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Those Were the Days
![white-christmas-movie-poster-1020283120[5]](https://cdn.ricochet.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/white-christmas-movie-poster-10202831205.jpg)
After the end of the semester and a particularly awful work week, I finally got a chance to bake some cookies, put up my Christmas tree, and just generally do Christmasy things. One of these things was to watch my second favorite Christmas movie, White Christmas (feel free to inquire what my most favorite is).
I could listen to Bing Crosby sing all day — even if he did get that baritone timbre by smoking a pipe. I love classic movies, and sitting on my couch watching Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen spin around the dance floor one thought jumped out at me — “Gosh, I wish people still danced!”
Now, of course people still dance, but twerking like Miley Cyrus with a bad case of tardive dyskinesia doesn’t count as dancing in my book. I wish the classic ballroom dance forms were still common to the culture the way they once were. This summer, I took a couple ballroom lessons, and I have never felt more elegant than I did when I was foxtrotting and waltzing across the floor.
Then I started looking at the clothes the characters were wearing in White Christmas and thought, “Man, clothes were so much more flattering and tasteful back then.” A certain longing for days of yore crept over me.
So I’m curious — what aspects of times gone by do the esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the Ricochetti long for a return of? What fashions, habits, and parts of culture do you fervently wish would be reinstated in contemporary society? Obviously, I would start with dancing.
Published in General
The days when it was considered OK to quiet screaming children with laudanum.
Maybe I was too subtle, but I was making a joke. Choreography is a musical set in White Christmas.
And the worst one at that.
Oh, no doubt. We watch the movie every year, and I cringe and make fun of that set all the way through.
The thea-tah, the thea-tah … (shudder)
I miss the patriotism of the greatest decade ever: the ’80s….. and mullets.
I dunno. I find it entertaining. But then, I kind of hate theater people.
(OK, that’s not fair. I have several friends who are theater people, but I like them better when they’re not busy theater-peopling.)
You kind of have to, since the heel acts as a pivot for certain moves.
While it’s possible to flex a bare or lightly-shod foot so that only the heel is in contact with the ground and then use your natural heel as a pivot, the flexing rather spoils the line of the leg, creates an awkward dip in your height, and aren’t as narrow a pivot as the heel on a typical ballroom dancing shoe.
A man’s *got* to know his limitations.
I’m not a fan of White Christmas (don’t think I’ve ever watched the entire film, in fact) so it was lost on me.
The choreography bit is one of the best parts of the movie. That is Danny Kaye being a hammerhead like only he could do it. I laugh just thinking about it.
The beginning of “Choreography” is a parody/critique of Martha Graham’s dancing, which was completely opposed to the glitz and mass appeal of musical theatre dancing. The whole song is a poke in the eye of Modern dance.
What you’re really saying is, you miss Reagan.
A Tuna Christmas is pure genius. I don’t know how my mother found it, but she introduced our family to Tuna, and we have been obsessed ever since. I also love Greater Tuna and Red, Hot, and Tuna, but A Tuna Christmas is the masterpiece.
Didi Snavely: Remember our motto at Didi’s Used Weapons: If we can’t kill it, it’s immmmortal.
Re: your nostalgia for the way things were before you (and I) were born, girl, I am right there with you. I love those old movies, but they break my heart a little.
I’m sorry, but the only place anyone’s rib cage should be visible is on the cover of National Geographic. Ugh.
I love Didi! “God forbid during this joyous season anyone listening should become the victim of a Christmas theft. But wouldn’t you rather shoot someone than watch ’em run off with your new toaster? I know I would. So whether it’s a stun gun, judo clubs, or just a simple old-fashioned switch blade, when you come to Didi’s, you’ll have a holly, jolly Christmas, and the criminal will have a silent night!”
Gödel’s Ghost
I’m sorry, but the only place anyone’s rib cage should be visible is on the cover of National Geographic. Ugh.
You’re supposed to be looking at her shoes.
What shoes?
I miss people not being mutilated with piercings and tattoos. What ever happened to nice healthy skin.
I’m going to dissent from the consensus and admit that I hated that movie…
…except for that song.
Those are the most visible signs of our civilization’s decline.
It’s the easily foreseeable end result of the mentality that rebellion is the natural state for teenagers and young adults; every generation has to push it a little further.
Absolutely! Especially on women, I hate seeing multiple ear/face piercings and tattoos everywhere. I’m one of the few women where I work that doesn’t have a tattoo. When I get asked why I don’t get one, I always say, “Why would you put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari?” (though it would be more appropriate to refer to myself as a Honda or VW)
If it’s only skin deep. Stick with Ferrari self-image.
There’s much to be said for being built for comfort rather than speed.
There are no shoes capable of making rib cages sexy. You may quote me.
Not even these?
(Me, I’m barrel-chested and pear-shaped, so for all my teens and twenties, my ribs showed, even though I was never what anyone would consider a skinny girl.)
Pics or it didn’t happen. ;-)
Rib cage = emaciation, so yeah, if you can demonstrate lack of emaciation by other means, great!
As for the shoes: in those, you’d make a heckuva Dia de Muertos date!
And that’s why I hate to dance: I was never taught any ballroom dance steps, and even if I knew them, no one dances that way any more. At the school dances, weddings, and such that I’ve attended most of the dancing is freestyle, improvised dancing to a DJ playing rock and rap music. I don’t know what to do, so I feel awkward and very self-conscious, so I hate it and try to avoid it.
Whereas if everyone was doing the same dance, and I actually knew what the steps were, I’d feel much more comfortable. I might even enjoy it.
Amen and amen. I’ve surprised and disappointed, not one, but two friends who got up the nerve to ask me to dance—still quite rare for women to do, in my experience—by turning them down, for exactly this reason.
I was brought up being told that I had no rhythm. I found ballroom. Give it a try. (A good private instructor will teach you simple partner steps that you can do solo.)