The juke joint, the honky tonk, and the ballroom also represent one more thing, anthropologically speaking: a ceremonial context for the male-with-female-duet dance flirtation and embrace, upon which the zoological survival of the human species has always been predicated.
Arca means 'box' or 'wooden' in very old Spanish. It's a ceremonial container where you store jewelry or valuables, an empty space that can become pregnant with whatever music or meaning I give to it.
If I had remained in Lhasa, even without the Chinese occupation, I would probably have carried the ceremonial role in some orthodox way.
As PM, you have got to do everything from chairing the Cabinet to ceremonial things. You have also got to do the nitty gritty. I do get stuck into the detail.
The exercises of our meeting are to be simple and devoid of all ceremonial and formalism.
My father had retained an emotional affection for the ceremonial of his parental home, without allowing it to influence his intellectual freedom.
The Framers of the Constitution expected the presidency to be occupied by special individuals, selfless people of the highest character and ability. They intended the Electoral College to be a truly deliberative body, not the largely ceremonial institution it has become today.
I was interviewing an elder, Chief Fool's Crow, who was the ceremonial chief. He was 103 years old. I was getting his information on the history of Lakota horses. He told me the story of Hidalgo and Frank Hopkins.
Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional form and ceremonies.
Most people don't know that Congo Square was originally a Muscogee ceremonial ground... in New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz.
