TV Quote of the Day (‘The Simpsons,’ In Which a Dance Teacher Assesses Marge)

Ballet teacher Chazz Busby [voice of Hank Azaria] [to student Marge Simpson]: “I haven’t seen dancing like that since my Broadway show Dancing Like That. Closed in a week. Too smart for the corndog crowd, too dumb for the bagel bunch.” —The Simpsons, Episode 19, Episode 15, “Smoke on the Daughter,” original air date Mar. 30, 2008, teleplay by Billy Kimball, directed by Lance Kramer

Photo of the Day: 9 O’Clock Jump, Times Square, NYC

Okay, it was more like the 9:30 jump, given the Slowpoke Sam pace of my bus through the morning traffic from New Jersey into the Lincoln Tunnel on my way to work. But in terms of a headline, we’re allowed some poetic license, right?

Anyway, these young guys were collecting a crowd in Times Square, quite distinct from the one or two persons each normally gathered, in what in recent years has become a pedestrian plaza, around the Disney or sci-fi characters, to say nothing of The Naked Cowboy, The Naked Black Cowboy, The Naked Cowgirl, The Bodypaint Girls, or The Bikini Girls With Guitars They Can't Play To Save Their Lives.

A crowd of photographers—professionals and others, like me, who were amateurs—stood in front of these dancing (clothed) young men. I’m not sure what the point of what they were doing was—one young woman offered, uncertainly, that they might be promoting one of the nearby Broadway shows in which they were appearing. I was partial to the idea that some rocker might have been employing them in a new video that covers Van Halen’s “Jump.”

In any case, it’s always nice to see someone ready to leap joyfully forward, especially at such an ungodly work hour.

Movie Quote of the Day (Comic Kevin Hart, on What You Can and Can’t Hide)

“You can hide a fat ass in baggy pants, but you cannot hide a bad dancer!” —Jimmy (played by Kevin Hart) in The Wedding Ringer (2015), screenplay by Jeremy Garelick and Jay Lavender, directed by Jeremy Garelick

Quote of the Day (Dorothy Parker, on What To Say When a Man Asks for a Dance)

“What can you say, when a man asks you to dance with him? I most certainly will not dance with you, I’ll see you in hell first. Why, thank you, I’d love to awfully, but I’m having labor pains. Oh, yes, do let’s dance together – it’s so nice to meet a man who isn’t a scaredy-cat about catching my beri-beri … I’d love to waltz with you. I’d love to waltz with you. I’d love to have my tonsils out. I’d love to be in a midnight fire at sea.” —Dorothy Parker, “The Waltz,” from The Portable Dorothy Parker (1944)