" title="Notes from an Accidental Scholar"> Notes from an Accidental Scholar

I keep return­ing to this post by guest blog­ger Tim Car­mody on kot­tke.

The sound, style, and look of Janelle Monae’s video for “Tightrope” ref­er­ences a lot of clas­sic pop/art cul­ture: Out­Kast and Metrop­o­lis, cer­tainly, James Brown and Michael Jack­son, but also clas­sic R&B per­form­ers like Jackie Wil­son and avant-garde film like Maya Deren’s Meshes of the After­noon.

It also reminded me, faintly but insis­tently, of this clas­sic video of Cab Cal­loway and the Nicholas Broth­ers, from the movie Stormy Weather. (What is it with eco­nomic depres­sion and danc­ing in tuxedos?)

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