It’s the first Friday the 13th of the year, aka Blame Someone Else Day…perfect for square dancers, since it’s never our fault when a square breaks down.

Turn to your corner and say:

Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
If I mess up,
I’m blaming you!

Turn to your corner and say

Roses are red,
Sunflowers are taller.
If we mess up,
We’ll just blame the caller!

And while we’re at it, callers can blame dancers, dancers can blame callers, and both can blame CALLERLAB for square dancing’s decline.

I mention Google a lot in this blog. I use it a lot. So here’s an article on Google searching techniques. Check it out and get more efficient.

From Educated Guesswork:

It’s not the choice that I would make, but then even though I wouldn’t choose to learn to square dance or eat cauliflower either, I don’t disapprove of people who do. Similarly, if someone wants to smoke or take up a dangerous sport, that’s their business.

Looks to me like Gary Denton knows how to square dance. Here’s what he writes about Newsweek:

Even while doing it’s (sic) weekly Walk & Dodge, Cloverleaf, and Scootback square dance moves, swinging it’s (sic) partners to the right then to the left Newsweek writes good articles. Here they focus on an issue dearest to conservatives hearts but bring up points that Democrats have fallen behind the public on.

When non-square dancers make a square dancing comment, they talk about dosadoing and (maybe) allemande lefting…only someone who’s taken square dance lessons would know Walk & Dodge, Cloverleaf, and Scoot Back…

This is probably what people fear when they think of loosening the square dance dress code:

However, what’s more interesting to me is the whole project:

Inspired by a shared interest in the striking dress codes of various social groups, they have systematically documented numerous identities over the last 8 years.

I’ve often felt like this when looking at the pictures of the committee members of the square dance national conventions (52nd; look at any program from a past National for other examples). If you took the people and posed them identically, you could get a grid very much like those shown at the Exactitude site.

Tonight, Duke City Singles is celebrating their 22nd anniversary. I decided to see what was going on in 1981 (22 years ago). Here’s some info from Awesome80s.com:

Some Top Movies:

• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• On Golden Pond
• Arthur
• Chariots of Fire
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman

Top 10 Pop Singles:

10. Rapture – Blondie
9. Celebration – Kool and the Gang
8. Jessie’s Girl – Rick Springfield
7. Private Eyes – Hall and Oates
6. Morning Train – Sheena Easton
5. Kiss on my List – Hall and Oates
4. Arthur’s Theme – Christopher Cross
3. Endless Love – Diana Ross and Lionel Richie
2. Physical – Olivia Newton-John
1. Bette Davis Eyes – Kim Carnes

Top TV Shows:

5. Jeffersons
4. Love Boat
3. M*A*S*H
2. Dukes of Hazzard
1. Dallas

Here are some major events from 1981:

• Royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in Great Britain.
• Martial law declared in Poland.
• IBM PC introduced.
• Osbourne I, first portable computer, introduced.
• President Reagan survives assassination attempt.
• First launch of Space Shuttle .
• Unsuccessful assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

More info about 1981.

CMA Awards

How about in square dancing?

I just happen to have a set of issues of Square Dancing magazine (from Sets In Order) for 1981. This stuff is from the June 1981 issue.

New records (that I have copies of): Dream Lover on Rhythm Records

Letter to the Editor:

Dear Editor:
We attended a very nice square dance in Arizona last month. When the caller called a do sa do, our corners put their right arms around our waists and their left arms in the air and spun us around. We looked like crippled submarines. They told us it was the new do sa do. We like the old way etter. If dancers want to do that maneurver, they should name it “Crippled Submarine” or something else.

The 30th National Square Dance Convention was in Seattle.

CALLERLAB was 10 years old. Jon Jones was the outgoing chairman.

The CALLERLAB featured call was Wheel and Deal.
The CALLERLAB quarterly selection was Release Recycle.

The magazine’s featured call is Grand Spin.

Mike Sikorsky was the caller of the month.

Those of you who’ve read my past rantings know that I dislike animations and music on web pages. However, I ran across this dancing gif, and enjoy it enough to let it stay here until it scrolls off.

I don’t know how long this link will last, but while it does, here’s a nice article on the Diablo Dancers in the San Francisco Chronicle: Gay and lesbian dance clubs offer a square deal for all.

Check out this thread: “why square dance at contras?”. It’s not a MWSD vs. Contra, but rather a traditional square (the kind of squares called at contra dances vs. contra.

One comment by Bob Stein:

With the trends of modern urban contradancing (I will call it MUC from now on– thanks, Dudley, for making the difference apparent), calling has been reduced to a few prompts done a few times through the dance. This has to do with the desire of MUC dancers to focus on spins, twirls, flourishes, flirting, and a machine-like timing. To paraphrase Seinfeld: “Not that there’s anything wrong with this!” It’s just that the nature of MUC seems more oriented to providing this mechanized flow that dancers have come to expect. Square dancing demands that you actually listen as you dance. Your brain and body are engaged on a different level. I would imagine that MUC dancers would need to develop these skill sets to be able to experience square dancing with more enjoyment.

I occasionally google “square dance blog” or “square dance weblog” just to see what else is out there.

This time I came across an interesting read: the weblog (the diary kind, not the link commentary kind) of a gay man who started taking square dance lessons at Western Star in January this year. He’s competitive, constantly judges himself and others (including the callers), and started taking Plus lessons with Foggy City before he finished his Mainstream class. He has a boyfriend, goes to church, plays Scrabble, works in computers, square dances, and has casual sex whenever (as a lesbian, I just don’t get the concept of a live-in boyfriend and casual sex, but I know it’s pretty common with gay guys…whatever). I went through his whole blog, searching on “square”, so I think I caught all the square dance references; it’s a good look at the gay square dance community in San Francisco. If you’re interested, start here (January – April) and then move here for May and the future. Oh yes, today’s his birthday.

Another one that turned up is a single-entry blog (meaning the person only wrote once) at squaredance.blogspot.com. The entry had nothing to do with square dancing, and there was no explanation as to why this person (a young girl, I think) chose the “squaredance” name.

I found a blog written by a woman who square dances with her family…but there’s no mention of square dancing (or any dancing, for that matter) in the blog.