I think there are number of different attitudes towards blogging. Lord knows I’ve had a couple different ideas, and a couple different blogs. Half were fake. Diablo Cody put a blog entry on her Myspace page where she talked about her current mood and her vagina, and the power of telling it like it is. I couldn’t agree more, and that entry defends her and her writing better than anything I could essay, but she also ran into the wall I’ve always run into, which is that life is about human interaction, and to engage in them, you have to talk about the people around you. And some of them may not enjoy that form of exhibition, whilst others might not mind it, but perspective is a sticky wicket, and events – much like relationships – can mean and be two totally different things to those involved.
That’s the great benefit of fiction. You can tell the truth through lying. You can steal and crib all you want, you can give things happy endings, or essay the truth of failure, etc.
And such is why I will put little of personal worth on this blog. Or maybe I will. You want a taste of Dellamorte?
I went out dancing last night. The DJ played mostly Salsa-type music. I tend to prefer something funky, which was also in the mix, but I was out and wanted to dance. And it made me realize that my rhythms (see also: last blog entry) are very much not that. I grew up in a Black neighborhood, but I also tend to think of Detroit. Not because of their soul soundscape, but something Iggy Pop said that crystallized in my skull. He said that his sound was as much derived from rock and roll as it was the industrial sounds that he grew up with. The heavy repetitive clunks of machinery, which can be best heard in his song (with The Stooges) Dirt. Which is also one of the great songs.
Rhythm is something I’ve long pursued, and arguably successfully if the people who appraise my dancing and feel the need to compliment me are to be believed. Since I’m tall and white, I’ve always felt that my sense of rhythm (such as it is) is anomalous, and that leads me to believe (in truth or fiction) that most of those compliments are asterisked by the thought that I’m doing better than should be expected. But I’ve heard it enough that I have to accept it as a truth. I have aspirations of filmmaking, and fewer things are more important and perhaps only available to the subconscious as rhythm. I don’t know what it would be like to see Martin Scorsese on the dance floor, but my guess is the dude had his moves in the day. Which is one of the reasons why Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake is so disappointing. But in all aspects of filmmaking, from writing to directing to editing, it’s a defining characteristic of greatness. To even further tangent, Plato said something along the lines of loving something gives you perspective on all things in life, because a love that is true offers insight into the rest of humanity. I have studied movies, and through that have learned much about the world in ways that I feel are applicable to real life, and just as applicable to blog entries.
Latin rhythms are not my wheelhouse, and so I struggled tonight on the floor. The movement is more fluid than the Bass beats that signal movement in more urban music. the one-two of Salsa offers more half-steps and less defined movements. I believe Dave Chappelle suggested that African-American music is the drum (I would also add the bass) with its synchronized beats, while Latino music tends toward the keyboard. Toward flourishes.
To dance to this music with any sort of alacrity, I would have to learn quickly. On my feet as it were. I’ve never taken dance classes outside of some brief forays in middle school due to my pursuit of the liberal arts. But those teachings were the first I fell back on as I looked at my neighbors who moved more successfully in the spirit of the music, and I counted their foot movements. One, two three four, five six, seven eight. That much foot movement was not my standard. It involved a tripping beat, the one-two was faster than I was used to. Stevie Wonder’s Superstition count-off is a perfect example of an R&B beat. You don’t have that here.
And so I struggled and watched others. And I realized something: I was enjoying the challenge, and also I could apply some – but not all – of what I knew to make myself better at it. After a couple of numbers I was exhausted (different muscles) in ways I hadn’t been recently, but felt like I was getting to at least C- grading. I could do it, passably. But the thought of getting better at it lit me anew. Such is my life.