Dancing Plague of 1518

 

July 1518, in a part of the Holy Roman Empire called Stasbourg, France the Dancing Plague outbroke when a woman, Frau Troffea started fervently dancing in the streets. If one person fervently dancing wasn't odd enough within the week the number grew to fourteen people, in a months time... 400 people dancing. Some of these dancer died from a heart attack, from a stroke, or exhaustion. The local physicians ruled out supernatural or astrological causes but thought the dancing disease was caused by "hot blood" and that is was natural. Rather than the usual prescription of bleeding they encouraged more dancing.  They encouraged my dancing by guiding them to a grain market, open two guidehalls, construct a stage, and even hire musicians to keep them dancing. This dancing mania was recorded in historical documents such as physician notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles, and the Stasbourg city council.

A possible reason for such an odd plague is stress induced psychosis. Some think the stresses around them, famine, disease, etc. was so intolerable that it could cause mass psychological illness. This dancing plague, or choreomania occurred on multiple occasions, the earliest known incident in 1020 and most recently in the 1840s.    

 

What.

Bo Burnham's new comedy special came out today! I may have mentioned it before but I saw his show last may and I must say I was laughing so hard that there was a point where my laughter would not suffice for what I was feeling and I started flat out yelling.

For this special he decided not to sell it or make any money off so he put the whole thing for free on his youtube channel and on Netflix. He jokes about it in the preview:

I find this a cool gesture but it is no surprise to me, Bo has always made connotations to disagreeing with how a lot of art is just for the buck, or to make some profit. The only thing he is really selling at the moment is his poetry book Egghead: Or You Can't Survive on Ideas Alone.

 

 One really great song he did about this very thing is called "Art is Dead" from his last show and I hope you listen to it:

 

I love Bo Burnham. He is my favorite 6 foot 5 child (not a child, 23 actually). He got started on Youtube and got picked up by Comedy Central when he was only 18. He can seem absurd on the surface but underneath there is so much knowledge to his work. I feel like Bo Burnham is really smart but sometimes it goes over people's heads or they believe too much in his stage persona. I had the pleasure of meeting him last May and I noticed he was a lot more introverted offstage. I personally liked that about him because I feel like I am the same way to some point. I am fairly introverted, but I feel that when presented with an audience that introversion goes away a bit or becomes less apparent. 

I look like a toe but take note that I am standing and he is sitting in this picture.

Compared to his past work I think What. is a lot more visual focused and more philosophical. Maybe if you like what you saw or heard here I would check out his earlier work too. You know, if you have the time. I understand hot commodity time is these days, believe me I do. If you don't have an hour to watch his whole special here is a clip from it. A song from the perspective of god.

 If you have an hour here is What. in its entirety:

Your Life Is A Lie

So yesterday I submitted a drawing for MGMT's poster drawing contest. They are having a concert tomorrow at the Barclays Center (that I am super excited to go to) and they have been hyping this particular concert up because it is the last date on the tour and they have not been to NYC in over 3 years. I don't remember what made me go with this idea but I went with a Metropolis theme (maybe NYC and Metropolis both cities).

 

I doubt I will win I am not so confident with my design but MGMT posted it on their facebook page which is pretty cool with. They are one of my favorite bands so I had to do a double take seeing something I did under their name. You had to submit it through tumblr or instagram and I did both but the sizing on the instagram one was off and looks worse. Of course that is the one they choose to put up! I commented the link the better version. Oh well!

My drawing on their page

Can't wait for tomorrow!

"To a new world of gods and monsters"

- Dr. Pretorius in The Bride of Frankenstein

     

    Wow I don't think I was emotionally prepared for this movie. All the acting in it was so fantastic, every slight movement, facial expression, even the smallest glance put me in awe. Sir Ian McKellen is amazing on screen I can't even imagine how it will be to see him next week in Waiting for Godot. Starstruck already? The film starts off as this funny, kind of perverted old man but as time goes on it gets so much deeper you begin to feel his every ache and pain (which again can be attributed to the acting). Even Clayton Boone's (who is fictitious) character development, starting off as a dopey gardener to seeing him crying on Whale's floor was really good. I kept finding the smallest details that can connect to something said or done or even just a visual image popping up on the screen momentarily. The way The Bride of Frankenstein was weaved into the plot was done really well and it makes you look at the the 1935 film in a whole new way. I feel like the film would be a lot different for somebody who has never seen any of James Whale's films... maybe the interest in Whale wouldn't be as strong? Even though the film was necessarily about Frankenstein it was really tied to it like  using the sketch of Frankenstein with the message "Friend?" to clarify to Clayton what Whale's real intentions were. 

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I feel like I still can't talk about this film properly. There was so much about that film that I still can't grasp into words. Maybe it is a poor memory or maybe it is what Joseph Cambell meant about the things we just can't talk about. Maybe I'll have it sit on the brain for some more time and come back to this.