THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 6, 1997 TAG: 9702060359
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 52 lines
Here we go with me in a minority of one again, at odds with the entire nation that is on its ear raving about a video of performers engaged in a musical number called River Dance.
Or maybe it is Riverdance - probably is, seeing how the dancers clot the screen.
Anyway, it is as monotonous a piece of entertainment as ever crossed my horizon.
In a commercial that appears on TV every time you turn around, there are 80 of them, upper bodies absolutely still, faces nonchalant while their feet churn, blurring in a fast-paced staccato beat as a voice-over proclaims: ``Feel the pulsating rhythm as 80 performers ignite your passion!''
The frenetic, mechanic spectacle doesn't ignite my passion. It ignites my annoyance as I lunge to turn off the TV.
``Don't miss your chance to get Riverdance,'' the voice insists.
In long lines, the dancers fill the screen in a kind of blend of tap and clog dancing.
The clamorous jackhammer sound pounds the ear as if 80 typewriters are clacking away, all of them in unison, going 60 words a minute proclaiming: ``Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.''
Listen, you put 80 of anything in a line - zebras, Canada geese, the Radio City Rockettes - and it is eye-catching - for a few seconds.
It looks to be a simple basic step, but not so easy, I admit, that it is within the reach of one who can't walk down the street without weaving and lurching against one's companion.
When several of us start out to lunch, there is always an eddy in our progress as various parties argue: ``You walk with Friddell a while,'' and another objects: ``No, I walked beside him last time. It's your turn.''
You'd think they were in the company of an ill-thrown bowling ball.
About now you are objecting that it is unfair to criticize a work by a few seconds of a commercial.
That was exactly the cry that arose in the mid-1960s at my revulsion at the sight of Julie Andrews, cinder-block jaw set, holding hands with a dozen little chil'ren running across the hills trilling ``Doe, a deer, a female deer!''
That bit alone persuaded me that ``The Sound of Music'' was to be avoided. My edict as an instant critic excited readers, who had seen the saccharine movie upward of 90 times, to try to drag me into its treacle. They bombarded Letters to the Editor.
So I'm out of step once more, and with many fine individuals, including admirable, perceptive young colleagues in this newsroom, who just happen, this time, to be part of a mass delusion.
Can't help it. I'll sit this dance out.