I’m an internet junky; I admit it. But it gets boring flitting from website to website to see if anything new has been added. So I’ve jumped on the idea of RSS or XML feeds; I use NetNewsWire Lite to check various feeds and let me know if there’s new stuff. And yes, SquareZ does have an RSS feed; the link is over on the left-hand side below the CALLERLAB donation link.

So anyway, when I found (through a link in some weblog that I read, naturally) PubSub. This service provides an RSS feed of searches on weblogs for terms I choose. So I now have an RSS feed for weblogs mentioning: “square dance” OR “square dancing” OR “contra dance” OR “contra dancing”. You can probably use it too: Square and Contra RSS Feed.

So, after all that, here’s what came through today:

contra means line, i think

Tonight I had to photograph what was essentially a square dance somewhere in Webster Groves. I suppose they waltzed and did the “contra,” too, but unless you’re familiar with English country dancing, you would be as lost as me when it came down to the details. Also, I can’t hear the word “contra” without thinking of A) The Iran-Contra affair (which is filed next to the French and Indian War in my head as far as poorly named historical events are concerned) and B) The classic Nintendo game.

The people there were from all over Missouri and Illinois, dancing like mad to music from a band that consisted of two old guys playing the fiddle and guitar and a 16-year-old girl from Chicago who played the violin. It’s hard to take pictures in a room where people are flailing around to bluegrass or old-time fiddle music or whatever it is, and as such, I was hit repeatedly by flannel-covered arms and black Mary Jane shoes, and since I bruise just thinking about running into stationary objects, I’m sure my body will not be in presentable shape for the next couple of weeks.

Men high on fiddle music and promenading kept asking me to be their partner. I told them I didn’t want to compromise my journalistic integrity. Then I glanced down at my notepad, filled with scrawlings of the names of the faces I had photographed. I read, “old man, grey hair, hearing aid, wearing kilt and big gold earring. High school son wearing same. Crazy look in eyes.”

I waited until after I had left the premises before I started cracking up. You gotta love passion, even if it’s for something no fourth-grader has ever not made fun of.

There was one comment:

I went on a pre-orientation program at Wash U, and one night they herded us together and announced that we would learn how to square dance. After I got over the humiliation it turned out to be really fun. Highly recommended, even.