Log24

"When all the archetypes burst out shamelessly, we plumb the depths
of Homeric profundity. Two cliches make us laugh but a hundred cliches
move us because we sense dimly that the cliches are talking among themselves,
celebrating a reunion . . . Just as the extreme of pain meets sensual pleasure,
and the extreme of perversion borders on mystical energy, so too the extreme
of banality allows us to catch a glimpse of the Sublime."

— Umberto Eco, “Casablanca: Cult Movies and Intertextual Collage” (1984)
from Travels in Hyperreality.

Related meditation . . . The "Back 10" symbol to the left of the donut shop door
above suggests a look at Oct. 16, 2015, in other posts now tagged Backdancing.

Enter Dancing

From Daily Quotational Lattice:

The story of the day is “Dance in America,” about a dancer who has dinner with some friends.  Take note if you’re a dancer: Ariel, a bona fide dancer, deems the quotes about dancing to be “very powerful.”

“I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom.  I tell them it’s the body’s reaching, bringing air to itself.  I tell them that it’s the heart’s triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It’s life flipping death the bird.  I make this stuff up.”

“I am thinking of the dancing body’s magnificent and ostentatious scorn.  This is how we offer ourselves, enter heaven, enter speaking: we say with motion, in space, This is what life’s done so far down here; this is all and what and everything it’s managed–this body, these bodies, that body– so what do you think, Heaven?  What do you fucking think?”

— “Dance in America,” by Lorrie Moore