Ira Gershwin was prescient when he wrote these lyrics for the 1937 film, Shall We Dance. His brother George supplied the music and Fred Astaire and Dudley Dickerson (I thought you’d need help with Dudley) did the rest.
Slap that bass
Slap it till it’s dizzy
Slap that bass
Keep the rhythm busy
Zoom zoom zoom
Misery, you’ve got to go.
His lyrics have a resonance today beyond the timbre of a double bass. If I may digress, I took a young goddaughter to see Crazy for You in the West End. It ran for ages because it is the best of the best of Gershwin.
After the show, we were in the front row, she chatted to members of the orchestra and then it was time to leave. She was disconcerted. “Aren’t we going back stage to meet the cast.” Hitherto she had only been to the theatre with Julian Slade of Salad Days fame, her uncle. We sat in the front row because my aunt had poor eyesight and my uncle poor hearing.
I remember when it was all the rage to invest in video conferencing but like investing in railways in the 19th century, it was easy to lose money. I thought it would be the same for Zoom. Barriers to entry are low and I, incorrectly, thought others would out-zoom Zoom. Earlier this evening I attended a Zoom meeting with 117 participants. I was in scruff-order so shut off my picture but most of the others were visible, one in a dinner jacket, others well-attired, and a few at least as scruffy as me. Speakers could put documents for everyone to read, we could vote on resolutions and I could look at the other attenders. I was in a minority wearing ear-phones, as R and Bertie didn’t want to be distracted; almost everyone else had a study or similar that was private. As it was quite a long meeting I started playing Zoom Pelmanism, trying to match the pictures to the names. For what it’s worth, I think Zoom will be used after the pandemic.