Stanford Dance Weekend

It felt like it had been a while since I'd done one of the Stanford Dance Weekends so it was a lot of fun to come back to it this year. I came out of it tired, but not unreasonably so, and quite happy with the dancing and learning both. The dancey goodness included:  

West Coast Swing. Michelle Kinkaid taught four classes in this, so I jumped at the opportunity to try to recover some of my atrophied WCS skills and took all of them. They were good classes, but with a rather high talking::dancing ratio. I think her active/passive lead theory is really helpful, but will take a while to be able to apply properly. 

Musicality. This was the only class Lilli Ann Carey taught, but she deserved a lot more time (and space), I thought. I didn't really learn anything new there, but it's an interesting discussion topic and I wanted to see how she taught it, since it's a topic near and dear to my heart. 

Fusion Waltz. Ari Levitt was mixing things like tango and latin into his waltz. I only made it to one of his classes, but I liked it much more than expected, having been ambivalent about "fusion" stuff. (He's teaching it at Friday Night Waltz in a couple weeks, too, if you want to check it out.) 

Cha Cha. It was a bit of a risk taking a beginning cha cha class in the middle of all my west coast, but I did it anyway and didn't mess myself up too much. Joan said the term "Latin-phobic" in her class description was inspired by a conversation with me years ago. Glad I could help. :-) 

Cross Step Waltz. Richard, as always, wins the prize for clearest, most efficient teaching. The "new variations" class especially left me with a bunch of good stuff to play with (which really did all seem to be new). I got some good following practice in the lead-heavy pivaloops class, too. 

Dancing! The dances on Friday and especially Saturday night were some of the most satisfying I've had in a while. Though there were more people I would have liked to have there, I got to dance with some of my favorite partners (including my visiting sister), and with many nice new people as well (including several of the teachers), and it wasn't too crowded. I also had some of the most incredible flying redowas ever with Rowyn. Good stuff all around.

Triple Triple Big Dance

This last weekend was the 15th annual Big Dance, and my own personal 9th year in a row making it all the way to 6 AM, which makes it my "Triple Triple Crown" year. (Now that I think about it, that puts Richard at his Quintuple Triple, for being there all 15 years. Wow.) The dance felt a bit smaller than usual, though we still had 144 people make it all night.

The performances were all really good this year; I even enjoyed Los Salseros quite a bit (nothing against them in general, but salsa's not usually my thing). Danse Libre did a great job kicking off the 1920's theme early on, though the guys must have been dying in their tuxes with that heat. Decadance rocked, as usual, and I especially liked their new country piece to "All Things Considered." Swingtime didn't have a very clean performance, but they did have some of the most entertaining Cat's Corner solos I've seen in a long time. Good stuff.

The competitions were mostly okay, though I think I would have designed some of them differently. I also think it's time to retire Swing-with-Props and Tacky Tango, at least for a few years. (I know, I know, don't complain if I don't want to be on the committee.) Bob and I were all set to completely trounce everyone on the schottische race when we found out it was a three-legged schottische race. Since they used wimpy little streamers to tie our legs together, everyone was hobbling around like geriatrics trying not to tear them. Oh well. And here's a tip if you ever find yourself in a cross-step waltz freeze-tag competition: pretend to be frozen until the very end, then start dancing again just in time to not get tagged for real. Credit to Rowyn for that bit of brilliance, though unfortunately it came too late to save us.

I was very happy to not only get a good set for the Dawn Mazurka but to remember all the figures, even at 5:20 in the morning. Thanks to Jeff for explaining the Tiroirs figure on Thursday -- I had been confused about that. And thanks to many other people for all the other good dances, especially Rowyn for the lullaby gauntlet, the last waltz, and many others.

Medium Big Dance

I danced from 9 PM to 6 AM at Big Dance last night, for the 8th year in a row. After that many, staying up all night doesn't really seem like quite such a big deal anymore. It can still be fun, depending on who you've got there with you, but it's not the same kind of challenge it once was. Unfortunately, this year I was disappointed because a number of people I was hoping to see weren't there, and some people I would have liked to have around longer left "early." This is more of an issue at Big Dance than at regular dances, because by 5 or 6 AM, I really just want to zone out in nice "comfort dances" with favorite partners. Not to disparage any of the lovely people I did get to dance with, of course (thanks go to Rebecca for the Lullaby Gauntlet, and to Lara for the last waltz). But hopefully a lot of you people who do stay all night at these kinds of things know what I'm talking about. So I'm afraid I came away kind of less satisfied this year than others. That said, though, there were some definite highlights to the night.

First of all, major props go to Bob for organizing probably the best contra dancing I've ever seen at Big Dance. This is in terms of dancing, rather than music (since we had canned music, rather than live bands like we used to in the past), but the dancing is definitely the greater achievement. Bob has been working tirelessly to evangelize contra dancing around here, specifically in the Stanford community, and it really seems to be paying off. We only did 4 contras, and it was relegated to the fencing room (we didn't even get to use the gym this year), but we had a fantastic turnout, with lots of people who have had at least basic exposure to contra, and the dances went very well. We did real dances, too -- nothing very complex, but not too dumbed-down or anything, either.

In terms of performances, Decadance stole the show (though I quite enjoyed Swingtime and The Knotts Dance Company as well). First up was a lindy-hop/hip-hop combo sort of thing (lindy hip? hop hop?) which was very cool. But David's choreography to Wham!'s "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" was just an incredible piece of silliness that made me happier than anything else all night. Guys lindy hopping with each other, girls lindy hopping with each other, pillow fighting, all sorts of craziness. It was glorious. Deca is doing some sort of un- Spring Show on June 9th, so I'm hoping I'll get to see it again there.

I joined the flag waltz competition with Louisa, which turned out to be based on flag football. A decent idea for when the field was narrowed down to fewer people, but we got caught in a vicious mob right at the beginning and were out. Around 5 AM there was a tacky tango competition. I wasn't in that, but it was quite amusing to watch. Neal and Rainbow won that hands down. Her feet didn't touch the floor at all during the elimination round, but then during their solo he refused to dance and stood there like an obstinate pole while she danced around him. Funnier than it sounds, I suppose.

Anyway, I got to bed a little before 7 in the morning and slept till 1. Would have been convenient to have had all this while I was still on Ireland time, but I'll be back on track from this faster than from the jet lag.

Big Dance in Disguise

The theme this year was "Masquerade: Big Dance in Disguise," which was appropriate, given that holding it in Arrillaga rather than Roble made the whole thing very different from usual. Especially with only having one room for everything. But it was still fun. The performances were all very good, especially Swingtime and Decadance. I want to make sure to go to their spring shows this year. Lacey and I almost won the speed waltzing competition, but got tagged out for being just slightly too slow to catch one of the very last tempo changes. Phooey. Lacey also ended up sitting out a lot of the night later on because of her ankle, but I did get to dance a lot with Quena who came down from Davis, and that was fun. I had many other lovely dances with various people as well, including some folks I hadn't gotten to dance with for a long time. After learning the dawn mazurka last week, I never got around to reviewing it, so I snagged Eric's notes around 5 AM and tried to remember how it all went. I got through it by the skin of my teeth and thanks to various helpful set-mates. (There were 10 mazurka sets, a new record I think.) For the last waltz, Quena and I did a basket chair sort of thing with our arms and carried Lacey through the dance, which really worked surprisingly well. We did both right and left turn waltz, some lifts (bouncing Lacey up in the air a little bit), and even a very clumsy, lumpy jumping sort of thing for the redowa part of Erin's Shore. And we only had a few slight bumps with other people, probably no more than we would have had waltzing normally in that crowd. So it was moderately ridiculous but made us all happy. 212 people made it all the way through to 6 AM, and for me it was my 7th year in a row. We eventually got home and went to bed around the time my alarm would normally wake me up on weekdays. I eventually staggered awake around 2:30 this afternoon, and I'm going to take it pretty easy for what's left of the day.

Serial Sleuthing

So, in the November spirit of serialized fiction, check out Stanford's Discovering Sherlock Holmes project:

In 2006, we will rerelease a collection of Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes, just as they were originally printed and illustrated in The Strand Magazine.

It's free, and you can get it sent to you in hard copy or electronically. Sounds like fun to me.

Big Danceyland

Lacey drove down from Portland yesterday and picked up Quena on the way so they could come to Big Dance, and we all fortified ourselves beforehand with many fine yummies, courtesy of Antonia's culinary wonderfulness. We ended up being somewhat late to the dance, but given that it was an all-night affair, that's not so bad as it could be.

I arrived just in time to see the performance of Kari's new choreography, which was fantastic. It was a 3 girls & 1 guy swing dance to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, and I think I actually like that song a lot more than I used to after having seen that dance. Well done, Kari!

Lacey and I entered the helium balloon cross-step waltz race, which involved holding a balloon between the partners' bodies without popping it or letting it go, while trying to cross-step faster than the other couples. We took third place (again, this seems to be my usual designated place in dance competitions) and won Big Dance T-Shirts, which was a good prize since we probably would have been buying them anyway. My favorite competition of the night though, was the swing dance. It started out looking normal, with couples just swing dancing and getting eliminated down to five finalists. But then for the finals, each couple had to draw a card out of a hat, which assigned them a prop they had to incorporate in their dance. That was brilliant. The couple with the pool noodle won, followed by the couple with the umbrella. Lacey and I thought it would have been hilarious if Neal had been listed as one of the props, but he wasn't.

Around midnight in the dance studio there was as special guest performance by Vienna Teng, which was neat because she's a Stanford alum and has a pretty good fan base there. She's not really used to playing for dances, I think, but she got enough danceable songs together and it was fun to have here there. There ought to be a tradition of getting her back for Big Dance every year.

At the top of the list of memorable dances, I'd have to single out the polka I did with Eric, to Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy. That's a fun polka any time, but dancing it with Eric and and getting to sing along with him completely unleashing that awesome voice of his was just incredible. That was around 4 AM or so and I probably lasted the last two hours of the dance with a lot more energy because of it. Heck, I'm still a little buzzed, just thinking about it.

On a slight tangent: I've noticed something recently about my dance preferences. I would still say that waltz (particularly cross-step) is my favorite dance, with swing rising rapidly these days as I get better at it. But it seems that a lot of the most memorable dances these days, the ones that really make me go "wow!" are polkas. Maybe that's just because so much energy can be packed into them. To really do it properly can take a lot out of me sometimes, so even if they were played more frequently, I wouldn't dance them all. But that does mean you can get a lot of bang for your buck on the good ones.

But there were a lot of good, non-polka dances last night as well. It was fun to dance with Quena and Lacey, which I don't get to do very often. I had a lot of fun swing dancing, and there were also a few excellent waltzes. I also got several compliments on the musicality of my leading, which was very nice. I don't think I've been doing anything different than usual, but people seem to be noticing more recently for some reason. Regardless, it's gratifying.

I got to sleep a little after 7 this morning, but only managed about four and a half hours before I woke up, though I napped for an hour later on. And now it's bedtime.

Stone River

Thanks to Biz, I recently found out about a sculpture at Stanford by Andy Goldsworthy. Antonia and I were traipsing around campus this afternoon so we went out to look for it. It's right by the Cantor Arts Center, but easy to miss because it's sunk into the ground, though you can see it if you go up the steps to the museum and then turn around.

The wall is just a few feet high, and it's made of stones from Stanford buildings that were damaged in the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes. The ends trail off into the ground as though the whole wall were growing out of the earth. It's only a few years old now, but the idea I think is to gradually let all the plants come back around it naturally, so it looks even more like an integral part of the land. Already a lot of the stones have moss or other small plants growing in their nooks. There's even a door for the fairies to come through. We walked all the way along it on one side of the wall, then back on the other, tracing every curve as though walking a labyrinth.

I also watched Rivers and Tides a few days ago, which is a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy. I am thoroughly hooked on his art now. There's something very profound and beautiful about how it all feels so natural, and yet is so clearly art as well. Really wonderful.

Continuing Choices

The Stanford Continuing Studies catalog arrived in the mail the other day. Always a sucker for course catalogs, I've been browsing happily through it, trying to decide what to take next quarter. Here are some of the ones that look fun so far:

• The History and Mystery of Design - About designing all sorts of stuff.
• The Question Is Art - "What is art?" sorts of topics, coordinated with an exhibit at the Cantor Arts Center
• Ancient Epic and the Hero - I'm probably more interested in taking the class than reading the books, though.
• Encounters With Others: Travel Narratives - I've been thinking and reading a lot about traveling lately (and soon I'll be doing it!).
• Voice and Speech - Maybe interesting to me because of my recent interest in audio books and/or singing.
• The Structure of English Words - Probably less useful than any of the others, but intriguing nonetheless.
• James Joyce's Ulysses - Would be more tempting if I hadn't already slogged my way through it last year.
• A Passion for Bach - I really miss taking music classes.
• Excellence Is No Accident - A "mental skills training program" of some sort.

Right now the Bach class is looking like the most likely one, though Travel Narratives is close, as is Voice and Speech. I wish I could take them all, but I can think about it for a few weeks before registration at least.

Unfortunately, scheduling enters into the equation, too. If I get a class on Monday nights, then I'll have to miss West Coast Swing for a quarter. Thursday nights are tricky because of Irish sessions and because I don't know if Richard's going to teach an evening dance class I'll want to take. Wednesdays and Tuesdays are better, because I can put my Project Read nights on either one, but that would mean that I couldn't go to other things like Irish dances or Swing Central on Tuesdays, or (more likely) take an evening off. So I'll have to think about how I want it to all work out.

TSF Thank You

I got my first ever thank-you letter today from the stanford fund. It's weird being on this end of the process, and being addressed as "Mr. Waldon" by a student earning money for his extra-curricular group. But it's kind of neat, too. In fact, I think I actually had a class once with the person who wrote my letter -- his name sounds really familiar. He would have had to have been a freshman during my last year, but if it was in one of my music history classes or something, it could have happened (he's a music student). I think he was outsourcing his letter writing, though, because the hand writing doesn't look like a guy's. Not that that's anything unusual, of course, it's just amusing to notice. He also made a reference to my "December gift," which was odd, since I thought they weren't supposed to say anything that referred to a particular point in time. Maybe they changed the rules? Oh well. Yay for the tHE sTANFORD fUND.

As You Like Dancing

I got to see two more great shows last night. First was Decadance with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Moose. My favorite of their dances was probably the Polka Contrille (music: Beaumont Rag, by Natalie MacMaster) with its Grand Square exploding into silliness. There was also a post-show attack of Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Much fun.

After that I went to the Stanford Shakespeare Society's performance of As You Like It, outside in the Old Union courtyard. That was absolutely fantastic. The actors were all excellent and had us laughing almost non-stop. There was a blues-singing ukulele player for a few musical interludes. And there was a swing dance for the finale. That was what really blew me away. It wasn't just some non-dancing actors doing slow-slow-rock-step-underarm-turn a few times, it was a serious choreography. The did an entire song (Jumpin' by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, almost 5 minutes) with charleston kicks, lifts, and solos for all the major couples. Not as polished a performance as an actual dance group, of course, but very nearly as complex. And they were doing this all in Shakespearean costumes. I was very impressed. I wish that hadn't been the last night of the show, so I could tell everyone to go see it.

West Coast Snails and a Blog Surprise

Last night was the joint spring show for the Cardinal Whirlwinds and Double or Nothing (square dance and swing, respectively). I was pleasantly surprised to see on the program that Neal had choreographed dances to two They Might Be Giants songs for DoN: Snail Shell and Lie Still, Little Bottle. I was rather uncertain about what they would dance to the former, but it turned out to be a west coast swing. They didn't really have any flashy new moves for me to pick up, but they did do something that looked kind of snail like. With one couple dancing in the center, another couple came up to join them. The new guy took the first guy's place, but the new girl just put her hand on the first girl's shoulder and danced behind her. A few more girls got added on this way, so it was always just one guy, but with an accumulating string of girls. It reminded me of a snail growing multiple rings on its shell. Very cool.

The Whirlwinds had some fun dances, too. I especially like the two clogging numbers that the girls did. On the second one, Caitlin played her fiddle and clogged. I'd seen that before, but it's always a hoot to see it again.

The theme of the show was "The Dancing Game" and the skits in between dances involved Evan getting set up with various girls on a dating show, the dates then being represented by the dances. There were some pretty funny skits, but I was particularly tickled by an unexpected blog reference. Evan had just been accidentally matched with a guy for one of the dates, which lead nicely into the Whirlwinds' Gender Bender square dance. Afterwards, Evan's friend asked him how the date was, and Evan replied "Well, he certainly swept me off my feet. But then I read his blog and he just doesn't seem like my type." Yay to blogging, for working its way into a dance show!

String of Pearls

I got to see the SImps (Stanford Improvisors) perform tonight. After watching so much of Whose Line is it Anyway? over the last couple years, it was a lot of fun to go see some live improv. Especially since they did a lot of different games, or different variations of games that I'm used to seeing on Whose Line.

I think my favorite new game was the last one, called String of Pearls, which took all 8 people. Everyone starts off in the background, and there's an imaginary line across the front of the stage, with 8 imaginary spots in it. That line represents the story they're about to create. One person steps forward into an arbitrary spot in the line, probably somewhere in the middle, and says a line that will fall in that part of the story. Then another person picks another spot, makes up another line, and they each say their line in order. Other members fill in the rest of the line, repeating the fragmentary story as each one comes in, until the whole thing is finished. So not a lot of acting in that one, I guess, but the story-creation process is cool.

Another thing I liked was how the person on the synthesizer participated in all the scenes, not just the musical games. She did sound effects sometimes, as well as background music. That was a nice touch.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane!

It's Super Dance! Big Dance had a super hero theme this year, which made for some cool decorations, especially the giant Spiderman hanging from the web on the gym ceiling. No, I don't have photos, though. I suck at taking pictures of dance events.

When I got to the dance, I found that Jim and Chris had managed to get themselves into both the 9-to-midnight band as well as the midnight-to-3 band, in the studio. I thought that was amusing. I've been rather in a swing mood lately, though, so I also spent a lot of time over on the gym side where the Bob Saul Orchestra was playing. Of course, I was really just hopping back and forth all night long, because of all the contests and performances in both rooms.

In the polka relay race, Susanna and I blazed past everyone else, by virtue of being one of the only couples to do an actual polka on the actual beat. (Becky and Dave claimed this was an unfair advantage, saying we must have been on steroids, and challenged us to a one-on-one [2-on-2?] rematch for sometime in the future.) We also came up with a clever way to transfer the super hero cape (which was acting as the relay baton) to the second couple in our team. All in all, it was enough to get us the victory, in spite of some pretty wild flailings in the other laps. I actually had to fling myself bodily in front of our last out-of-control couple, to keep them from crashing into the band's instruments, which were behind us. That was crazy.

I also did the Jack and Jill swing contest, where you get a random partner for the first round, and a different random partner for the final round. I ended up with Anne for the finals, but got seriously confused by the music. I was in Lindy Hop mode, but they were playing a West Coast. If I had stopped to think about it, my limited West Coast probably would have done as well as my confused Lindy, especially since I know Anne could have made it look great. Oh well. We switched off leading a bit, so that was fun, and we ended up getting third place.

Let's see, what else was fun? I danced a very unusual salsa-hustle-west coast sort of thing with Erin (another case of having a partner who just makes it all look good). There were some very nice cross step waltzes with Jean and Quetzal. Decadance did a new polka quadrille choreography to a Natalie MacMaster recording (courtesy of Caitlin, of course). The hustle competition was won by a fantastic "couple" consisting of Gary, Jennifer and Achuith. I got to practice West Coast Swing a few times, with various people.

The "Lullaby Gauntlet" of slow waltzes in the early morning seemed to go by pretty fast, without weeding out too many tired people. Then of course there was the Dawn Mazurka at around 5:00. At ten minutes to six Richard played the Hamster Dance polka. I danced that with Eric, and gave myself a bit of a scare when I twisted my ankle halfway through. I kept going though, since a Hamster Dance with Eric is high up on the list of dances not to be missed, and the adrenaline kept everything going. It was worth it. My ankle's mostly okay right now, so maybe I didn't get it too badly.

So many people stayed to the end that the last waltz felt like a Jammix. When six o'clock finally rolled around we had 225 all-nighters, a new record. It was my fifth year of doing the whole thing. I was a bit wobbly at that point, but I stayed until 7 to help clean up a bit. When I finally got home I slept until about 1:00, and I now plan on moving slowing and infrequently for the rest of the day, and probably knocking off a few items on my reading list. Another nap might be in order as well.

Big congratulations and thank-yous go to the Gang of 13, as well as Richard, the bands, and everyone else who made the dance great.

Continuing Continuing Studies

I got the Stanford Continuing Studies course catalog in the mail the other day. We're only about half-way through this quarter, but registration for the next starts on the 17th. The summer quarter will only be about half as long, but I think I'll still probably sign up for something. I've enjoyed taking classes again, so I'd like to keep it up. Here are the choices I'm looking at:

• Cultural Studies: Sayyid Qutb, The Intellectual Father of Islamic Fundamentalism
• Literature: Magic Realism Around the World
• Religious Studies: Practical Buddhism
• English: Art of the Essay

Right now I think I'm mostly leaning towards the Magic Realism class. I've been starting to read more fiction recently, and that's always been a style that I've liked. But I'll think about it all a bit before I register.

Where in the World is Testimony A Cappella?

There were far too many things going on this evening, and up until literally about 8 p.m. it was almost a three way tie for what I would actually end up doing. Well okay, the Alameda waltz was actually pretty low on the list, but a contra dance with the Hillbillies from Mars was a very strong contender. In the end though, Testimony's spring show won out, and I'm very glad it did.

The theme for the show was "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" and the skits involved a detective tracing down the criminal who stole Stanford University. There were clues, mimes, silly accents, and altos trying valiantly to imitate very tall buildings. And of course, as always, the singing was wonderful. But most of all I was glad to hear Tina sing Fool for You, which I had only ever heard on their CD. Somehow, that made me happier than anything else in the entire delightful show, and probably even anything within recent memory. Yay Tina!

Anyway, it is now very much time for me to go to bed. I've been low on sleep recently, it's past my bedtime, and I've got a big day tomorrow. I just had to share the happy first.

Dreaming

I finally decided on registering for the Lucid Dreaming class, taught by Stephen LaBerge. It ended up being a fairly close run between that and Mancall's Old Testament class, but I figured that I'll probably have more chances in the future of finding other interesting history/religious studies classes than lucid dreaming classes.

I got a slight discount for being an Alumni Association member, and also a card that I could print out for temporary library privileges. That'll get me into Green Library at least (and probably others that require student ID) but I'm not sure if it would let me check things out or not. That would be neat. I wanted to apply for a card at the Music library after I graduated, but decided against it when I found out you had to pay something like $300. Of course, this way I'm still spending the money, but I'm getting a class out of it, too.

Classes are going to be on Wednesdays, starting March 31st. So I'll need to switch around my Project Read schedule a little bit. Shouldn't be a problem though, especially since I'm not really doing anything terribly vital there these days anyway. Certainly nothing I couldn't do just as well on Tuesdays.

The Memorial Nutcracker Polka

It's that time of year again, when every time I turn on the radio I hear excerpts from the Nutcracker (I listen to very little radio, and only the classical station). The piece I always enjoy hearing is The Russian Dance, which has a particularly amusing memory associated with it for me. So: storytime!

This was about four years ago now, and Miriam and I had just left Phil 80, the class of gouty toes, tadpole stick figures, and an Irish, tango-dancing TA (I remember nothing of the actual philosophy taught there). We were walking through the quad past MemChu, which for the non-Stanford members of my audience I will explain is Memorial Church. The Stanford population has an amusing speech impediment affecting the names of buildings.

So anyway, there we are, outside MemChu, and we hear organ music. The doors are locked and it's the middle of the afternoon, so it's probably just someone practicing. Not to be put off from the possibility of a free organ concert, we head around the building until we find a door left (unintentionally, it turned out) open. We happen to slip through the back office when no one was looking and make it into the church itself.

It's completely empty of people, but filled with music from the largest organ high up in a balcony. After a few moments of reverence, musical on the organist's part, thoughtful on ours, the mood changes abruptly. The music explodes with a burst of energy -- it's the Russian Dance! Miriam and I look at each other, our eyes light up, and those of you who know us well probably know our immediate reaction: Polka! The backpacks drop, and we start zipping up and down the aisle, filling the empty pews with polkas. We just fly along, carried by the exhilarating music and the absolute hilarity of doing a polka in a church.

That polka will always have a place of honor in my personal list of very awesome dances, but unfortunately, it's a short piece of music. The organist stopped, and so did we. Just in time for a lady to come in and ask us how we got there. She hadn't seen us dancing, but apparently we weren't supposed to have snuck in the back door, so we apologized and left politely, smiling to ourselves.

Hearing the Russian Dance now always makes me happy.

Ragtime

Ragtime Ball last night was fun. I think I ended up watching more performances and contests than actually dancing myself, but that's okay. I particularly enjoyed watching the Cardinal Whirlwinds. They did one square dance and then another group of them came out and did some clogging, with Caitlin fiddling for them. I had known Caitlin was a fiddler, but I hadn't realized that she was one of those fiddling-clogging wonders who do both at the same time. Very cool.

One thing I was really happy about last night was the dancers' appreciation of the band (The Back Swing Orchestra). At a lot of Stanford dances, you can really tell that people are used to canned music, and when they finally get a live band the applause can be sort of half-hearted, which makes me feel really bad for the musicians. But last night was a lot better. The band ended up playing for an extra 20 minutes after their last song just because everyone was so enthusiastic about it. So that made me glad.

It was also nice just to be back at a Stanford dance again. It felt like it had been a while, since I hadn't been dancing quite as much recently, and I had been doing more contra than anything else. I guess it was probably only a month, though, since the last Jammix. I didn't get to dance with quite everybody I would have liked to, but I did get to see a number of people I hadn't seen for a bit. I hope there's another Jammix before Winter Break, too.

It is, it is a glorious thing to see a Pirate King

I just got back from the Stanford Savoyards' production of Pirates of Penzance, which was thoroughly wonderful. These shows always leave me beaming, but seeing Eric as the Pirate King just absolutely made my day. I knew he was going to be perfect for the part when I heard he got it, and it was a real treat to get to see him up there. You're awesome, Eric! I thought the girl playing Mabel was also particularly good, and the policemen were suitably silly, and the songs and rhymes amused me as they always do in Gilbert & Sullivan shows. I love coming back from something like this and just not being able to stop smiling, even once I'm back home alone in my room. There are only two performances left, and I highly recommend that everyone go see it, either tomorrow night at 8, or Sunday afternoon at 2:30. See the Savoyards' website for more information. Meanwhile, I'm going to be sitting here with Pirate Kings and Major Generals bouncing happily around in my head.

Masochism A Cappella

There was another a cappella concert at Stanford tonight, this time for Alumni Weekend. There were lots of great songs, as usual, but I have to say that Fleet Street really stole the show this time around. First off, they sang Everybody Pees in the Shower, which was just plain silly, and more so since it was new to me. But the real kicker was when they sang Tom Lehrer's Masochism Tango. The soloist did a very convincing job of being completely and utterly mad, slinking and crawling around the stage, shrieking and shouting at the audience, and just generally being an insane masochist. The people in the front row were probably freaking out being right next to him like that. I would have been. It was really cool, though. I think it's wonderful that there's a group like Fleet Street around that can get away with songs like these.