Cinema is the culmination of the obsessive, mechanistic male drive in western culture. The movie projector is an Apollonian straightshooter, demonstrating the link between aggression and art. Every pictorial framing is a ritual limitation, a barred precinct.
-- Camille Paglia
Dancing and HouseworkSunday, October 12, 1997 Friday they were having a swing dance with a live band, "Jump Up," at the Century Ballroom where I am taking lessons. I proposed this as a event in the singles public folder at work, and got some positive responses. This was a great opportunity to wear one of the outfits that Freddie sent me last year: a dark blue high-waisted dress with suns and moons on the bodice, and a matching beaded coat. Dressing up isn't required at the Century, but how many chances does one get? Tom and Scott met me for pizza beforehand, then we went to the ballroom for the pre-dance lesson. Dave and Diana met us there. The lesson, instead of being basic triple-time swing as it was last month, was the lindy hop: a more difficult dance, but fun! Hallie, the teacher and proprietor, admitted that it was impossible to teach the lindy in an hour, but she got us acquainted with the pattern. (I'm finding it tough to type the word "lindy." It keeps coming out as "linky"! My fingers have that "autocomplete" feature.) I like this dance, but I need to develop my flexiblity! The follow's part (always gender-neutral terms at the Century) uses "swivel" steps that demand hip swinging. The lesson format involves rotating partners every few minutes, which I approve of very much. Learning a dance with just one person is a very good way to learn bad habits! Plus it's a great way to meet new people, which is one of the reasons to go out dancing. I saw and danced with an old acquaintance, Peter. He's a UW Professor who had been on a fellowship at Microsoft in the summer of 1996. The group who he was working with seemed to have abandoned him, so another man and I ended up trying to get him going in the right directions. This was because we happened to work in the same building with him, so he stared asking us questions in the cafeteria. Tom and I danced quite a bit. I mastered the lindy basic enough to get through about one and a half repetitions of it, then I'd lose track! But we did pretty well with basic swing, and Tom is very patient when I'd try to pass on what I'd learned in class in a very inarticulate way.
Saturday I spent all day cleaning up the place. I swear I will pursue getting a maid service! I know I've said it before, but now I've made enough progress that I can see bringing in a crew to keep it maintained. When I wrote the event listing for "Miss Anita's House of Golden Turkeys" I made a typo in my phone number in Machination (the Cacophony newsletter) and also when I posted to the newsgroups and on the web, so I didn't get the biggest crowd ever, but we had a choice group. I know of one person who didn't make it because of the typo, which distresses me. Carl brought about a dozen bad movies, all considerately cued to the choicest parts. Nick brought "Battle Beneath the Earth," about renegade Chinese drilling tunnels from China to the United States, so they could blow us up from underground! Brian brought two hilarious selections from the "Free Rental" rack at Blockbuster:
I was up way too late after everyone left, getting caught up on journals and news. Extra caffeine intake had something to do with this, I am sure.
New journals were added to Open Pages today. I think we'll hit the 300 mark before the end of November! Of those I sampled, I was impressed by Snoozebar Chronicles. Nice simple design, clear writing, and very consistent anonymity. Not even the city is named! A few were illegible due to unfortunate background images. I'll give them a try again in a few days. One blasted me with a midi file, but the writing there was good, so I'll check back with here again too. There is a thread going on on the diary-l mailing list where people are naming the journals they make a habit of reading every day, or every few days. I'm really pleased to have been named a few times! I didn't post my daily reads to the list, because I have so many! I've had to break them up into two folders so they'll all be accessible by menu, and I think I need to move to three now that I've recently added a few more.
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