So, I continue to collect LiveJournal entries related to square dancing…most of them are inane comments about square dancing in gym class, woot, but occasionally I find one that makes me smile. Here’s one from runeshower:

Let’s dance!
Hi everybody! In my never-ending quest for a do-able form of regular, gentle and *enjoyable* exercise, I remembered all the fun I used to have square dancing. I thought, if there’s a beginner class starting up soon, that’d be perfect for me and oakdragon to attend. Turns out that all the clubs in the Bay area start classes in either September or January, EXCEPT one — the Sunnyvale Singles. Their new season of classes begins May 4, with a FREE lesson. It happens to be the closest club to where I live, so I’m a happy camper!

She follows that by encouraging her online friends to join her. And I would say, do it! Turn your online community into a real, physical, press-the-flesh community.

Want to learn to square dance? Seek out a square dancer!

From the Daily Ardmoreite:

Square dance clubs are struggling to survive in the social climate of those who do not join organizations. Many organizations are adapting by changing focus, but the square dance club can survive only by finding new members. The clubs strive to seek out the few who are willing to go against the trend and join. There are three district clubs attempting to recruit and bring in new members. Anyone interested in investigating the fun of square dancing should seek out a dancer and find out when and where clubs are promoting new dancer programs.

I’ve compiled the source code for Sdtty under Mac OS X, and made it available (with the author’s permission, of course) here: http://www.squarez.com/sd/sdtty.dmg. Mac users beware: this is not a nice GUI application; it runs in the Terminal application and uses a command line interface. But it works, and, as far as I know, is the only way to write high level choreography on a Mac (without using Virtual PC).

I did write an Applescript to make starting up easier; the Applescript (run_sdtty) launches the Terminal, resizes the window (I think Sdtty works better with a taller window), and starts Sdtty. The rest is up to you.

Here are a couple of screen shots:

From a student’s weblog (swing your partner:

I’ve been having some rather unusual photo assignments recently.

Yesterday I had an assignment for square dancing. I wasn’t looking forward to THAT at all.

…

There were only a few couples initially there, but soon the place was getting busier. All of the couples looked at me with curiosity, with a large amount of them coming up and talking with me. I learned about hometowns, why they square dance, how popular it is, and why I should do it. Every one of them looked to be having a blast, most with their husband or wife. It was really amazing how in love almost all of them looked.

Soon the square dance “caller” started spinning a record and hollering. Someone came up to me and told me that he’s a “national” and came all the way from Texas.

I stayed much longer than I needed to, almost 2 hours in fact. I took quite a few photos, but the part I enjoyed most was watching.

He’s put up a couple of photos, also.

Wonder who the “national” caller from Texas was…

There were three articles on Wired News that made me think about square dancing:

• Community: People are still looking for community; that’s part of the appeal of the Macintosh. From an article about the new San Francisco Apple Store, Wired News: The Waiting Is the Funnest Part:
  

  Before the opening, customers in line fielded questions from puzzled shoppers and tourists. Why are all these people lining up for a store, many wanted to know?

  “It’s the community, the joy of hanging out,” said Steve Cocks, a 42-year-old who drove up from Southern California and camped out all night. “It’s the fun of being together. We had a great time last night. We got five pizzas for everyone in line (about 40 people at the time). People bought doughnuts and coffee. We watched movies. We talked. We talked Mac.”

  Too bad there wasn’t a square dance caller in the crowd.

• Virtual Reality: But will people be finding their community without face-to-face contact? From Wired News: Living Life in Virtual Reality:
  

  Do people like Lisa and Ryan Lackey point the way to a future where preferred forms of contact are less flesh-and-blood and more virtual? The writer Pico Iyer, interviewed in the film, worries that the future will include people separated from the physical world by a wall of computers.

• Brain Stimulation: And finally, more support for mental workouts, from an article on memory experts (Wired News: The Masters of Memory Lane):
  

  No matter how challenging your job is, it isn’t demanding enough. Brains thrive on constant challenge, so presenting them with the same activities that they already excel at doesn’t keep the gray matter in top shape. You can, however, substitute the waltz for tango lessons — just ensure that you have a good balance of fresh thinking and activities built into your life.

  And I’m sure that if they’d been aware of it, they’d put in square dancing instead of tango or waltz.

Looking to learn more about traditional square dance calling? Check this out: Dare to Be Square: A Weekend Workshop for Square Dance Callers. It’s in North Carolina…a little far for me, but it looks like fun!