Barbara Ehrenreich's new book is a disappointment.

[DemBones DemBones]

Called Dancing in the Streets, it explores the role of dancing as religious ritual and way of uniting communities all through history, concluding that we have largely lost our connection to dance. That may be so but to learn about the role of dance in the pagan religions of the past, I suggest reading Robert Graves' The White Goddess as it's much more interesting. Ehrenreich also devotes a chapter to analyzing rock and roll's Dionysian characteristics and the dancing it inspires but Camille Paglia did a better job of discussing this in Sexual Politics.

Ehrenreich made one interesting observation about how rock and roll has been co-opted for use as background music everywhere we go. She asserts that this has desensitized us, that we no longer feel like dancing when we hear danceable music. At first I was inclined to agree with her. I resent hearing good rock and roll, blues, R and B, etc., used to sell things and as Muzak, but after some thought, I'm not sure we're that desensitized. I like going to the grocery store on senior citizen's discount day because the music is all from the Fifties and early Sixties and I'm dancing in the aisles.

Anybody here feeling desensitized to music and dancing these days? :shrug:

[ret5hd]

1. Maybe it's the fact we are 50 rather than 15.

Not sayin' us middle agers don't or can't dance, just that we might not be as excitable about things as we used to be. Hey, we don't get in fist-fights as much now either, right?