:(

Today is a sad day. I can no longer access the databases and online journals at LaTrobe via the internet – my library membership has expired with my lack of enrolment.
:(
Researching this article is suddenly a whole lot more difficult.

i like this dancing – she is mighty fine. but she also demands a fairly steep tithe.

Ok, so I’ve decided to get back into the dancing hardcore in the last month.
Because:

  • I have time and can stay up late a few nights a week because I’m not teaching
  • I need to get a bit fitter and healthier, and there is no exercise as physically demanding as lindy hop except perhaps basketball. 20s charleston, however, kicks both their arses for arse kicking
  • I missed it – I missed the creativity and the physical challenge and the sheer wonderfulness of jiggling about to music I love with a partner

Things I have noticed:

  • I am not 25 any more. My recovery time is kind of long. Today, after dancing like a fool for a few hours (including my first public showing of the Cranky Poo and the bits of the Big Schnapple that I know) last night and then riding home I feel quite rough. I have aches and pains. I have ringing ears (argh, noob DJs: walk the room, doods, walk the room. Decibals won’t replace base). I am tired and look quite awful.
  • It’s frickin’ fun. When you’ve got a bit of fitness back and your body awareness and general coordination get back up above the sloth level, dancing is easier, you can do more things and the endorphines… oh, those lovely lovely endorphines.
    For the first song you’re kind of clunky. The second, your heart rate gets up a bit, your muscles are warming up nicely and you’re remembering how to dance. Midway through the third it’s like someone’s thrown a bucket of ecstacy over you. Ecstasy made of chocolate. Ecstasy making really fabulous jokes. You start grinning like an idiot, then laughing like a fool. You’re a dancing queen – nothing goes wrong, you rock. You know every single note of the song, your partner is beautiful (and possibly made of chocolate as well). You physically feel frickin’ good – it’s like… I was going to compare it to sex or something sex-like, but it’s not – it’s better. It’s kind of like you get a drumming in your ears. You suddenly want to touch your friends more and squeeze your partner. It’s really nice.
  • I really don’t give a fuck who I’m dancing with – I’m just happy to be dancing. Because dancing – she is good. She is also the bringer of nice chemical action.
  • Music – she is even better. Suddenly all the songs you like listening to have added purpose and meaning. Dancing to them makes them better
  • This stuff is addictive. I can see, as someone with no real demands on their time or actual focus, how people do let dancing consume them utterly. How they end up living, breathing dancing in a pretty scary way. Think I’m into dance in a big way? Imagine if I was teaching it. And in a performance troupe. And training for a competition. That’s at least 3 or 4 nights a week on top of social dancing twice a week and the sort of practice you do on your own. That’s insane. When would I have time to watch telly? My conversational skills would deteriorate, my attention span would drop to about 3 minutes max (ie, the time between dances) and I’d suddenly find it difficult to retain basic information about new friends. And those endorphines – did I mention their goodness?

Last night I went to sleep still hearing jazz and with my brain running through dance steps. And this after a couple of hours coming down – riding home for 20 minutes, hassling The Squeeze, reading, eating something, showering.
I like this dancing – she is mighty fine. But she also demands a fairly steep tithe.
Tonight I DJ the second set. And I’m kind of looking forward to sitting down and getting some physical and emotional distance from the dance floor.

hm

I’m doing a set this Friday night (second set, if you’re interested, preceded by one of my least favourite DJs) and I’m not really on top of my music. I have been too busy reading and writing and haven’t spent enough time listening to music. I don’t listen to music when I’m working because it either distracts me or I just stop hearing it after a while.

clicky

I’ve been looking at some interesting acka blogs lately – sort of the American (I assume) version of people I’m already reading.

  • Digital Audio Insider, an interesting chat about digital music. I need to read more of this dood’s blog. Especially when he gets talking about itunes (because swing DJs have a rather love-hate relationship with itunes – there’s some freaking amazing, obscure shit on there, but the quality simply isn’t good enough for DJing).
  • Fandrogyny, a blog with a post about Heroes at the top, and of course, we’re all over Heroes at our house at the moment.
  • terra nova, a kind of all-round internetty/acka-ish group blog which has a really interesting article about three ackas choosing to synchronise their posts about second life:

    The posts are intended to be the beginning of a coordinated conversation. According to Henry, “After corresponding with Shirky and with my colleague Beth Coleman, it was decided that we would offer some new statements about this controversy across our three blogs today and respond to each other’s posts in about a week’s time. We also agreed that we would post links to the other posts through our sites which would help readers navigate between the various positions.” (from that entry)

    That’s some interesting stuff – I’ve been thinking about the way early career ackas (or eckas, I guess) use blogs to network. And it’s only a matter of time til more grown up ackas start using the lovely discursive potential of the internet. I don’t doubt, though, that finding the time to do this stuff will be something only fairly well positioned ackas will be able to do.

  • apophenia, more lovely fan talk

things i like to do

I like to go home via Sydney Road late at night. I avoid the road during the day because it’s so busy, but I like being driven up it at night because it’s interesting. I ride up it late Thursday night (if you watch out you might see me riding up it tonight at some point between 11pm and 12.30am), but that’s getting increasingly scary. It used to be empty and ‘safe’ but now it’s full of wanker ‘I’m so cool’ kids spilling out of The Spot and The R… pub that starts with R whose name I always forget and the grotty bars full of old furniture. I don’t like those sorts of people.
But I do like riding straight up Sydney Road, having gone up Queen Street, through the Vic Markets car park, along William Street and then through the roundabout of death.
When we’re riding east from Sydney Road The Squeeze always asks if we can take this one particular side street. I once saw a giant bunny looking out at the road through the gate of a house on that street, and The Squeeze has only seen it once. So we ride down that road hoping to see it again. We haven’t.
I like to ride down through the parking lot at the Vic Markets on my way to dancing on Thursday nights. I come down William Street, past the top of the markets and then down through the carpark. There are usually millions of seagulls hanging about in there and I love riding my bike down through the crowd of them, yelling. It’s slightly downhill, and a big, empty space. There’s never anyone around and it’s dark and empty. It’s a bit scary because I could hit something and fly off my bike, or the seagulls could decide to pull a Hitchcock on me, but those thoughts just make the whole thing more fun.
I like riding to the Laundry (a venue) on Saturday afternoons to see local jazz band called Virus. The band’s made up of a raggle taggle of younger doods and older doods who really know their shit. There’s no sheet music, they share the solos around during the song, and visiting musicians from out of town drop in to do a guest song or two. This is proper jazz – sometimes they check the sheet music before the song, but not always. The decide what to play on the spot – there are no set lists. They take requests. They wear scrappy clothes (shorts and thongs, dress pants and tshirts, ill fitting suit coats with jeans), drink a lot of beer and make crude jokes. The music is fricking fast, fricking hot and fricking good – it kicks your arse if you’re dancing.
The venue is narrow and loud and crowded and smokey. We dance sometimes, but mostly we drink beer. That’s how jazz should be – loud and fun and crowded and with lots of heckling (between the band and the audience). Not with rules about not talking and turning off your mobile phone. Heck, you’re lucky if you can hear your mobile ring at the Laundry. This gig is on every single Saturday afternoon between 4 and 7 and is free. After we’ve seen the band, we usually go to eat somewhere. It’s lots of fun, but it makes you stink like a dirty old pub floor.
Go to the cinema on my own during the day to see lady films and art house films. Long, boring things with no action scenes. I like to get a chilli chocolate ice cream if I’m at the Nova or a bag of joobs if I’m at the Westgarthe.
I like to go to the Astor for a double session on the weekend, though I haven’t done that many times.
I like going to fabric shops and spending hours and hours in there choosing fabric.
I like doing the same at the video shop.
And in music shops.
I like riding down through Royal Park from Royal Parade, down the path past the stadium and giant play ground to the cemetary and then down to Lygon Street. It’s all a bit brown and dry and crispy these days, but it’s still a nice ride.
I like it that bikes and trams get a green light on Swanston Street at the intersection of Swanston and… LaTrobe? Where Melbourne Central is. I like being able to zoom off at the lights while the cars are left at the lights, cranky.
I like riding my bike through the Edinborough Gardens, past the giant possums at night and around the fountain during the day. Even though you’re not allowed to. I ride carefully so I don’t hit anyone.
I like going to Brunetti’s and having an Italian hot chocolate with a tiny biscuit and reading my book.