Entries Tagged 'dance' ↓

It’s the natural order.

For more cool dance videos, check out Alain’s dance blog.

My friend Carl, who is a student of philosophy and an instructor of swing/lindy/blues dancing back in Montreal, just started his very own blog, which concerns dancing, mostly, and music of a jazzy variety.

You should check it out.

Every once in awhile I tell myself, “Self, today is the day that I’m going to start blogging on a daily basis.”

My self usually responds by saying, “Do I even know you?”, and goes to sit on the other side of the bus.

Regardless of my split personality problems, I really do intend to create florid, captivating windows into which one might peer into my life. That is my intention. But, I suppose like all intentions, good and otherwise, it ain’t haulin’ water. Or, bizarre analogies aside, intentions and actions are different beasts. In any case, I’m on day two of such a spurt, however brief it may end up lasting. Hopefully, by day three, or four, or eventually, one hopes, I’ll stop starting said blog entries by talking about how I hope to blog more. I don’t really care what you think of it, but it bores me to tears.

So far, today’s been a long day of reading, class, conversation, studies, a lecture, a group discussion, and for lunch: some tasty salami. Now I’ve got rice on the stove and swing classes in about an hour. I have two classes on Wednesday nights, Lindy [Hop] 3 and Blues. This is week 3, and so far the lindy class is quite easy, though a nice review, and the blues class is kicking my ass. I knew it would. Blues, or at least blues lindy, is to me what the dance is all about. Or perhaps it just emphasizes those things that I think dancing should be all about from the get-go. It focuses on the music, it stresses mood and emotive dancing, and it makes you move your ass. That last one is very important. Unfortunately, it’s also my biggest problem at the moment. Body isolation is tough for me, and while I can do a certain amount, even with my hips (and ass), really getting into it, pushing down, committing entirely to it, is really tough for me.

I know I’m there to learn, but with how long I’ve been dancing, I always feel like I should learn things naturally, that I should be able to pick new things up quickly and move on. I tend to get down on myself, but in a way it’s also kind of invigorating to really have to work to understand what I’m doing, what I’m doing wrong, and what I can do to improve. I’ll keep going until I figure it out. At least, that’s the vow I made to myself, but then you know how well he and I get along.

On a daily basis I question the wisdom of having so many sites to update / projects to work on that I end up neither updating nor working. I’ve been fairly consistent with one, the webcomic. It’s not up today on time because Theo got a ‘Disk Boot Failure’ error that prevented drawing last night and somehow fixed itself by this morning. It’s an unintentional cliffhanger, and not a spot I would choose to keep our audience hanging on purpose.

Other than La Casa, I’ve been glorious at not updating exlibrius, the livejournal, or starting any of the new projects I want to work on. What the heck? Well, I’ll work on it. But enough of that.

I got to attend a conference in Tacoma on Wednesday about using online services to promote libraries. Services like blogs, wikis, IMs, and even Flickr. It was really, really cool, and really inspiring. When I got back, my boss asked me to take one of the things they talked about that would have a practical implementation in our school and get it going before I leave. Starting a blog for the library, and getting people to post to it, would be fun, but perhaps not entirely practical. Right now, I’m leaning towards syndicating an RSS feed of our new materials, by subject, to the department websites. The only issue with that being that I really don’t think anyone ever goes to look at the department websites, so it might not actually be the most practical project. Making an internal reference wiki would be fun, or a schoolwide policy/documentation wiki, and both could be very practical. I have to do a write-up of the conference yet, and hopefully when I’m done I’ll have some more solid ideas to work with.

On the dance front, I’ve been taking some classes in Tacoma on Wednesdays that have been kicking my ass (in a good way). Last month was mostly moves, and it was fun and I learned things, but it didn’t kick my ass. This month is called “The Art of Lindy”, and it focuses on musicality and fundamentals (advanced fundamentals - is that oxymoronic?). I spent twenty minutes learning how to shift my weight from one side to the other, and even after practicing for a couple weeks I’m still only starting to get it right. That sounds weird, and I feel like it should be easy, but somehow it’s not.

One of the coolest parts about taking these classes the last couple months is how much it has helped my teaching. I’m thinking about Lindy a lot more technically than I used to, and I’m beginning to understand a lot more of the physical dynamic involved, which has been really interesting. Some people become total lindy-heads, which I can understand, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to that point. One girl I was talking to this last week says that she makes a direct corrolation between good dancing and good sex. I blushed. It makes sense, in a way, but for me dancing isn’t inherently a sexual experience. It certainly CAN be, but that needn’t mean that it always is.

Blog catch-up may be lame, but it’s better than no new content at all. I’ll make an effort to keep this, and all my other projects, updated more often. Ciao for now.

Even two days later,
my bed still smells like beauty.
My couch smells like me.

Aside from the fact that I shouldn’t be “getting with” anyone right now, what all with leaving the city, state, and country in about five months, there are certain people that I REALLY should not be getting with, for other very valid reasons.

Of course, those are exactly the people that I am insanely attracted to. Grrrrr. 

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