It’s the natural order.
For more cool dance videos, check out Alain’s dance blog.
Categories
Category: dance
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.
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.
So Friday night my friend Amy and I drove down to Portland to go to the Portland Lindy Exchange. First off, the Crystal Ballroom is mad cool. The floor is air-cushioned, which offers the effect something like that of dancing on a very firm trampoline. On the faster songs it was fun sometimes to stand back and watch the floor ripple. Aside from the visual effect, it was a dream to dance on, considering how much give the floor offers, and thus takes off your joints. I danced with people from New England, Chicago, and a flurry of other places. Had I known that there was an after-dance (from midnight to 6am) I might have geared up the energy to go, but as it was I was tired, and we left Portland around midnight:thirty.
Amy and I wandered around Olympia pretty much all day on Saturday, which was really nice. We had breakfast at Darby’s and later went to Chopsticks for Bubble Tea and green tea icecream. Seperately, good. Together, entirely too much sweet. It seemed like EVERYWHERE we went, every store and shop and restaurant was playing swing music. It was the soundtrack for our day, and all I wanted to do was dance. It’s hard to get a shy girl to dance with you in an antique store, though, where things might be broken.
Saturday evening I dropped Amy off at her house on the way to Seattle, and arrived at a party around 10:30 in the p.m. for some jiggy conversational action. The girl throwing the party is a friend of my sister’s, and used to be my babysitter. She’s a Cornish grad, so she knows all sorts of interesting artists and dancers and such types, which made for a fun crowd. Her downstairs neighbors are a band, so they came up and played, and there were a few dance performances at points that were fun to watch. We left after a couple hours and I crashed at my sister’s place.
Sunday we went to breakfast at Mae’s and then went ice skating. It’s the second time in my life I’ve ever been ice skating, and though it was hella fun, I think I prefer roller-skating, honestly. Plus, I had to pay constant attention to not run over little kids. Which is true when rollerskating as well, but seems more dangerous when you have sharp metal objects attached to your locomotive shanks. I guess, for the kid, it would be the difference between a crushing death or a slashing/stabby death. Hmmmmm…
Later, we went and watched “Night Watch” at the Neptune Theater in the U. District. I liked it a lot, and I’m interested now to see how the rest of the trilogy plays out. It’s nice to see good films coming out of Russia, and it was fun to listen to Russian. As a Russian film MADE to be seen by an American audience, they got to plan the subtitles out ahead of time (rather than just tack them on as an afterthought), and therefore had some really neat subtitle effects that I’ve never seen used before. Some characters practically gathered their energy and shouted the subtitle at the other character, in a very illustrative fashion (giant subtitle lashing across the screen), while some dripped, and some glowed, and while most were white, some were red or orange. In a word, it was neat to see subtitles included as an actual part of the artistic process.
I got home around midnight on Sunday, and went straight to work Monday morning. My bed smells like dangerous dreams, and I’m constantly torn between throwing myself into them or holding them at arm’s length. It’s all completely ridiculous.
Just like anything worthwhile.
.
I get off work in about an hour, and then I’m going to swing up to Tacoma to pick up my friend Amy, and then we’re gonna head down to Portland to go dancing at the Crystal Ballroom. The Crystal is huge (they cater events for up to 1000 people), and as the Portland Lindy Exchange is happening there this weekend, there will be good dancers from all over the world. The Solomon Douglas Swingtet is playing, dancing goes until midnight, and then a long drive back north. It should be a super-awesome time, and I’d be more excited about it if I weren’t sore and tired. I’ve been dancing a ton, and not sleeping enough, lately.
The funny thing is, I don’t think I’m sore from the actual dancing. I think I’m sore from all the driving involved to get to the dances. I think it’s time to invent dancing as a form of transportation. You know, like the elevator in Thoroughly Modern Millie, except maybe a little bit faster, and it would be nice if we could get our own lane on the freeway.
.
I can be compulsive, but usually not in a manic fashion. Obsessive? Absolutely. The subjects vary, but the ones that come to mind immediately are:
- Webcomics.
- Ideas for websites.
- Ideas for La Casa.
- Swing Dancing.
- Librarianism.
- Webcomics.
You’ll notice that, sadly, blogging is not on that list. I’d love to be obsessed with blogging, but I’m not sure if it will happen in this current format. My idea, currently (and this does fall into the “Ideas for websites” obsession), is to create a seperate space for purely personal, day-to-day things (probably on livejournal, which seems to cater to the format), and another space for something more of a professional (meaning, subject-oriented) blog. I have some fun ideas for what I’d like to write about, mostly technology, information science, design, librarianism, and webcomics. It would be a fun cross-spectrum for fun people, I think.
I have two other ideas for what I think would be good websites. The nice part is that once set-up they would, for the most part, run themselves. The not-so-nice part is that I really have no clue how to set them up. The ideas and the execution, I think, would be fairly simple. Unfortunately, fairly simple is generally beyond me at the moment when it comes to web design. I’m decent with CSS and for the most part I “understand” things. Understanding does not a good web designer make. Not by itself, in any case. The point? The point is, if you’re good with web design, and might be interested in collaborating with me to get this stuff going, I’m happy to pitch my ideas to you. Understand, they’re not “exciting”. I don’t have the next MySpace lurking in my brain. They’re simple, but I think they’ll work.
Tonight I’m going dancing in Portland. Tomorrow night, to a party in Seattle. Sunday night I may go dancing in Seattle. Monday night, more dancing. Tuesday and Wednesday: dancing. Thursday? Thursdays I crawl into a hole and sleep, or sometimes I go play poker and drink beer. And I wonder why time seems to slip by so quickly … oh wait, no I don’t. The answer is dancing.
Dancing and webcomics. The two best answers out there.
Life like a dirty martini
dance the fork out and swing it
wore holes through my socks on a sticky floor
trying to find the right way to
woo
She’s mentioned that breakfast numerous times
I’m always flattered
French poetry in the underground
smiles and coffee and oh what times
and thank you for the years
Now a reciprocity, previously unsuggested
French and dancing?
at the same time no less
like Dionysus waiting in the wings
with wine and fervor and he’s winking
but I’m not going to chase because
I’ve tried that and …
The right way to woo is like dancing
like jazz in the underground club
with smoke against the ceiling
and wine for 10f
and every night we’d stumble home
across the Rhine
just find the syncopation
and Apollo be damned
Aperitif: a light follow-up on the palindrome post.
Entree: Desperate times call for desperate measures. Like, when you’re short on materials and you need to make a scarf, you use your “desperate measuring tape” to make you feel like it will be long enough, when actually it’s neither thick, long, nor wide enough (remember, we’re talking about a scarf here). So I posted a personal ad on craigslist – which you can read here for another couples weeks if you like – which I’d like to think is less desperate than it is modern. I am a man of the times. Here is my internet personal ad, hear me roar. It’s a good ad. I put a lot of thought into it. I’m a decent writer. It contains a lot of who I am, and if you get my sense of humor, it’s even pretty funny. I sat back and waited for the replies to roll in. Soon, I knew, I’d be fighting girls off with a stick, and Keira would be calling me to have coffee with her while she was in town for some red-carpet event or another.
Well, so far it hasn’t gone quite as planned. I have gotten multiple responses. By multiple, I mean two. I understand that the tone of my ad is fairly intellectual, so I immediately scared away all the vacuous rain-bunnies that the soggy northwest has to offer. Still, are there only two girls out there who read Craigslist, have an odd sense of humor, and are looking for a nice guy? The funny thing is, both responses I received were in response to my speaking French. I’d pretty much ruled out my French skills as a way to meet girls since, oh, High School when I met Helena Teddergreen in French class my freshman year but was entirely too flustered (and too much of a dork) to talk to her. Besides which, she was like two grades ahead of me and in High School that’s a super-big deal. That and the fact that during my stay in France there were no French girls who fell immediately for my moody and sophisticated American demeanor pretty much ruled out French as a valid method of seduction. Maybe I shouldn’t have crossed it off my list so soon.
One of the respondent lives in Tacoma, and did nothing more than invite me to the TacomaCityFrenchUp! picnic on July 20th. Not with her, just in general. I emailed her back, but she hasn’t yet responded. The other respondent lives in Seattle, and so far has been mostly restrained and reticent in our correspondence. It’s hard to get excited about meeting someone when getting them to tell you about themselves is like pulling teeth. Granted, we are strangers, but there’s a certain social contract involved with placing personal ads, and with answering them, that implies a level of voluntary information sharing. Perhaps La Francaise from Tacoma will email me again, and I’ll go to that picnic. Perhaps I’ll drive to Seattle and meet Ms. Taciturn. In either case, my expectation for true love via internet personal ad is greatly diminished.
Though I’m still waiting for Keira to call.
Digestif: In the meantime, I went to the swing dance last night after playing swing hookie for a couple weeks. My friend Lee was in town DJing, and I had a blast dancing and chatting with people. I did meet someone new, who seems very nice. We even exchanged phone numbers. It just goes to show that the best way to meet people is, and probably always will be, to go out and do things you enjoy. The rest will follow.
Categories
Olympia Spring Swing Fling Thing
Saturday we had the Jackson Street Lindy Hopper’s come down to teach workshops all day, and then we had a dance that night. Being the ridiculously dedicated swing dancer that I am, I took all the workshops (which were great) and went to the dance. I was too tired for the after hours party though.
This makes me die inside. Everyone gets to be in a bad movie now and then (unless you’re William H. Macy, who seems to have impeccable taste), but Vin’s sort of been on a bad spree these days. I’m hoping that he’s simply trying to make as much money as possible with Hollywood “money films”, so that he’ll be able to soon put his real genius to work in the director’s chair, or perhaps as a producer. With some cunning investing, it might not be far off! And if this were, in fact, true, it would almost, almost be a good excuse for starring in this movie. But not quite. He’s still pretty cool though.
I’m going to watch Sin City at the Cinerama in Seattle this weekend, as part of my birthday movie theater marathon. I’ll be twenty-five on April 2! Fanfare! Fireworks! Huzzah! I’m really not that excited. Honest. I am that excited about watching this movie at this theater though. It’s going to be the absolute best movie experience I have ever had and will ever have in my life, ever. I don’t set my expectations high or anything. Should be fun though. Also as part of the movie theater marathon experience, we may check out the Olympic Club Theater in Centralia, in which you can eat food while you enjoy a film, and/or one of the historic Landmark Theaters in Seattle. And of course, we may stop in at the Capitol Theater here in Olympia, or the Rose Theatre if we make it up to Port Townsend. So many good theaters, so little time. I’m such a movie geek, too.
In swing dance news, we are mostly trying to work on learning the Big Apple. It’s a fun, zany line dance sort of thing, but it’s tough to learn! In two weeks, we’ve gotten maybe halfway through it. It’ll be a lot of fun, though, once we can bust it out at the dance some week.
That’s it for now. I’ve been so dang busy (busy having fun, mind you, the best kind) that I’ve been finding it tough to blog. I’ll try to be more prolific, and consistent. Oh, and if anyone wants to buy me a birthday present … *wink wink*
As Eddie says while riding his scooter: “Ciao.”
Mornings thin like paper the sun shines through,
too short and fragile and bright and young.
We wake up smiling, instinctually,
and feel skin against skin and warmth and birdsong,
and the sunlight makes motes against your face
through the blinds, and I trace with my eye the
strong features around your jawline.
You’re a stoic in the morning, before your eyes open,
carved from clay and light and flesh and fire,
and when your eyes open they burn holes through me.
Today I’m caught up in the sunshine, in this premature summer that’s graced our door, and the warmth of the colors of the grass and water and sky, and I’m caught up in watching great big puffballs of clouds patiently edge their way across the horizons. For them, life is nothing but the journey, and they may dissolve into light and air at any moment. We’re but ash and bone. Their beauty is intrinsically tied to their brevity. This doesn’t make it convulsive.
When I dance I think of you, and how limbs can tie together so thoroughly that they’ll never be untangled, like smiles, and how my hand feels on your back when the music goes slow and the world fades away to faces and voices, and we all just float. Sometimes I’m surprised by how solid things are, when the lights come back on and reality has its way again.
And sometimes I’m surprised by how much dreams persist.
I heart the movie “I Heart Huckabees”. Seriously. I know it’s been said before, and it this point it’s already cliche, but I just saw it for the first time last night after an unfortunate and expensive trip to Best Buy, and damned if I’m not allowed to say that I heart it at least once!
So back in early January I looked on IMDB and checked out when cool DVDs were going to be released. The reply was a loud, “FEBRUARY!” And yet, being broke, throughout February I managed to avoid Best Buy, and its wiles and wares. Yet yesterday I had to go to the mall to get my hair cut, since the guy downtown took February off (lucky him), which has a Best Buy attached to it. So, after an expensive haircut, albeit by a very cute and friendly blonde who did a fine job, I walked outside and felt the irresistable lure of fresh DVD calling my name. I walked out with the special edition of “I Heart Huckabees“, the director’s cut of “Donnie Darko“, the Disney release (ugh, but still) of “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind“, and “Chicago“. I don’t regret buying any of them, but my wallet does. But then, it worries about stupid stuff, like paying rent and eating food. What a stiff.
So, we watched I Heart Huckabees, and it was fantastic. If you’ve an existential or philisophical bone in your body, I think you’ll like it too. It reminds me of Wes Anderson’s work in that even at its most dramatic points, it never takes itself too seriously. And I can’t count the number of times I laughed out loud.
Have you ever crashed your bicycle into someone on purpose, and sent them flying literally thousands of meters, while your friends were lined up in a big, long row waiting to see if the guy you sent flying will land on or near them, so they can boot him back into the air and improve your distance? Yeah … well, ever done it in Japanese? I didn’t think so.
Have you ever performed the title song to “Singin’ in the Rain”, robot style? These things only happen in VW Commercials. Nice tagline, too. “The original, updated.”
As you can read on the Kottke site, it’s the same guy that did the Kollaboration video, which surely everyone and their step-niece has seen by now. That guy just blows my mind in a serious way. I mean … whoa.
And now for your moment of zen.
We were scheduled to meet the ladies at the Fenix Underground at 10:15. Being that we had to kick some ass at darts, and then finish our Guinness, and then wait to get money out of the ATM (I had done this before heading up to Seattle, but I guess no one else had thought ahead), we didn’t get there until about 10:45.
Fenix Underground is big. Big and in my opinion, pretty classy. Everyone in there seemed to be having a good time, and it wasn’t too packed, at least that early in the evening. We entered on ground level, and then went down the stairs. Having never been there before, I just tried to keep someone I knew in sight so that I didn’t get lost, abandoned and killed in some Seattle back-alley. Downstairs the music was pumping, there were light shows on every wall, and as people danced their shadows played in the light. It’s as much fun to watch silhouettes dance as it is people. We met up with our female cohorts, who had evidently had to put up with some unwanted male advances before we’d arrived, but who’d been having a grand old time without us nonetheless. Still, they were happy to see us, us them, and we immediately jumped out on the dance floor and got our respective grooves on. My groove goes a little like, “Bom-bom-bam-chica-chica-bom-chica-bom-bom-bam-bidda-bidda-bam-bidda-bom-bom-bop”. You know, but not in a porn music sort of way, which the word/sound “chica” always seems to invoke. Having practiced “dropping it like it’s hot”, I shook my bootie, to everyone’s delight, and we had a grand time.
I’d never been to a club with a date. I’d never really danced with a girl I liked outside of structured partner dancing (swing, tango, salsa etc). And frankly, I didn’t really like club dancing that much, until I had someone to do it with, and it became a whole lot more fun. I can see now how people pair up at clubs, if only because it’s a lot more fun to dance WITH someone than by yourself, and the tension can get sexual very quickly. I also think it’s the least constructive way to meet people ever, seeing as how you have no idea if you have anything in common other than you like to go grind it every now and then. But I guess for some, that doesn’t matter so much as what they got and how they can move it.
We spent a little over an hour at the Fenix, all told, which passed quickly. Then some of the girls wanted to move on, seeing as how we’d payed for an all-club pass, why stay at one? I would have been perfectly content staying there. I figure if you’re having a good time, why leave? But we left, anyway, and went to Tiki Bob’s. It sucked. The place was packed, so that walking from the entrance to a place to dance took five minutes, threading through hot sweaty people who either looked like they were wearing too much make-up or too much testosterone. Then we tried dancing, but kept getting bumped by people passing through the crowd. All the guys were wearing tight shirts and had very serious looks on their faces, as if by looking constipated they might attract a mate. The girls were, for the most part, in short halter-top style outfits and tight pants, sporting painted-on characterless faces and a frenzied need to exhibit gleaming in their eyes. If you can’t tell, I was a bit freaked out by the place, but tried to ignore the surroundings and just dance with the people I was with, which worked to a tolerable extent.
We didn’t stay there long, thankfully. Twenty to thirty minutes later we escaped into the crisp night air, breathed thankfully, and bought some really expensive sausages from a vendor set to rake in the dough from all the late-night partiers. We discussed going to another club, something to do with cowgirls (evidently someone wanted to ride the mechanical bull). But feet were sore, people were tired, it was after two in the morning, and we decided to call it a night. But not before we decided we’d hit Denny’s on the way home. Something I wasn’t ecstatic about, but I had four other people in the car I was driving, and by the time we got there some coffee and sugar to keep me awake was sounding very tempting. Better to be wired than dead on the side of the road, I always say. So we stopped about a half-hour south of Seattle, piled out of the car, and tumbled into Denny’s. Our other group met us there, and we sat around for a solid half-hour before our food got to us. You’d think that Denny’s management would realize that they’re going to get a crowd piling in just after two on a Saturday night / Sunday morning, but they seemed oblivious. So we were stuck with one, not overly competent server (he didn’t do too badly, really) serving about ten tables with a combination of about forty people. In a restaurant where everyone wants full coffee all the time, that’s not a good combination.
I chowed on my coffee and apple pie a la mode (I told you I wanted coffee and sugar), and felt much more awake afterwards, if slightly loopy. We chowed, we payed, we left, as often happens in Denny’s, and made our way back to Olympia without further adventure.
I doubt I’ll go up to Seattle every weekend to hit a club, but I did have a blast and I wouldn’t mind doing it again. Olympia has its share of clubs, but the best ones are all gay clubs, and sometimes it’s nice to get out of Dodge and try something new. Still, the nice thing about partying in Oly is that once the evening has wound its way down, you don’t have to drive an hour to get home. Thank god for Denny’s ….
So Saturday night we went up to Seattle, to Pioneer Square, to go to clubs and cause a ruckus. We succeeded admirably, I feel.
Two of my friends and I rode up together a little late, since I didn’t get off work until 6. We got to Seattle a bit after 8:00, and met our gang at the New Orleans for some good company and spicy jambalaya. We had to blow the joint before 9:00 because John Lee Hooker Jr was playing there, and they were charging an exorbitant cover to stay and listen. We had other plans, anyway.
The guys went to the Owl ‘N Thistle for some darts and Guinness. Which, of course, was Theo’s and my plan (mostly Theo), since we were really the only ones playing darts. I think all the guys had a good time, anyway. So Theo and I were playing a game of 501, and these two guys who had been watching us for awhile came up to me and asked if they could have the board when we’re done with our game. I had no idea how to respond, because the nice guy in me wants to get plowed over and say “Hey sure, of course” but really I didn’t want to give up the board yet because they only have the one real dart board and we had just started playing. So I stammered a bit, and then turned to Theo and asked him how he felt about trading off on games, and he turned to them and responded, “How about we play you for it.” And I was like, ooOooOoh, challenge. So Theo and I finished up our game, let the other pair warm up a bit whilst we sized up their skills, and started with a game of 501.
We maintained a good 50-100 point lead throughout the game, all the way down until Theo dropped us to 6 points and I started mad as hell trying to hit the damned double-3. And so they caught up, and the one guy of the two that didn’t seem as good knocked it down to 14 on his first dart, and then hit double-7 and his next. And we were like “W-T-F MATE!?”, but instead we said “Good game” and shook their hands. So after that we played a game of Cricket (the darts version, of course). They had a fairly solid lead on us the entire game, though thanks to Theo we managed to close our bulls early, while I caught us up on most of the other numbers. In the end, they had about 87 points, and we had around 17. They only needed one bull to win, and we needed three. The suspense was high. I got one single bull, which bumped us up to 43. We still needed two more. They missed, then Theo missed, then they missed again. My turn up. First dart flew low and to the right, smacking into the heart of 2. No good. I breathed, lined up, let fly, turned around and said “Good game” with a big smile on my face. My dart stuck smack in the middle of the double-bull, bumping us up to 93 and the win. We may not have kicked their asses in a major way, but I can’t think of a more satisfying victory.
So yesterday we cleared our garage a bit, moved the drum-set, and are ready to start throwing the darts around some more. We need a new board, and I could use some new darts, but Theo and I were both thinking that it would be a lot of fun to enter some local tournaments, either singles or doubles. My competetive edge likes to stomp opponents into the dust, and all the more if they’re strangers. And granted, I’m not that great at darts (yet), but riding off that double-bull win I feel like I could be. Besides, it’s fun as hell.
After the game, we finished our Guinness, and went to the Fenix Underground to meet our lovely ladies and do some dancing. Details to come.
Categories
Caught in a state of bliss
Woo, so our dance performances went great! The routine has a lot of spunk and character (it’s a valentine’s dance to “Tainted Love”, or course it has character!), and we all pulled it off with panache. Our backflips weren’t the most dynamic ever, but were landed without incident both nights. It’s really interesting to have someone trust implicitly that you can flip their body mass over backwards and not more than chest height and land them back on their feet. The follow’s only responsibility, really, is to jump hard, straight up, and keep her legs together. The lead does everything else. The left arm is a support at their upper back, around which they revolve. The right arm comes up as the follow is jumping in the upper-leg region, and pushes her up and around. It’s all a real trip to me, and despite having done it successfully multiple times now, without much difficulty, it still somehow seems like it shouldn’t be possible. I was thinking about having Adam see if he could backflip me, because I’m curious what the experience is like from the follow’s perspective (quite scary, I hear) and I feel a smidge guilty that I expect someone to do something that I’ve never tried. On the other hand, I weigh significantly more than all the follows on the team, so I certainly don’t feel too bad about it.
We’ve got it all on video, both performances. I’m going to try and transfer them to digital, and then maybe I’ll post them here for your viewing pleasure. They’re a lot of fun to watch. The crowds both nights were also very receptive, which was awesome. We put a lot of work into learning these, for a fairly short, non-lucrative (read, no money at all) pay-off. So it’s nice when people enjoy watching them. I like learning the routines just for myself, to gain a sense of choreography, musicality, and to learn new moves and stunts. Not to mention the swing team is, generally, a lot of fun to hang out with. Even so, I don’t think it would be half as fun if we didn’t get to show off every other month or so, to a throng of adoring fans. I don’t have any groupies yet, but I expect them to start calling any day now.
I’ll try to be more interesting later. Maybe post something funny. Until then, I recommend you read Theo’s blog today. The man turns a good phrase, you know?
While you’re there, oggle how pretty I made his blog.
A fresh bouquet sans roses
(I don’t particularly like the things),
a red vase holding oranges and scarlets.
The card read:
Dancing has given me great balance…
but I fell for you all the same.
Am I a sap? Absolutely.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.
Whether you celebrate with the sappy or the irony,
I wish you the best of days.
… shoot first and ask questions later.
I watched The Boondock Saints for the first time the other night. I’d been avoiding it because of all the 1337 D3WdZ who said how awesome it was. I trust not the ‘leet doods. But then, some movies are enjoyable to many different kinds of viewers, doods and modest geniuses alike. Chances are (and wouldn’t it be ironic) that geniuses is not actually the correct word. I’m too lazy to check. The title for this post is in honor of the autistic bar-tender, for whom I mourn when he is shot, and all his mixed idioms.
————————
There’s a beautiful woman in my life now, with whom I connect amazingly well. This last week we’ve spent nearly every free moment together, without a trace of boredom or dischord. We’ve admitted openly that we’re completely smitten with each other, and have both acknowledged that we have an uncommon bond, one which very much entices the fatalist in me. Unfortunately, and perhaps I should say, of course, there are complications. I’ve a knack for complications, it seems. And in this case, the least of which is my moving to Montreal in the Fall. Funny, isn’t it?
I won’t get into particulars. My theory is that no relationship is perfect, and despite the fact that our connection honestly seems to be, chance has tossed in factors that make things tricky. So what to do? It’s only been a short while, so I figure it’s best to take things slowly, and see if maybe some of these snags work themselves out on their own, or with minimal tweaking. Which will leave others that will require care and attention. Who knows what the future holds? Each passing moment, and each day that goes by, I feel a little luckier to be alive.
My friends are alternately supportive and critical, and when they start to question me my response is: There may be the “one true love” out there; there are probably a few people, at least, that are extraordinarily compatible with you, but there are certainly not millions of them. When an opportunity comes along in such a way that it seems right and good and meant to be, to be put off by “minor” details is a matter of cheating yourself.
Which is not to say it will work out, necessarily, but that it is definately worth the effort. This is a brand new adventure.
————————
Supposedly we’re performing our “Tainted Love” routine on Tuesday. I say “supposedly” because I highly doubt that we’re actually prepared to do so (though I could probably muddle through it today, there are seven other people involved), and pushing back the date may be the best recourse to avoid someone’s head getting split open during a botched back-flip. Yes, swing dancing: fun AND dangerous.
Aside from that, I’ve been dancing my ass off even more than before, thanks to having a fantastic dance partner that loves to learn new things as much as I do. We lindy, we shag (dance *cough cough*), we salsa, we balboa, we charleston, we may learn tap, we sway (what I like to call blues dancing), and we have a rockin’ good time. My legs are getting tough, my arms are getting sore, and I tend to laugh a lot. Dance is a good thing, go try some.
In parting, one last bit of autistic Boondock wisdom:
“If you can’t get out of the kitchen …
… don’t cross the road.”
If you’re not reading the stories over at Brief Lies, you’re missing out. Some good stuff so far, and we’re just getting rolling. You should all get involved. For ease of access, and because I’d love some creative feedback, or even just little comments, I submit to thee my two stories so far, below. Enjoy!
————————
Tacos aren’t romantic at all
-Ahniwa Ferrari
So last night my roommate’s girlfriend came over and they made tacos and I had some and they were amazing like tacos of divinity or ambrosia or something. So we were sitting around eating our tacos – mmmmmm – and I’d had some ice cream earlier and that was good too but not like a heavenly taco, and I was telling them the story of the Summer of 2000 when I walked across town in a state of pure romantic distress. I was also distressed because I had no tacos, mind you, but also flustered by romance. I like tacos but I don’t find them romantic. They’re sexy though, but I wouldn’t bother buying them champagne or taking them on a moonlit walk on the beach. They’re sexy and I’d just use them and then leave before they woke up, and I wouldn’t be able to respect them anymore afterwards.
So I was walking across town, all the way across, from the west end to downtown and then up the hill to the southeast, to see my friend who’s my roommate now and whose girlfriend made tacos last night – coincidentally he knows this story already – and about halfway there I was like “Well fuck, I’ve walked a lot, and if I turned around I’d have to walk a lot more just to get home, and that’s where I came from so I’ll keep walking forward and get to my friend’s house and then maybe he’ll drive me somewhere and we can have tacos.” So after like another hour or something I made it to his house and he wasn’t in his room asleep like I thought he’d be so I could easily wake him up and make him drive me somewhere. At first I didn’t know where he was and stood outside wondering how I might be able to find a taco at two in the morning walking – I’d be walking, not the taco – and as I was wondering I saw the light flashing in the upstairs window like you see when someone is watching a movie, all blue and the dark and then flash and flash and from outside it seems so bright you wonder how someone could watch it without going blind.
So I’d found my friend, but he was upstairs and I was on the ground outside and I couldn’t just walk in because he was living with his mom at the time and I didn’t want to get shot or hit with a frying pan or have anything else violent happen to me. I warily eyed the fence that ran around the little house and thought that if I could get up on it I would be nearly at eye level with the window upstairs and then I could throw little twigs at the window and get my friend’s attention, because surely he’d prefer my company and tacos to whatever movie he was watching. So I climbed up the fence, and then I fell off but I landed on my feet, and I had to climb up again, which I did. Then I could see my friend, but throwing little twigs at the window didn’t seem to be having any effect. There was a tree that loomed over the fence, and had branches that extended very nearly to the window, so I grabbed a branch and shook it so that it hit the window and made a big motion which my friend wouldn’t be able to miss. And so I guess he was watching a really scary movie and the branch hitting the window on its own – because he couldn’t see me – really freaked him out and he screamed. But then he looked out and he saw me, and we laughed about it and he drove me to Denny’s at three in the morning until five in the morning while we drank coffee and ate food.
But not tacos, because Denny’s sucks and they don’t have tacos, and I was bitter at first but then I got all strung out on coffee and cigarettes and romance and lack of sleep so then I was okay with it, and I had a sandwich instead. Sandwiches are okay, but they aren’t as good as tacos at all.
————————
Dimmer Switch
-Ahniwa Ferrari
Cal leaned against the wall and made an effort not to squint as light danced across the room and fake smoke drifted past his eyes. He’d heard that the parties senior year were bigger and better, but he’d never imagined they included light shows and smoke machines. Still, he knew that to the people who threw these parties image was everything, and the expense was the equivalent of pennies. In any case, he hadn’t come to see fancy special effects. He had a purpose.
Liza was the kind of girl every boy in school had dreams about. She was head cheerleader and valedictorian, and had already spent a year studying in France. She’d come back with a certain savoir faire that made her seem mysterious and unattainable, and an accent that over time had faded until you could only ever hear it when she got very emotional. It was fate’s cruel joke that her locker was right next to Cal’s, but he doubted that she had ever really noticed him.
If you asked someone at school what they thought of Cal, most people would sum his character up in a single, concise word: “Who?” . He wore clothes, ate food, walked about and talked, laughed, smiled and joked with his friends; all in such a way that no-one but his friends were ever inclined to pay him any notice. How he’d ever gotten friends in this state is a mystery, though could most likely be attributed to the fact that they’d been his friends since the third grade, before he’d realized that he was destined to a life of inexorable obscurity. He went about his business like a shadow, was never called on in class, got straight ‘B’s, and avoided school activities or doing anything in which he might stand out like the plague. Even his senior picture in the yearbook had turned out fuzzy, as if he were blurred around the edges; a ghost.
Tonight was different. The dimmer switch of Cal’s personality, halfway down his entire life, was now in the full “On” position. Dressed in a suit, he had a distinct outline, a physical presence that dominated a particular space. His hair, usually a bland brown and neatly parted, seemed to change in the light, one moment wild and the next, keenly sophisticated. His eyes, usually brown, were now hazel and chestnut and cedar, mahogany and driftwood, and they sparkled as they set upon Liza Anne Hartley and never strayed.
Liza had noticed him, too. Noticed, but not recognized, despite having the same lockers for the past four years. She laughed as a friend told a joke, excused herself, and let her feet follow Cal’s gaze across the floor. As she reached him, the music changed from a loud beat to something slow and intimate. She wasn’t used to being shy, but her breath caught in her throat and she was held transfixed by Cal’s presence. It was years of natural social instinct that allowed her to ask, “Would you like to dance?”
Cal smiled, his teeth flashed pearls. His brown eyes engulfed hers, blue, and the music flooded out the world.
As he left the party, all he could think was that if he hurried, then he and his friends could have a good long party themselves before the night was over. He ripped off his tie, threw it out into the night breeze, and grinned as he remembered his response:
“Sorry, I don’t dance with cheerleaders.”
Ignore the gibberish, this story’s tantalizing.
Last night, live band rockin’ the swing,
mostly older tunes: St James Infirmary,
Blue Skies, Take the ‘A’ Train; live with
the Kevin Buster Quartet.
On the slower tunes, I made like a blues bandit;
stole away into the arms of beautiful women and
sssssswwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeddddddddd.
Leg against leg, movement in the shoulders and hips,
pushed close by gravity and rhythm;
not grinding, but closing your eyes and trying
to translate the music into movement,
into the connection you have with your partner,
into electricity and light and heat and breath.
Slow songs, as played by a band, last a good ten minutes,
if not more. After, you peel away with a sense of loss,
but also a new connection with whoever you danced with.
It’s not romantic, really; just intimate,
like sharing a secret. Afterwards, we hugged a moment,
and smiled, and tried to remember how to breathe.
Later, she told me I was officially the best lead
she’s danced with since her grandfather. This from
someone who’s basically started to come dancing because
of her fond memories of dancing with her grandfather.
I was flabbergasted by the compliment, and my gast
doesn’t often get flabbered. Quite the pick-me-up.
I feel like I might, finally, be getting the hang
of this connection thing, and especially
these slow, sultry stylings. It’s a matter of being
comfortable in your own skin, of letting go of the
attachment involved in being intimate with someone,
of relaxing and connecting and listening.
In short, it’s neat and it’s liberating.
I’ve no doubt I’ll still approach it with some
jittering of nerves and anxiety, but trudge on
I will, into that brave new world.