon article titled "Why I can’t stand white belly dancers."

The article is written by a novelist named Randa Jarrar. And there's this twee notice at the end of it: "This piece is the latest in a series by feminists of color, curated by Roxane Gay."

Here's my post from last month where we were talking about this use of the word "curated" (a propos of Ryan Seacrest "curating" a fashion line.) LordSomber (a commenter) said: "'Curate' is one of those overused words that hipster artist wannabes have ruined."

Maybe Salon thinks that it's more feminist and of color to eschew the word "edited," which suggests a superseding authority and intervention. Maybe it's a crafty way to deny responsibility for the thing published: It's not edited, it's merely collected and presented "as is."

But what about that racism? How bothersome is it for a person of authenticity to express exasperation for the appropriation of some attribute of her culture for re-presentation by an outsider to that culture?

Perhaps if these white lady belly dancers asserted that what they are doing is curating dance we could all love one another (or at least wink knowingly).

Feminism/racism in the Lily Allen comeback video "Hard Out Here."

I don't care about this kind of music and dance, and I've never paid any attention to this lady who — I see — went away and has come back, but I've been interested in the ins and outs of the discourse of feminism since before Ms. was a magazine. And I've been observing American racial politics at least since I was 10 years old, when Life magazine featured photographs like these. Everyone read Life, but not every 10 year old had, set out next to Life on the family coffee table, the latest issue of Playboy.

So indulge me while I take a look at the race trouble that's befallen Ms. Allen and inquire into soundness of her "I'm protesting the objectification of women" story. Here's the video that went up 2 days ago and has over 2 million views.

(I have no idea whether that viewership represents actual hunger for more from an artist who'd been away for a while or virality over this race-and-sex controversy to which I'm contributing.)

The video begins with the singer submitting to the violent intrusions of the liposuction wand while a mean old white businessman type guy harangues her about her body. The lyrics bitch about all the pressure to "lose some weight 'cause we can't see your bones" and "fix your face or you'll end up on your own/Don't you want to have somebody who objectifies you?" The chorus is "It's hard out here for a bitch/It's hard, for a bitch."

So, you see, it's pretty basic, mainstream, contemporary, young-person feminism: complaining about the way other people make her obsess about her body all the time. Of course, she proceeds to show off her body and the bodies of many other females, dancing in the manner that she's supposedly so outraged about those terrible other people causing to happen. Let's leave to the side the hypocrisy and lameness of feminism like that, because Allen's in trouble about race.

Here's Ayesha A. Siddiqi writing in Vice.

In full-sleeved dresses Allen mocks her inability to twerk amidst women of color in body suits who launch into exaggerated dance moves, licking their hands and then rubbing their crotch. Her older white male manager tries to get to her to mimic them. Meanwhile she sings, “Don’t need to shake my ass for you/‘Cause I’ve got a brain.”....

It is not feminist to mock talented dancers of color for exercising skills Allen doesn’t possess. It is not feminist to claim that women who cook and dance provocatively are as damaging as a manager barking at her to lose weight. It is not feminist to remain blissfully colorblind in a world that functions along race.

As long as white womens’ empowerment requires lowering everyone else their “feminism” is just rebranded white supremacy.

"We were OK with Miley wearing a one-piece with a bear sticking its tongue out on it."

"We were OK with Miley sticking her face all up in that ladies big butt. However, when she ripped off her clothes to grind all up on Beetlejuice Robin Thicke, that was the twerk that broke the camel's back."

From NY Magazine's selections of the highs and lows of last night's VMA show. I watched the segment described above. It made me feel bad. But they were trying so hard to make people (admittedly, not me) feel good. Like they were bursting with barely containable sexual energy. Like they were. The most entertaining parts were the occasional shots of sad-looking men in the audience who seemed to be averting their eyes.

If the NY sales tax exempts "dramatic or musical art performances," can it deny that exemption to strip club dancers?

The state, arguing that there's no "genuine choreographic dance performance," won in the state's highest court, but only by 4-3. The strip club, Nite Moves, is seeking U.S. Supreme Court review, saying government shouldn't be the judge of the "relative 'value' of the speech."

Once dancing counts as speech within the meaning of freedom of speech, what sense does it make to speak of a "genuine choreographic dance performance"? What is "genuineness" in dance? What does "choregraphic" mean other than "dance"? The (unlinkable) OED defines "choreography" to mean "The art of dancing." The oldest use of the word in English is:

1782   C. Burney Gen. Hist. Music II. 50   In Choregraphy, an art invented about two hundred years ago to delineate the figures and steps of dances.

Would a strip club with a more rigorously planned set of dance moves — less spontaneity — get an exemption?

"Star Bolshoi dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko admits acid attack."

"'I organized this attack,' Dmitrichenko, with dark circles under his eyes and looking slightly disheveled...

Before [the victim Sergei] Filin became the Bolshoi artistic director two years ago, responsible for choosing who danced what part and charting the direction of the company, he was ballet director at the smaller Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater.

There, he tried to hire a young ballerina named Anzhelina Vorontsova, who turned him down to dance at the Bolshoi. Her teacher and mentor at the Bolshoi was Nikolai Tsiskaridze, a dancer who reportedly wanted the Bolshoi job given to Filin and has been an outspoken critic of Bolshoi management.

When Filin joined the Bolshoi, he did not promote Vorontsova, according to the television report. In another twist, Dmitrichenko, who was known for his volatile temperament, was reportedly romantically involved with Vorontsova....

"Boehner defends Senate 'ass' jibe."

Politico front-page headline leads to: "Boehner on 'ass' comment: 'I speak English.'"

(He said the Senate needs to "get off their asses.")

ADDED: I've heard of the hand jibe.



Trying to picture the ass jibe.

AND: I do know the song is "jive," not "jibe," but I'm moved to check out the origins of the 2 words in the Oxford English Dictionary (which I can't link to).

"Jibe," originally spelled "iybe," goes back to 1573, and spelled "gibe," appears prominently in Shakespeare, in Hamlet's speech to the skull of the dead jester Yoricke: "Where be your gibes now?" It's a word "Of obscure origin: perhaps < Old French giber... as meaning to shake... ‘to handle roughly in sport’, ‘to use horseplay.’"

"Jive" is a much more recent word, going back only to 1928. It's U.S. slang, "Origin unknown." It means "Talk or conversation; spec. talk that is misleading, untrue, empty, or pretentious; hence, anything false, worthless, or unpleasant; vaguely, ‘stuff’; = jazz n. 2a."

1928   R. Fisher Walls of Jericho 301   Jive, pursuit in love or any device thereof. Usually flattery with intent to win.

It's also "Lively and uninhibited dancing to dance-music or jazz; spec. ‘jitterbugging,'" which is pretty clearly the meaning in the song.

1943   Dancing Times Dec. 117/1   The rhythm of the Jive is not an entirely new one.
1957   C. MacInnes City of Spades i. iv. 24   I'll teach you..bop steps, and jive, and all.

"Ass jive" would be a much more disparaging way to refer to Boehner's remark.

Imagine if... women bought cars!

An ad from the May 5, 1967 issue of Life Magazine:



"You'll discover that even driving down to buy bread can be kicks. You'll find yourself saying 'I'll pick you up' even when it's Helen's turn to drive. Or Ed's.'"

I love the use of the word "kicks." It's almost as if our little lady is getting in some of those drugs we've been reading about as the Summer of Love rolls in.

The mid-calf skirt is suddenly a mini skirt, but it's only 1967, and if you're as old as I am, you know what that meant — your stocking tops and even your garters might show:



ADDED: The anti-drug song "Kicks" was a hit in 1966. If you ever worry that you don't know how to dance, I guarantee you that 20 seconds into this "Kicks" video you will be able to dance as well as Paul Revere & the Raiders.

WaPo presents Obama's failure to maintain eye contact as "a successful technique."

Of all the pro-Obama reframing I've read in the press, this may be the most ridiculous. It's Sarah Kaufman — WaPo's Pulitzer Prize-winning dance critic — purporting to answer the question "who won the battle of body language" in the second presidential debate (boldface added):

“In the last four years you’ve cut permits and licenses on federal lands and federal waters in half,” Romney charged, turning to his opponent and hacking at the air.

“Not true,” Obama called out, eyes blazing. Then he looked away.

"Can I give it to my monkey?"

This is the essence of what Andrew Sullivan presents under the heading "Hathos Alert."

"Here is a lesson in creative writing."

That's the heading for a short bit of text by Kurt Vonnegut in "A Man Without a Country," which I just downloaded in Kindle because we were talking about punctuation in the comments to the "phony balance" post and I half-remembered something he said about semi-colons. The short bit under the heading goes like this:

The dance craze says Obama will win.

Last time we had a dance craze like Gangnam Style — check out Psy in Times Square — it was 1996:

In the United States, the song, and its corresponding Macarena dance, became popular during the same week as the 1996 Democratic National Convention. The song was frequently played between activities, and large groups of delegates and other attendants would be seen doing the Macarena dance. The song and dance became such a part of the convention that Vice President Al Gore, having a reputation for stiffness, made a joke about doing the Macarena dance during his speech. He asked, "Would you like to see my Macarena dance?" He remained motionless for a few seconds, then asked, "Would you like to see it again?"

I tried to find that Gore thing on YouTube, but I only found this:



When the Macarena was the craze, the President was reelected. He beat Bob Dole, whose tagline was "Where's the outrage?" And the answer was "Heeeeey Macarena AAAhAA!" The Democrats danced their way through the convention, and the old man asking for outrage was so out of step with the times.

"Thirteen Notable Traditions Found On UNESCO's List Of Intangible Cultural Heritage, In Order."

"7. The hopping procession of Echternach.../4. Kırkpınar oil wrestling festival/3. The scissors dance/2. Whistled language of the island of La Gomera..."

Via Adam at ALOTT5MA, who says "in truth the whole list is pretty neat" and:

The United States doesn't participate in the process of adding "intangible heritage practices and expressions" to the list, but it's not hard to think about what we might suggest — the blues and square dancing, perhaps?

Oh, let's not re-embed ourselves in American things so quickly. Check out that whole list and click through to some videos. I'm experiencing temporary immersion in the Pansori Epic Chant... just a happy consequence of a random click.