You may have noticed the little RSS (RSS) button I recently added in the left column.
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. By subscribing to my RSS feed in a news aggregator, you can see when I post something new without having to visit the website.
Because today is “Have a Coke Day”, I googled “coke square dance” and came across this gem: The Square Dance Conspiracy. Along with hypothesizing that square dancing was invented by aliens (after all, it’s best viewed from above…), the author, Mark Leeper, notes:
Ask yourself, why are you not even allowed to question the authority of the caller. That should tell you something. And you should ask yourself who your caller is taking his/her orders from. How will you feel when your caller starts giving you:
Waltz that girl across the floor.
Hide some drugs in your desk drawer.
Meet in the center with a right hand star.
Toss a grenade in someone’s car.
Promenade that pretty little thing.
Drill some holes in an airplane wing.
This article (along with some other humorous square dance pieces) is listed in the article co-op at Vic Ceder’s site.
Is computer code protected speech? If not, how does one distinguish between compilable code and other expressions of it? This site explores that issue and contains various versions of code for descrambling DVDs that was enjoined from distribution under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Here you can find a Haiku version, a t-shirt version, and (the reason I’m even mentioning it here), the square dance version.
From a college student’s blog:
I went square dancing last night. In and around the square dancing was some kind of churchy juleklip and julefrokost, which Jane had convinced me would be a good time in spite of the churchy bit, and she was right. I hadn’t been seriously square dancing for ages, since the days when my parents would drag me along on their gigs in the basement of the Unitarian church; I learned to square dance by being swung wildly around by crazy old people, and so got around the “boys have cooties and gym class sucks” problems with public education. I know it’s a dying tradition, but it’s fun and I don’t see why nobody does it anymore. Apart from crazy old people of course.
Just when you think you sort of know something, you come across a page like this: Mental Image Practice by Bill Heimann. Okay, I sort of (barely) dance C3A. Out of these 109 situations, I found 6 where I understood the vocabulary.
| 38 | Beau end in zero tag | Stable, concentric, wheel thru |
I actually could do this one, although I forgot about trying to get the whole set up, and just went for where the beau end would end up. But I could go back and figure out the whole formation.
| 83 | lead center of rh waves | Reverse order, initially cross concentric, recoil |
Here I understand the words, but I don’t get how it works. First I know the call, recoil (facing or split recycle, step and fold). So there are two parts, and to do it in reverse order, I guess one would do the step and fold first and then the recycle. So does that mean the initially cross concentric part applies to the step and fold? Or would one apply it to the first part of the call (recycle) and then do it in reverse order: step and fold, cross concentric recycle? Given the result, that has to be correct.
| 89 | Trailing end of lh waves | Once Removed, as couples, Latch On |
I think I managed to actually do this one.
| 95 | End of center line in lh interlocked diamond, points facing | initially centers, 1/4 wheel the ocean, 1-1/2 |
| 96 | # 1 in rh columns | Initially, initially tandem, initially twice recoil |
| 97 | lead center of lh wave | Initially reverse order mixer’s motivate |
In all of these, I know the vocabulary, but I don’t understand the parsing.
The two contras I called Friday night went well; people liked the 24th of October better than Katie’s Trip to Starbase Twelve. Saturday, I went to the Duke City Singles Fling for 1 1/2 hours of A2. It felt like there was too little square dancing at the Fling on Saturday during the day. I chose contras over squares for Saturday night, although I heard the square dancing went well.
At some point during the weekend, I decided to reorganize my closet (summer clothes out, winter clothes away). As I was going through my piles of T-shirts, it occurred to me that the reason I have so many is because they bring back memories, not because I want to wear them all. Indeed, some of them are too small and some of them are wearing out, so I can’t wear them. So I decided to take pictures of some of the more significant ones (all square dance related). If you’re interested, they’re here.
Oh, yes, the food. It’s Turtle-Bear’s birthday on Tuesday, but we both have meetings, so I made one of her favorites, Chicken Marbella, from the Silver Palate cookbook.
Having trouble finding a square dance partner? This site, DancePartner.com, might actually be useful…if square dancers use it. I didn’t sign up, although it’s free, but I did do a search as a woman looking for women in the US…and there were 22 listings, one of which even listed square dancing as one of her dance interests (along with about 20 other dance forms, and square dancing was nearly last). The listings are (so far) free, but there is a paid option.
Here are a couple of pages featuring (silent) dance videos. The dance moves are funny, but even funnier is the commentary.
On the sd-callers email list, someone asked where to find a list and illustrations of the various square dance formations (lines, waves, quarter tags, etc) on line. I replied (tersely, as is my wont every place but here) with a couple of URLs:
It was then suggested that the original questioner work on filling out call analysis sheets for each call. These sheets help a caller analyze a call by listing the definition, starting and ending formations, and other info. Every callers school that I’ve ever been to passes out the CALLERLAB call analysis sheet, but I was never happy with its layout. My biggest issue is that the call start and call end formations/arrangements aren’t related in any way on the sheet, whereas in real life, the ending formation/arrangement often is totally dependent on where the call started.
So, when our local callers association did a callers school, I redesigned the sheet so that it lines up the starting/ending formations. It looks like this (and if you click on it, you’ll get a PDF version of the document):
The Mac world is buzzing with Apple’s new music store, which allows Mac OS X users in the United States to legally download and use individual songs (for $0.99). Of course, there are Digital Rights Management (DRM) strings attached, and the music is compressed using AAC (which Apple claims is better than MP3, but which some people who have done listening tests claim is worse). But one can burn a CD and then reencode back to MP3 (with obvious loss of quality, but at least one can be legal without buying a whole CD).
So, of course, the first thing I did was search on square dance. Here’s a screen shot of the results (click on the image for a full size version):
The songs are:
And here are the lyrics for the Washington Square Dance (from Call Me Madam, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin):
Square dance
The Washington Square dance
Republicans make up with the Democrats
Show those foreign diplomats
That you dare dance
The Washington Square danceNo matter which side you’re on or where you stand
Take your partner by the hand
And each pair dance
The Washington Square danceThe theme is a get-together policy
Show your friends across the sea
It’s a fair dance
The Washington Square danceThe rules are the same as cricket, golf or squash
No fair cheatin’ ’cause the Wash-
-ington Square dance is square-Bow to your partners, bow to your corners
Dance till your cheeks are red as a rose
But try not to step on your partner’s toes
-Now, duck for the oyster, dig for the clam
Duck for the oyster, dig for the clam
But do your diggin’ for Uncle Sam
-One for the money, two for the show
One for the money, two for the show
Three to make ready for Uncle Joe
-Republicans over to the right
-Democrats over to the left
The left meet the right and don’t explode
Try to find the middle of the roadAnd square dance, the Washington Square dance
Be careful, you’ll have to watch your step, by gosh!
No round heels because the Wash-
-ington Square dance is square