Now that the July tape is out, I finally got the June tape annotations ready: Hanhurst Tape June 2000.

Maybe one had to be there, but I’m finding this to be a very fun page: Pictures Taken In The C3A Hall.

I’d never been to the National Square Dance Convention before, and I don’t know whether I’ll go to another (I’ve paid for the 50th in Anaheim, but I haven’t registered yet; in order to sign up for housing, one is supposed to send in all the registration forms for people sharing a room at the same time…hello?!! how do I know who I might want to share a room with a year from now).

Why wouldn’t I go again? Well, as a marketing opportunity, it was the pits. I never called for more than about eight squares max, and I never called MS or Plus to more than one square (well, I wouldn’t have been in the Solo hall at noon either, if I didn’t have to be). As a social opportunity, it can’t compare with the NACC (or whatever replaces it), CALLERLAB, and, of course, the gay convention. As a dance opportunity, again, it can’t compare with the replacement NACC and the gay convention. The format of 10 minute slots in MS and Plus doesn’t allow for any “build”; all the caller can do is call pretty vanilla stuff in an entertaining way. As a research opportunity? That’s probably the best bet…sign up to call one tip for tax write-off purposes and spend the rest of the time listening to other callers.

I have to say that I resented having to pay for a schedule. I bought the program (a total waste, mostly filled with full color photos of the convention organizers) without knowing that I had to in order to get the little program booklets in my registration packet. I also found the schedule confusing to read. Of course, since they do it exactly the same every year, I’m sure it gets easier. But it’d sure be nice to be able to look at, say, 10:00 on Thursday and be able to see all the choices, rather than having to thumb through the whole book trying to see (and remember) everything going on at a particular time. It would also be nice if they’d put the schedule on line. They could even do it in a database format, so one could view it by time, or by caller, or by program…what a novel idea! And one could even plan in advance! What a concept!

While I was at the convention, I had a pretty good time. I did resent going off to call for the one square that had to be dragooned into dancing in the solo hall at noon when I could have been dancing C3A…it was the one time I was tempted to tell the tireless caller organizers to find someone else. I also wondered at the purpose of segregating singles into a special hall, when they didn’t really want to be there. Apparently, it functioned mainly as a place to go to find a partner before heading to the other halls.

It was in retrospect that I began to question the point of going. I probably will go next year, but that will be my last easy opportunity; after that, we’ll go back to the annual confict: the NSDC is usually the week before, and on opposite ends of the country from, the gay convention.

Here’s a link, just for sticking through this whole diatribe thing: Nominations for Quote of the Quarter — 2000 (April, May, June).

I’m back! And I found out that people actually read this and miss it when I’m gone! Wow!

So where did I go? It was all square dance related, so it’s fair game for this weblog (BTW, here’s another meta article on weblogging in general: The Blogging Revolution).

First, I went to the National Advanced and Challenge Convention in Milwaukee. Maybe it was because this was the last one, but this was probably the best one I’ve been to (I think I’ve been to four or five, so it’s not like I’m a long-time attendee or anything). The facility was good for our purposes: convenient to the airport, all the floors in the hotel, good (almost excessive) air conditioning, and no local area distractions (i.e., temptations to do something other than dance). I did get out with a party of folks one night, and happened to stumble into one of Milwaukee’s legendary german restaurants. Little did we know, as we wandered through the streets of downtown Milwaukee, and were rejected by an English restaurant (Grenadier’s) because we didn’t conform to their dress code (we weren’t conforming to square dance dress code either), that we would end up in a place that’s “consistently voted Milwaukeeans’ favorite restaurant,” Karl Ratzsch’s.

I was fortunate enough to be able to dance C3A with Steffen Mauring, the organizer of the biennial iPac European Plus, Advanced, and Challenge convention. Since I just learned the level in one weekend and hadn’t danced it since, I was pretty terrified. However, folks were kind and put up with my lack of floor time. I have to say that it’s fun to be dancing “on the edge” again.

After Milwaukee, I went home for a couple of days and then took off for two weeks in Baltimore for the 49th Annual National Square Dance Convention, the Gay Callers Association callers school, and Crack the Crab, the IAGSDC convention.

More on Baltimore tomorrow.

I find it interesting to see what’s going on in the contra/traditional squares world, both because I like the dance form, and because it’s interesting to watch the evolution of another dance form that’s similar to MWSD.

Nancy Mamlin talks about calling squares in a usenet message: Re: Preserving local music & dance history. This post inspired a thread: Thoughts on square dancing (inspired by Preserving Local Music & Dance History) on square dancing and modern contras. There’s a mention of a trend towards complexity and keeping everybody active in contras…an interesting thought.

Found a very nice website today: Community Dance, dealing with one-night-stand types of dances, from a traditional/contra point of view.

This is what the author, Neal Rhodes, in a thread on usenet, said about its genesis:

A while back I was looking for a resource which I could provide to Boy Scout leaders, Girl Scout leaders, school music teachers, church group leaders, etc. It would be intended to give them a introduction to dance (either contra, square, etc) and would encourage them to try to do a community dance. I was wanting to give them an idea of what it looked like, and sounded like, and felt like. I was trying to avoid the “blank stare of cows looking at a passing train” look whenever I tried to suggest such a thing.

I didn’t see any such resource, so I wrote one, and I would be interested in anyone’s comments.

Whoops…this was supposed to go out on May 23…too late!

Speaking as a former (if one ever does become former) attorney, I found this interesting. And in this brief history of women at the law school, it’s noted that she was admitted to the bar because “words importing the masculine gender only may be extended to females.” You see, the Iowa code limited admission to the bar to white males. Square dance relevance? Well, think of all the times the calling is addressed to just the men…but we know it can be extended to us mere females.

The Brooks and Dunn version of “My Maria” was at the top of the charts in 1996.

Now to today, the 25th…

The discussion on sd-callers has turned to words, first “hosed” and now “thar”. I especially like this site on thars, which, it turns out, is a Himalayan goat-like animal, with long hair. Lars postulates that thar-stars were named because of the gents’ long hairy arm-fur…hmmmm. There’s also the Thar Desert.

In Take Our Word For It, there’s an explanation for “hoedown” (put that hoe down and dance) and “shindig” (lively dancing can result in injuries to vulnerable legs). I’m not sure I want to take their word for it.

On this day in 1971, Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” was at the top of the pop charts. In 1980, “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc. was at the top. This makes a great patter record.

Miscellaneous stuff:

Here are some references on MiniDisc (written as I sit playing with MP3s…oh well):

Will MiniDisc Survive?

Xitel MD Port AN1 Review

Judy Obee posted some interesting mail to the sd-callers list today, quoting a review of Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam from a review in the National Post by Jonathan Kay:

Bowling is the most popular competitive sport in the United States. It
is also a metaphor for the ebbing of America’s collective social life.
While the total number of bowlers in the U.S. increased by 10% between
1980 and 1993, the number of league bowlers decreased by more than 40%
during the same period. And even among league bowlers, social
interaction has become less meaningful.

“…mounted above each lane is a giant television screen… Even on a
full night of league play, team members are no longer in lively
conversation with one another about the day’s events…. Instead, each
stares silently at the screen while awaiting his or her turn. Even
while bowling together, they are watching alone.”

But this isn’t a book about bowling. The withdrawal Putnam describes
applies to everything Americans do together, including church, club
meetings, card games, volunteering and dinner parties. The author sees
the steady drop in these activities over the past four decades as
evidence of a decrease in American “social capital”, an essential asset,
he argues, that helps lower crime, improve school performance and
stimulate the economy.

What has caused the drop in social capital? Putnam dismisses many of
the obvious suspects. The decline in free time, for instance, is not
implicated – because there hasn’t actually been a decline in free time.
As Putnam demonstrates, the average amount of labour workers perform in
the United States has remained roughly constant since the Second World
War.

Other obvious suspects, such as mobility, urbanization, divorce and
two-career families, also haven’t played a large role. Neither has the
Internet: The wired are statistically indistinguishable from the
non-wired when it comes to civic engagement.

What does affect social capital is a much older technology:
television. Americans watch an average of four hours per day and,
according to Putnam’s math, each of those hours produces a 10% reduction
in civic activism. In surveys, people who report that TV is their
“primary form of entertainment” volunteer less often, spend less time
with friends, give less blood, are less interested in politics and
express more road rage than their demographically matched equivalents
who report that TV is not their primary entertainment activity.

Time, like social capital, is a scarce asset. And the fact Americans
are spending more of it alone says something about the diminishing
economic returns that come from schmoozing.

This was interesting to me, so I went searching for more stuff on this book:

Besides the main site, there’s also The BetterTogether Story Collector, a site “to provide interactive opportunities to celebrate the new and better ways that Americans are connecting, and provide tools that make it easier for them to do so.”

You can read the book jacket and Chapter 1

In 1958, two tunes that I use for square dancing hit the top of the charts: “All I Have to Do Is Dream” (aka “Dream, Dream, Dream”) by the Everly Brothers and “Johnny B. Goode,” by Chuck Berry. Speaking of Chuck Berry, on May 21, 1955, Chuck recorded “Maybelline,” a rhythm and blues version of a country song, “Ida Red.” (There’s no singing call version of Maybelline.)

I spent the weekend at the New Mexico State Square and Round Dance Festival, held right here in Albuquerque. The featured caller was Marshall Flippo, with state callers doing the honors on Friday afternoon and evening (I led off the whole festival on Friday afternoon at 3 pm…I’m not quite sure how big an honor that was…).

A couple of notes: every time I hear Marshall, I’m impressed by his calling. I think the more I know about calling, the more impressed I am at his ability to call the right mixture of interesting and vanilla choreo for the floor. Unfortunately, Marshall can’t really articulate what he does and how he does it; he just does. So if you’re looking to learn from Marshall, your best bet is to attend his dances whenever you can.

Marshall’s been doing a new number that’s due out on Royal, supposedly in time for the Nationals in Baltimore. Called “It’s Dance Time in Texas,” it’s a perfectly timed combo of square dancing and Cotton Eyed Joe. (Wouldn’t you know it: there’s a cotton-eyedjoe.com domain.) In case you don’t remember the tune, here’s some MIDI music. And it’d certainly be interesting to hear the Nina Simone version.

One state caller called Remake the Thar, another called Triple Scoot, even though both have been off the Plus list since 1997. The sad thing is that the floor barely hiccuped on the calls. That means that virtually none of the dancers learned Plus after 1997…which means that there were virtually no newer dancers there. Many of the dancers have strings of dangles, showing that they’ve been to every state festival for umpteen-zillion years (there’ve been 53 of them). That’s great! But it would have been even greater if there had been a bunch of new dancers, trying out their wings at Mainstream. There weren’t. There were always more couples sitting out during the MS tips (resting, I guess) than there were sitting out during the Plus tips. That’s sad.

In 1928, the first jumping frog contest was held in Calaveras County, California: Those Were the Days, Today in History, May 19

Here’s the original Mark Twain tale: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – Mark Twain

Here’s Twain’s commentary on it, including Twain’s translation back to English of a French translation:
Private History of the Jumping Frog Story – Mark Twain

And here’s some commentary: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County – A Guide

Square dance relevance? Well, you can break out your frog songs: “Joy to the World” (“Jeremiah was a bullfrog”) and “Froggy Went a Courtin'”. You could even change the words to “froggy went a jumpin'”

On this day in 1965, Roger Miller received a gold record for “King of the Road”.

Have you ever wondered about the term “taw,” as in “caller’s taw” or “seesaw your (pretty little) taw?” I looked up “taw” in Google and got about 10,400 hits. There’s even a taw.com, which takes one to a blank page labeled with “Today’s Arizona Woman.” “Sae Taw Win” has something to do with Burma, as does “Aw Kaw Taw.” On the third page of hits, the square dance term finally came up: The Caller’s Taw

I particularly like this one, LINGUIST List 10.242: “saw”~”taw”, on why we’re more willing to accept “seed” as an admittedly erroneous but still comprehensible past tense of the verb “to see” but not “taw” as an erroneous past tense of the verb “to tee.” (Except of course, for Tweety Pie, where “taw” is a past tense of “see”, as in “I tawt I taw a puddy tat”). This use of “taw” doesn’t show up until page 9 of the Google sites.

TAW also stands for Transgender at Work, Theater Automation Wow, and Total Air War, among other things.

Well, I like the transgender one, so now when a caller uses “taw,” I’ll know s/he’s just talking about working tg’s.