The New-York Tribune has the latest report from the front lines of the elders’ War on Dancing: “If the inaugural ball is held on the night of President Wilson’s induction into office there will be no ‘turkey trotting,’ ‘grizzly bear gyrations‘ or ‘bunny hug Tenderloin movements’ . . . .”
That was the edict of Rep. Seaborn Roddenberry (D – Ga.) announced at a hearing yesterday. Roddenberry sits on the committee which controls the government building in which the proposed ball would occur. Roddenberry’s amendment, which he insists be attached to any resolution permitting use of the building, would ban not just these specific dances, but “all like vulgarism of the ‘hoochee coochee’ dance, and all similar forms of gymnastic convulsive movements suggestive of the degenerate revelries of the ‘segregated districts.’”
It is unclear how Roddenberry is familiar with these degenerate dances. Yesterday he was asked: “Would you know these dances if you were to see them?” Smiling, Roddenberry “said he thought he would recognize them, after having attended ‘divers and sundry functions of recent date.’”
Thanks to Roddenberry it seems most unlikely that Eleanor Wilson’s Nightmare will materialize at any inaugural ball. As for Roddenberry, may he live long and prosper.
Waltzes only, lest the appetites of young men be tested.
No Waltzes!
“At first, the waltz was considered exceedingly immoral: the constant invitation of today’s dance masters, much to the chagrin of timid young girls and boys, namely Tuchfühlung (“Get closer!”) was precisely what outraged the old guard at that time. In 1787, Johann Count Fekete described a ball which included waltzing: “It was wild and immoral. The women behaved in a Bacchanalian manner, all innocence fled from the place.” And the Duke of Devonshire declared unequivocally: “I would never marry a woman who dances the waltz!”
http://www.splittree.org/misc_pages/viennaballs01general.htm
Congressional “Contortions” will be reserved for bill-writing, where we will dance around that pesky constitution thingy.
What is with these Democrats, always trying to impose their morality upon the rest of us.
They is just bein what they is
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