Saturday, February 11, 2023

First Paragraph

This book has had a long gestation. It started with the fox-trot. The fox-trot has no raison d'ĂȘtre. There is no reason to dance at all except one - pleasure - and the greatest pleasure is calculated uselessness. One evening several years ago I stood on the sidelines at Manhattan's Lincoln Center, watching the dancers at the three-week event called A Midsummer Night Swing. They were smiling; they were having fun. I took one look and realized that dancing can make you happy. This is a book about happiness, about the pleasurable things you can do to promote it and to increase a sense of general well-being, of what is called sanguinity.

- From Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness by Willard Spiegelman

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