hola amigos!




snapper2

Originally uploaded by dogpossum.

Yesterday we had many people around for a Mexican Bandidos lunch. We did intend to dress up, but a lack of effort on my part and supreme busyness on the parts of both myself and The Squeeze resulted in a non-effort. Various guests, however, obviously familiar with our high fancy dress standards, did make an effort. We have photographic evidence. There was a little regret on our parts for not putting on the giant mo and firing rifles into the air, but we settled for a pinata and truly awesome food. TRULY awesome food. All Mexican themed (or as Mexican as a couple of gringos in Melbourne – John and I – could manage). I ate so much I thought I’d die. Then we brought out the fruit and brownies.
The meal featured many avocados, mangoes and spanish sausage, a big snapper, pork ribs, an amazing organge and spinach salad, a lovely bean salad, mango salsa, chili con carne, rice, tortillas…. and a million other things.
Then we beat the shit out of the pinata.

You can, of course, check out the photos on flickr in the Bandidos Party set.

round-up

Well, it’s been a slow thesis week. Again. I have no excuse. My conf paper is, however, looking dang fine – chock full of clips and photos. If powerpoint dies, I’m dead.
The birthday is on Friday – 31 years old and still dressing like a playschool presenter. We are making a pinata in honour of the day… meaning, we started last night and it’s still pretty wet. The Squeeze, though he knows everything about computers, knows nothing about paper mache. Hopefully he’s learnt a few things from the Queen of Craft, including smaller-pieces-of-paper=good. He tested the theory and ended up with a bit of a mess. But now he Knows.
On other, procastinatory fronts, FSP has a new style (and a tidied up template). There will, no doubt, be complaints about its paleness, it’s whiteness. But I don’t care. I like the white-blue-green 70s feel of it. I’ve even posted a few entries on it to demonstrate its excellence. Just don’t look at the comments pop-ups – I got sick of the thing before I finished them.
On one more doing-something-other-than-that-which-I-should thing: I’ve been finishing off some sewing jobs that needed doing. That black dress with the indecently low bodice that’s been hanging in the dining room for weeks, waiting to be finished? Done. And teamed with some knee-length, white, lace-edged knickers, will be perfect for the MLX5 weekend. The Squeeze proclaims it “SO cute.” And I’ve finally finished those black, stretch-linen trousers I’ve had sitting about for at least a year. Side-button fly, and very nicely fitted too, thankyou. They will look dang fine with the blackish denim jacket with the black/cream ‘French’ peasant-styled lining. Just need some sort of blouse action so I don’t shock anyone with my incredibly hot bare chest.
And those blue stretchy-fabric-that-looks-like-denim-but-isn’t trousers? Also done and very comfortable. I’m not really sure what I was thinking when I bought that fabric. Sure, it looks just like denim, but it’s not denim, and fake denim is pretty damn daggy. But they’re supremely comfortable trousers (I put darts in them and all to fit them properly), and even though the waist is a tad high for casual stretchy pants (I was thinky ‘real trousers’ when I cut them out and added the waist band), they still fit really nicely and look good as well as feeling good.
I’m considering making one more little dress or perhaps a blouse. I need to waste more time, I’m sure. And I’m waiting for an imovie file to compress, and it’s taking ages because I want top quality footage of dancers for my paper. Can you believe I get to do this? Put together a series of excellent clips and photos of dancers to match a (very) short paper all about camps and exchanges? And then get paid by the uni to travel to another city to deliver it? Is this not the perfect Score?
… now, if only I could finish that half-done final thesis chapter…
Did I mention that I have a new ibook? It’s very pretty. I like the way it has a cd disc drive. Small things, I know… and I like the way I have a pluggy thing so I can watch my clips on the telly. I’m still not convinced that itunes is the best thing on earth (I will miss winamp on the old little lappy – it was nice to use itunes and winamp in conjunction – music database + simple media player = better than itunes alone), but still… It is very pretty. We love each other very much.
I saw the new Pride and Prejudice fillum the other day. I loved it. But then, I would. I’m very into lady-films. I was planning on going on my own, but The Squeeze decided he wanted to come to. So he did. We went to the Nova, which is quite middle class/studenty and has some nice little cinemas that seat about 50 people. We were in one of those. With 44 women and only 3 other men. Dave was awash in oestrogen. It was pretty much the perfect way to see a new Jane Austen flick: a cinema full of ladies (mostly in groups of 2,3 or 4), all rowdy and happy and looking forward to a nice fillum. All of whom knew the story intimately, and were really only there to see how this one ‘was done’. There was much mid-film commentary, laughing at jokes and appreciating in-jokes, cheering for the heroine, etc etc etc.
I had a lovely time. I don’t know about The Squeeze, but he did laugh in the right places, and didn’t do the annoying wriggling-about-and-sighing that he does when he’s bored (and for which I’d originally planned to exclude him from this outing).
Jane Austen = yes.
hm… That’s about it, really. I have no other news. I am too dull for words. Literally.

the most exciting thing…?

This has been the couple-of-days of websiting. Obvious thesis procrastination.
I’ve been working on a layout for the Melbourne Jazz Dance Association site (tres minimalism – very clean, simple, modern-looking. ooh la la); I’ve been fiddling with the FSP style (again, a very different look – ‘cooler’ colours (green and blue with white/black basics), and I’ve gotten jiggy with flickr. I’ve uploaded about 19 photos and immediately busted my monthly limit. I either need to upload smaller files (and sacrifice quality? Are you on crack?!) or get me a flickr upgrade – $US24.95 a year. Hm….
It’s some seriously neat shit, though…

peanuts or pistachio nuts?

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Right now I’m reading this book – What Made Pistachio Nuts? by Henry Jenkins. It’s about vaudville aesthetic and the shift to narrative in early comedy-musical Hollywood film (1930s or so). Sorry, that sounded like I can’t speak or write English.
Anyway, it’s by Henry Jenkins and it’s interesting. I was reading it on the tram Tuesday and did get momentarily distracted by the elephants (you can see them from the tram as you pass the zoo). And frankly, who wouldn’t be? I hope I never cease to be distracted by real live elephants.
I’ll report back when I’ve read more.

three words: dee vee dee

I’ve been thinking about why I’m watching so much telly lately, and what it all means. Because, you see, I’ve not been a regular tv viewer for aaages – I’m simply too busy out dancing or doing other things in the evenings to watch telly (let’s not talk about daytime tv – I ignore it). But lately I’ve been catching up on my tv viewing with some dvd versions of telly programs. Now, I know that I’m not watching these programs as they were intended (ie once a week over 12 weeks or so), I’m bingeing, and this is changing the ways I think about these programs – as texts and narratives, but…
Well, look, it’s an interesting point, isn’t it? I read an interesting point on the Firefly fan site (yes, it’s sad – deride me. I deserve it) about the idea of ‘time’ in telly series. Someone noted that Whedon had to use 9 characters on Firefly and Angel because two or three simply can’t sustain interest and complexity over 12 weeks. You need more people because you can offer more story lines over a long period of time (what, 12 hours worth?). It’s kind of the soap opera rule, I guess. And that’s kind of a cereal thing.
So, ok, you’ve got 9 characters and 12 hours to use in developing a narrative.
With a film, you have 2 hours max. So 9 characters can get crowded (which is one of the justifications for [Serenity spoiler approaches] killing off Wash and Book in Serenity. One I’m not too sure I’m buying – Wash!).
So what happens when I watch 12 episodes of Dead Like Me in a row? Or 4 or 5 on one Sunday afternoon?
When I do these binges, I tend to feel a bit crowded inside. Lots of characters, lots of events, lots of stuff to absorb. I miss out on the slow assimilation of information. I don’t do the between-episode thinking and digesting. I kind of feel like I’m also not doing the adding-in part of viewing to the same extent. You know the way a program and characters live in your mind between viewings? The way you think about them, talk about them, read about them online, see parallels and homages to them in other programs… When you binge, you miss that stuff. So am I making these programs less interesting for myself?
Thing is, programs like Firefly and Twin Peaks and Buffy and Angel and Battlestar Galactica can handle being watched in binges – they’re interesting. Dumb shows with less going on, narrative-wise, character-wise, plot-wise, brain-wise (or discursively-wise) tend to get really tedious in big binges. You need to watch them weekly.
Now I’m thinking: does this explain why these shows get such hardcore fan bases?
And then I think ‘nah’. Because dumb shows like 90210 or Friends get hardcore fan bases. And I suspect that weekly screenings help – esp if you’re watching with friends. I think about queer readings of Friends: you add stuff in to make it interesting. So you view with a bent eye to add in interesting stuff. You do more work, watching, to make the two guys (whose names I can’t remember) who live together into a couple. Could you do this if you were bingeing? Would you have time – brain time – to re-read these doods as queer?
Hm. I’m not convinced. I think about the way I love chick flicks: I’m adding in stuff when I view, and I don’t need ‘more time’ to do it…
Well, either way, binge-viewing certainly changes my experience of the program. I do repeat viewings in different ways too – I binge, then I go back and revisit particular episodes to catch favourite moments, explore issues, etc. I rewatch the whole lot (another binge) to pick up the bits I missed the first time. I rewatch with friends for added pleasure. These extra bits don’t include the names of episodes – I can never remember them. I don’t much care, either: I tend to think of the seperate episodes as chapters in the whole story. So they could be ‘1’ or ‘3rd’.
All this is similar to the way I read books. Binge and then re-read.
I remember watching Twin Peaks weekly in a proper ‘fannish’ way. Lunchtime analysis and deconstruction. Scanning magazines for articles about characters/actors. Chasing down the director and actors’ past work. All this added to my weekly viewing.
With my binge viewing, I supplement my binges with online read-ups (though I’m not that keen for that stuff). We didn’t have access to that in 1990 (or whenever it was), so we made do with magazines.
The Squeeze goes to regular screenings of BSG with his BSG nerd mates. As one of them said in response to my ‘oh man, I couldn’t handle wasting a whole day watching telly – I’d rather be talking or playing games or eating or something’ , it’s not about the watching, really. It’s about the getting-together. You might be talking about BSG, you might be talking about uni or work or flirting or whatever. It’s the social interaction that’s important.
I’m not that keen on bingeing socially, though… hm. Well, I like watching with The Squeeze (though I’m just as happy watching alone)…
This reminds me of a point in my research where I was thinking about swing dancers as fans. While you can watch telly alone and never speak of your passion for Firefly with anyone else, you have to swing dance with other people. It’s absolutely, and inevitably and undeniably about social interaction. It’s also about physical, embodied social interaction with lots of physical contact and body-thinking and talking. Being a swing dancer is about community. Being a telly fan isn’t necessarily about sharing the experience. But it can help.
hm…
It’s all interesting.
And of course, all my supes’ fault: it was that paper she gave on teen telly. And possibly there’s some link to my crazy Firefly/DLM/BSG viewing….

a thesis outline sort of testy thingy…

If I do put the schools chapter last, I think I’ll use it in the following way:
I begin with Afro-American vernacular dance because contemporary swing dance culture itself ‘begins’ with af-am v dance. The ‘original swing era’ is a powerful myth in swing culture. It is used to justify many cultural and social practices, beginning with actually dancing itself – learning to dance swing dances is seen as a way of ‘reviving’ dances from this ‘original swing era’. The idea that these dances need reviving implies that they are in some way ‘dead’ or otherwise incapacitated. Literature discussing vernacular dances makes the point that they are continually changing and responding to cultural and social context as cultural discourse. For a particular dance step or dance style to be danced, it must retain relevance. In other words, dances ‘go out of style’ because they no longer appeal or embody the needs and interests of dancers. This is quite often related to changes in musical form – swing dances like the lindy hop were replaced by dances which were better ‘suited’ to the successive musical forms, and to the needs of successive generations of dancers.
The point is also made in much of the literature dealing with Afro-American vernacular dance, that particular moves or movements are not always wholly lost. The cross-generational nature of vernacular dance – it occurs in ordinary, everyday, cross-generational community spaces rather than in segregated ‘youth’ or other spaces – means that dance steps are more likely to move between generations than in generationally-segregated dance traditions.
The lindy hop, then is not ‘dead’ – it is still present in the movements and bodies of Afro-American dances today.
To declare that it is dead is to make an ideological statement about creative and cultural form. It is an act of power. It is also shifting the dance form out of Afro-American vernacular dance discourse and into middle class, urban youth culture. This shift is achieved through the use of a range of communications technology – media – and through institutional mediation of dance-discourse (schools or studios). This shift – this cultural transmission – is inflected by power and ideology and wider social relations. The ‘revival’ of swing dances in non-Afro-American communities is an embodiment of relationships between white-dominated middle class, mainstream discourse in the USA, Australia, Europe (and ethnically congruent groups in Korea, Singapore and Japan), etc and Afro-American people today.
The thesis, then, will begin with Afro-American vernacular dance, positioning lindy hop and other swing dances within a tradition of vernacular dance and identifying the cultural social uses and forms of dance in this context. Particular themes in Afro-American vernacular dance are identified in this initial chapter, and then attended to in later chapters. This thesis reads swing dancing as an Afro-American vernacular dance form which has been transmitted to another culture – another time and space and group of people. This approach is an attempt to question the centrality of white, middle class heterosexual cultural in Australian discourse. It is also an attempt to assess the processes of hegemony in the appropriation of a black dance form for a white community.
This first chapter also positions dance as cultural discourse – as a series of texts and positionings and relationships guided by ideology and instutitions – the ideas and beliefs of individuals and groups. It suggests that swing dance culture today – the embodied practices of contemporary swing dance communities – carry evidence of the ideological and social practice of its participants. The primary concern of this thesis is with the role of media in these practices.
Afro-American vernacular dance – though inflected by various media technologies such as radio, film and recorded music – is centered on face to face interaction – embodied practice.
Contemporary swing dance culture is far more heavily informed by media technology.
The second chapter pursues this point, noting the ways in which contemporary swing dance culture is mediated both by communications technology, and by insitutional bodies – the dance school or studio specificially.
This chapter also introduces the ways in which contemporary swing dance culture is a localised global community of interest. Afro-American vernacular dance is a product of African diaspora, carrying within it an embodied history of African culture, slavery in America, emancipation, oppression and finally movements towards cultural autonomy and freedom. Each decendent of that original African diaspora – each Africanist society – is unique and inflects cultural form in unique ways. There are distinctions to be made within the ‘Afro-American’ community, across time and geography – local distinctions.
Contemporary swing dance culture is a localised ‘global’ community. The community is not necessarily one of ethnic or genetic heritage – it is one of interest and cultural form. The links between local communities are maintained by travel and by media use and practice.
The second chapter introduces the notion of a community of dancers which is heavily mediated.
The third chapter begins an analysis of the forms of this mediation in contemporary swing dance culture. It examines the uses of Audio-Visual media in three periods in contemporary swing dance culture – the original ‘revivalist’ era of the 1980s, the rise of significant local communities in the 1990s, and the development of a locally inflected global community of dancers in the 2000s. The first period is characterised by the use of archival film in the revival of swing dances – footage of dancers from the ‘original swing era’. The second period is noted for the rise of videos produced by local communities and individuals in the promotion (and commodification) of local teachers and events. Specificially, commemorative videos for camps and exchanges and instructional videos. The third era, however, is characterised by the massive increase in AV media production, disemination and consumption in swing communities around the world made possible by the development of digital AV media technology. Here, dancers not only download and view clips filmed in other communities, they also film themselves and members of their own community to upload and share with the wider international swing dance community.
These three periods are broadly read as correlating with the face to face dance themes of immitation and impersonation; improvisation and innovation; and a later combination of the two, as dancers have increased access to both archival footage and images of contemporary dancers in their embodied dance practices, which they then film and disseminate.
The fourth chapter explores DJing in contemporary swing dance culture. The rise of DJs as a distinct role and identity in local communities is an indication of that community’s age and development of cultural form and practice. DJs not only make extensive use of digital media in their embodied practice – playing music for dancers – they are also making great use of digitial media in their acquisition, research and discussion of music online. Swing DJs have also developed an international community of interest which complements their face to face practices in their local community.
This chapter reads DJing in terms of impersonation and immitation in DJ’s choice of music and DJing style (specifically, in their intensely ‘recreationist’ ideology), yet also sees them as innovating and improvising in both their online and face to face practices. DJing in swing culture is seen not only as the ability to recreate musical moments from the past, but also as being capable of responding to the immediate needs and demands of the dancers on the floor before them.
Both AV media and DJing practice in swing dance culture are mediated by their relationship to – or place within – various discourses wihtin local and global communities. The final chapter explores the local Melbourne swing dance community as one which has increasingly become the preserve of one major institution – a dance school. This school not only manages the face to face events at which DJs work but also discursively manages the music DJs play and dancers’ responses to this music. This discourse is not only embodied in dance classes and at events, but also exists online in newsletters, websites and other ‘official’ discursive texts and forms. Schools also produce official AV media – videos and DVDs – though their management of ‘unofficial’ digital media is more complex.
The final chapter of this thesis explores the role of the swing dance school in contemporary Melbourne swing dance culture, and the ways in which it mediates embodied dance practice within this community. This chapter explores the commodification of dance – through classes and performances – and the twin imperatives of creating and sustaining a market which motivate schools’ social and cultural activities. Swing dance schools justify their activities with the revivalist myth that they are ‘recreating’ and ‘reviving’ a vanished art form and cultural practice. This notion is used to justify the commodification of dance, and the management of face to face practice in ways which impede the development of a contemporary vernacular dance culture in Melbourne.
This chapter is concerned with the ways in which pedagogy – as practice and ethos – is utilised in the commodification of cultural practice, and in the mediation of discourse.
This chapter sees dance schools as emphasising immitation and impersonation rather than innovation and improvisation in both teaching and discursive practice, and discouraging alternative forms of learning and acquiring knowledge which deconstruct challenge institutional heirarchies of knowledge and – consequently – power.
The thesis closes with this chapter as an examination of a local swing dance community where institutional discourse attempts to manage a local dance discourse in an increasingly globalised – or internationally networked community. Changes in this school’s internal practices and discursive practices are read as responses to these community changes which attempt to reposition dance as a commodity – a product to be bought and sold – rather than as a process of cultural production or a discourse which can be made or created or participated in beyond the bounds of institutional discourse or practice.

thesis update

A thesis round-up:
– I have completed a full draft of the thesis. Yes. My candidacy technically runs out on the 7th February, but I took a month or two (or 6 weeks?) of sick leave when mum was ill. So I guess I’m to finish up at the end of March? I’m thinking of applying for the extension. I have some completion anxiety.
Last meeting with the supes (or the meeting before), we decided to ditch the last chapter on camps and to replace it with a chapter on schools. Or institutional bodies, really. So the thesis will be:
intro
ch 1: afro-american vernacular dance
ch 2: contemporary swing dance culture
ch 3: AV media
ch 4: DJing
and then ch 5: schools
conclusion
But we’re thinking maybe the schools chapter should go after/before the contemporary swing dance culture chapter (it seems to make the most sense there).
We are having Big Question issues. We meaning me.
And I haven’t written that schools chapter yet (though it is so thoroughly planned). I have a little resumption anxiety. I don’t know if I can start that chapter again. Eeeek. I reckon it’s a manifestation of my completion anxiety: once I finish the chapter, I’ll be that one step closer to completing. And that is some scary shit.
So I’m distracting myself with the Ears Nose and Throat doctor I have to go to (bad ears, bad ears). I turned up there at 11.15 today to realise the appointment is tomorrow. Yay. So I’m going back tomorrow. More yay.
But maybe the schools chapter won’t be so bad.

fan attack

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and we’re done.
:(
We watched the last episode of Firefly last night, and that’s it – finito. I am definitely going back to the cinema to see the fillum again, though.
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To help me get over the loss, I’m watching masses of episodes of Dead Like Me which I’m quite enjoying. It’s no Firefly, but it’s passing the time.
We also have some Veronica Mars to watch, but I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about it – it looks a bit glam. It better be as dark as the other stuff we’ve been watching.

kind of snowy and cold and, well… no, I have no point.

I’ve been thinking about Russia a bit lately. The other day I saw a documentary about living in Moscow on SBS. Basically, the story was about ‘business stealing’ in Moscow. It seems that if you have a bunch of private security doods (ie private police force), you forge some proof of ownership documents (including those documenting the sale of a business), have a contact or two in the government, you can simply walk into a business with your private police force and take over. Then it belongs to you. If you sell it on, the person who buys it legally owns it, because they bought it in good faith. There are next to no legal options for the person whose business you’ve stolen. And if you want some land somebody’s house is on, you simply burn down the house. Because, under Russian law, if your house burns down, you no longer own the land.
There are some corruption issues in Russia atm.
Then we saw that Night Watch film. And I thought about the people in that documentary when I saw that film. I bet the ordinary Moscow citizens wish there was a watch for Russian businessmen and politicians.
And then I was thinking about the Russian lindy hoppers. Each year at Herrang there are a bunch of Russian lindy hoppers. They’re subsidised by the Herrang organisers because the Russians are so economically rooted. As a consequence, there are some seriously kick arse Russian lindy hoppers. I wonder about this… should Australian visitors to Herrang be sponsored as well, because they don’t have the money to travel to Herrang? I know that the Swingapore people offer scholarships to promising dancers each year – they have all their dance classes paid for, and have to do classes in all sorts of dance styles (not just lindy) at the studio, which does salsa, hip hop, etc as well as lindy.
And then there are a few Russian people living in my area – I hear them talking in Russian on the tram or bus every now and then.
On a slightly different tack, I knew a Polish woman about my age (or a bit older) when I was at unimelb. She told stories about compulsorary military training when she was at high school. It was like me having to learn to use a machine gun and a rocket launcher. She told this story as well (and I paraphrase):

When I was in primary school, we had to go a long way to school each day. In winter, the snow was very heavy and it was hard to get there. We used to catch a bus that was old and didn’t run very well. One day the bus didn’t come because it had been blown up. So we couldn’t get to school on the bus any more – we had to walk. In the winter, we often couldn’t get to school at all

And this was a story by a young woman just like me, sitting in a conference room with a bunch of other pgrads who were going to be hosts at the open day. Can you believe that story?
I often think about how Poland wants to become part of the EU (I don’t know if they are yet – I haven’t checked). And about Turkey. The other night we saw a film on the ABC which starred Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald, which was an odd, quiet film about a shy, awkward English public servant who worked for the councellor of the exchequour (sp?) and met a girl in a coffee shop whom he invited to come with him on a business trip to Reykjavik in Iceland. Turns out it was the G8 meeting. And they were discussing extreme poverty. And this girl is so outspoken about poverty she’s asked to leave. It was an interesting film. Mostly about this man’s utter discomfort with human relationships, and with this girl’s obsession with children. It was called The Girl in the Cafe. We only saw it by accident, but it was interesting.
Iceland seems cold. I once saw a film called Cold Fever about a Japanese guy who has to travel to Iceland to do some rites in memoriam to his parents who died there. That film is quite lovely – sort of cold and still and eery.
Yeah, anyway, there’s no point to all these stories, really, I’m just kind of thinking about these cold, snowy countries and places I haven’t been. But have seen in films and on telly.