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MacGregor - 2008-10-20 17:48:58
Today I've been reading BEEF but will probably see Pizza Today tomorrow. Anthropologists have traced the female dancing circle you've described to its origins in the Ancient Hebrews, when women would gather to parody the men doing the hora. They'd gather in a circle dance and chant prayers to the heavens that usually translated to something like "Oy! Why is my husband no fun?"
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tris mccall - 2008-10-20 18:04:00
at jersey working class weddings, the song is *always* "livin on a prayer". always. everybody gets on the dance floor and sings the chorus as loud as he can. it's typical jersey, really -- this idea that all institutions will let you down, and that friends and family are the only things that you can count on. "it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not". feel that and you feel middlesex county.
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MacGregor - 2008-10-20 18:36:26
If I ever get married again, Mony Mony will not play at the reception. Mony Mony will never play on my stereo at home either, but then again, neither will Bon Jovi.
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Paula - 2008-10-20 18:41:49
Tris: I feel Bergen county almost every day, but I lie down until it passes.
Mac: Which version? I am fond of the original and the Billy Idol cover, actually.
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MacGregor - 2008-10-20 18:47:42
Either really, though I'd play the original before Billy Idol. There's a working class Long Island thing with Mony Mony and weddings. It usually takes place later in the evening, after the Chick Circle dance and more alcohol. All the drunks get in the middle of the floor and shout obscenities to the song. And at first I thought you were asking which version of Bon Jovi!!!
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SF Eli - 2008-10-20 19:40:40
It always seems to be AC/DC or Michael Jackson at the weddings I attend. I danced with my 90 year old grandma to Highway to Hell a few years ago. She seemed to enjoy it. And out here, where the ephemeral and every changing right for two queers to get married is on the chopping block again, there has been a gay stampede to get married before those bigots down in SoCal exert their biblical flavored morals upon the fun loving gays in Sin Fag Sicko, as they call it. I have been to more weddings this month than I have been to in my entire life. Vote no on Prop 8. End the madness. I can't afford one more wedding gift this month. Let's spread the weddings out a little, kay?.
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Paula - 2008-10-20 19:43:24
That is the single most compelling argument I've read for voting against Prop 8. And the image of you and your granny dancing to "Highway to Hell" made my afternoon. Thanks.
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MacGregor - 2008-10-21 13:20:50
I'd like to deliver a present a week to anybody supports these ludicrous "protection of marriage" acts. A good swift kick in the bottom for each of them.
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Bina - 2008-10-21 16:04:31
I'm not allowed to dance at my own wedding.
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Paula - 2008-10-21 17:33:19
Really? Are the guests allowed to dance?
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MacGregor - 2008-10-21 19:02:31
I once worked security at a Lubovitcher wedding at the Nassau Coliseum. Women and men were separated for the entire service and most of hte reception. It was weird.
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Bina - 2008-10-22 03:35:11
Pakistani weddings are divided into many occasions on several nights. There are informal little parties before the main events start: these are called "dholkis" where friends gather to sing and practice dance routines for the big event. The dance routines are performed at an event called the "mendhi" which signifies the day the bride gets her mendhi put on her hands and feet. She goes into what we call mayum, which is a kind of isolation, and while everyone else is celebrating at the mendhi, she will only come out dressed in old clothes (because she's full of mendhi and other types of mysterious pastes and oils meant to make her skin very soft for the wedding) and observe the fun from a little perch. In very traditional Sindhi weddings she even has to cover her special face with a mask until she actually gets married in order to ward off bad luck and evil eye!!
Anyway, the dance routines are dressed up so formally with so much jewelry that she can't even move, let alone dance.
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Paula - 2008-10-22 03:39:32
Very interesting, although that YouTube link is broken...
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Bina - 2008-10-22 03:55:55
In fact the post didn't come through properly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mWsZ18kCMM
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