This is a GREAT site: SOUTHERN SQUARES IN THE CASCADE COUNTRY. Lots of information about figures (which could be used by MWSD callers, especially when calling party dances, but even for fun at a regular dance), information (with AUDIO EXAMPLES) about calling these types of figures, and just an overall well-designed and attractive site.

Today is Elvis’ birthday, so it’s definitely the day to break out your Elvis songs, your Elvis wigs, your Elvis Las Vegas suits. There are lots of square dancing covers of Elvis hits; here are the ones that I own:

• A Fool Such As I Blue Ribbon 255
• It’s Now Or Never Blue Ribbon 263
• Hound Dog Silver Sounds 162
• Blue Christmas Royal 310
• Stuck on You Silver Sounds 157
• Blue Suede Shoes Quadrille 913
• Blue Hawaii Square Fare 102
• Good Luck Charm Rhythm 161

Then there are the songs about Elvis or that mention Elvis; here are two:

• Black Velvet Desert Recordings
• Elvis and Andy ESP 195

Songs at the top of the charts today (that I know there are square dance versions off)

1947: The Old Lamplighter
1956: Sixteen Tons
1965: Love Potion Number Nine
1992: Love, Me

Square dance calling related to African-American call-response dance traditions? A Gift of Rhythm and Movement

Worst Songs of the 60’s – 90’s: Doncha just love seeing which of your records are on somebody’s “worst” list? Off of this list, I have square dance versions of: Achy Breaky Heart, Chick-A-Boom, Honey, Muskrat Love, YMCA. I know a few other songs on the list have square dance covers; I just happen to have avoided them.

Speaking of music, on this day in 1962, The Tokens’ version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight was #1 on the charts. Also The Twist.

Also, today is the birthday of George “Funky” Brown, a member of Kool and the Gang. This gives you an excuse to pull out Celebration on S2K 2005, assuming you haven’t already used it to death for New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Here’s a long post to rec.folk-dancing about why a contra dancer might enjoy MWSD (and how contra dancers might find the gay/lesbian MWSD groups more culturally compatible): True confessions – Why I do MWSD.

This is cool: Contra Dance Designer. It lets you design a contra dance and see it in action. Unfortunately, it only works with Internet Explorer 4.0 and later, but it seems to work fine with IE5 on a Mac.

There’s been a lot of discussion on square dancing, contra dancing, complexity, prosperity and its effect on dance popularity in rec.folk-dancing…all kinds of things that we in the MWSD world wrestle with. Here are some threads:

• “If you dare” or “challenge” contra–opinions plea: This started the whole discussion; a contra dancer was wondering about whether to try a more advanced contra dance series.

• Complex dances [long]: This is part of the previous thread, but is significant enough to deserve its own entry. It summarizes an article called “Keeping Those Traditional Roots,” written by Chip Hendrickson, and published in the Country Dance and Song Society newsletter in 1988 which discusses the rise and fall of MWSD, with an emphasis on how complexity contributed to its decline.

• More POP: POP stands for “perils of prosperity”

• challenge of dancing
  

Another interesting site: Ceroc. Ceroc is a popular (in the UK) swing dance (I think) variant. It’s franchised, and one becomes a Ceroc member. Here’s a description, taken from What is Ceroc?:

Ceroc is an exciting, stylish modern partner dance and is primarily social. There are over 70 venues in the UK offering just under 100 nights of Serious Fun.

It is a modern jive, quite similar to Salsa, but without the complicated footwork. This means that it is very easy to pick up – so no excuses about having two left feet!!

There is no need to take a partner with you because during the classes everyone is moved around. This means that you get to dance with everybody at least once!

There is no set course that you need to enroll on. You can turn up to whatever venue you like, as and when you like – you won’t miss out on anything vital if you miss a week. On your first night just turn up and tell us that you want to become a Ceroc member.

The majority of our evenings start with a Beginners class, designed for people with no Ceroc experience. We then go on to an Intermediate lesson for those who have a grasp of the basic moves and can learn the more complicated ones. To round off the evening the DJ plays some great music and you are free to dance with whoever you like, practice your moves and develop your style – we call this the Freestyle section.

Some of our venues also offer Cerocshops (for those of you wanting more intense lessons) and special events, such as Freestyle evenings.

The success of Ceroc over the past 20 years rests mainly on the friendly and relaxed atmosphere which exists at all Ceroc venues across the UK.

So why is Ceroc so great?

* Complete beginners are welcome at any night
* It is fun and easy to learn
* There is no need to go with a partner
* There is no need to book in advance
* No special clothing or shoes are required
* It is a complete night out

Notice what’s being emphasized: It’s easy. No partner required. No set course…but there’s some structure and some lessons on each Ceroc evening. Beginners welcome anytime (notice that the evening is structured to bring beginners in, while at the same time providing some more advanced instruction. No special costume.

It’s hard to tell on the web whether something is as popular as the site makes it seem. The site claims: “Ceroc is the original, largest and fastest growing modern partner dance in the UK.” Who knows? But it looks like fun, and the music looks totally cool.

Nice weekend that once again makes me realize how important social bonds are to keeping a dance group going. The Wilde Bunch had two gatherings: one a well-planned holiday party, with our annual tacky gift exchange (I started with a drag queen doll, but didn’t get to keep her, much to my regret), the other a more informal outing to the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus holiday concert with dinner afterwards at Garduño’s. At each event, there was at least one non-square dancing person who will probably give it a try as a result of all the socializing. But the real benefit is the fact that people who like each other and spend time with each other want to continue to spend time with each other, and therefore will want to continue to be involved with the Wilde Bunch. There were a couple of women at the concert and dinner who haven’t danced with us for a while, but who continue to come to our more non-dance related events (and who recently contributed a quilt that was raffled off and raised about $500 for the Bunch).

The anniversary of John Lennon’s death…and I got so wrapped up in seasonal songs that I forgot to do Imagine (the only John Lennon song I own) or even any Beatles songs. I coulda done:

• Eight Days a Week Ranch House 508
• Act Naturally GMP 901
• I’ll Follow the Sun Shakedown 246
• Help Chaparral 809
• Life Goes On That Way (Ob-la-di) Blue Star 2397
• Beatle Mania Chicago Country 53
• Imagine Aussie Tempos 1006

but I didn’t. Instead, I did Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Royal 234) and Two Stepping Round the Christmas Tree (Silver Streak 104)…what is this thing about dancing around trees? Turns out I should have a natural affinity for dancing around holiday bushes; it’s a Danish tradition (just in case you don’t get the reference, my last name (Jensen) is, in Denmark, practically analogous to Smith).

So, does anyone have any good multi-cultural holiday singing calls? We can get away with our relentless xmas thing in square dancing because it’s so monocultural, at least in the US…but it’d be nice to acknowledge that there are other holiday traditions at this time of year. I’ve got a version of the Dreydl Song that I’ve electronically manipulated to make it kind of suitable for square dancing; I think I’ll try that out this next week. The only other thing I can think of is to change the words of holiday classics (or not-so-classics…the one I use most regularly is I Only Want You for [fill in the blank: Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Solstice] (Rockin’ M 119)).

Looks like the Suite101.com square dancing site is being retired. Terry Weingart is moving over to a Mystery Novels and Authors site, so we’ll be losing her insights into square dancing. Fortunately, her articles will still be available on her site.

I’m always interested in how related dance forms market themselves. Here’s a flyer put out by the Glen Echo dance groups. [Note: this flyer is gone, but here’s a link to their current flyer.] Among all the features, about the only thing we have in common is the no smoking or alcohol. Beginners welcome? Maybe once or twice a year. All ages? We might say it, but we don’t really mean it, and we certainly don’t want any kids. No partner required? Yeah, sure, tell that to the single women sitting around waiting for a chance to dance. Wonderful live music? Not. And even when we do have a live band (like at the Nationals), it seems like they’re doing their best to sound like the recorded version of the song.

The Friday Night Dance at Glen Echo website, where I found the flyer, does have a link to a square dance site: Have Fun Square Dancing, Noriko Takahashi’s animated square dance moves site.

Off topic (unless you can find a Peter Pan singing call): Today is both Mary Martin‘s and Cyril Ritchard‘s birthday. I’ve always thought that Wendy (the song, not the character) might make a fun singer.

Today is also Bette Midler‘s birthday; singing call records include The Rose and My Hero (The Wind Beneath My Wings). She also did cover versions of Do You Want To Dance (Hi Hat 5150), Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (also Chicago Country 47), and Under the Boardwalk (Royal 211).

Vic Ceder has redesigned his site just a tad—mainly making the internal site links at the bottom of each page easier to read. Speaking of redesigns, Debi Bliss has totally redesigned her site, Bay Area Square Dancing. I think I liked the old design better…it was more abstract or something…but this is nice, and she did a great job with the photo in the upper left corner. The costumes aren’t too extreme, and the dancers actually look young…what a concept.

However, content definitely rules at Debi’s site. My favorite find on this visit is an article from the Wall Street Journal in 1987 (several years before I found that calling is my calling), Calling is Not My Calling. I also like her article Abandon Graduation Ceremonies, and her article on Demonstrations has some good things to consider.

I found this article several years ago listed on Rob French’s (now Bill Heyman’s) Western Square Dancing site. (I have to admit, it’ll always be just dosado.com to me.) Anyway, when I checked a couple of years later, the link was broken. So I went searching, and found it again: My Parents Were Undercover Square Dancers. Bill doesn’t have the link anymore (at least not under humor, which seems like an obvious place. But it is listed in the Open Directory.

Yesterday, I mentioned the inaccessible (at least to me) chatroom on Romney Tannehill’s site. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the #squaredance channel on the undernet IRC network. For info on this, see The Fun Channel on Dave Gipson‘s site. I don’t know if this channel is still active; at one point, there were scheduled chats several nights a week; I know because I was there. But I haven’t participated in years, so I can’t vouch for it (and I’m not a big chat fan and don’t have an IRC client installed on any of my computers, so I can’t check it out).

There’s now an online square dancing chat forum at Romney Tannehill’s website…I think. It was announced on the sd-callers mailing list and I tried to check it out…but nothing shows up using Internet Explorer 5.0 on a Macintosh. Looks like yet another PC-centric site. Along with having a chat room that I can’t access, he also has some annoying java applet where a fairly lengthy text message appears one word at a time…in a word, irritating. He also links to other web sites, but those sites show up in enclosed in Romney’s frames. I hate that. Especially when the one-word-at-a-time message seems to imply that the links don’t come up in a Romney frame.

How about a square dance club named “Guns n’ Garters” including a logo with a gun inserted into a garter. Gotta wonder sometimes… but this site led to another site that compiles info for dances around Southern California and also has a nice URL: squaredancecentral.

The sausage thing seems to be a spreading meme. I used it (along with eggs) at an ECR dance. The next weekend, Anne and Tim workshop it in Vancouver at Weave the Rain. Where will it pop up next?

This has absolutely nothing to do with square dancing, but I think it’s an interesting analysis of what makes a good business website, and could also be relevant to anyone involved in building websites that keep people coming back. This site won an award from inc.com, a small business website. The main factors that interested the judges were the interactivity and sense of community built by the website.

I’m back from over a week with no square dancing and no calling; I think that’s a record for me since I started dancing back in 1990. Instead, I spent the week playing a lot of games of a domino variation called Mexican Train. A quick perusal of the web indicates that this is a fairly fluid game with many different versions:

• The Mexican Train
• Train
• Mexican Train Dominoes
• Mexican Trains

Our family has its own idiosyncratic version, which seems to change every time I go home (and sometimes even changes during the course of a single visit). An interesting thing about searching for Mexican Train on the web was that I ran across some diary pages…the kinds of things that people are probably putting up for friends and family and don’t really expect other people to look at…but then someone searches on terms that happen to occur on the page and there they are: looking at someone’s life. Quite a few people mention playing Mexican Train at some point. My going-on-100-year-old grandmother enjoys it, as did a Japanese exchange student who spoke very little English.

I also spent time trying to teach my mom how to use her new iMac. It’s interesting to see how much I take for granted in computer use and how hard it really is. For example, she might be typing in a form and accidentally hit some key that totally changes the context she’s in…and she didn’t even know she made a mistake. All of a sudden, everything has changed, but it seemed to change “magically” rather than through some action on her part. Compounding the problem is her crumby internet connection, which I think is mostly caused by bad phone lines, but seems to be compounded by some flakey modems at her ISP. So, although I set it all up, she can’t just click the “Send and Receive” button to automatically dial in, get her email, and disconnect…over half the time, the modem doesn’t connect on the first or even second attempt.

Counting down…only three more days until I get a DSL connection. In the meantime, my regular phone line is down for no reason that I can tell. Oh well…repairs will supposedly happen tomorrow.

I’m off at my mom’s ranch this week for the annual Thanksgiving eating ritual, but not before calling a dance in Palo Alto for the El Camino Reelers. It was interesting…a wide mix of abilities ranging from just-completed-Basic-on-Tuesday to been-dancing-in-the-high-C’s-for-years. It was a multi-level dance, with about two Plus tips for every class-level tip and an A2 tip near the end. Programming these kinds of dances is difficult, I think; peaks and valleys are harder to achieve when the level’s changing with almost every tip. I pulled out the “special shapes” thing again…my excuse this time was that it was a Harvest Dance, meaning an autumn dance, and fall in Albuquerque means The Balloon Fiesta, which leads to special shapes.

Because there were so many C-type dancers, I did the O’s, Butterflies, Hourglasses, and Galaxies perfunctorily and then moved right into Sausages and Eggs. It turns out that the square dance guru, Stewart Kramer, who’s an ECR member and who was at the dance, is credited with the “Slice the Sausage” call. He says Bill Davis is actually the perpetr…I mean inventer of the whole egg/sausage thing. But I wish I’d known about Stewart’s connection during the dance!

And of course, there’s a lot of interesting info in the guru’s comments.