XV
Are Turkey-Waltzing a Dance or a
Convulsion?
To Editor N. Y. Newsprint, who must have many subscribers because he know that where there is Life there is Blood and where there is Blood there is Circulation (free joke)
Dear Mr.:—The Japanese Patriotic and Educational Suicide Club, of which I are correspondent Secretary last night give a waltzing cotillion and lemonade (25c for extra ladies who drunk it) at Rising Sun Banzai Association Hall. Considerable fashion of yellow complexion was there with Sadikichi’s Brass Orchestra to play it whenever we danced it. Excitements.
Considerable Japanese schoolgirls was fetched there by that nationality and I was deliciously shocked to see how American they looked. They wore crippled skirts of considerable thinness and their shoulder blades seemed absolutely destitute. I fetch Miss Ruby Fujimuto, Japanese lady of aggrevated beauty, with me for escort. When she removed off her opera-house cloak, I look at her with my expression all braided up.
“Ladies should be praised for their economy,” I corrode while observing the cloth that was not there.
She curbed up with bridle expression.
“You no like the way my neck is cut?” she snagger, showing peevness by her soprano.
“Your neck is not cut,” I narrate. “I know because I can see it all.”
She seem less engaged to me than formerly and eloped away to make dance-step with J. Haro, Japanese photographer.
Hon. Sadakichi’s Brass Orchestra make music resembling roof gardens.
At that moment of time I could observe how everybody was dancing. They seemed to be jouncing in couples, making crowd-up walk with occasional slouchy-slouchy motion while their eyes said “How-do!” with Romeo expression peculiar to Shakespeare.
“It are nice for youngly persons to be affectionate,” I commute. “But when will dancing begin?”
“They are now Turkey-waltzing,” depose Arthur Kickahajama, missionary boy, with Tuxedo eyebrows.
My cousin Nogi, who arrive there with Miss Alice Sago (divorced) approach to me and wish I should Turkey-waltz with her because he was lame from when she kicked him. I told him I was a Methodist heathen, therefore my feet was too religious to dance.
“Turk-waltzing are denatured dancing,” arrange Miss Sago with alimony smiles. “Come, Mr. Togo, I show you how do it!” So I went and stroggled.
Mr. Editor, while I made gymnastix with that charmed lady, I wished send you several editorials. What are this Turkey-Waltz, I ask to know? Were it invented by Turks at Adrianople while wrastling with the Vulgarian army? Did Turkish soldiers think up that peculiarostous step while rolling barrels of powder at Greece? Why should persons blame Turks with this style of trotting if they never did it? Mohammedans has got sifficient bad habits of their own without accusing them of some more!
This Miss Sago shove me here & elsewhere with neglectful expression peculiar to roustabouts. When music play “All Persons Are Doing Something” she attemp to dissociate my spine by wig-wagging my elbows.
“Make your ankles more diagonal!” she declare with sweety schoolteacher face. I wish to ask her marry me, but wondered what might happen if I did. I make slight jiu jitsu to her wrist, but she got more stronger grippe while I jounce alternately like tables in earthquakes.
“My feet are filled with clumsies,” I narrate baffably.
“That are very valuable in Turk-trotting,” she say for sweetly smiling.
“So is?” I holla. “I always sipposed folks must be graceful to make dance step.”
“They ust to, but no more,” she expose. “All fashionable 400s today when dancing considers it great elegance to appear like drunken sailors wrestling with bears.”
I should have responded to her educational catalogue, but she was showing me new jag-step where I could elevate my knees to music while being choked.
“I will nextly show you how do the Jellyfish Crawl,” she pronounce with Tipsichore expression.
“If I learned any more dances I should become a Geisha, which are less proper,” I renig shyly while eloping away from her armful with talented dodges.
When I was hiding behind palum trees where she could not see me I watched considerable turkey-trottery, bunny-huggery, etc., with eyes full of science. Dignified home-made Japanese was making roof-garden loops with their legs in such a way their wife & children would feel siprised. Arthur Kickahajama, missionary boy, were doing sidewise catch-and-let-go dance with Miss Mamie Furaoki. After that actions I could not see how he ever could look a Y. M. C. A. in the face again. First they glid together with expression of happy crabs, then they made a twillup, two cross-legs & 3 bounces. This was followed by clutches.
“They are dancing Tango,” pronounce Sydney Katsu, Jr., who was floorwalking like a committee.
“What slum teaches persons dance like that?” I abject doggishly.
“Sometimes Bowery, sometimes Fifth Avenue,” he report for tone of high-social.
“Do Fifth Avenue permit the Bowery to teach them depravity?” I require.
“Ah no!” ollicute Sydney. “Fifth Avenue are teaching the Bowery. Vices are like other kinds of furniture. Rich folks uses them first and only pass them on to poor folks when they are second hand. Thusly the slums are seldom safe.”
“After Tango is finished what new dance will explode in the Smarty Set?” are next question for me.
“Not sure,” Sydney say so with Harry Leer eyebrows. “Last week I hear how some high-style Newporters had gone to Africa for try dancing with some cannibles what knew some deliciously low down steps. But after the first dance they had to quit because they was ashamed.”
“Who was ashamed—the Newporters?”
“No, the cannibles,” notate Sydney Katsu, Jr., looking like he was prepared to be raided by police.
Hoping you are the same,
Yours truly,
Hashimura Togo.