#softshoes

[wraithee]

My cat is going night time wild, it sounds like he’s tap dancing down the hall.

[an-aura-about-you]

man, Gregory Hines is such a pretty man.

[elizabethswitch]

Jonathan smiled his way through two months immured in Castle Vampire, this shuck 'n jive is nothing for him, even if he is slipping a little. So maybe they are a little oblivious, even a little in denial, but also consider that Harker's innocuous urbane gentleman front is pretty tight.

Maybe too they should be worried over Somebody Else who has become uncharacteristically quiet... laconic even...

lol @ Seward casually writing in his diary thinking about euthanising Mina and also gormlessly writing about Jonathan with his Big Ass Knife that he ~casually~ has to hand when him and Van Helsing are around, and Not picking up on any potential danger there.

Jack, you're so oblivious that if he Did decide to surprise attack you all, you and Van Helsing would be bleeding to death before you realised it. And probably Arthur too. Quincy with that fast gun draw would be a harder sell, but not Impossible.

[3liza]

it's fine to be autistic it's sort of the personality version of the "wearing a t-shirt that raises a lot of questions already answered by my tshir" tweet. yes I have to divert into a tangent to explain what the weird words I'm using mean every twenty seconds but I love diversion and explaining so this isn't actually bad and if you learn to do a nice little softshoe and be pleasant then nobody cool will mind too much. but watch out

[hollyhomburg]

accidentally came across your twitter yesterday.. i think i fell in love. how you don't have the entire world worshiping the ground you walk on i have no idea

Why you wanna start? What if I softshoe instead of walk? Or pirouette? Or skip?

Although HONESTLY- idk why I’ve gained like…400 followers over there in the past week maybe my porn career isn’t as dead as I thought it was

[neilsanders]

The Softshoe Shamoo Crew!

[dafpork]

i tend to associate Porky with the one being stuck in the past, just because he's always come off as very stubborn to change to me, it isn't disingenuous to call him old fashioned, and so on... i've imagined it's a bit of an Achilles heel for him, particularly within the context of the actor au.

but today i had a sudden Oh God moment: DAFFY is often painted as being very behind the times! this is more a Later Duck thing, which is why it completely missed my radar--but shorts like Show Biz Bugs or Person to Bunny have him doing very old hat vaudeville acts and impersonating people like Al Jolson, who were seen as comically archaic by 1960, in the case of the latter... or Duck Amuck, which is what spawned this thought; i was listening to "Can't We Talk It Over" while working, which is what plays as an underscore as Daffy tries to bargain with the "narrator" and entertain us in his own "iniminiminimitable fashion"--he goes into a, again, very outdated softshoe routine, but the song itself would have been over 20 years old by the time the short came out, which further underscores its own archaicism.

so Daffy has his own issues with being stuck in the past, and, more importantly, how that's intrinsically tied to his work... which means more actor au fodder and fuel for meeeeeeeeeee :)

[abeautifulblog]

thoughts on the Barbie movie

Finally got around to seeing the Barbie movie -- I think some of its messaging could have been clearer, but on the whole it was a lot of fun, and one of the most visually-innovative things I've seen onscreen in ages. So much stuff these days bills itself as "deconstruction," when more often than not it's just a mean-spirited mockery of something the writers don't actually understand. The Barbie movie is deconstruction done right, by people who are deeply in the know about the material (which in this case equals the entire Barbie mythos/ideology), and love it anyway, warts and all. Good deconstruction is both a critique and a love letter.

The theme that the movie understands and communicates most clearly is about the impossible, contradictory directives that are constantly put on women -- "you need to be assertive, but you mustn't be a bitch", etc -- and how unfair it is that half the population isn't given the same respect and the same chance at success. Barbieland flips the script so that the Kens are the empty-headed ornaments while Barbies run the world (which I suspect is what made a lot of men so viscerally uncomfortable with the movie), but that's also eventually recognized to be just as unfair as the Real World where patriarchy reigns.

What's a lot muddier is the messaging around how exactly men participate in the patriarchal oppression of women, and how the patriarchy harms them too. Because patriarchy is a pyramid scheme -- and not all men are on the top of that pyramid, nor can they all be. It convinces men to strive for an unattainable ideal of masculinity (not unlike the unattainable ideal that Barbie represents for femininity, actually!) and then penalizes those who fall short for not being "man enough," and paints it as a personal failing, not one that's baked into the system.

A lot of the gags around Ken Discovers Toxic Masculinity legitimately had me in stitches, because oh my god, too true, but then it didn't really offer any conclusions about it. Granted, this is the Barbie Movie not the Ken Movie, and he already gets more of a character arc than female love interests usually do, so I'm not going to rend my garments all "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MENNNNS??"..... but if you're not going to follow through on toxic masculinity, then maybe better to leave that particular can of worms unopened. There's more than enough for feminism to talk about without it.

Personally, I would have preferred if Ken weren't an antagonist -- if he'd just been the supportive himbo boyfriend who cheerfully follows Barbie on her journey of self-discovery, and backs her every play, and has never had a mean thought in his empty head, which is kind of what the promo materials led me to expect -- but that would have been an entirely different plot. (Possibly one in which Ken encounters the real world and finds that the men there think he should tone down his self-expression (for coming off as too GAY) and be less of a simp for his girlfriend, and he's like, Wow that sounds terrible actually, no thank you!)

In any case, I don't envy the women who are now having uncomfortable conversations with their husbands and boyfriends who got mad about the movie and went on the offensive. Because this is not a movie that softshoes its message to coddle to men's fee-fees -- its male characters are largely mocked and/or marginalized, and I imagine that a lot of men who saw it, and who haven't ever examined their privilege, came out of it feeling personally attacked, and reflexively wanted to attack it in turn and reject everything it's saying.

To which I'm like… y'all need to sit with your feelings for a minute. Remember that one movie taking the piss out of men does not actually make a single dent in the power and privilege that men enjoy in the real world. And then think about the fact that media BY men (which is most of it) routinely treats women the same way -- frivolous and sidelined, ornaments and sex objects. And the fact that we consider that the normal way of things -- that women are expected to watch themselves being portrayed like that and enjoy it.

(A line that I think should have gotten more weight is at the end when Barbie says, "I want to be the one doing the making, not the thing being made," because it's such a clear, straightforward articulation of the subject vs. object distinction.)

Storytelling-wise (to put on my nerd-for-narrative hat), the third act of the movie runs into difficulty with the fact that this is not about human characters, but about anthropomorphized archetypes of femininity and masculinity -- and how do you write a narratively satisfying "ending" for things that don't actually end? And how do you do that within the context of not just a doll world, but the Barbie world, with a gender-unequal status quo that isn't actually going to change either? With the conflicts they set up, I'm not sure there was a wholly satisfactory way to end it.

But anyway, none of that detracted from my enjoyment of the movie -- it's fun, heartfelt, thought-provoking, a continuous source of pleasure and novelty for the eyeballs, and consistently hilarious. Definitely worth the watch.

(And if you want some feminist-themed media that does do a complex exploration of how the patriarchy fucks men over too, even the men who think they're winning at it, I recommend Agent Carter, it is so so good. (The first season, anyway. 😑) There are five notable male characters in it, and the only one having a good time is the one who's declined to buy into society's narrow idea of what constitutes acceptable masculinity.)

[one-coming-is-enough]

please settle an argument between me and my friend. if you stood on a river, would you stand still or slide down it like a conveyer belt?

- van the void dweller

I slide down it like a conveyor belt. I can stay in place if I kinda shuffle My feet the right way, but it's easier to just not do that. I end up looking like I'm doing softshoe at the least bit of turbulence.

[dean-you-assbutt-cas-loves-you]

irish dance class (after almost 6 yrs) tonight on zoom... I'm tired lol xD still sitting here on the floor an hr after it finished lmao

learned jig step for softshoe and beginning of St Patrick's Day trad set for hardshoe... easy peasy

I learned sean nos dancing for the very first time... that was so fun! I gotta remember not to cross or turn out my feet

since the teacher is from Hawaii, it's 10 pm here when the class starts so I guess I'll sleep better cuz I'll be tired from dancing lol xD

I'm also joined that other irish dance school from Oklahoma and we're learning the lead around step for the level 4 reel this week

I'm so happy that I'm dancing again 😁😁😁😁😁😭😭😭😭😭🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

[taperwolf]

Clickbait articles being what they are, I shouldn't be surprised in 2024 to see an article dedicated to panning, in the briefest possible terms, the movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), but somehow I am.

Anyway, the whole movie probably isn't worth your time unless you really want to see Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees fight Aerosmith in a rock musical made of Beatles covers, but it does feature one perfect number: George Burns — at the age of 82! — doing a softshoe routine while singing "Fixing a Hole".

[writeyourletters-inthesand]

why does the m*a*s*h season five opening titles groove so much harder than any other? who gave her that gently curious bassline ? that delicately softshoe drum ? the whimsy the melancholy the familiar delight in a familiar melody with a softer tongue? why did god curse me with two left feet

[anarchistettin]

Senator Credit Card only got clear of that nickname by becoming Senator Crime Bill. No one seems to remember how Senator Misogynist installed Clarence Thomas to the supreme court by viciously attacking Anita Hill. I wonder what the world of the supreme court would be like today if that asshole just hadn't been the dem softshoe "we found a Black grifter ready to play ball" proto Obama? Weird how dems always choose Black people that hate Black people for office!

I'll never forgive Biden's supporters. His dismantling of protections and antimedical propaganda in service to capitalist world-eating.

I'll never forgive the people that promote him still. Calling for me to be kneecapped in the streets for ideology = my mother's husband called him "a gentle and good man".

He responded to the riots with outrageous amounts of money given to the police. He made a song and dance out of "heeding science" and sold out the entire world the first chance he got.

[3liza]

the twisted metal show is just getting progressively goofier and funnier and I can't emphasize enough how refreshing that is, even though it's missing a lot of the same stuff I was complaining about missing with fallout. a good attitude can excuse a litany of sins tbh!!! it's correctly on tone with the source material (which is dumb as hell) and not stuck up its own ass and not trying to adopt any more elevated message than "Orange County is full of psychopaths" which is something we can all get behind tbh

they are clearly aiming for a thunderdome or escape from LA tone and getting, generously, almost as close as they can without thunderdome production budget. once again the wardrobe is really lacking, which always bugs me when wardrobe is so easy to do on no budget if you just hire the right creatives. i don't want to watch serious or irony poisoned post apocalyptic shit anymore, I'm fed up. whanging that horseshoe as close as you can get to "mad max" and falling short is preferable to whatever smug tech conference bullshit was going on in fallout.

I'm not saying it's good but it is fun. I'm especially enjoying how the stupid action movie dialog is getting progressively more self aware, but not in an annoyingly ironic way. they are getting comfortable with letting their writers and actors softshoe a little bit and we're starting to get Simpsons-style crowd bits like the protagonists encountering some poor bastard strung up by one of the wasteland gangs and remarking that "maybe he deserved it" and the extra groans and raspily retorts "I didn't!", which got a genuine laugh out of me because they didn't linger on it and let it get stale.

i wish they had pushed this a lot father in terms of making it more late 90s grimdark gargoyle shit like the games, but that stuff is expensive and I think they spent all their money on actual vehicles (which I respect) and didn't have a lot left over for costumes and set dressing

what's most surprising about this entire production is how laser targeted it is at people born between 1980 and 1988, which cannot be a significant television viewership in the larger picture. there is almost zero effort to make this relatable to anyone outside 40 year old Oregon Trail millennials. the soundtrack is so fucking funny

special mention to casting a bunch of actual 40 year old women and letting them look haggard and dirty and wrinkled for once

really Sweet Tooth is the biggest disappointment. i understand he's the franchise figurehead but they fumbled it imo. i don't think will arnett is the right casting. idk if sweet tooth should even talk or be human tbh, I kind of always saw him more as a sort of ogre or avatar than just a normal human psycho killer, and having him onscreen so much from the beginning was probably network mandated but really spoiled the biggest narrative tension for franchise fans they could have saved up to cash in on a good reveal later. oh well. alternately I think leaning into it being JUST will arnett in a clown mask would have been funnier than trying to split the difference with dubbing arnett over a more physically powerful Joe Samoa playing the body

[whatonearthisgoingon]

Y'all, I just got my dance recital schedule. Everything in red is one of my numbers-

I have so many quick changes; I'm cooked y'all.

1 is chill and hardly a sweat. 10 is panting and dying on the floor when done.

Secret for the Mad - Contemporary. Difficulty: 4

Old School Mix - Hip Hop. Difficulty: 6

A Million Dreams - Contemporary. Difficulty: 5

Jockey to the Fair - Irish Hardshoe. Difficulty: 7

U Can't Touch This - Hip Hop. Difficulty: 7

Kindly Calm me Down - Contemporary. Difficulty: 3

100 Years - Ballet. Difficulty: 2

In the Money - Tap. Difficulty: 9

Dig It Up - Tap. Difficulty: 7

Over the Rainbow/Simple Gifts - Ballet. Difficulty: 6

Havana (rap cut out) - Irish Softshoe. Difficulty: 7

Shut Up and Dance - Jazz. Difficulty: 8

So many of the hard numbers are back to back. Like cmon, I don't need a 2 after intermission. Shove the 2 level in between a 7 and a 9.

Im gonna be dead at the end of that night..

For people who are curious Song links below.

And yes I I agree, Havana for Irish is a bit odd, but my teacher was in love with it. My teacher is mixed, with Cuban from her dad and Irish from her mom. She incorporated both dance styles/cultures in; it's honestly not too bad.

And @mikeywaysbass. Us talking about crusin inspired this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G7w2lK9z9_RHiBbuWQXqWCvs34OftqRQ/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fv53p_ffFX-LfcyJBvkDLdiAGTNq-NSD/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FvJbl2LI2WlIUmiCgChpcBC6BsFVifa6/view?usp=drivesdk

[jooky]

Watership UP is such an underrated comment LOL.

If Disney's Bambi fucked you up as a kid, Watership Down eats Bambi's lunch while doing a softshoe routine on his mom's buckshot riddle corpse.

Rabbits fighting mid-air in Kyushu, Japan, 2024 - by Mora Nakamura, Japanese