Litui.Net

Oh, hello again blog.  It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?  I know I’ve been neglecting you and I can’t promise to be any better about it, but I’ll feed you some scraps and hopefully that will tide you over for awhile.

While writing this I’ve been obsessively pressing F12 to check on my UPS shipment of a Samsung NC10 netbook [update: just now arrived!  yummy!].  I’ll likely be installing an alternative OS of some sort on it.  Probably Ubuntu Linux, but if I decide to change out the wireless adapter I may take a stab at turning it into a Hackintosh.  I recently spent some time (and factually, am still spending time) converting my desktop system, Butlertron, over to OS X.  Miraculously, it mostly works with only a few issues (occasional kernel panics on SATA controller).  It reminds me of all the effort I had to put into getting Linux working on my hardware back in the late ’90s.

Work at Cansel continues to go swimmingly.  I’m getting closer to the end of my third year of employment here (July) and looking back I can’t believe how much I’ve learned and accomplished here so far.  It’s not all fun and games, but it’s often stimulating and I feel the work I do is appreciated.  Work is still sending me traveling quite frequently.  In December, my boss and I traveled together to both Vancouver and Toronto to bring Global CADD Systems into the company fold.  Next week I’ll be going to St. John’s, Newfoundland to visit our new branch at MF Kelly.  Later in the week, I’ll be visiting our Halifax (Dartmouth) branch.  I also have several major projects due within a month.  Busy times.

I’ve been doing a lot of programming lately and I’m actually starting to feel like a programmer.  Those who know me will likely be rolling their eyes at this point, but it’s true that I rarely consider myself a programmer by nature.  I still feel insecure about the quality of my programming, but it’s finally getting to the point where I can pretty well sit down and write up whatever I need for the purpose in any of a handful of languages.  That’s a pretty nice feeling.

I continue to swing dance and will be in attendance at Frankie Manning’s 95th Birthday Party in New York in May.  This will be my first trip to New York as well so expect some crappy pics of Lady Liberty and the Empire State Building to surface a couple months from now.  In the more immediate future I’ll be attending 9PLEX A.K.A.: PLEX and the City here in Calgary.  This coming Friday and Saturday nights there will be dances with the Bow Djangos and the Polyjesters, respectively.  Both are very fast bands and I’ve been working hard at improving my Balboa accordingly.

This year I also introduced my girlfriend to Lindy Hop and she seems to be enjoying herself though she lacks the time in her busy school schedule to take dance classes at present.  Oh yes, I have a girlfriend named Jodie who makes me very happy. ♥

Having the opportunity to learn from Frankie Manning was amazing.  Prior to attending the workshop I had read through Frankie’s autobiography and seen a number of his videos on YouTube so I had a bit of an idea of what to expect.  The real deal is much better, however.

Here is a man who is still Lindy hopping and Shim Shamming into his 94th year.  He doesn’t have the mobility of his younger years, but he still has amazing rhythm, clean movement, and a good sense of humour.  His many years of dancing allowed him to cross paths with big names in swing music and jazz:  Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Chick Web, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Goodman, and many others.  He travelled the world, met the Queen of England (he has a rather amusing story about this occasion), and choreographed dance scenes in many popular movies.  For someone involved in swing dancing his years at the Savoy Ballroom are enviable.  There, he would go and dance to live music every night, and not just any live music but Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald most nights, with other popular bands set up on the second bandstand.

Looking back on the schedule, I’m not sure Frankie stuck very tightly to the class topics, but excellent things were taught anyway.  From the top (<insert head-tapping motion here>), a cordial atmosphere was strongly encouraged between leads and follows (assumed to be men and women).  First-off, Frankie would introduce himself as being the assistant to Mandi Gould (his assistant for the duration of the workshop). He would ask the leads and follows to make their way to lines on opposite sides of the room.  From there, he’d ask them to pair up in order from the lines.  Once all paired up, there was a dialogue that progressed as follows:

FM: The woman in front of you is your…?

Leads: Queen!

FM: And what do you do for your queen?

Leads: Bow!

FM: And follows this man is bowing to you, what do you do for your lead?

Follows: Twist!

This chat was followed each time by four basic swingouts.  Why four?  To complete a phrase of music.  Frankie wanted leads to think about the music more in terms of phrases than bars so that rather than just going from one move to the next ad nauseum, we were thinking ahead about sequences of moves to match the music.  Much of his lecturing was about musicality.  After some repetition of the swingout phrases, we’d start from scratch doing two swingouts followed by a Lindy circle and a double tuck turn.  This sequence would then be built upon with new moves.

I honestly can’t remember what was taught in each class, or even how all the sequences of moves are pieced together.  We have some video footage of some friends and other students performing the sequences after each class so we can remember what was taught, but I will have to go back and review.

On Saturday night, Frankie held a fireside chat wherein he talked about the old days and related a number of anecdotes from his past (many of which are in his book) and showed video footage of his favourite Lindy scenes (as well as one exceptional Tap-dancing scene).  At the dance, Frankie led the Shim Sham for all those in attendance.  A number of groups put on performances in his honour including Hogtown Swing who wrapped up their number with Frankie’s own choreography from Hellzapoppin’.

Sunday was no less interesting with two more classes with Frankie (4 total over the weekend).  At the end of his last class, students gathered around him showing their appreciation with cheers and stomps.

Next time:  Sylvia Sykes!

Last Friday (April 25), Heather and I flew to Toronto to attend a Lindy and Balboa workshop taught by Frankie Manning and Sylvia Sykes.  This is the first dance workshop I’ve ever attended and believe me, I was overwhelmed.  For those who are unaware (and too lazy to click on the links), here are both bios in short:

Frankie Manning

Swing dancer extraordinaire Frankie Manning was a leading dancer at Harlem’s legendary Savoy Ballroom where, in the mid-1930s, he revolutionized the course of the lindy hop with his innovations, including the lindy air step and synchronized ensemble lindy routine. frankiemanning.com

Sylvia Sykes

Sylvia, an internationally recognized authority on most types of Swing Dance, has been teaching and judging for 20 years throughout the US, Europe, and Australia. sylviasykes.com

Needless to say, some excellent teachers.  Yes, that does say that Frankie Manning was a Lindy Hop dancer in the 1930s.  He was born in 1914 making him almost 94 years old.  He continues to teach and dance, his schedule already booked for 2008.  In this workshop he taught some of his favourite sequences of moves in Lindy Hop.  The man has a wealth of experience and knowledge and I couldn’t help but be inspired while attending his workshop.

Sylvia was also exceptional.  She had a shining sense of humour while still managing to give us the facts plain and simple on how to execute certain moves.  She emphasized social dance, proper leading and following, and simplification so that moves could be executed with the least amount of needless work.  She taught not only 8 and 6 count Lindy dance but Balboa/Bal-Swing as well.

Stay tuned for longer descriptions of individual parts of this weekend’s event.