is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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the return of bhangra.
today, when i was deleting old notes from my sidekick note-taking application, i found this diary entry, written a year or so ago, about when cristina and i went BHANGRA DANCING. it seemed like it hadn't lost its diary-interest despite the passage of time. And it is also a bit coincidental/dude-that's-strange-ish, because when JB and I went to see John Vanderslice on Saturday (that was good), JB was talking about how hard it is to go dancing at "our age," because it's all young kids and you feel like a dorkhole (that's my word. i can't remember precisely how he phrased his lament). So I was telling JB about BHANGRA DANCING, where, sure, you might feel like a dorkhole, but at least it won't because you're old. Mostly you'll just feel like you've stepped into one of those lovely alternate universes that always exist just below the outward look of any city. So now let us commence with the year-old diary entry:
so cristina and I went to basement bhangra at sob's tonight. it's a mix of indian folk music with hip hop and other club beats. I'd say it's half rave and half crazy-wierd mash-up, with a big helping of hip hop. but man, so worth going to see and do... not only because the dancing is great but because the quoteunquote anthropological rewards are so numerous.
the first thing you'll notice is that it's all about the men. but not in the way "all about the men" usually transpires. lots and lots of men gather up on the stage and dance together in this totally compelling-to-watch form of south asian hip hop movement. everyone else is dancing, too. and it's hot and sweaty and confusing and inspiring.
at first i felt like a conspicuous white person. but it only took me like 2 seconds to realize that you can't be conspicuous when no one cares.
at one point a guy offered to buy me a drink and then got mad when i indicated that i was holding a full glass of bourbon and said, "no, i'm fine, but thanks."
at a later point when I was waiting to procure an ill-advised second drink (um, that's a minus, not enough bartenders, and the few they have, inept), I fell into conversation with a guy who leaned over to conspire with me: whichever one of us got served 1st would order for both. drunk genius, of course. then he said, "um, do you LIKE to go out to INDIAN night at a CLUB?!" (he was clearly of south-asian persuasion). Me: "um, yeah." him: "well,
I LIVE in india, and THIS is where my brother takes me when I come to New York!" I said, "oh, I get it" and then contemplated telling an anecdote about the time I was charged with wining and dining the famous italian academic giorgio agamben, and we were at chez panisse with some other rhetoricians, and I'm all getting ready to order a good bordeaux, and he's all, "can't we have california wine?" I'm like, "[pause] oh! you're from ITALY. you don't want FRENCH wine. you want wine from CALIFORNIA!" but really, what drunk guy has time and patience for such an anecdote at a loud club?, so I said, "yeah, it must be like going to the quoteunquote american bar in some foreign city." except then he felt compelled to admit that he had grown
up in westchester county.
12:01 p.m. - October 21, 2008
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