Do You Know 'The Break-Away Fade'?

One of the reasons I have no following on this stupid 'blog spot' (except that of a friend in the deep south who is committed to her sister’s child almost as much as she is to twizzlers and insisting that chasing fireflies in moonlight is a legitimate profession) is because the management loves printing stuff that speaks to, say, no one. Reading Dryden and learning the electric slide make life endurable, hence below. Forget the cruises, church socials, and being a chamber music 'roadie'. I'll just keep this up and much like velcro, see what man sticks to it. Because frankly it's a dry town out there. And any man worth his salt will be able to speak intelligently about Dryden WHILE performing the electric slide. Also anyone interested in the legal profession can keep reading. Then loosen that tie and go back to the dance floor to, in the words of Billy Idol, dance with yourself.
Inspired by the Dave Barry Miami Hearald Blogspot/various
The inventor of the "Electric Slide" an iconic dance created in 1976 is fighting back against what he believes are copyright violations and, more importantly, examples of bad dancing.
Kyle Machulis, an engineer at San Francisco's Linden Lab, said he received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice about a video he had shot at a recent convention showing three people doing the Electric Slide.
"The creator of the Electric Slide claims to hold a copyright on the dance and is DMCAing every single video on YouTube" that references the dance, Machulis said. He's also sent licensing demands to The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Machulis added. Indeed, Richard Silver, who filed the copyright for the Electric Slide in 2004, said on one of his Web pages that the DeGeneres Show had been putting up a legal fight as he tried to get compensation for a segment that aired in February 2006 in which actress Teri Hatcher and other dancers performed the popular wedding shuffle.
"You can copyright the choreography for dances and then enforce the copyright against anyone who publicly performs the dance."
--Jason Schultz, attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
The 1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act governs copyright infringement as well as technology whose purpose is to circumvent measures intended to protect copyrights. Under the DMCA, rights-holders can complain to services like YouTube that content uploaded by users infringes their copyrights.
Silver did not respond to an e-mail sent Friday asking for comment and did not answer several phone calls to his Groton, Conn., home. A representative for the DeGeneres Show declined to comment. But on the YouTube page Silver himself posted showing the Electric Slide, he wrote, "Any video that shows my choreography being done incorrectly is being removed. I don't want future generations having to learn it wrong and then relearn it as I am being faced with now because of certain sites and (people) that have been teaching it incorrectly and without my permission. That's the reason I (copyrighted) it in the first place."
Some may find it odd that a dance could be copyrightable, of course.
Choreographed in 1976 for the re-opening of Vamps Disco at 71st and Broadway in New York City
The Official Electric Slide Home Page
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE COMPLETE ORIGINAL CHOREOGRAPHY AS DONE AT Vamps Disco 6/76 with all the variation steps. This is not for beginners.... this is the Advanced Choreography for Professional Dancers Only
The Electric Boogie - DOWNLOAD The Music
"Electric Boogie" however, NOT TO BE MISTAKEN FOR THE ELECTRIC SLIDE, was written by Bunny Wailer who states in a conversation 2/11/06 that the song was written and recorded prior to Bob Marley's death in 1981 dispite what may appear on the internet.
STEP DESCRIPTION:
GRAPEVINE Right, TOUCH
1,2. Step to the right on RIGHT foot; Step LEFT foot behind Right foot;
3,4 Step to the right on RIGHT foot; Touch LEFT foot next to Right foot (clap)
GRAPEVINE Left, TOUCH
5,6. Step to the left on LEFT foot; Step RIGHT foot behind Left foot;
7,8 Step to the left on LEFT foot; Touch RIGHT foot next to Left foot (clap)
WALK BACK, TOUCH
9-11. Walk back stepping on RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT
12. Touch LEFT foot next to Right foot (clap)
STEP, TOUCH, STEP, TOUCH, STEP, TOUCH, STEP, TOUCH, STEP with 1/4 TURN , HOP
13,14 Step forward on LEFT foot; Touch RIGHT foot toe to Left heel (clap)
15,16 Step backward on RIGHT foot; Touch LEFT foot toe to Right toe (snap)
17,18 Step forward on LEFT foot; Touch RIGHT foot toe to Left heel (clap)
19,20 Step backward on RIGHT foot; Touch LEFT foot toe to Right toe (snap)
21,22 Step forward on LEFT foot turning 1/4 turn to your left; Hop
REPEAT
(For the advanced dancer, i.e., Gene Kelly, Bob Fosse, Madonna) More advanced dancers can vary steps with turns (single and double)in place of grapevines or slide, slide, slide (The Electric Slide)- Charleston kicks (14 & 18) touch behind or hand to floor (16 & 20) - Hop may be substituted with Tour en l'air (turn in the air) or anything cute, perhaps if you are Paula Abdul.


CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE COMPLETE ORIGINAL CHOREOGRAPHY AS DONE AT Vamps Disco 6/76 with all the variation steps. This is not for beginners.... this is the Advanced Choreography for Professional Dancers Only
This is the official legal document copywriting the dance. Don’t mess with the law! Proceed with groove and caution. Also available in German, Spanish, Dutch and taught in between Lacrosse events and Womanity II courses at Wellesley University. One more reason to love Massachusetts.

ONE SHOCKING DEGREE OF SEPARATION LIES BETWEEN THE ELECTRIC SLIDE, ELIZABETH BARRETT AND ROBERT BROWNING. The door to EBB’s home and it’s mail slot, host to hundreds of love letters between the famous literary two, can be found along with selected letters, at Wellesley. Perhaps the Hokey Pokey really IS what’s its all about.

For My Valentine

Now that we are nearing the dreaded 14th, it's worth the time to go back to EBB and her beloved Robert. Their story is quite a miracle and their romance was true, unique and glistening. A model of endurance, gentleness and kind, passionate, true love.
They had a happy marriage if not cut all too short by Ms. Barrett's ill health. Here we have Robert Browning's initial letter to her, and one of many inspirations from their growing relationship, a poem from Sonnets from the Portuguese. There are too many beautiful ones to choose from; all express the pattern of their relationship, her disdain of homelife and deep dissappointments, the transience and uncertainty of love, her frail health and Robert's consistent compassion and growing love for his darling 'Ba', a pet name she had obtained from close sibling that drowned, one of many tragedies she shouldered with grace.
Enjoy!

New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey.[January 10, 1845]
I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,---and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write,---whatever else, no prompt matter-of-course recognition of your genius, and there a graceful and natural end of the thing.
Since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to remember how I have been turning and turning again in my mind what I should be able to tell you of their effect upon me, for in the first flush of delight I thought I would this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, when I do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration---perhaps even, as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some little good to be proud of hereafter!---but nothing comes of it all---so into me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew---Oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat, and prized highly, and put in a book with a proper account at top and bottom, and shut up and put away . . . and the book called a 'Flora,' besides!
After all, I need not give up the thought of doing that, too, in time; because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give a reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought; but in this addressing myself to you---your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogether.
I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart---and I love you too. Do you know I was once not very far from seeing---really seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning 'Would you like to see Miss Barrett?' then he went to announce me,---then he returned . . you were too unwell, and now it is years ago, and I feel as at some untoward passage in my travels, as if I had been close, so close, to some world's-wonder in chapel or crypt, only a screen to push and I might have entered, but there was some slight, so it now seems, slight and just sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, and the sight was never to be?
Well, these Poems were to be, and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself,
Yours ever faithfully,
Robert Browning

"Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart..."by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!Unlike our uses and our destinies.Our ministering two angels look surpriseOn one another, as they strike athwartTheir wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, artA guest for queens to social pageantries,With gages from a hundred brighter eyesThan tears even can make mine, to play thy partOf chief musician. What hast thou to doWith looking from the lattice-lights at me,A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing throughThe dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?The chrism is on thine head,---on mine, the dew,---And Death must dig the level where these agree.