Update, Sunday morning 3/3/2024 New York City: “Weapon of Choice” vs “Intuition” voting is now closed. Fatboy Slim has been declared the winner, and will advance to the next round.

Hi — I am here to ask you for some friendly help (a click and a vote). Will you please vote for my essay on Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”?!  If you have a chance, please click on over, and cast your vote for Fatboy. You can also read my long-form essay on the song and video, where I do a deep dive on Spike Jonze, Norman Cook, Bootsy Collins, and of course Christopher Walken. Please feel free to share.

Voting takes place here: (voting has ended 3/3/2024)

Voting begins 9AM in Arizona and lasts for 24 hours.

Please vote for Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice”

Anne

About this voting tournament:
March Danceness 00s Edition is the 2024 edition of a series of basketball-style tournaments of music, culture, and memory. It’s a competitive literary/music tournament that runs each March. It’s sports for people who don’t get sports. It’s writing about music done like gods.

Each year has its own theme and (typically) decade. The 2024 edition is March Danceness, 00s Edition, a tournament of dance songs from the 2000s (2000-2009).

Each year the Official March Xness Selection Committee makes a longlist of essential songs that we think represent the heart of what we’re trying to get at. 64 writers are selected by lottery to choose a song from the longlist (or another one they prefer, as long as it satisfies the inclusion criteria), and they write an essay about the song in whatever way they like.

In March, the tournament pits one song/essay combo against one song/essay combo each game, decided by 24 hours of voting. The winner advances. The loser goes home. We continue until there is only one standing: THE CHAMPION.

I encourage you to read and enjoy the essays — it’s an opportunity for people who love to write to flex a little and have some fun. The outcome of today’s vote will hopefully put “Weapon of Choice” into the next round.

RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH

I started thinking about this essay last fall, and kicked off thinking about it in earnest by going to see a Broadway show, one that Fatboy Slim provided the music for. It’s a David Byrne item, a play called Here Lies Love, about Imelda Marcos and her penchant for dancing. The stage featured multiple platforms, moving stages (airport-style workers used lights to guide standing room patrons out of the way of the moving stages), and an outstanding DJ set masterminded by Norman Cook. Here’s me and my son Ed out front, and then some video from the Cook compositions. Cool show, and a nice collaboration between Byrne and Cook.

About this writing assignment

When my number was pulled in the lottery, I was thrilled to select “Weapon of Choice” as the subject of my contest entry. I hadn’t given this video and song such undivided attention before, but it has been a constant meditation for me as a teacher. I use it in lessons at least once a year in at least 4 classes. That’s a lot of time thinking about it, and getting to hear what my students think about it.

This essay also gave me time and a reason to think about all of its parts: who is Norman Cook, what is electronica, how do these songs collage together? What about those Dune lyrics, the voice, the legend that is Bootsy Collins? Then there’s the cinematic rabbithole and biography of Spike Jonze — he is a study in creative success and friendship worthy of consideration. Then there is the star of the video, the one the camera loves so much, Christopher Walken. Tied in with this are Beavis and Butthead, the Housemartins, James Brown, Mike Judge, Los Angeles, Lowes Hardware, Mickey Rooney, and a theme of the redemptive, saving power of dance.

I generally begin research and following what interests me, and there is so much of interest, so much to learn when you start thinking about top creative talent. I had spent so much time researching, that before long I had this massive portfolio of notes.

It left me sweating bullets, actually. How, as an essayist, could I possibly get my own voice in there? What do I have to offer as the storyteller for this video? At the end of the day, the video has been part of my teaching life for 22 years now. It’s been around as long as my Macintosh G4 (2001), which although its hard drive crashed irreparably, I extracted from and still use its incredibly strong drive magnets. This song and video still attract people to move, to smile, to dance.

Here I am, trying to figure out how to connect my notes, Charlie-from-Sunny style…

Here’s some quick video from the Here Lies Love production. Great fun, and def get tickets for the dancefloor!

Thank you for visiting my page, and please vote for “Weapon of Choice” in the March Danceness Tournament!

Thank you <3 for voting “Weapon of Choice”

C O N T A C T