Posts Tagged ‘disco’
“One does not inhabit a country; one inhabits a language”*…
Our language is constantly evolving. Colin Gorrie offers a nifty illustration of the development of English…
A man takes a train from London to the coast. He’s visiting a town called Wulfleet. It’s small and old, the kind of place with a pub that’s been pouring pints since the Battle of Bosworth Field. He’s going to write about it for his blog. He’s excited.
He arrives, he checks in. He walks to the cute B&B he’d picked out online. And he writes it all up like any good travel blogger would: in that breezy LiveJournal style from 25 years ago, perhaps, in his case, trying a little too hard.
But as his post goes on, his language gets older. A hundred years older with each jump. The spelling changes. The grammar changes. Words you know are replaced by unfamiliar words, and his attitude gets older too, as the blogger’s voice is replaced by that of a Georgian diarist, an Elizabethan pamphleteer, a medieval chronicler.
By the middle of his post, he’s writing in what might as well be a foreign language.
But it’s not a foreign language. It’s all English.
None of the story is real: not the blogger, not the town. But the languageis real, or at least realistic. I constructed the passages myself, working from what we know about how English was written in each period.
It’s a thousand years of the English language, compressed into a single blog post.
Read it and notice where you start to struggle. Notice where you give up entirely. Then meet me on the other side and I’ll tell you what happened to the language (and the blogger)…
Read it and reap: “How far back in time can you understand English?” from @colingorrie.bsky.social.
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As we travel through time, we might note that not every new emergence becomes sedimented into the evolutionary path, as we recall that on this date in 1980 that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences awarded the first– and last– Grammy for Best Disco Recording. By the time that the Academy got around to it, disco was pretty much dead.
“I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor was the big winner that night. The other nominees were: Earth, Wind & Fire for “Boogie Wonderland,” Michael Jackson for “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough,” Donna Summer for “Bad Girls,” and Rod Stewart for “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” (In January 2020, Gaynor won her second Grammy Award in her career for her gospel album Testimony.)
“Why is God making me suffer so much? Just because I don’t believe in him?”*…
David Shatz on an important important– and surely the funniest– modern philosopher…
Many have heard the story about the British philosopher [Oxford linguisitic philosopher J. L. Austin] who asserted in a lecture that, whereas in many languages a double negative makes a positive, in no language does a double positive make a negative. Instantly, from the back of the room, a voice piped up, “Yeah, yeah.”
While the story is well-known—and true—many do not know that the “yeah, yeah” came from Sidney Morgenbesser (1921-2004), a professor at Columbia University who later became the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, and whose 10th yahrzeit will be marked this summer. Those who did not experience Morgenbesser could not fully appreciate James Ryerson’s words in his superb portrait in the “The Lives They Lived” issue of The New York Times Magazine: “The episode was classic Morgenbesser: The levity, the lightning quickness, the impatience with formality in both thought and manners, the gift for the knockout punch.” (Ryerson has long been working on a book about Morgenbesser.) Nor could most people know that this comic genius was revered by philosophers and other literati, including people of eminence and fame, as one of the truly spectacular philosophical minds of his time—someone whom, reportedly, no less a figure than Bertrand Russell considered one of the cleverest (that’s British for “smartest”) young men in the United States…
A man who would surely have tickled Wittgenstein’s funny bone: “‘Yeah, Yeah’: Eulogy for Sidney Morgenbesser, Philosopher With a Yiddish Accent,” in @tabletmag.
A few other examples of Morgenbesser’s wit:
• Morgenbesser in response to B. F. Skinner: “Are you telling me it’s wrong to anthropomorphize people?”
• In response to Leibniz’s ontological query “Why is there something rather than nothing?” Morgenbesser answered “If there were nothing you’d still be complaining!”
• Interrogated by a student whether he agreed with Chairman Mao’s view that a statement can be both true and false at the same time, Morgenbesser replied “Well, I do and I don’t.”
* Morgenbesser, a few weeks before his death from complications of ALS, to his friend and Columbia philosophy colleague David Albert
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As we laugh and learn, we might recall that on this date in 1979, “Ring My Bell” was atop the pop charts.
Written by Frederick Knight, the composition was originally intended for then eleven-year-old Stacy Lattisaw, as a teenybopper song about kids talking on the telephone. But when Lattisaw signed with a different label, Anita Ward was asked to sing it instead.
“Ring My Bell” went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the Disco Top 80 chart, and the Soul Singles chart. It also reached number one on the UK Singles Chart. And it garnered Ward a nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the 1980 Grammy Awards. It was her only hit.
See (and, of course, hear) Ward perform the song here.
“Disco is the best floor show in town. It’s very democratic, boys with boys, girls with girls, girls with boys, blacks and whites, capitalists and Marxists, Chinese and everything else, all in one big mix.”*…
Yolanda Baker has been making disco balls every week of her life for nearly 50 years and shows no signs of slowing down.
Baker, known as Yo Yo to her colleagues, works for Louisville’s Omega National Products – America’s leading disco ball manufacturer – and has over the years filed orders for Beyoncé, Madonna, Studio 54 and even the Saturday Night Fever film set.
During the height of disco fever, Omega had 25 workers crafting 25 balls a day – more than 160,000 disco balls annually – with Baker steering the ship. But as China began flooding the market with cheaper options, the team at Omega began to shrink – Baker has been the company’s only disco ball maker since 2008…
All that glitters at: “Meet Yolanda ‘Yo Yo’ Baker, America’s last disco ball maker.”
* Truman Capote
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As we boogey on down, we might recall that it was on this date in 1934 that the famous Apollo theatre in New York City’s Harlem district (re-)opened as a showcase for black artists. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, it had been built in 1913-14 as Hurtig & Seamon’s New Burlesque Theater, and designed by George Keister in the neo-Classical style. The Apollo fell on hard times in the 20s and limped along until, under new management, it became (starting on this date in 1934) a mecca of the Swing Era. It featured musical acts including Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Webb, and Count Basie, dance acts such as Bill Robinson and the Nicholas Brothers. And though the theater concentrated on showcasing African-American acts, it also presented such white performers as Harry James, Woody Herman and Charlie Barnet during the swing era, and, later, Dave Brubeck, Stan Getz and Buddy Rich, who was a particular favorite of the Apollo crowd.
The Apollo’s “Amateur Night,” a Monday-night talent contest launched many storied careers, from Ella Fitzgerald and Thelma Carpenter to Jimi Hendrix (who won in 1964). Others whose careers were hatched or given an early boost at the Apollo include Billie Holiday, Pearl Bailey, Sammy Davis Jr., James Brown & The Famous Flames, King Curtis, Diana Ross & The Supremes, Parliament-Funkadelic, Wilson Pickett, The Miracles, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Rush Brown, Stephanie Mills, Dionne Warwick, Bobby Short, The Jackson 5, Patti LaBelle, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Ben E. King, Mariah Carey, The Isley Brothers, Lauryn Hill, Sarah Vaughan, Jazmine Sullivan, Ne-Yo, and Machine Gun Kelly.
Restored 11 years ago, the venue draws an estimated 1.3 million visitors a year.
“The key of the success of Studio 54 is that it’s a dictatorship at the door and a democracy on the dance floor”*…
In 1977, at the height of the disco craze, a club opened at 254 West 54th Street in New York City. Studio 54 was—and, arguably, remains—the world’s most renowned and legendary disco. Regularly attended by celebrities such as Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger, Bianca Jagger, Jerry Hall, Debbie Harry, Grace Jones, Michael Jackson, Calvin Klein, Elton John, John Travolta, Brooke Shields and Tina Turner, the club fostered an atmosphere of unadulterated hedonism for New York’s art and fashion set. Hasse Persson [c.f., here] and his camera were frequent club guests from 1977–80. The images he photographed there have become legendary, capturing the club’s famed revelers, dancers in costume and general, drunken exhilaration—and yet, incredibly, Studio 54 (published by Max Ström) marks the first time in history that they have seen publication. Almost 35 years after the club’s unceremonious and sudden closure, this beautiful hardback volume superbly documents the zeitgeist…
More at “Never Before Published Photos of Studio 54” and at Persson’s own site.
* Andy Warhol (seen, holding his camera, at the bottom of the photo above)
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As we look for the “Hot Stuff,” we might recall that it was on this date in 37 CE that the Roman Senate conferred the Principate on Caligula. His great-uncle Tiberius had left the office jointly to his grandson, Gemellus, and to Caligula; but Caligula had the will nullified on the grounds of Gemellus’ supposed insanity.
Caligula reigned until his assassination three-and-a-half years later by members of his own Praetorian Guard; the first two years of his tenure were marked by moderation– but accounts of his reign thereafter paint a portrait of extraordinary sybaritic excess and cruel, extravagant, and perverse tyranny… leading many historians to suspect that Caligula succumbed in his last months to neurosyphilis.
A marble bust of Caligula restored to its original colors. (The colors were identified from particles trapped in the marble.)
“Disco is from hell, okay? And not the cool part of hell with all the murderers, but the lame ass part where the really bad accountants live”*…
A 1976 recording of the theme from M*A*S*H, about the 1977 release of which, Tom Mouton of Billboard wrote:
The strongest [of three recent singles from FARR Records] is ‘Song From M*A*S*H’ by the New Marketts. Here is a beautiful and well-orchestrated melody featuring guitar and synthesizer playing the melody line and pleasing synthesizer solo in the vamp. The record was produced by Joe Saraceno…
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Interesting fact: The lyrics of the song were written by Mike Altman, the son of Robert Altman, director of the original movie. Appearing on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show in the 1980s, Altman reported that his son had earned more than a million dollars for his part in writing the song… while Altman himself made just $70,000 for directing the movie.
More at “‘Suicide is Painless’ (AKA ‘The Theme from M*A*S*H’)– the Disco Version.”
* “Hyde,” That 70s Show
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As we take something for the fever, we might send repetitive birthday greetings to Philip Glass; he was born on this date in 1937. A composer who describes himself as a “Classicist,”” he is considered by most to be (with the likes of Steve Reich) one of the “Major Minimalists”– and one of the most influential music makers of the late 20th century. He has written works for the musical group which he founded, the Philip Glass Ensemble (with which he still performs on keyboards), as well as operas, musical theatre works, solo works, chamber music (including string quartets and instrumental sonatas), film scores, ten symphonies, and eleven concertos. Three of those film scores (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) have been nominated for Academy Awards; his score for The Truman Show won a Golden Globe. He is the second cousin of This American Life‘s Ira Glass.
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