This is cool: Dance-a-Runi Store. They sell t-shirts with designs based on an overhead view of contra dance moves. Here’s an example of a dosado with twirls (contra dancers stylize their dosados differently than MWSD dancers; instead of doing a body-contact highland fling, they do a whirling dervish thing by spinning all the way through a regular back-to-back dosado):

Thanks to Clark Baker for the pointer to this. Now, if only we had some graphically-pleasing MWSD t-shirts. While we’re on the subject of t-shirts, here’s one of my favorite dance shirts:

From the same Dance-A-Runi site, a compendium of dance-related laws. A couple of good ones:

Forestdale, Rhode Island: It is prohibited to ask anyone to square dance within four hours of having eaten garlic.

Palisades, Ohio: It is illegal to make silly or insulting faces at someone
who is trying to learn how to square dance.

From the same site, a contra-based short story: Sweethearts’ Dance. It’s pretty sappy, but has a lot of dancing stuff in it.

Also, First Impressions of the Contra Dance World. A quote from Jo Mortland’s first Contra Dance weekend:

I realized that this community is not alcohol based, not technology based, not consumer based. There was nothing in that evening that the media tells us we need to have a good time! No wonder it felt odd!

Also, Rune Horoscopes (“It’s a wise person who follows the stars, but it takes a keen awareness to follow the Caller!!”). I’m a Gypsy.