Don't stop 'til you get enough

June 9, 2014 4:09 PM

Neil deGrasse Tyson likes to dance.
posted by hal_c_on (19 comments total)

IS THERE NOTHING THIS MAN CAN'T DO other than change the minds of Climate Deniers
posted by gwint at 4:12 PM on June 9, 2014 [26 favorites]

LIKE
posted by stenseng at 4:25 PM on June 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

There is nothing this man can't do. OF COURSE he dances! He was, after all, an accomplished Latin ballroom dancer at the University of Texas.

From his "Fresh Air" interview:

TYSON: I entered graduate school, but didn't finish graduate school at the University of Texas at Austin. And I was athletic, you know, as society had expected of me, and so I was pretty limber and flexible from having wrestled. And I've always liked the art of dance, and so I was a member of two or three performing dance companies. College troops, they were. One of them was a dance team that was engaged in competitive international Latin ballroom. And I was on a dance team of eight couples, and we would perform. And we were national champion in one year. So that was fun.

DAVIES: Is it true that you, at one point, thought about making some money by becoming an exotic male dancer?

TYSON: Well...

(LAUGHTER)

TYSON: In graduate school - you're broke in graduate school, basically. And I was flexible from having danced, and I was pretty cut from having wrestled, and I also rowed. And so, on the dance team, there were some fellow male dancers who told me about this club where - it's this ladies club, right, but there's male dancers. And they said they danced, do the moves we do, just in the normal training and for our dance performances. It's in the range of what the flexibility would be for anything else we'd be doing. They invited me, because I needed more money, I was broke. So I went...

(LAUGHTER)

TYSON: ...just to observe it, right. Say, is this is something I could do? Just - and there they came out with jockstraps having been soaked in lighter fluid, asbestos jockstraps ignited, coming out dancing to Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire." I said no - not - no. That's not for me.

(LAUGHTER)

TYSON: And I'm embarrassed to say that it was not until that moment when I said to myself: Maybe I should be a math tutor.

posted by MonkeyToes at 4:26 PM on June 9, 2014 [57 favorites]

This was by far the best thirty seconds of my day.
posted by MeghanC at 4:39 PM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Lighter fluid soaked asbestos jock straps? Holy hell...
posted by ZaneJ. at 4:43 PM on June 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Is he wearing socks!?
posted by microcarpetus at 4:46 PM on June 9, 2014

I got a huge laugh out of his tweet yesterday.
posted by George_Spiggott at 4:49 PM on June 9, 2014 [11 favorites]

It makes me sad he wasn't at the Hayden Planetarium when I was a kid. The guy we got was boring.
posted by lordrunningclam at 5:10 PM on June 9, 2014

USA, baby.
posted by four panels at 5:15 PM on June 9, 2014

This is an especially appropriate song, as I've always maintained that no matter what anyone says, the actual lyrics are 'Keep on with the post-doc/Don't stop til you get enough.' Now I can imagine a young Neil deGrasse Tyson dancing his way through his post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton.

He didn't stop. He hasn't had enough.
posted by bookish at 5:31 PM on June 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

He's a national treasure is what he is.
posted by rtha at 5:36 PM on June 9, 2014 [8 favorites]

I would dance with this fella!

Neil, my dance card isn't full....
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 6:57 PM on June 9, 2014

IN YOUR FACE, SAGAN!
posted by mazola at 7:59 PM on June 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

I wish I could dance like that.
posted by Sleeper at 9:19 PM on June 9, 2014

Having scored a ticket in the front row for his upcoming Whitman College appearance, at a rather exorbitant price, I tweeted "there'd better be dancing". Never thought it might be a thing that could actually happen.

Please please please
posted by wallabear at 10:54 PM on June 9, 2014

Unavailable for comment.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 4:48 AM on June 10, 2014

All we need now is a dance-off between him and Bill Nye.
posted by BungaDunga at 6:49 AM on June 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

We need Peter Dinkladge to bring his LED hulahoop TO that party and they both need to get down.
posted by stormpooper at 8:40 AM on June 10, 2014

Sometimes I like to pretend that the afterparty is just an astrophysicist dance party between Neil Degrasse Tyson and Brian Cox, and if you get tired, you can go over to the bar, get a drink, and Bill Nye will tell you stories.
posted by WidgetAlley at 10:33 AM on June 10, 2014