The Evil of the Thriller

If there's ever been a dance that's appropriate for all occasions then it's the Thriller dance. I've attempted to do my own variation of the infamous curled-claw crossover formation at many a house party much to the, um - delight? - of friends and fellow party-goers, but I've most certainly never done it justice like London choreographer Anthony King has taught these tube riders to:



Thriller has held a special place in my heart ever since an seven year-old me convinced my mother to buy me the making of video that was on sale in a bargain bin at Ralph's. As soon as we got home I watched it pretty much on a loop for the following week, and anyone who knows me knows that that was both the best and most horrifying semaine of my life. I had intensely vivid nightmares every night that I was trapped in the video although I'm not sure if I was playing Ola Ray's part or Michael's (is there really that much of a difference?). To this day those are still some of the most terrifying dreams I can recall which isn't all that bad considering that my sister remembers dreams from her childhood wherein Batman and Robin are being eaten by a giant ice-cream cone.

I wish things like the Thriller-Tube happened in Chicago. The closest I've experienced is one morning when I was taking the Red Line to the post office in Uptown. That morning I got a private dance from this young African-American girl who was getting her jam on to The Pussycat Dolls' Buttons. Sister had, natch, a discman and was all sorts of serene until her tune popped up, at which point she got up from her seat, grabbed both poles by the exit, and started gyrating/slinking like my very own CTA Doll.



The only way I knew the song she was listening to was because she was singing... nay, bellowing, but choo keep frontin' over and over. I got on at Addison and she got off at Wilson, so I'm pretty confident I'd gotten my money's worth. It was almost as good as the time when I saw a drug addict threaten to fight a toddler, or the time the man sitting across from me shat himself - both on the Halsted bus.

At any rate, it's refreshing to see that Londoners can appreciate a solid performance like the one above instead of complaining about the music being too loud or that they're being bumped into. This is what I've always loved about London: your city and subway can smell like a giant shitstorm, but as long as you've got some free entertainment with your morning commute, no one's complaining.