Persons attempting to find a "text" in this [story] will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a "subtext" in it will be banished; persons attempting to explain, interpret, explicate, analyze, deconstruct, or otherwise "understand" it will be exiled to a desert island in the company only of other explainers.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR - Wendell Berry's introduction to Jayber Crow.
This article was posted to Jayber on 17 April 2006 by to the following categories: Feature, Stories.
An audio version of this article is also available.
In the Spring of 1994, Ryan (Sloot Dog) Van Slooten, Chad (Carrot Top) Schueller, and Mark (Sparkles) Benson founded the Hyper-Color Dance Squad (HCDS.) Heavily influenced by the provocative MC Hammer, the HCDS was most known for their matching outfits consisting of neon-yellow silky shorts, tight black shirts, dark shades, and Saucony sneakers.
The HCDS specialized in synchronized breakdancing, to the tune of U Can't Touch This (MC Hammer), My Prerogative (Bobby Brown), and Jump (Kris Kross.) Long and sweaty summer afternoons were spent practicing in the garage between a drill press and a table saw, perfecting the 6-step, Back Spin, and variations on the Suicide.
The demise of the HCDS came quickly in the Fall of 1994, after having performed for zero (0) people. The outfits were hung in the closet, the small space in the garage began to close up with things stored for winter, and the HCDS founding members entered the 9th grade.
What, no pictures?
Mysteriously, they all burned up.
I’m gonna ask God for a look at the replay, when I get to heaven.
I can’t believe you wrote about that … unfortunately I was around during this exciting time and still have residual memories of the hardly provacative moves that have recently been eluded to as “dancing”. God help us all.