Weddings are one of the few celebrations common across all peoples, no matter their ethnicity, geography, religion, political views, career, educational attainment, or socioeconomic status
This is Mosuo erasure.
1: The person writing that is (IIRC) 26, and tends toward the overly earnest (which may be why the writing resonated with me), but clearly really throwing himself into the project.
I've never heard of walking marriages before but the wikipedia entry on Mosuo people is very interesting!
(1 not an actual critique)
I know; I just found the thing so sweet, I felt obligated to defend it even though I knew it was unnecessary.
What if someone did the same thing, but it turned out all the wedding pictures were of butts?
Life is but a walking marriage
I enjoyed this. But it got me thinking about sacrifice -- I wasn't sure why what they did with the chickens would be called a "sacrifice" -- my understanding is they bought a few live chickens and killed them and ate them. What makes it a sacrifice?
Does this question apply to all animal sacrifice? Are there animal sacrifice practices that involve giving up the meat of the animals to the gods/God?
I think I'm just being stupid, but I'm not sure how.
8: I think in original Old Testament sacrifices, after the ritual, the priest(s) would eat the sacrifice.
And there's the qurban. I don't think sacrifice across human cultures typically entails giving up the calories, although I'm sure there are times when it does. It's sort of a dedication.
9: Yes, that seems right -- so the sacrifice was kind of like a tax the farmers paid to the priests.
Dad, why are you bringing the A1 sauce on our walk?
Are there animal sacrifice practices that involve giving up the meat of the animals to the gods/God?
If the New York Post is to be believed, there are people who throw animals into a volcano.
https://nypost.com/2021/06/26/thousands-climb-indonesian-volcano-for-annual-sacrifice/
13: From that link, this sounds like the proverbial story of sacrificing a human to the volcano god.
According to legend, the ritual dates to the 15th-century, when the Javanese princess and her Brahmin husband were unable to conceive.
The gods agreed to answer their prayer with 25 children, as long as the youngest was given to the volcano. It's said the 25th child leapt into the crater of his own free will, to secure the future of the Tengger.
It does seem like there wasn't much of a sacrificial ritual in this portrayed case: the father just went into the kitchen to kill the live chickens they'd been holding on to. But that fits with a lot of the other features (mixed cultures, ad hoc).
AIUI dancing is more common than not, or was pre-TV anyway, although partner-embrace dancing was _very uncommon_ before the polka swept the world. But various kinds of promenade (all can do, old people look dignified) and group dances of all men, or all women, or men and women together but not touching much or at all were broadly culturally common according to my (very academic) folkdance teachers. Plus special dances that groups would do for particular occasions.
(And then for a hundred years partner dancing mixed back into the folk dances, and now folk dancing spreads across TikTok and YouTube. Check out flavors of shuffle dance, it's got a lot of things in it.)
The wedding I went to this summer featured the groom and groomsmen doing some kind of synchronized western dance. They seemed pretty good, but mostly I took the chance to go to the bar.
Is a semi-difficult dancing style that takes practice and shows up at significant life events something common to the vast majority of cultures, and (white, protestant) US is an outlier at the moment?
Sincere question: are there dancing styles that fit this description that show up at black Protestant US weddings? Or white Catholic US weddings? I've never attended either. I have attended weddings in France and Singapore and there was no semi-difficult dancing on show at either occasion.
In North Knifecrimea, of course, we have ceilidhs. "As you know, gentlemen, there are two forms of Highland dancing. There is Highland dancing as it is performed when ladies are among those present; and there is Highland dancing."
What about all those Western American dances? Square dances and that kind of thing. Don't people (even Protestant people) do those at weddings? Or am I catastrophically out of date again?
People don't do the Hokey Pokey these days. The internet has destroyed white culture.
19.2: I believe there is something called The Electric Slide.
20: I suspect everyone has already seen those explanations of how square dancing became part of the U.S. educational curriculum due to the efforts of Henry Ford, who was concerned about the toxic influence of dancing to jazz music on the youth of America.
All this brings me to my highly offensive theory/joke about the failure of white people to dance -- the white people of the US have suffered traumatic injury due to the constant ridicule from black people about their alleged lack of rhythm.
People don't do the Hokey Pokey these days. The internet has destroyed white culture.
Kraftwerk are here to save your ancestral folkways. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwaxWoJPUC0
22.last: My hometown didn't have black people. I learned I had no rhythm from pissed off music teachers.
19.2: I believe there is something called The Electric Slide.
This has definitely been replaced by The Cupid Shuffle, which I've always found equal parts charming and hilarious.
In fact, I'm pretty sure somewhere in TFA, I posted about it when the song was new.
I found it!
I'm even more excited about how I located it. I asked myself, "What would I title a post about the Cupid Shuffle?" and the answer was obviously the breathless chant at the beginning, where the guy goes "The cupid. The shuffle. The cupid. The shuffle." And that's exactly what I used, 14 years ago!! Thank you, thank you very much.
White American's dance is yelling "bah bah bah" during Sweet Caroline.
Also it's funny-weird to read my description from back when Heebie U was mostly white.
Real white people are from South Detroit.
as per 19.last
In Scotland, growing up, we had to learn how to do all of the standard ceilidh dances. Ever year, at Christmas, our PE lessons were spent awkwardly dancing in the gym hall, learning the Gay Gordons, and the Dashing White Sergeant, etc.
https://www.rscds.org/get-involved/ceilidh-dancing/popular-ceilidh-dances
At one time, I could do all of the ones on that list, I think. Although done properly they leave a lot more bruises than the genteel versions in their videos.
I have been to one wedding where they had some ceilidh dances, but it's more of a separate activity. Before it closed, The Riverside Club in Glasgow used to have some proper ceilidhs, that were well attended by drunk 20-somethings, rather than old people.
https://www.theskinny.co.uk/clubs/interviews/the-riverside-club-r-i-p
(also used to have really good non-Ceilidh nights)
So, the thing is Neil Diamond is objectively great.
25: I'm not sure when I first learned that other people don't think I have rhythm. My wife rarely passes up an opportunity to inform me of this, but it seems like I heard this long before I met her. In any case, I vehemently disagree - I have tremendous rhythm, it's just that I dance to the beat of a different drummer.
35: I hope you all could tell that was me.
More groups should do that dance where they carry the couple around the wedding reception on chairs. I saw that at a Quaker wedding.
People learning Ceilidh dances reminds me of the S2E6 of Lovesick, a wildly under appreciated and delightful show. That episode is maybe not objectively one of the best, but it is one of my favorites. If you like a rom-dramedy I highly recommend that show. I think I've watched the whole thing three times now?
34: As explained in Crazy Ex-Girfriends single dirtiest song, "I give good parent."
Dad tells jokes, I squeal in amusement
"I agree that Neil Diamond is real music"
Gonna suck up and kiss ass
'Til I have 'em eatin' out this hand like they're eatin' this ass
Praise the hardwood, compliment the china
Give them hard wood and a drenched vagina
Help clear the table like I drain a scrotum
In one week, I'ma thank you note 'em
37: I associate that with Jewish weddings. My sister warned everyone she would kill them if they tried to do that to her at her wedding. I guess she has a fear of heights.
My wife rarely passes up an opportunity to inform me of this, but it seems like I heard this long before I met her.
My version of this is people telling me that it takes forever for me to put on my shoes when it's time to leave the house. First it was my parents. Then it was middle and high school friends, if we were hanging out at someone's house and then leaving to go somewhere, or if someone was picking me up to go somewhere. And friends at summer camp. I used to get so mad that it seemed like these independent groups were conspiring together. By the time my college friends started making fun of me for it, it dawned on me that I was the common denominator.
I'm a little better at it now.
40: The people who did the lifting were Jewish. I thought Quakers always invited Jewish people to weddings so they could lift them up. But I'm working from a very small sample.
43: I should amend that. The people who started the lifting were Jewish. Other people joined in and frankly didn't do as good of a job at keeping the chair flat.
The weddings happen on Sundays. The Jews are called "wedding joys."
That was supposed to be "Sabbath joys." And even then, it wasn't going to be funny, so don't you pander to me!
48: No pandering at all - "Heh" is the traditional Unfogged response/blessing on the occasion of a bad pun. Like "gesundteit" to a sneeze.
44: I did eventually figure that out, yes.
The real problem is that I'd go to my room to get my shoes, and just start doing something, like pick up a book or whatever.
The one about Fatima and Ibrahim was so moving.
They're all moving. It's a wonderful project, makes you wish for the success of the love and life of these strangers, and learn about how others live.
It reminds me if the beautiful thing about weddings where you wish everyone well, and you send your blessings onto the couple, hoping for their joy.
Or maybe we should do this more often--but weddings remind me to do it!
The one about Fatima and Ibrahim was so moving.
They're all moving. It's a wonderful project, makes you wish for the success of the love and life of these strangers, and learn about how others live.
It reminds me if the beautiful thing about weddings where you wish everyone well, and you send your blessings onto the couple, hoping for their joy.
Or maybe we should do this more often--but weddings remind me to do it!
The one about Fatima and Ibrahim was so moving.
They're all moving. It's a wonderful project, makes you wish for the success of the love and life of these strangers, and learn about how others live.
It reminds me if the beautiful thing about weddings where you wish everyone well, and you send your blessings onto the couple, hoping for their joy.
Or maybe we should do this more often--but weddings remind me to do it!
What sucks about Jewish wedding chair dance is getting stuck holding up the groom's chair. Fast moving guys all rush to the bride's chair, partly because you can hope for a scent of perfume and a glimpse of lots of petticoats, but mainly because the bride typically weighs much less than the groom. So ten guys are manfully circling the dance floor with a 100 pound bride, and three or four slow movers are expected to keep up carrying four times the weight per person. Presumably it sucks for everyone when two dudes are getting married.
Presumably it sucks for everyone when two dudes are getting married.
I'll let someone else take the gay sex joke.
55-57: Oscar the Grouch is a good pseud!
Presumably it sucks for everyone when two dudes are getting married.
Wouldn't that be far less likely to happen based on the pattern you describe? No rush to one over the other, so each groom gets 6-7 lifters in that scenario, on average. Unless one is both the lighter and the handsomer, perhaps.
I'm attending a former student's wedding on NYE, and need to seriously brush up on my line-dancing skills before then (plus, buy a formal gown). I barely know how to do The Wobble, as it became a thing only after all of my friends got married.
As far as line dances go, country line dancing was fairly popular among certain crowds when I was in high school, and I think my favorite two were "Wild, Wild West," https://youtu.be/8w0TG_hMM90 and "Slappin' Leather," https://youtu.be/ZufnWkcAPJo. I am, admittedly, pretty basic.