Dancefloor moments

[IdleRich]

A gruff but handsome man with a low brow… wait, is that, Corpsey? THE Corpsey.It is! I feel like I’ve encountered a rare pokemon when I tell my friend I’ve spotted this man I know only from the internet. He asks is he famous? No, not really. Kind of. Should I speak to him? Absolutely yes, why not? Why not indeed. And I do. Corpsey seems bored and underwhelmed as I tug him from his friends. We discuss the dissensus internet board, DJs we’re seeing and our mutual friend Luke. I decide I’m annoying him and move on. Later on another dancefloor, as a garage DJ plays Woo Riddim, I feel a tap on my shoulder. It’s Corpsey again. Maybe Corpsey will be my best friend. So much MDMA I can barely speak. We hug a sweaty hug. Someone takes a picture, we both look too old for this. Dancefloor moment.

Was that all there was? Can't believe that you didn't take it further.

 

[Leo]

Shiels, those moments are brilliant. Kudos.

 

[IdleRich]

brilliant

superb

ecstatic

rubbish

didnt read this one

Fair

 

[shiels]

I realise that I don't really remember the actual thing, but I remember the memory of how good it was (or bad or whatever). So I often know I had a brilliant time at x or y, but my own memories of it have become sort of second order or something. Memories of memories.

Does that make sense to anyone? Kinda like if you have a story you often tell then that becomes something you sink into almost automatically and can go through without having to think or have any interaction with the events that generated the story - I feel that my memory often works like that internally too, in that I do something and then afterwards I think back on it and ultimately it's the memories formed during that thinking back on it period which come to mind when I try to think of it later. But I'm digressing here sorry...

We create the story again each time starting with the previous mould we told it in apparently. Simplifying, embellishing, consolidating, making more entertaining, omitting bits and revising the connections. It’s a creative process as well as a simple replay apparently I don’t know I’m just making this up as I go

 

[IdleRich]

We do do that for sure. But I even mean something more basic than that, I just think that my memories of things happening eventually fade and leave you with a memory of having that memory. I suppose I'm saying that you still know that you won the egg and spoon race when you were five.... but when it finished you remembered it happening; the air rushing past, the crowd shouting, the springy grass under your feet - and then victory. But shortly after you can't remember the actual sensation, you know you won but you don't remember it in the same way... you remember the knowledge of having won but not the moment itself.

I mean, I really don't know if that happens to everyone, and maybe when i say it I'm not describing it right. But it does feel to me that as time goes by each actual memory is replaced by a kind of later version for remembering that memory, and then maybe later the same memory is also replaced and you go on and on in that way. I guess it doesn't matter at the end of the day, but I do think that one doesn't tend to have the actual memory of an actual event still there in their head. Or at least I don't... no real reason to believe that that is universal.

 

[IdleRich]

It's funny, I get a bit like that too
when various behaviours that I generally fully endorse or even indulge in myself are exhibited in front of children. There is a bit in the book I'm reading right now - Drop City - where it's solstice or something and the commune's orange juice is, er, juiced with acid and a glass served with breakfast so they can all like trip out together man - but one woman is queueing with her child who kicks up a fuss demanding juice - to the horror of the server the harassed mum says words to the effect of "Oh let her fucking have it" adding, when she sees the server's expression "she's seven years old, it's not like she hasn't turned on before" - a quietly dark scene that I found quite disturbing.

Of course I'm sure we can all agree that that is uncontroversially wrong, but there are lots of greyer areas that still cause me momentary discomfort even though when I was 16, 15, 14 etc swearing or sex would not have bothered me in the least.

I guess the issue is that I have only the vaguest idea of when children change - presumably overnight - from being helpless innocent little kittens who must be sheltered at all costs from all the filth and nastiness of this harsh, cold world, to being smaller

 

[william_kent]

It's funny, I get a bit like that too
when various behaviours that I generally fully endorse or even indulge in myself are exhibited in front of children. There is a bit in the book I'm reading right now - Drop City - where it's solstice or something and the commune's orange juice is, er, juiced with acid and a glass served with breakfast so they can all like trip out together man - but one woman is queueing with her child who kicks up a fuss demanding juice - to the horror of the server the harassed mum says words to the effect of "Oh let her fucking have it" adding, when she sees the server's expression "she's seven years old, it's not like she hasn't turned on before" - a quietly dark scene that I found quite disturbing.

Of course I'm sure we can all agree that that is uncontroversially wrong, but there are lots of greyer areas that still cause me momentary discomfort even though when I was 16, 15, 14 etc swearing or sex would not have bothered me in the least.

I guess the issue is that I have only the vaguest idea of when children change - presumably overnight - from being helpless innocent little kittens who must be sheltered at all costs from all the filth and nastiness of this harsh, cold world, to being smaller

oh dear, I just deleted my post that would make sense of what you're saying..

 

[william_kent]

oh, here goes, a reconstruction from memory.. this should make sense of the response to my deleted post that @IdleRich is referring to: *

we once had a works night out where our manager scored us a bunch of "E", inaugural night of a short lived techno night in a red lit basement, somehow DJ Rolando ( Underground Resistance / Nights of the Jaguar ) was playing, at some point it was obvious that a couple were getting a bit too intimate in the middle of the dance floor, and a space cleared because it was bit uncomfortable, and as they were jamming their tongues down each other's throats Rolando noticed and stuck this tune on:


Lil Louis - French Kiss

and everyone sort of smiled...

but, what @IdleRich is referring to is my addendum about how I was in HMV on a Saturday afternoon and that tune was playing and the orgasm sounds were reverberating around the store as I was on the escalator and I couldn't help but wonder what the fuck the management were thinking by allowing a porno tune to be played when there were pre-teens in the building? I'm not a prude, but wtf?

* I've no idea why I deleted that post to be honest, other than I thought I might regret it tomorrow afternoon when i stumble out of bed or something...

 

[william_kent]

there's a passage in some Robert Anton Wilson book where he recounts some story about how in the 1960s some visitor suddenly announced "I'm horny! Is it OK if I masturbate?" and RAW has to explain that there are children in the room and it's not OK, but he was working for Playboy magazine at the time so there was the possibility of him coming off as a "square" but... come on, some things are not acceptable in front of children...

 

[IdleRich]

Anyway, this is a great thread, I only wish there were more moments being described - I do understand why there aren't though; I truly think a surprisingly large number of my very best and most exciting seconds, the most euphoric and purely pleasurable instants of my life took place on dancefloors and yet I am struggling to recall even one specific one. They have all combined in my head into one blurred image, a smear of movement and overwhelming flashing light and total pitch blackness. Pounding beats, waves of bass and the tingling of intensely beautiful melodies are layered upon each other millions of levels deep creating an utter cacophony that I cannot begin to pull apart and separate into their constituent memories.

And anyway, if I could, and I was able to describe them, then the good ones would almost all be of the form "The music was really good and loud and the lights were intense and I was high as fuck with my best friends" - the great moments just don't make for good stories.

Frustratingly though, I do feel I have had plenty of crazy and interesting moments on or adjacent to dancefloors that would bear repeating if I could just, somehow, recall them...

 

[william_kent]

Anyway, this is a great thread, I only wish there were more moments being described - I do understand why there aren't though; I truly think a surprisingly large number of my very best and most exciting seconds, the most euphoric and purely pleasurable instants of my life, took place on dancefloors and yet I am struggling to recall even one specific one. They have all combined in my head into one blurred image, a smear of movement and overwhelming flashing light and total pitch blackness. Pounding beats, waves of bass and the tingling of intensely beautiful melodies are layered upon each other millions of levels deep creating an utter cacophony that I cannot begin to pull apart and separate into their constituent memories.

And anyway, if I could, and I was able to describe them, then the good ones would almost all be of the form "The music was really good and loud and the lights were intense and I was high as fuck with my best friends" - the great moments just don't make for good stories.

Frustratingly though, I do feel I have had plenty of crazy and interesting moments on or adjacent to dancefloors that would bear repeating if I could just, somehow, recall them...

the best dance floor moments can sound..well.. prosaic..i.e.,

Andy Weatherall on the decks, full on Prague panel beaters, a slight pause /breakdown, waiting for the drop, dry ice, strobe flashing, hands in the air, a complete stranger hands me a bottle of water...

cosmic at the time, but now?

"cool story, bro"

 

[IdleRich]

I have a similar theory about sex, or specifically, about erotica. When you watch a film such as Ai No Corrida or read Emmanuelle or whatever, there are bits where an egg comes out of an orifice or the guy insists on making love to a hundred year old woman while his lover watches or... you get the idea, the point is two beautiful people having enjoyable but fairly vanilla sex is just not that interesting to write or read about, so erotica is always jazzed up with all this completely unerotic but (arguably) more interesting stuff.

 

[william_kent]

I have a similar theory about sex, or specifically, about erotica. When you watch a film such as Ai No Corrida or read Emmanuelle or whatever, there are bits where an egg comes out of an orifice or the guy insists on making love to a hundred year old woman while his lover watches or... you get the idea, the point is two beautiful people having enjoyable but fairly vanilla sex is just not that interesting to write or read about, so erotica is always jazzed up with all this completely unerotic but (arguably) more interesting stuff.

yeah, that pretty much sums up Anais Nin

 

[IdleRich]

yeah, that pretty much sums up Anais Nin

Yeah, all of that stuff - The Story of O, The Story of the Eye etc etc basically of the super famous classic grot that I've ever read. Though some of those things claim to be something other than erotica - and I think that Nin should do the same cos I feel that her literary pretensions came at the expense of eroticism.

One time I got chatting to this girl in a pub and she told me she collected erotica - I believe she said her favourite work was called Anal Stud, but I never found out (and strangely I often find myself wondering) if the title referred to a person or some jewellery.