3/29
aimee nezhukumatahil
on
los del rio, "macarena”
(march fadness, 90s)
For 2025’s March Second Chanceness, each day in march we are bringing back an essay that previously lost in the first round of previous March Xness tournaments for your consideration.
March Xness is a fun tournament, but also at times a cruel one! Each year 32 essays and essayists lose in the first round (and 63 of 64 will bow out before a winner is crowned). Because of the pace of the first round, many of our readers probably don’t get a chance to closely read all of the essays each year! So for 2025 we wanted to dig some of these out of the archive and give them another read, this time on their own, no competitor. Just a moment of attention and even of glory. The Official March Second Chanceness Selection Committee picked these based on reader nominations as particularly worthy of getting a second look. There are many brilliant essays that lose each year. Which are your favorites? This year we’re not voting: we’re only reading and celebrating and remembering. The tournament proper will come back in 2026 with March Sadness (lottery entry link in the menu above). We hope these great essays will again earn your love. Signed, the Official March Second Chanceness Selection Committee
Upon reflecting on “Macarena” Eight Years Later, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Realizing that when I was grumbling about music from 1966 at my wedding in 2005, it would be like me complaining in 2025 about music from 1986, and, as a gal who unapologetically loves the 80s in music, fashion, movies, and basically any example of pop culture—well, that makes me want to take two aspirin.
I’m not gonna say that I should have won March Fadness, but seriously—did any of you actually DO the Macarena, using my essay as a guide? I mean, did it not fix your life?! If not, please get up and dance for the love of all that is holy.
Dustin’s beloved grandparents from Kansas who were one of the leading dancers on the floor that night have passed on from this world but I know are still dancing in the stars. I think I felt them earlier this year when Dustin and I were in Death Valley National Park, which is actually an official Dark Sky park too. And I think I could see their outlines in the stars, to the right of the Milky Way blur, just beyond Pleiades and Betelgeuse.
This essay morphed into my chapter, ‘Superb Bird of Paradise’ in my nature essay collection, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments. It has now been translated for seven different countries and knowing that none of those translators needed me to explain the Macarena at all makes me cackle and cackle into the Mississippi night air, which is full of singing peepers, or as I prefer to call them—pinkletinks—as I type.
Dustin and I will be celebrating TWENTY years this May since we watched our families do the Macarena for the first (and only) time together.
aimee nezhukumatathil on "macarena"
Just on the cusp of berry season, the town square of my sleepy little village in western New York burbled over with a small sea of saris on the day of my wedding in 2005. Reds, violets, liquid onyx—every color really, but mostly various shades of teals and turquoise, the colors of the wedding.
Arms: The first step starts with your arms. You should know exactly how the song goes and how exactly are you going to use your arms in order to complete the Macarena dance. It starts with your right arm. You stretch it forward, and then you do the same with your left arm so that they are both stretched out right in front of you. Once you are done with stretching both your arms, now is your time to flip your palms up straight. First flip your right palm and then the left palm; the position of the hands is going to be the same as if you are trying to push something with them.
We made the front page of the paper. Our small town had never seen that many saris and Barong Tagalogs (men’s formalwear of the Philippines) all gathered together before or since that day.
A Barong Tagalog is usually made of piña fabric, hand-loomed from pineapple leaf fibers. Someone gave us one as a wedding present, sized for a tween. But what if we don’t have a son? I sighed to my husband as we opened gifts. What if we don’t even have a child?
Fast forward 12 years later: we have two young sons, still too little to fit the single Barong Tagalog tucked away in my husband’s bottom dresser drawer.
Shoulders: After you are done with the arm gestures, now is the time for you to move to your shoulders. You first move your right hand and put it on your left shoulder. During this time your left hand remains straight with its palm flipped up. Now, you need to repeat the step with the left hand, but you put it on your right shoulder. So now your arms are basically making an X; as if you have hugged the air.
Bridalguide.com says “Macarena” is #10 on the Top Ten Songs That Belong on Your ‘Do Not Play’ at Your Wedding Reception List. Other songs include: “YMCA,” and “I Touch Myself.”
We had only three songs on the ‘Do Not Play’ list for our wedding DJ: “Strokin’,” “The Chicken Dance,” and “Macarena.”
We exited the church as husband and wife to a rain of coral rose petals. Our relatives from Kansas, Philippines, India, California, Florida, and Colorado were already clapping and laughing together like old friends even though most had only met the day before at our rehearsal.
It had rained during the ceremony, and, as if on cue, a rainbow arched wide across the sky as we spilled out from the church. Several strangers walking by had stopped and gathered and joined in—taking pictures of our wedding party, various aunties’ saris, the rainbow, and various aunties’ saris below the giant rainbow. If I didn’t see it all myself and have photographic proof, I’d think I was lying about all the color that afternoon.
Hip: Once you are done with putting your hands on both your shoulders, move to your hip. First use your right hand and put it on the right-side of your waist. During this time, your left hand is still touching your right shoulder. Now, move your left hand on the left-side of your waist. Now you are standing with both your hands on your waist.
When we were on the party bus on the way to our reception with the rest of our wedding party, my husband received a text from our DJ saying he came down with a case of the shingles, but don’t worry, he’s sending a great replacement and will knock $100 off our bill.
For months before the wedding, I was so nervous about my stoic relatives from childhood mixing and mingling with my husband’s decidedly not-stoic relatives. When the first dance song played, 90% of the reception took to the floor to dance, so of course we were thrilled. But mostly, people danced in small circles of who they were originally seated with.
The replacement DJ’s first wedding reception he’d ever worked was our reception.
He claimed he had none of our songs we had meticulously requested months in advance: not the father/daughter dance, not my first song with my husband, and of course he didn’t have our two lists: Must Play These Songs and Do Not Play These Songs.
In 1996, I was a senior in college and “Macarena” stayed in the Billboard Top 100 for sixty weeks. No other song would top it until Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” came along fifteen years later.
“Macarena” was the song that set off a world record for The Most People Gathered to Dance in One Location: fifty-thousand people did the infamous dance at Yankee Stadium.
Because the replacement DJ’s collection of music ranged from approximately 1966-1996, my friends frantically ran out to their cars to find any CDs they had to help ‘supplement’ his offerings with anything from the last decade.
The dance floor soon cleared after four or five songs. People were still smiling, drinking, chatting. But no one was dancing. Frantic, I scream- whispered to my new husband, “Tell him to play ANY upbeat song!”
I recognized those rhumba notes at once.
But something extraordinary happened: not only did everyone take to the floor when the replacement DJ played “Macarena,” but because of the interactive nature of the dance, everyone was dancing with each other. My husband’s cousin from western KS was facing my second uncle from India with outstretched hands. A distant cousin was shaking her hips wrapped in a pink sari at one of my best friends from grad school. My husband’s grandparents popped their hands behind their head alongside the co-founders of Kundiman. How did everyone know this dance?!
The video of “Macarena” from 1996 is a riot of color: the featured dancers wore turquoise hot pants, orange headscarves, a pouf of lavender hair, bare midriffs galore, chunky platform shoes. Skin color was a rainbow among the dancers too—I think it was the first time I had seen an Indian woman in braids and a bindi on MTV. There was a Nordic platinum blond, an East Asian with a crown of spiky hair-knots, a gorgeous lead dancer with blond locs. The lead singers, Antonio Romero Monge and Rafael Ruíz,. each wore a dapper black suit— one wore a silver tie, one wore a copper tie. Each looked as if they were going to a wedding themselves as soon as they were done shooting the video.
Just how did so many of my friends and relatives aged 12-65 know these lyrics enough to sing them out loud:
Now don't you worry about my boyfriend
The boy whose name is Nicorino
I don't want him, couldn't stand him…
Now come on, what was I supposed to do?
He was out of town and his two friends were sooo fine…Clap: You are almost there, and only the easiest step is left. Once you are done with putting your hands on your waist, now you should time yourself perfectly. Use the clap when the singer says ‘Hey, Macarena!’ Right when you clap during the time, you have to turn left so that you can continue with the same steps all over again. And again.
I know it’s the worst ear worm. I know the video is obnoxious with glee. I know this song is now banned from most weddings. But didn’t your foot tap just a bit when you first heard the song? Wasn’t the rhythm just sexy enough to make you crack a slow smile when you first heard those notes? Even just a teeny-tiny bit? I’m so glad there was never another big follow up for this duo—how could there be, really—And just know that for one evening, at the beginning of a summer filled with new love and joy, a cacophony of color and laughter and dancing signaled the start of a bright love story, unexpectedly born and grown from the wheat fields of Kansas and the tropical shores of India and the Philippines. And I’m betting in a few months this couple’s eldest son (who loves to dance and has been taking dance lessons since he was three) will soon be lanky enough to fit his very own Barong Tagalog when he needs to dress up, here in northern Mississippi. With so many of us dancing in our own separate circles again—if we are even dancing at all—isn’t that a kind of wild and wondrous joy?
Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s fourth book of poetry, Oceanic, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon, and her nature essay collection, World of Wonder, is forthcoming from Milkweed, both in 2018. She is poetry editor of Orion and is the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi's MFA program. twitter: @aimeenez