Warning: nothing to do with dance…

Well, who’d a thunk it. An ex-partner (that’s the nice, ambiguous word that we gay folk sometimes use to denote serious relationships) has become an angler (no, not an angel…a fisher-person). I moved to Albuquerque to be with her, but stayed on when she moved on to Chicago, then back to the west coast, then on to Minneapolis, and further north to Duluth, where she seems to have become addicted to fly-fishing…and to have written a book about it: Northern Waters. With a little more googling, I even found where her daughter hangs out on the web (a Motley Fool forum, of all places), and, by dint of reading many conversations-among-people-that-I-don’t-know posts, figured out that she’s newly-engaged, and newly-graduated (maybe a medical records person? it was hard to tell). Anyway, I was intrigued to find out how much I could find out with a little bit of googling.

In fact, this whole thing started because of an article I read about Google. A quote:

The first thing a Google virgin attempts is the often humbling experience of typing one’s own name into the query line. The next search is inevitable—a Google dragnet to determine the fate of old flames.

I realized I’d never really done that, so I thought I’d try. It’s pretty amazing.

You may wonder why I have a google search field on my site…did you think it was for your convenience? Not.

I was reading a thread on Jane Austen era dancing and found this:

Well, for the Regency era the dancES vs. dancING distinction is not quite as large or universal as it appears. The supposed names of (country) dances in many cases are more likely the names of the dance tunes, with the figures being fairly interchangeable – the same tune could have many different figure combinations, and the same figure combinations turn up linked to many different tunes. Linking specific figures to specific tunes of this era is something of a modern artifact, not necessarily reflective of the historical experience. (And of course one could always just compose the figures on the spot to any tune desired – there are surviving manuals full of rules for how to do it (emphasis added). It’s quite a trip to do this with a roomful of modern dancers!) But you could be quite good at country dancING without knowing any particular country dancES.

I wonder who composed the dances on the spot? Did they have a caller, perchance?

Here’s a little bit of discussion on square dancing while discussing how to get gum off of a shirt (hubby’s gum fell out of his mouth while square dancing…). Interesting attitudes.

The Pillsbury Doughboy says ‘I love to square dance, particularly when we “Dough-si-dough.” I have to be careful, though, so I don’t stub my “dough.”‘ This interview with the Doughboy is no longer on the Pillsbury site (in fact, a search for “doughboy” gave no results; I guess he’s retired, although his picture is still there), but you can see it in the google cache. Also, although the Doughboy site is gone, you can read a review of it (including a complete copy of the interview) here.

Found this while googling “I hate square dancing”

This makes me want to Square Dance, this red does. Not round dance, mind you, but square dance. Yes, let’s all get off our respective couches on which we sit like so much respective fishes, and grab our partners, do si do, a la man left and away we go. What is “a la man left”, pray tell? Or is it “alaman” or “alamande” or “almondine”? The “do si do” move has always confused me. I simply am not a “do si do” person. In fact, I hate Square Dancing so why am I going on and on about it? In red, yet. We simply cannot have Red Square dancing because the Red Square is in Russia and this is an American column. This is a Star Spangled Banner column.

This is from a column at a site related to Stephen Sondheim. Huh.

There were three other hits.

• I hate Square dancing. I hate line dancing. I hate Shania Twain most of all.
• I wanted today off because I hate square dancing and we would have done that in GYM today.
• I hate square dancing, detest it. Where did they take us to? square dancing.

BTW, there are 22 hits for “I Love Square Dancing”

It’s the Google Dance. These are pictures of a real dance at (I guess) a Google party. But remember:

They put some pages in,
They take some pages out,
They calculate the PageRank,
Then they shake it all about,
They wait until the full moon
Then they mix the servers up,
Thats what its all about.

Last night, we took Jerry Jestin, a fabulous caller who stayed with us this weekend, to his Plus dance for the Allemanders, stayed to dance an Advanced tip before the Plus dance started, and then took off for a private party, featuring wonderful food and a local band, Wagogo.

The party-goers were multi-ethnic, multi-generational, gay, straight…in other words, diverse. The dancing was unstructured, although it was too crowded to do much more than groove in place. I tried to imagine recruiting for square dancing. I couldn’t.

Earlier, we went to a UNM women’s basketball game, where our unranked Lobo women beat the 17th-ranked Texas Longhorns 77-70. During halftime, a little girl cheerleader group performed. Little girls seem to love group dancing; the halftime shows frequently feature local dance and cheer troupes, with bunches of girls and young women moving in unison. Seems like square dancing could be popular with them…except that one needs (at least traditionally) boys…and they’d rather play sports.

Found this:

We stopped by Schnuck’s on our way home, and some car was parked in a handicapped spot, which a handicapped license plate thing and all.

The bumper sticker said, “I love Square Dancing.”

???????

here. Former square dancers? Handicapable square dancers? Just shows how much square dancers do love square dancing.

Or how about a charm:

There’s a new version of CSDS available: 1.11.02. Mostly looks like minor tweaks.

Did a google search on “Why I dance”:

• A student and pilot
• Jive Magazine readers
• Jay Robinson
• Sherezzah
• Jalilah Sahar
• Miscellaneous ballroom dancers
• Darie (look for the 3/12/2001 entry)
• Raven Davis
• Roeland M.M. Hogt
• Linda J. Doerksen
• Ali Braden
• Kalay Mordock

A national dance?

As you know, I’m not in favor of square dancing being declared the United States’ official “national dance”. But that’s because I’m not in favor of any dance being the official national dance. Should every nation have a national dance? That’s the premise of this article. The author says, “Why ignore such a simple way to communicate something about the character of a country?” But what is the highly multi-cultured US’s character? And what would square dancing say about our national character?

Probably some pretty good things: teamwork, cooperation, looking for new challenges, unwilling to tolerate boredom. And some other things: not in touch with our bodies (square dancing almost discourages any body moves other than walking and (for girls) swishing skirts), rigid gender roles, lack of creativity (only the caller gets to be creative).

What else would square dancing say about our national character? Add your comment by clicking on Comments at the end of this article.

Check out this 1939 interview with Sammy Spring, a Massachusetts fiddler and dirt farmer. Here are a couple of good quotes:

That’s what I call living. Folks don’t know how to live today. They won’t go out like they used to, ‘cept to go to the movies, most of ’em, or stay at home and listen to the radio. Those old chicken pie suppers and things like that used to make them more neighborly. It’s too bad. When you look at the way folks used to live and see how they git along today. They ain’t no more of that ole spirit of corporation. Just dog eat dog today.

…

You know they’s some sense to square dancin’. Why I rather see younguns dance that way then to try to do that crazy jitterbug stuff. Ain’t no sense to it at all. Jumpin round like crazy loons or monkeys trying to climb a tree, that ain’t dancin’. They aint no sense to it.

Remember, this is 1939…sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

How is owning a Macintosh like being a square dancer? They both involve being a member of a community. Mac users belong to a “brand community”; square dancers have a dance community, and both share similar features: shared consciousness, rituals and traditions, and a sense of moral responsibility. Check out this article on the Mac community.