Author Archives: Kris

08 Mar

Academy Award Winning Songs

I did some searching on the net, and couldn’t find a nice convenient listing of all the songs that won an Oscar, so I made one. The asterisks mean I know there’s a square dance version; in some cases I’ve listed the record number.

  • 1935 The Gay Divorcee: The Continental
  • 1936 The Goldiggers Of 1935: Lullaby Of Braodway
  • 1937 Swing Time: The Way You Look Tonight
  • 1938 Waikiki Wedding: Sweet Leilani
  • 1939 The Big Broadcast Of 1938: Thanks For The Memory
  • *1940 The Wizard Of Oz: Over The Rainbow (Quadrille 920: Guy Adams, Chaparral 207: Jerry Haag)
  • 1941 Pinocchio: When You Wish Upon A Star (part of the Disney Medley, Global 701: Phil Farmer, Nate Bliss)
  • 1942 Lady Be Good: The Last Time I Saw Paris
  • *1943 Holiday Inn: White Christmas
  • 1944 Hello Frisco, Hello: You’ll Never Know
  • 1945 Going My Way: Swingin’ On A Star
  • 1946 State Fair: It Might As Well Be Spring
  • 1947 The Harvey Girls: On The Atchison, Topeka & The Santa Fe
  • *1948 Song Of The South: Zip-A-Dee Doo Dah
  • 1949 Paleface: Buttons And Bows
  • 1950 Neptune’s Daughter: Baby, It’s Cold Outside
  • *1951 Captain Carey, U.S.A.: Mona Lisa (TB 103: Glenn Walters; OR 22: Dennis Levitt)
  • 1952 Here Comes The Groom: In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening
  • 1953 High Noon: High Noon
  • *1954 Calamity Jane: Secret Love
  • 1955 Three Coins In A Fountain: Three Coins In A Fountain
  • 1956 Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing: Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing
  • *1957 The Man Who Knew Too Much: (Que Sera, Sera) Whatever Will Be Will Be
  • 1958 The Joker Is Wild: All The Way
  • 1959 Gigi: Gigi
  • 1960 A Hole In The Head: High Hopes
  • 1961 Never On Sunday: Never On Sunday
  • 1962 Breakfast At Tiffany’s: Moon River
  • 1963 Days Of Wine And Roses: Days Of Wine And Roses
  • 1964 Papa’s Delicate Condition: Call Me Irresponsible
  • 1965 Mary Poppins: Chim Chim Cheree
  • 1966 The Sandpiper: The Shadow Of Your Smile
  • 1967 Born Free: Born Free
  • 1968 Doctor Dolittle: Talk To the Animals
  • 1969 The Thomas Crown Affair: The Windmills Of Your Mind
  • 1970 Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid: Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head
  • 1971 Lovers And Other Strangers: For All We Know
  • 1972 Shaft: Shaft
  • 1973 The Poseidon Adventure: The Morning After
  • 1974 The Way We Were: The Way We Were
  • 1975 The Towering Inferno: We May Never Love Like This Again
  • 1976 Nashville: I’m Easy
  • 1977 A Star Is Born: Evergreen
  • 1978 You Light Up My Life: You Light Up My Life
  • 1979 Thank God It’s Friday: Last Dance
  • 1980 Norma Rae: It Goes Like It Goes
  • 1981 Fame: Fame
  • 1982 Arthur: Arthur’s Theme
  • 1983 An Officer And A Gentleman: Up Where We Belong
  • 1984 Flashdance: Flashdance… What A Feeling
  • *1985 The Woman in Red: I Just Called To Say I Love You
  • 1986 White Nights: Say You, Say Me
  • 1987 Top Gun: Take My Breath Away
  • 1988 Dirty Dancing: (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life
  • 1989 Working Girl: Let The River Run
  • 1990 The Little Mermaid: Under The Sea
  • 1991 Dick Tracy: Sooner Or Later
  • 1992 Beauty and the Beast: Beauty And The Beast
  • 1993 Aladdin: A Whole New World
  • 1994 Philadelphia: Streets Of Philadelphia
  • *1995 The Lion King: Can You Feel the Love Tonight
  • *1996 Pocahontas: Colors of the Wind
  • 1997 Evita: You Must Love Me
  • *1998 Titanic: My Heart Will Go On
  • 1999 The Prince of Egypt: When You Believe
  • *2000 Tarzan: You’ll Be In My Heart
  • 2001 The Wonder Boys: Things Have Changed
  • 2002 Monsters, Inc.: If I Didn’t Have You
  • 2003 8 Mile: Lose Yourself
  • 2004 The Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King: Into the West
07 Mar

Holidays, NSDC

I think there’s lots we can learn from other dance forms (and vice versa, of course). So here’s a page on club organization which has some useful info: How to Start a Folkdance Club

Looking for a different way to approach square dancing? Check out Geomotion: two-couple dancing using square dance terminology.

It’s sometimes hard, when you’re calling for the same group of people week after week, to come up with ideas to keep the dancing fresh. One way is to focus on music and themes. Check out Funky March Holidays for some interesting days that one could commemorate musically. For example, did you know that this Friday, March 10, is the anniversary of the day in 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell said his few words to Watson? There are a bunch of singing calls related to telephones, including “Why Haven’t I Heard from You” which starts off with “Back in 1876 an old boy named Bell invented a contraption that we know so well.” And Saturday, March 11 is Lawrence Welk’s birthday. Seems like almost all of MacGregor’s records sound like Welk arrangements.

How to find possibilities for a Lawrence Welk night:

  • Go to CDNow, do a search on Lawrence Welk, and look at the contents of some of his CDs. I looked at one called Biggest Hits, and found that I had three of the listed cuts: Twelfth Street Rag, Peg O’ My Heart, and MacNamara’s Band. 16 Most Requested Songs contains Ain’t She Sweet and Beer Barrel Polka. These are just records that I happen to have…you probably have others that are listed.
  • Check out one of the several web sites on Lawrence Welk, like The Lawrence Welk Show. You might get some ideas on possible theme-related songs. For example, just about anything with “champaigne” in the title would be appropriate.
Went to PlanetClick, yet another directory of web sites. This one allows anyone (except Mac users) to rate websites (I wonder if that affects the ratings…no one who uses a Mac has any influence). I couldn’t figure out how to suggest sites to add, but maybe that’s part of the no-Mac-users rating system.

They do have some square dancing sites; there are about 53 “rated” (by non-Mac-users) sites. Then it looks like the find request is forwarded to Google, so a ton of non-rated sites show up. Now, aren’t you curious as to who got the top rating? Six sites (one of which is no more) are tied with a rating of 8, but the one that comes up first? Jim and Jean Square Dance Company, Jim Cholmondeley’s site.

Speaking of directories, I’ve become a square dance editor for the Open Directory Project.

Does anyone else think it’s tacky that the National Square Dance Convention websites (a) don’t have their own URL and (b) are hosted on commercial sites? To be fair, only Baltimore is on a site with ads (AOL Hometown), but Anaheim has some totally unmemorable URL at EarthLink. St. Paul has actually obtained its own URL (51nsdc.com). Kudos to them for joining the computer age. However, it seems to me that the national committee ought to get a good url (nsdc.com and nsdc.org are both taken, but long domain names have become available, so nationalsquaredanceconvention.com is available), and provide subdomain hosting for the annual conventions.

Consider the IAGSDC: not only do we have conventions with memorable names instead of numbers (this year, Crack the Crab is in Baltimore) but we also have an umbrella organization with an appropriate URL that provides subdomain hosting for member organizations.

06 Mar

Happy Birthday, Grandma

I was out of town for almost a week, and, while I thought I’d be able to update this site on the road (I was staying with people who had internet connections, and I can update from any web browser), in practice, playing games of dominos with my 99-year-old grandmother took precedence. As it should.

To bring in some square dance relevance, there were about twenty adults and kids at my grandmother’s birthday party. I used a square dance record (the Royal record with the song done in four different musical styles) for the obligatory “Happy Birthday” song with the cake (it’s amazing how much better the singing is with an instrumental background). Then someone asked if I could call to “Happy Birthday”, so I played a Blue Star version with a square dance beat and tempo and called to some phantom dancers (of course, they danced perfectly). Then some people decided that they wanted to try a little square dancing, so we cleared some space and 8 people, including my grandmother (99, remember?), got up and circled, starred, and dosidoed. I played a waltz and a polka and the Hokey Pokey (what if it is what it’s all about) and the Bunny Hop and the Chicken Dance…it’s amazing what a little music and some fun dances will add to a party. Although I played the original Ray Anthony version of the Hokey Pokey, I really like the Brave Combo version from their CD, The Hokey Pokey In fact, I really like most Brave Combo music…check it out for those times when you need to play a polka.

Wow! Since I went to the Brave Combo site to get the Hokey Pokey reference, I found that they have another CD with great group dances: Group Dance Epidemic. This one includes songs from the Hokey Pokey CD plus some others like the Mexican Hat Dance, Mana Vu and the Bunny Hop (rather than the Bunny Dirge…). I also found out that Brave Combo won a Grammy in the best Polka album category.

27 Feb

Miscellany

Want to add some variety to your calling? Check out Jim Penrod’s OLD CALLS page, and resurrect some of those fun, old-timey calls. The seniors at Palo Duro and Highland really like Grand Spin; I think it’s the combination of a nice long call that allows them to dance and fun, march-style music.

Don’t you think square dancing would be the perfect “neurobic” exercise? Get your mental and physical exercise at the same time. (OnHealth: Exercise Your Brain).

If you join the site, you can vote on various surveys, like this: Square Dance Attire

Nice website: Square Dance and Square Dance Caller – Cliff Brodeur and the Square One Band! Nice design, good text emphasizing parties (although it looks like Cliff also calls for regular MWSD clubs), endorsement from Pete Seeger! I think a site like this would be useful for helping to market parties and ONS’s. Not to mention that he’s got a good domain: squaredance-hoedown.com.

Here’s another good domain name: squaredanceworld.com. Looks like another portal and subdomain reseller. Whoever the owner is (couldn’t tell from the site) must have collected info from somewhere (maybe Bob LaFleur’s site?) because I’m in there, with an older email address. This is a frames-based site, and if you click on a link in the callers directory, the caller’s web page will show up in a frame surrounded by squaredanceworld stuff. Yuck. The site has been updated recently (like yesterday).

A dance directory site, with a listing for square dancing and about 14 sites: Dance Directory. I’m always glad to see Western Square Dancing listed among all the individual clubs because then I know that anyone who wanders here will get to a portal-type of site.

Debi Bliss says, ‘Our activity wasn’t built by the experienced …. it
was built by the enthusiastic.’ She has an excellent site, Square Dancing! and also hosts the Square Dance Article Co-Op, with 106 articles on square dancing.

27 Feb

Square Dancing Related URLs

Here are some options for a dance-related URL.

  • The hyphens: square-dance.net and square-dance.org, square-dancing.com, square-dancing.net, square-dancing.org: 40MB, POP and SMPT mail accounts, email autoresponders and forwarding, ftp access, and registration with search engines…all for $149/year. usaWest’s site is here.
  • SquareDancing.com: No real details on what their subdomain hosting provides. Looks like some amount of space and email forwarding. I assume they have some kind of ftp access, although they don’t specify that. There’s a $25 setup fee, and no other charges. They provide a listing of all the sites that are hosted: clubs, callers, individuals.
  • SquareDance.net: This is an ISP provided by United Square Dancers of America. $19.95/month for 150 hours of access plus 2MB for a website. I assume that one’s URL would be something under squaredance.net.
  • Squaredanceworld.com: They offer a subdomain service, but you have to write to the webmanager to get information.
26 Feb

Building and Promoting

I’ve written an article on “Building a Web Site”.

While writing it, I went to SelfPromotion.com’s tips on getting listed in Yahoo, where Robert Woodhead notes “Yahoo is without a doubt the single most important index on the Internet (though Open Directory is rapidly gaining on them!)” So of course, I had to go to Yahoo to see what sites are listed under Yahoo! Arts:Performing Arts:Dance:Square Dance.

There are six subcategories: Apparel, Events, Groups, Organizations, Regional Information, and Web Directories. There are 10 sites listed at the top level. I thought it was interesting that Julie Mangin’s article on The State Folk Dance Conspiracy: Fabricating a National Folk Dance is there.

Open Directory: There is a square dancing category, Open Directory – Arts: Performing Arts: Dance: Folk Dancing: Country and Western: Square Dancing, with 44 listings. Robert Woodhead says, “The Open Directory Project, formerly called NewHoo, is an “Open Source” directory much like Yahoo, but edited by volunteers. As ODP is now the directory listing source for Netscape, AOL Search, HotBot and Lycos, and will soon be used by many other search engines, including Altavista, it is in the “big leagues” and is a must to submit to.”

One can find square dance references anywhere: Construction Calamities – Urban Legends and Folklore.

25 Feb

Building a Web Site

Yeah, I know…there’s lots of info out there about how to build a site. And though, in general, I’m not a particularly opinionated person, after looking at lots of web sites, I’ve found that I have some pretty strong opinions about what I like and dislike. So here goes.

  1. Figure out why you want a web site.

    This will influence many of your decisions, so you might as well think about what you want first.

    Possible reasons:

    • Everybody else has one.

      True enough; it’s becoming more and more common. So you’ll want to do the bare minimum to get something up there. You’ll still need to think about the kind of information that you want to provide.

    • You want people to be able to find out about you.

      Good…you’ll want a good-looking, easy-to-navigate site that will look good to the people you want to attract. So you’ll need to analyze your (potential) audience’s tastes and what kind of information they’re likely to want.

    • You’ve got information/opinions that you want to publish.

      I think this is probably the major reason for doing a site: you’ve got something to say and the web is a publishing forum par excellence. Probably for most of us, it’s a combination of wanting people to know about us and want to share information.

    • You’re selling something.

      You’ve got something to sell and the web is a great place to do it. Of course, in the calling business, we all have something to sell: ourselves. But some of us have other products as well: records, books, software. A simple site will get the word out and let potential customers contact you. A more complex site will let customers actually purchase things on line.

    Actually, most of us have mixed motives: we want people to know about us and we’ve got some info to publish (even if it’s only some links to sites that we like).

  2. Decide what services you want on your site.

    3. This is related to your site’s purpose, and it will impact your web hosting decisions (see below). Do you want a guestbook? discussion forums? shopping carts? Forms to collect information from your visiters? Do you want to be able to serve dynamic web pages (web pages that change in response to user input)? Do you want the user to be able to access streaming audio of you calling? Streaming video of dancing? (Now that the next big push in home computing is home-video, this isn’t that farfetched.)

  3. Decide if you want your own domain name.

    4. The domain name is the part of the address (URL) of your site. Getting your own domain name is like getting a personalized license plate: it gives you an easy-to-remember personal address. For example, Rich Reel got the domain name all8.com, Vic Ceder got ceder.net.

    Registering a domain name in general costs $70 for the first two years and $35/year thereafter. There are services that will do the actual registration process for free or for a small charge. I used YourNameFree.com, but there are lots of others out there. Of course, the most common square dancing related domains are already taken. See What’s in a name? and Who got the hyphens.

    If you don’t want your own domain or you can’t find one that you like that’s available, there are still some options for getting memorable names, and many of them will also provide webhosting services.

    For example, for a $25 setup fee, you can have a name at SquareDancing.com Your URL could be http://www.squaredancing.com/yourname. I couldn’t figure out how much disk space you’d get, and it’s not guaranteed for life, but as they say, “hey, it’s free!”

    There is a company (V3) that has some memorable domain names (like go.to, or come.to) and will provide “free” redirection to your real URL. I put “free” in quotes because the company puts up pop-up ads as the redirect occurs. For $15/year, you can have ad-free redirection.

    There are companies that have bought up thousands of domain names and will provide you with a subdomain name (for a fee, of course; they’re in business after all). For example, MailBank.com owns over 12,000 domain names. For $50 the first year and $30/year thereafter, you can have a subdomain including a full POP3 email account and 5MB of space. I know about MailBank because it owns jensen.net and jensen.org. My URL could be http://kris.jensen.net or http://www.jensen.net/kris. I’m sure there are other similar services that own other domain names.

  4. Decide where you want your website to be hosted.

    5. This is the actual physical location: the place where you’ll put your files.

    This decision is linked with your decision of what services you want your site to offer. If you’re going to have static, informational web pages, you’re not going to need much from your web host. If, on the other hand, you dream of dynamic pages served by a database engine, you’d better make sure your web host can provide the tools you need.

    For a relatively static site, here are some possibilities:

    • Your ISP

      • Your internet service provider may also provide some amount of space. For example, AOL provides 2MB (and more if you’re willing to have ads on your page). EarthLink gives 5MB. Check with your ISP to see what’s available.

    • Free with ads

      • There are several services that will give you disk space in return for you giving them ad space on your pages. The ads can be banner ads at the top or bottom of your page or popup ads that throw up another window in front of your page. You have no control over the content of the ads.

      Most of these services provide you with tools to help you build your site and with various add-ons like guestbooks and counters. Some will offer “money-making opportunities” (i.e., the opportunity to put even more ads on your site).

      Here are some possibilities:

      • Angelfire: Start at 5MB, and you can get up to 30MB if you actually need it.
      • Geocities:15MB and various templates and site building tools. This site is organized into neighborhoods, and is probably the most popular.
      • Tripod: 11MB and various tools, including Trellix Web, a site-building and management tool for PCs (not Macs).
      • Xoom: Unlimited space and no popup ads, but you have to be willing to accept junk email. Xoom puts an advertising and navigation bar across the top of your web pages. It’s ugly, but I like it better than popup ads.
      • Also check Free Web Page Provider Review, List of free web space providers, and TheFreeSite.com: Free Web Pages, Web space for more free possibilities.

    • Free with (almost) no ads (but other limitations):

      • Other services provide free space, but have some limits on the style of your site. Here are a couple:

      • Homestead: 16MB. They put a small, pretty unobtrusive banner at the bottom of your pages. Your start page has to be created with one of their tools (powerful for PCs, extremely limited for Macs), but your other pages can be ftp’ed to your site.
      • EditThisPage: EditThisPage is designed for sites with changing content (like weblogs), but people are using them for all kinds of things. No ads, but also no ftping (you can upload pictures one at a time, but no other types of files). You have a lot of control over your page template, but each page uses the same template. This gives you a nice, uniform look, but not a lot of flexibility.

    • Pay

      • If you want database services, shopping cart services, or even access to CGI programming, you’re probably going to have to pay for your web hosting. I’ve seen prices as low as $7.95/month for fairly limited space and services, on up to big bucks for commercial sites. There are hundreds of web hosting services; your best bet is to ask people who are already using a one for their opinions.

  5. Design and build your site

    6. Before you do, you might want to spend some time surfing. Visit various sites and decide what you like and don’t like. Visit some design sites and see what the experts consider to be good and bad design.

    Here are my biases:

    • I don’t like web pages that play music without giving me any control. I think music is perfectly appropriate for a square dance site. However, I don’t want it to start playing unless I tell it to…or at the very least, I want access to a control to turn it off. What if I’m already listening to music while I surf? What if I’m at work?
    • I don’t like animated gifs and scrolling text. There are some rare circumstances where an animated gif is part of the content:Square Dance Movements. Usually, though, the movement doesn’t convey any info and just distracts the viewer from the real content (unless the content is the movement, like with the dancing hamsters).
    • I don’t like graphics that add bandwidth but no real information. I like web pages that load quickly. I do like pictures of people, though; I think they’re informative.
    • I don’t like content-oriented text that’s centered. It’s hard to read.
    • I don’t like “mystery meat” menus, where you can’t tell what the menu is for (or even that it is a menu) until you roll your cursor over the graphics.
    • I don’t like ornate background images. White is fine. Solid colors are okay as long as the text is readable. Subtle backgrounds are okay, I guess, if you really think they improve your site.

    Sites dealing with what not to do:

    Since I’m picking these, they generally reflect my biases.

    Design guidelines

    Site Building Tools

    I don’t know too much about these, especially the ones for Wintel computers. I’ve found that I like control, so I end up writing HTML. If you use one of the free web space providers, they will usually have tools that allow you to generate a reasonable looking site without writing any HTML. If you decide to “roll your own,” there are lots of sites that explain HTML. After you get the basic concepts down, a good way to learn is to find sites you like and look at their code (as far as I know, all browsers have some kind of “view source” command).

  6. Put your site on the web

    7. How you do this is dependent on your web hosting choice. You may even have built your site on the web host so you won’t need to upload anything. If you do want to upload graphics, sound files, or other files, you’ll probably use an ftp program. Check with your host on how to do that.

  7. Publicize your site

    8. You’ll probably want to submit your site to various search engines. There are sites that will help you for free:Addme and SelfPromotion. Also, put your site in your listings in the various caller listings.

  8. Maintain your site

    9. Don’t neglect this. At the very least, periodically check your links to make sure they still work. Make sure the information you’ve provided (your schedule, for example) is up-to-date. And, if you want to encourage regular visitors, you’ll need to provide new content on a regular basis.

Miscellaneous

Be sure to check out Hints for Setting Up Your Own Square Dancing Web Page from Bill Heyman.

Here’s a site listing free stuff available for your website: Free Internet

The caller web site that I like the best: Andy Shore’s. It’s got a clean, simple design, has info about Andy’s background and his schedule, provides some tools (a PDF blank square form and a PDF document with about 350 singing call figures) and some selective links.

The caller site that I go back to most frequently: Vic Ceder’s. He’s got databases and tools that I find useful.

25 Feb

Health and Dancing

I did the RealAge test a while ago to see how my chronological age matches up with my “physical” age. And I signed up for the Tip of the Day, which gives me a (HTML-formatted, connects to the ‘net) email containing some little health nugget every day. Today’s is:

Could becoming an opera goer actually help you live longer? Looks like it.

Swedish researchers found that people who often enjoyed cultural activities such as movies and plays, concerts, religious services, and even sporting events lived longer than those who rarely attended. Researchers hypothesize that the benefit is due to increased social contact and the ability to express emotions in a supportive environment.

RealAge Benefit: Enjoying a good social support system of family and friends can make your RealAge up to 3.5 years younger.

So I went back and looked at some other tips:Socialize for Longer Life, Dance Your Way to Health, and Dance Your Way to Fitness

What a day to switch! Yesterday, I switched ISP’s from a local outfit (that worked great, but charged by the hour and I was running up huge bills) to Earthlink. And then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t log on. I figured they were busy…but there was an explanation: EarthLink’s 50 Minute Outage Hope it doesn’t happen again!

25 Feb

Callers: Publicizing Yourself on the Web

If you’re here, you have access to the web. So you might as well take advantage of that access and make sure you’re maximizing your visibility to the web square dance community.

  1. Create a web site. You’ll want a site that’s attractive and informative. I’ve written a highly-opinionated piece on how to get started.
  2. Get listed in all the caller listings you can find.
  3. Join the The Square and Round Dance Web Ring. Can’t hurt and it might help people find you.
  4. Participate in the square dancing related mailing lists. This can work for or against you depending on your opinions and how you express them. Be sure to put your web address in your signature. Here are some lists:
    • sd-callers: calling-related discussion for both callers and dancers. To subscribe, go to the sd-callers mailman web page and enter your email address.
    • square-dancing:Discussion related to square dancing. To subscribe, put subscribe square-dancing in the body of your email.
    • trad-sd:Discussion related to traditional square dancing. Both MWSD and contra and traditional callers post here. To subscribe, go to the web site; it’s a yahoo group.
    • challenge-sd: Discussion related to challenge square dancing for both callers and dancers. To subscribe, go to the challenge-sd web page and enter your email address.
  5. Submit your site to various search engine and directory site. When people look up your name or even square dancing, your site should come up.
  6. Put your URL on your business cards, along with your email address. Might as well make it easy for people to find you.

If your site is informative enough, it might get referenced in other people’s sites. This is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing, but not anything you have control over (except by writing good content).