Boston, I will be

I apologize for the lack of updates this week. Been a short but busy week at work, since I had to cram a lot of stuff in before I head up to the Boston Tea Party. If you're lucky, I might update from there. Even if I don't I've been working on a special project that will spawn many an interesting posts. I also have a good part from Ramona to follow up her first installment of "Looking Back," so you have that to look forward to as well. I'm also sorry to say that I haven't had much of a chance to work on "Artistry in Rhythm." I have an outline of the re-write done, and although I'll be using big chunk of stuff I already wrote for it, it'll probably be some time before I finish it.

In the mean time, I'm making plans to re-post the multi-part epic that was my brain dump of Frankie95, so be on the look out for that.

As for the DCLX interview I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. There's been a delay because it's been deemed too sensitive for the family friendly DCLX website, so it had to undergo some editing. It should be up on that site within the next couple of weeks; probably before DCLX on April 9-11 I would think. An unedited version may be leaked to the public in a yet to be disclosed location . . .

Until all that fun happens, have a good weekend, and I'll leave you with your Friday moment of video zen. Watch Josh Welter's tribute to Peter Strom in this year's Savoy Swing Jam Jack & Jill finals in Seattle a couple of weekends ago. You won't have to wait very long since it happens right at the begining.

btw, he and his partner won that contest.

Weekly Video Highlights: Lindyfest 2010 with Bonus Footage

I’ve discovered that one of the barometers to measure the quality of an event is to see how many videos, how high quality they are and how fast they’re posted after the event is over. On all counts, Lindyfest from a few weeks ago wins. It took a little while for me to sort through them all because they’re all really good. There's at least three videos of every performance and jam. I recommend going over to Jo Hoffberg's blog where she posted the Houston Swing Dance Society's own videos from the event. They had a a few camera's going and were able to pick up the performances from some cool angles.

Frida=Awesome and Other Performance Observations

The reason why I like watching good dancing is because there's so much room for interpretation of subtleties and details. You can watch the same thing over and over again, but still see something new. Bad dancing just just gives me a headache from the the static of unclear intentions. My friend Ann Mony (who's website is imminent according to my sources) pointed out an interesting tidbit at 2:00 in this recent performance by Frida Segerdahl and Skye Humphries at Lindyfest last weekend. At 2:00 she waves for Skye to come over and join her.

Event Promotion Amusingness

I'm a little backed up writing wise. I have a couple of Philippine travel posts to finish. Plus, I've been doing a lot of research on Lindy Hop events recently. I'll be sharing the the reason for that in a future blog post. In the meantime I thought I'd point out a couple of amusing little things I've found. This is probably the most unique theme I've found from the Vintage Swing Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Although the prom king and queen thing may be a bit much.

Weekly Video Review: Crazy Rhythm Challenge 2010

Those crazy French put on the Crazy Rhythm Challenge in Toulouse France a couple of weekends ago. Lot’s of good stuff posted by Teedee Hop. You can find more videos over on their YouTube page here.

Flashback with Ramona Staffeld: Minnie's Moochers at the 1998 ALHC

This is the first of hopefully many installments of a special feature that I’m doing with Ramona Staffeld. We’re going to be looking at some very old school clips of her past performances and getting her reactions. Like a DVD director’s commentary except for Lindy Hop clips. The first one is from the 1998 American Lindy Hop Championships. Everything after the video below is written by her with a few hopefully helpful edits from me. Enjoy!

Feeling My Way Around

The idea that roosters only crow at dawn is a damn dirty lie. They pretty much crow whenever they feel like it, which seems to be any part of the day or night. It's something you notice when you're trying to sleep at any part of the day or night. It took me a little while to notice that my sleep schedule pretty much resembles what it's like when I'm at a dance weekend. I start to crash at about 7:00-8:00 pm local time which is about 6 or 7 am EST, and I wake up about 5 hours later which is roughly the early afternoon back in DC. I don't get comfortable sleeping in strange places and I'm usually attuned to getting up early for work anyway. The result is that there's a big chunk of time when I'm awake and no one else is around.

Weekly Video Highlights: Rock That Swing

This week's highlights come from Germany's Rock That Swing Festival 2010. Kelly Arsenault and Mickey Fortanasce

Laura Keat and Jeremy Otth

Chazz Young

Nicole Rochelle

Shim Sham w/ Chazz Young

Videos courtesy of

http://www.youtube.com/user/SwingVideos

Going on Vacation is a lot of Work

The smell of the air as took me back to the last time I visited the Philippines when I was in 5th or 6th grade. I was exiting Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila after a 21 hour flight a couple of nights ago. (I'm having a pretty difficult time figuring out what time or day it is now) My first and last visit was such a long time ago, but it didn't take long for things to look and feel familiar. I should have been overwhelmed by the holding area outside of the airport. They don't let anyone meet you inside after you disembark from your plane. The Phillippines' biggest export is labor. So there are huge numbers of people coming and going from the country at any one time. Even larger numbers await them when they return. In order to keep everyone from overwhelming the airport, they set aside a large outdoor waiting area. On the airport side, you set yourself up under one of many signs, which easch one corresponding with the first letter of your last name. Across the street of taxi's for those with no one to greet them, is a huge, barred holding pen filled with friends and relatives.

Talk Amongst Yourselves

I'm going to be offline for the next week for my vacation. So if you post a comment somewhere, and it doesn't show up, rest assured that I'll get to it when I return. I'm sure you won't miss me especially with so many other online disctractions to keep you occupied. You can still come back and be entertained since I finally figure out how to time delay posts. So you should see some new content pop up this week while I'm away.