Chapter 17 of 17 · 4'40"
Wallace and Lipsky are playing with his dogs and talking about nothing much. Then a phone call: he's going to meet someone at a dance — at a Baptist church, no less. "Baptists can dance," he says, dodging the real reason. It's all warmth and deflection.
❝ Monologue · 14 lines Wallace Draws the Line at Vogue
Lipsky is staying with Wallace at his home in Bloomington. Between playing with Jeeves and Drone and eating fries, Wallace takes a phone call and arranges to meet someone at a dance later. He tells Lipsky he's gotten into seventies disco dancing at a local Baptist church.
The scene looks like downtime, but it's Wallace managing an interview without ever seeming to. He's relaxed enough to joke about his dogs, yet he keeps steering: when the question turns to why a Baptist church, he answers "Baptists can dance" and moves on — a real answer and a door closing at once. There's a small line staked out, too: "That is where I put my foot down. I do not vogue." He'll offer up his odd, sincere hobby — cheesy '70s disco, in a town he calls a "time warp" — but he sets a limit on how he'll be seen. And when he says the dogs have "never taken to a man the way they've taken to you," it lands as both warmth and a quiet admission that this closeness is rare.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“They've never taken to a man the way they've taken to you.”
Praising a man through his dogs' affection is warmer than saying it straight.
Neutral
“It's like a time warp. You're completely hip if you do that.”
He turns a small-town throwback into time travel, where corny becomes cool.
Informal
“I'll start carving an ice sculpture out of my car.”
An exaggerated joke about the cold eases the goodbye without saying it.
Informal
“That is where I put my foot down. I do not vogue.”
The mock-serious line about refusing to vogue makes the character instantly lovable.
Informal
I tend to do, like, the jerk, the swim. You know, like, cheesy '70s disco. Really? Yeah. It's one of the things about living in Bloomington. It's like a time warp. You're completely hip if you do that. Yeah, right. So, where do you go? To a club? I go to this Baptist church. Why... Why do you go there? Baptists can dance. Wow. Dancing. I will not vogue. That is where I put my foot down. I do not vogue. Yeah. It's really cool though. Like a lot of people show up. And they got their dancin' shoes on. It's good. It's nice. Everyone for the most part just leaves each other alone.
He tells Lipsky it's simply because "Baptists can dance," and that it's a low-key, friendly scene where people mostly leave each other alone. The line dodges the real question, but his fondness for the place seems genuine.
Vogue. He jokes that cheesy '70s moves are fine, but "That is where I put my foot down. I do not vogue." It's a small line that shows where he draws his limits.
The film doesn't name the person on the phone. He only says he has the "Rolling Stone guy" with him and arranges to meet the caller later, keeping the two parts of his life apart.
He jokes that talking to his dogs could make him look like one of those "insane old women who talks to their dogs." The worry is real: he's letting a reporter into his private life and knows how easily it can be made to look strange.
