I was just thinking of books that I want to read to my (eventual) children. Mostly they’re books I was read as a kid, but some are books I wished I’d read or that I’ve read more recently.
Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien – I’m reading this to Nicole right now, and it’s really fun, especially because she’s never read it before.
Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card – I once aspired to re-read this every year, but that didn’t happen. I’m long overdue.
Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis – I never read this, and while I’m cautious of the Christian overtones, it’s one that I feel I missed out on.
The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper
Redwall, by Brian Jacques
The Prydain Chronicles, by Lloyd Alexander
The Enchanted Forest series, by Patricia Wrede – Feminist and irreverent, while I didn’t see these as most favorite, I think they’re important.
The Pit Dragon Trilogy, by Jane Yolen
Stardust, by Neil Gaiman – I actually read this in college, but I like the idea of exposing children to Neil Gaiman’s writing early.
Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling – So that the kids will have read the books before seeing the movies.
Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
I have most of these in a trunk in Amherst. I like reading books aloud! But as noted by the friend with whom I brainstormed this list, I may run out of time to get through everything, unless we read more than at bedtime, or the kids fall asleep very slowly.
I went with my roommate Emma today to participate in the anti-war march to Occupy Boston. There were hundreds of people in the march. We stood by the headhouse and watched everyone go by, then walked straight to Dewey Square, while the march went off down Tremont. I have no idea where the march got to, because while I expected them to be there in fifteen minutes or so, they didn’t arrive for about an hour. In that time, we wandered around the site, which had changed a little since I was there a week ago, mostly expanded by more tents on the edges.
'Thumper
While we were waiting for the march to get there (they took forever!) we were captivated by an interaction happening on the plaza between protesters and a rotating slate of 4-5 bible-thumpers who had a milk crate and a megaphone and weren’t afraid to use them. The protesters were initially standing in a line in front of the active ‘thumper, with signs that said “this man does not speak for us” and chanting “equality”for everyone!” Then drums were added to the mix, and more chanting, which became an encirclement. My stomach was slightly turned by the tactic of drowning out those whose views you don’t like, but I imagine it would’ve been turned further hearing the ‘thumper’s words. Emma told me that this is a common tactic when Fred Phelps comes to town to tell gay people they can’t go to heaven. I continued to feel weird about it all until someone started playing a trumpet. We started dancing. I think it’s better to combat hate by displacing it with a dance party than by simply saying “no!”
Arrival of MarchCrowd on the Plaza
Then, finally, we saw the march approaching from the same side street that we had. They must’ve doubled back and come at Dewey Square from Downtown Crossing. We positioned ourselves on the north edge of the plaza, right next to the tunnel exit. There were lots of police directing traffic, and suddenly the other side of the street was filled with protesters waiting to cross. Then they crossed, led by some anarchist folks who seemed to cross before the police were completely ready. But it’s hard (without riot gear and great numbers) to stop the crest of a hundreds-strong march when they want to cross a street. Then the entire march was crossing the street, and it was fun to watch the reactions of the people stopped in cars coming up from the tunnel. The energy was great. Then the plaza was filled, and we were standing near the police at the periphery. It was somewhat awkward standing near them while people were speaking to the crowd with lots of anti-cop language. But there weren’t any real problems. We then walked around for a bit, then got in the subway and went home.
I have been following and vigorously posting to Facebook all information about the Occupy Wall Street protests. I’m doing this because the protests are exciting. Change happens in a democracy when people are energized enough by issues to get up and demand more of politicians. Those demands need to be loud (read: great passion and lots of people), otherwise politicians will just buzz along, doing what they do best: wheeling and dealing. It is our civic duty to make it politically necessary for them to behave.
Occupy Wall Street has been criticized a lot by pundits for a couple things in particular. First, that they don’t really have specific and cohesive demands, and instead are full of people protesting for everything. Second, that they’re uninformed, and don’t know the first thing about the financial industry.
But the organizers are a step ahead here. By embracing a multiplicity of concerns, they focus the energy of the protest on the “Other 99%” or just the “99%”. That’s fantastically strategic, because it allows anyone with vaguely anti-establishment grievances to participate, thus lots of passionate people.
The second criticism falls flat too. What’s important is the symbolism of Wall Street. And it doesn’t really matter if protesters can’t tell you what a derivative is, they’re justifiably angry, and poking fun at them comes off as elitist and feeds the revolutionary zeal.
So, while clarification of specific goals will be important at some point, this Occupy Wall Street beast should get much bigger before it narrows its focus in that way. If you like pundits, though, here are some who are taking a tempered look at the story:
Yesterday I had my first official thesis meeting with my advisor, Barbara Parmenter. She’s great; she really helped me talk through my ideas and identify the next steps, as well as advising me on a manageable scope for the project. Here is what I’m thinking right now:
I’m interested in two general themes: college towns (like Amherst, where I grew up) and land use conflicts involving neighborhood opposition to a project. Such conflicts are often pejoratively called “NIMBYism”, but pejorative terms are dumb, so I won’t be using that name very much. Finally, I’m interested in studying how these conflicts can be resolved positively.
Last fall I did a big project on town-gown relations in general, and I think that overview will be a part of my thesis literature review as well. However, I am interested in more specifically land use conflicts, and even though I am focusing on college towns, I would be open to including conflicts that do not directly include the university.
Maybe my interests are best described by highlighting cases of neighborhood opposition in Amherst that have inspired me. I want to research other examples of similar cases, and find out if there’s anything that can be done to resolve them so that everyone is happy.
the general feeling that student houses in residential neighborhoods are a bad thing
So, for now, I’m going to start my literature review by researching land use conflicts in college towns. The specific direction of my topic is still somewhat up in the air, but that’s what I’m thinking.
I’m worried about the United States economy. I believe the “Great Recession” of 2007-2008 may have been small potatoes next to the turmoil to come. With the recent debt ceiling negotiations, as with many policy compromises in Washington in recent years, we have seen absolutely no room for the sort of dramatic policy shifts our country requires.
Nate Silver of the New York Times blog FiveThirtyEight just wrote a post examining the long term trends in U.S. GDP, and concluded that…hold onto something…we’re in pretty bad shape, relative to the norm. Read the whole post for more details, but I just wanted to show you this graph without all the overwhelming text of the main article:
If we’re going to get out of this bind, we need to pay for the services our country needs by raising federal taxes on the weathiest among us and on those behaviors that are harmful to our society in the long run. This must be done at the national level in most instances. We need to raise our intensity on this issue, and hope that those efforts are not too late. If we cannot fix our problems, there will be even more suffering.
This post appeared on the CDSS blog yesterday, Thursday June 23. I started writing it in December, and with the wonderful assistance of Max Newman, it proceeded in fits and starts to what you see below. I hope you enjoy it.
In the first post on the CDSS blog last December, Brad Foster wrote about Tradition and Change. He closed by musing about the future of traditional fusion:
Are techno contra and hip-hop morris part of our future? In both cases I’m sure the answer is “definitively maybe” or “sort of”. It’s likely some elements will make their way into the run-of-the-mill, as happened with swing moves in contra dancing. Both will influence our traditional arts but won’t become those arts. Even techno contra is morphing, with people saying, “That’s nice, but I want to try taking it in yet a different direction.”
He’s right. That “different direction” is emblematic of the living traditions we all hold dear. The folk process is always at work. For decades, bands have become popular for energetic fusion between traditional music and other styles. Even Dudley LaufmanÂ’s Canterbury Contra Dance Orchestra recorded with electric guitar in the 1970s! The most recent manifestation of our vibrant and evolving history is integrating electronic music into contra dancing, often referred to as “techno contra”.
The Name
One of the first questions you run into discussing this nascent genre is, “What do we call it?” As mentioned above, the most popular term is probably “techno contra”, which conveys energy and club dancing even though much of the music may be pop, celtic fusion, or electronica rather than strictly techno. The fact that a number of these dances contain low lighting lends to the club atmosphere. Other terms include “alternative music contra” and “crossover contra”. Personally, I prefer “crossover contra” which is more accurately descriptive, despite being a bit vague and arguably not adequately sexy. “Crossover” is the term I’ll default to here, referring to specific events by the terms their organizers use.
The History
For several years, IÂ’ve been fascinated by the emerging proliferation of contra dances to electronic music. I set out in this post to uncover what I could about this movement and its history. Corresponding with a number of people involved, IÂ’ve traced back some of the history and learned more about how the people involved view their events and their role in the dance community.
The first instance I unearthed of prerecorded electronic music being used at contra dances was in 2001. Lisa Greenleaf and Clark Baker (two Boston-area callers) had a brainwave while listening to celtic rock music. Starting with the music of Scottish “hypnofolkadelic” band Shooglenifty, the two of them began mixing. Lisa debuted the result with friends at small parties where she was trying out new dances. In 2006, she held an alternative music fundraiser dance at the Concord Scout House, and by this time the repertoire had expanded to include such styles as latin, rock, and world beat music. While she initially had exclusively called live at alternative music dances, by the time of the first Scout House fundraiser, she had recorded calling tracks for each musical set. These events have proven popular, but it took an event further south to light a crossover contra fire.
The movement quickly dubbed “techno contra” seems to have begun at the Whipperstompers Weekend in South Carolina in June 2008, a dance weekend organized by Able Allen catering to young dancers. At the end of the weekend, after many attendees had already left, an impromptu dance was called by Taija Tevia-Clark to techno music from someone’s iPod. A brief video from the end of this dance was posted on YouTube, and has been viewed more than 5,000 times:
In attendance at the Whipperstompers techno contra were two dancers who went on to be influential in the early spread of crossover contra. Forrest Oliphant of North Carolina was inspired by the Whipperstompers video to create something similar, but with more planning. He got his opportunity at the inaugural Youth Dance Weekend (YDW) in late September 2008. He organized a techno contra after the scheduled dances were over, and shot two takes of two sets dancing to Adam Tensta’s “My Cool”. The resulting techno contra video has been viewed more than 20,000 times on YouTube, and has inspired many dancers interested in dancing to this sort of music. Since the creation of this video, it has become common for crossover contras to produce videos, and that has become a primary channel through which organizers learn from each other.
Forrest’s “My Cool” video:
Also in attendance at both Whipperstompers and YDW was Jordy Williams of Asheville, NC. Seeing the potential in the dances at those two weekends, Jordy was inspired to organize similar events of his own. He has put on invitational techno contras in Asheville every few months since the first one in June 2009. While most crossover contra dances up to that point had been in the traditional 10-15 minute per dance format, Jordy structured his differently, with techno tracks strung together in 90-minute medleys. At the second YDW, in September 2009, a late-night techno medley was coordinated by Jordy. He continues to organize periodic techno contra dances in Asheville, including the first fully public one on New Year’s Day, 2011.
Since late 2009, there has been a proliferation of crossover contra events all over the country. Special events have been organized in places such as Bates College in Maine, in Boulder, Colorado, and in Seattle, Washington.
In the Triangle region of North Carolina, Peter Clark and Eileen Thorsos have begun using celtic fusion music heavily edited to fit contra, a style which they dub “electrotrad”. Since late 2010, a monthly series (Contra Sonic) has sprung up in the DC area. Now, in the summer of 2011, crossover contra events are being organized faster than I can keep track of them. The proliferation and draw of these events underscores the energy and potential present in crossover contra.
The Vision
Every organizer of crossover events has a different take on the legacy of the tradition, but those I spoke with express great respect for typical contra dance evenings. Jordy Williams, whose events differ most drastically from a normal night of contra dancing, told me, “I have been extremely cautious in not letting it interfere with regular dancing. I treasure contra dance and don’t want a night of canned music to step on the toes of regular musicians in any way.” Peter Clark sees crossover contra as “a way to provide variety and compelling events to draw in a wider portion of the public.” Another major motivation for crossover contra is voiced by Dana Ouellette, an organizer and dancer in western Massachusetts: “I certainly appreciate and love the traditional music, and would never want to turn away from that completely, but having the option to play around with new musical influences keeps me that much more excited about being a part of the community.” Crossover events serve to both keep experienced dancers excited by the variety they provide, and also to expose a broader swath of the population to the joys of contra dancing.
Alongside the events using recorded music, there are a few dance bands blurring the line between live and pre-recorded music. Perpetual e-Motion from Maine, formed in 2003, has gained popularity for their heavy use of electronic effects and looping, allowing them to build complex arrangements on the fly with just two people. According to Perpetual e-Motion’s John Cote, “An important thing for us is that we don’t use pre-recorded music. But now everything, even the feet, goes through electronic processing in some way.” Another duo pushing the form, Double Apex, debuted in December of 2010. They combine recorded samples with live traditional music. According to Julie Vallimont of Double Apex, “For us, contra dancing is both about respecting and maintaining a longstanding tradition and having fun with contra dance and experimenting with a living tradition. Our basic idea is to use fiddle tunes as a base to keep the phrasing and energy of the dance, and add techno beats, synths, loops, and samples.”
A recurring ideal crossover organizers express is to have an experienced DJ who is either personally able to call or who has a strong working relationship with a caller. Peter Clark of North Carolina writes, “I see the future of crossover contra being led by live producer DJs who contra dance themselves. I see them using computer programs which allow for on-the-fly changes to respond to the energy on the dance floor and to tailor the music to specific dances.” Double Apex and DJ Improper (of the Contra Sonic series) are some of those beginning to work with these possibilities.
It has become common practice to produce videos of crossover contra events and share them online. The Whipperstompers and 2008 YDW videos began this trend, and it has been continued at many crossover dances. While the YDW video was planned with filming in mind and featured multiple takes, more organic products can also achieve a similarly high level of quality. More important than the videography, though, is sharing the video online, because that has become one of the primary means of discourse among crossover contra organizers.
Recently, Ryan Holman of the DC area has been compiling the excellent Contra Syncretist, a blog/website resource for crossover contra in its many forms. (The most recent post: “Calling to Hip-Hop (and Other Alternative Music)“, thoughts from Maine caller Chrissy Fowler.)
Crossover contras are new and distinctive in their own way, but their connection to more traditional contras is strong and close. This new music has been used in contras for only the past ten years or so, but its growth over the past several years has been meteoric. Not only has its expansion been fast, but it has been organic. While the content may be new, the process is old. I hope that this movement – linked with tradition, while bringing new perspectives — continues in a direction that appeals to all members of the dance community, from newcomers to experienced, from dancers to performers, and from young to old.
I wrote this story spontaneously for my friends in Crowfoot, inspired by the Fair Folk described within. The spontaneity is preserved below (i.e. it’s unedited and probably full of typos.) I hope you enjoy it.
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Once there were several fair folk. “Once” might be the wrong world, because as you know, fair folk live in a land that is somewhat chronologically askew from our own. What’s that? You’re not clear on “fair folk” either? Well, they’re the foundation of the popular conception of “fairies”, though I’m sure if you showed them a picture of what most people consider a “fairy”, they would laugh merrily. They are more akin to Susanna Clarke’s portrayal of the gentleman with thistledown hair from her tome of a novel, Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell. If I recall, this gentleman is somewhat green-tinted and spidery, and possessing of a wild magic. But this portrayal may be more sinister than reality. Or it may not. We shall see.
Anyways, where were we? Oh yes. Once (or perhaps multiple times or no time) there were several of these beings. Three, to be precise. That is not a picture of them; it is a picture of three popularly-conceived elves. Elves are no more correct than fairies. These creatures are purely mythological. Fair folk are powerful and majestic beings, who most of the time do not take interest in the lives of humans. But they do love music. Oh my do they love music. As may be known to you, music is powerful, majestic, and wild in a way that you might agree would be attractive to such beings. Are you aware of the story of King Orfeo? Sometimes, exceptionally impressive music can buy you favor with them. Keep that in mind if you ever should meet some.
Beyond merely its appreciation, fair folk excel in the creation of music. And few made music like these three. Their mastery of harmony and rhythm, tone and melody were beyond the imagination of most humans. Their talents were renowned throughout the fair kingdom Susanna Clarke refers to as “Last-Hope”, which sits astride our own lands and intersects at peculiar metaphysical angles.
Let me tell you how these three fair folk came to make their beautiful music in our lands rather than their own. In truth, but one of the trio was truly and fully of that land. She strolled from the fair kingdom into our land one day, whether aimlessly or purposefully, and singing all the way. Her path took her through a village, where there was a human man whose music was among the finest of any of his kind. He played with rhythm and grace, so much so that crowds would gather to hear his songs. Indeed, our fair woman was flabbergasted to hear his music. She’d not heard a man so talented before. At the end of a song, as he continued strumming chords, she approached him (powerfully slinking in the seductive and uncanny fashion of her kind) and produced her fiddle from who-knows-where (she hadn’t seemed to be carrying it a moment ago). She began to play along to his chords, and instantly they clicked. They played on and on, until their hands were torn and bruised. With few words spoken outside of music, they were away to rest together. For she had decided: this was a worthy human.
Then she was gone, and the man played sad ballads for years to mourn the living dream he had encountered of one short evening. He knew not whether it had been a mere fabrication of sleep’s wiles, or truth, but for a dozen years or more he could not dismiss it as fantasy. One day, he took it upon himself to find her. He strolled the nearby hills, playing as wonderfully as ever, searching for signs that the magical woman was to be found. Sounds like a silly idea, but turns out it was lucky, or timely, or fated, or all three.
As he rounded one shady hill, he heard the sound of lilting notes carried on the breeze down the path. He followed their beckoning, and indeed, there she was. Nor was she alone, for sitting on another rock across the path from her, playing in rich harmony, was another member of her people. This fair one complemented the fiddle with moving chords played upon the bellows of an accordion, or with sharp counter-melodies over the hole of a flute. Our man was not plagued by an ounce of jealousy, but simply rode his wave of joy toward them. They slowed their playing not as they acknowledged his presence, and soon the three were playing in rousing synchrony, like the intricate collaboration of muscles in a running wolf or a flying crow.
These three continued to play for some time, and then paused to rest. There was more human joy in this meeting, with smiles and food exchanged and appreciated. For as our man soon realized, these two had left their land for his own, with a mind to play music among humans. The man expressed sympathy for a difficult choice, but they replied only with joy at having made a firm decision that involved music. As if to emphasize their point, they broke back into playing, with a driving major melody that expressed nothing but pure excitement and joy. The human man joined them, and they played into the night, until they could play no longer.
From then on, they roamed the countryside, delighting man, woman, and child with their joyful reels and haunting songs, melancholy ballads and playful jigs. They were appreciated the land over, and their magic touched many. For to them, the timeless power of music was as breath, and they bestowed it with gentle grace and reckless abandon on all they encountered.
This weekend (through Monday) the annual American Planning Association national conference was here, in Boston, and I attended. It was a whirlwind, and fun, but tiring. I can’t believe it’s Tuesday already! I went to a number of wonderful panels, and several exceedingly boring panels.
The first session I went to was fantastic. It was titled “Getting Ahead of the Opposition”, about building local political & public relations alliances well in advance of policy battles, so that they’re there when you need them. That panel also emphasized meticulously planning your outreach down to the individual level. Local newspapers (as thought-leaders in the community) are important to have on your side, or at least important to inform about all the nuances of the situation. Any group or individual with meaningful support and political power must be met with individually and persuaded, but effort need not be wasted on fringe loudmouths. The panelists affirmed that every community has these people who show up to every meeting, have bones to pick, and are politically not worth being associated with. The panel was also enlivened by a Mary Means of the planning firm Goody Clancy.
The last panel I attended was also wonderful, about retrofitting cities with green streets facilities. There were planners from Seattle, Boston, and New York City talking about the interesting and innovative ways they have made their streets safer and greener in recent years. Several tactics I came away with were putting down street paint (which is cheap) in a way that clearly delineates where cars and bikes should go. Currently there are lots of too-wide lanes that waste street space and allow cars to hog room that could be used by cyclists. And while bicycle advocates may view cars as an adversary, the panelists all emphasized that complete streets planning must take all modes into account.
For evaluation of panels, the conference used a system of half-sheet paper forms. I found these to be too troublesome to fill out for each session. In conversation with classmates about this dilemma, two suggestions emerged. My thought was that there could be simple thumbs-up-thumbs-down ratings for each panel and each panelist. Simplifying a survey makes it easier for people to fill it out. Another way of using evaluation for quality control would be to use several volunteers in each session to evaluate. Having multiple designated evaluators would mediate some of the bias concern of having a small number, but assigning the task to a few people would possibly produce higher quality evaluations. It was clear that a re-vamped evaluation process was needed, due to the extremely uninteresting sessions that seemed scattered throughout the conference. Good presenters should be encouraged to present and bad presenters should not be asked back. It wastes members’ time and money allowing monotoned, sleep-inducing presenters to poison the schedule.
The conference started strong and ended strong for me, with a lull in the middle. But I did get to go outside for lunch each day and experience the beautiful weather. There were many other moments, too, that made it a truly valuable way to spend the weekend.
Last night I woke up around 6am from a dream, and wrote it down in my notebook. Here’s how it went:
I was in a concrete parking garage at night with a girl from my acapella group whom I haven’t seen since 2007, as well as two contradancers, both of whom I respect a lot, but neither of whom played prominently in the dream. The acapella girl’s name is Alex, but because that would be confusing, I’ll call her Pat. At the beginning of the dream, Pat was commenting on the fact that I did not, in fact, carry a switchblade-like weapon. This was apparently surprising. She then proceeded to tell me about how it’s useful to have female friends charge at a person who’s mugging you, because apparently it will scare of the mugger.
At this point the strange things started happening. We noticed to our dismay that the moon was going away. It was at once getting smaller, then going into the ground. We shouted “grab it before it disappears!” but were unable to do so before it sank into the ground, like a flower bud moving quickly in reverse. Then, Pat and I noticed something else odd over the edge of the garage, on a grassy hillock: a “flaming bunny”. That is how I described it while writing it down, but really it was more a hare than a rabbit, sitting up straight and looking to the left, calmly silhouetted by a small spurt of continuous flame. It seemed very ominous and magical.
Then the moon was back, and this time doing something even scarier. It was moving, quickly, and was distorted in the two cones of double refraction that you sometimes see when a film camera is out of focus and pointed at bright lights. It was as if the physics of the universe was getting distorted. We wondered if the world was going to end, and I remember someone saying, “maybe the membrane [of the Earth, the atmosphere] will survive, maybe it won’t”. Then we all got sucked out into space, and the question was answered. When sucked into space without protection, one hopes that death comes before pain, though that may be unlikely.
Another interesting aspect of this dream was that when it concluded, I knew when it was supposed to have happened: approximately two weeks from now, in mid-April. I hope it wasn’t literal, or even metaphorically prophetic. Luckily, dreams seldom are.
