Lists... p2

Movies: (excluding fully animated films cause I have a separate list for that)
1. Bedknobs and Broomsticks
My first actual memory of seeing Angela Lansbury in a role ever... I don't think I made the connection to Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast till sometime after. If I didn't know any better I would've thought Disney was trying to cash in on the live actor + cartoon hybrid film hype from Mary Poppins or something; it even has Mr. Banks (why did I remember him as Mr. Brown...) from that film starring as... himself as far as I was concerned, cause at the age of five I couldn't tell the difference. According to my parents I watched this even more times than I remembered watching it. Good memories of imagining that my bed could travel through space-time after watching this song.

2. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny- no, more importantly, DONALD DUCK AND DAFFY DUCK. IN THE SAME FILM. WITH DUELING PIANOS. But more seriously, considering the fact that more than half this film takes place in the cartoon world, it's surprising how dark it is- it's actually an example of a neo-noir given the familiar mystery/crime storyline and typical jaded hardboiled protagonist. I can think of a couple of other elements of this film that I'm surprised didn't leave me more traumatized as a kid, but I won't touch on them for spoiler reasons. Also, the inspiration for one of my favorite Disneyland rides growing up, Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin in Toon Town. My parents never wanted to go on it again after I forced them to wait in line with me for two hours and then made us leave right when we reached the front because I had to go to the restroom. Sigh.

3. The Godfather I + II
First time I watched a film seriously and not for the casual movie theater going kind of entertainment. I have this thing for stories that show how people change over long periods of time, and seeing the transformation of Michael Corleone over the course of both films (I didn't watch III) left quite an impression on me. I actually still kind of liked him by the end of it, though more in the sense that I sympathized with him still somehow. Isolating himself from everyone as a culmination of all the life choices he made... it's such a human thing to do.

4. Vertigo
As with Dickens, I thought I'd have hated Hitchcock after being forced to watch The Birds in school (which was the cause of my eye... damage... phobia by the way) as well as the one obviously scarring scene from Psycho, until I saw this. I love the soundtrack, the colors, the tension, the backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge, the promotional poster, Jimmy Stewart... and the list goes on. But especially the tension; it's what makes me come back to watch other Hitchcock films now, other than the two hated ones listed earlier; Shadow of a Doubt and Rope are two of my other favorites of his. Speaking of which, I think I'm due to watch another Hitchcock film...

5. The Philadelphia Story
From that one summer when Jade was going through a Jimmy Stewart craze and I caught the fever from her. Still my favorite Jimmy Stewart role, although the other characters were great too. To be honest, I don't really bother to watch many happy-go-lucky fun comedy films (more of a depressing/serious psychological thriller-drama watcher), but for some reason the feelings from this one stick with me even though I haven't rewatched it since.

6. Clue
I seem to have a thing for discovering properties based off of the Clue board game franchise- first the children's books, then the Clue Jr. children's books (...don't know why they needed an even younger age children's book series, aside from the lack of murders I guess), and then finally this film. I actually didn't see this until college, but it had the exactly the kind of humor that I'd have been a sucker for as a kid... meaning it still gets to me now haha. This might sound weird, but Tim Curry's character, Wadsworth the butler, was the kind of character that I aspired to be like whenever I had make-believe adventures as a kid on the playground: frenetic and seemingly omniscient about the entire scenario. This is probably why I felt a sudden weird feeling of nostalgia watching him force everyone to reenact the entire movie in ~90 seconds in order to explain who the murderer was at the very end. Also, three endings!!

7. Do The Right Thing
It seems that Spike Lee hasn't been doing very well in the news lately, like that one time he tweeted the wrong address of George Zimmerman (not that he should've tweeted anything to begin with). But this film he made back in '89 about the tension of race relations in a low income Brooklyn neighborhood still feels incredibly relevant today considering the number of recent racially charged news stories in the headlines, and some of the images are pretty powerful. Had to watch this for the Race and American Film AC class I took in college, and (like basically all of the films we had to watch in that class) it was a pretty worthwhile experience.

8. The Act of Killing
I already wrote a blog post/review on this one, so I don't really have much to add here... except that I found out one of my family members tried to watch it and wasn't able to make it very far. It really is a sickening (but necessary) subject to touch on. I think being a generation removed from the events that took place, I found it less difficult to watch this film; I really can't imagine what it would be like to try to watch this and have had relevant experiences in your own life. Just hearing the stories of what happened in the 60's from my own family was... heavy in itself.

9. Yi Yi
An overall compelling look into the introspective lives of a multigenerational Taiwanese family. I wish there were more films out there that explored and focused on the depth of everyday moments like this, or more likely I haven't been seeking them out enough haha. The most recent comparison I can think of now is Boyhood, but I think Boyhood focused more on general experiences over a longer timescale, whereas Yi Yi takes place within a rather short period of time and is spread more evenly in attention among most of the family members rather than focusing on just the boy. Consequently, the latter actually had more interesting dialogue to me. The final lines at the end left me speechless.

10. High and Low
Just saw this one recently, and looking at it now, it's probably my favorite Kurosawa film. Reminded me a lot of another police procedural film of his, Stray Dog, except this was better paced and had a more striking visual dynamic going on. It took me until partway through the second half to realize what "High and Low" actually meant (better translated as "Heaven and Hell" actually), after seeing such striking contrasts play out within the film. A number of awesome visual moments, and the train scene especially pulled me in for how well it was executed and the tension it exhibited, in a manner I didn't expect... perhaps because of how realistic the scenario was.

Solo Jazz/Lindy Hop Routines:
Because after learning enough of these, I'm starting to lose track of how to do them.

1. The Jitterbug Stroll
So I have yet to learn this officially considering that I tried to improvise learning and performing it at the same time by copying the people around me...but aside from the tick-tock tick-tock's, most of it wasn't too bad to figure out on the spot.

2. The Electric Slide (Frankie Manning style)
I originally learned the Electric Slide to Electric Boogie like you're supposed to do it, but I have to say Frankie's version of it to Easy Does It is pretty fun too. It feels like a great morning wake up routine.

3. The California Routine
Technically only learned up till around the 1 minute mark (missing the Whirlibird or however you spell it...) but otherwise it matches up.

4. Black Coffee
Two years ago Kevin St. Laurent and Jo Hoffberg taught an 8 week performance routine class at Wednesday Night Hop. I didn't have an available partner by the end of it but I was able to stick around long enough to learn the full routine itself before they started going around performing this at different venues. This is the performance they did at the 920 Special in SF.

5. The Frankie Manning Shim Sham
If you had to learn just one solo jazz routine/line dance, this is the one that most dancers know and gets performed most often at the venues. It's relatively simple to learn and a classic.

6. Doin' the Jive
A relatively short but sweet looking routine. Missed out on the class that taught the first half so I had to improvise learning it again... but it worked out in the end.

7. The Dean Collins Shim Sham
It looks like the Frankie Manning Shim Sham at first, but the second half is COMPLETELY different and considerably more difficult to do. I forgot how to do most of that half already.

8. The Lindy Chorus
The middle part at around :50 seconds still throws me off. If we ever do this again, I'll have to work that out. The song this is normally performed to is actually called Wednesday Night Hop as well, and it really grew on me the more times we did it.

9. The Tranky Doo
Oddly the most clear performance I could find of this to "The Dipsy Doodle" was by a Korean flash mob... Just learned this one this month! I've had "The Dipsy Doodle" stuck in my head a lot lately as well. Sometimes it's hard to resist the urge to just dance this one on the spot.

10. The Big Apple
Ever since seeing this performed by a crap-ton of people at Camp Jitterbug two years ago, I've always wanted to learn this. It's arduously difficult to learn compared to the others, but finally did it this summer!

reflections on the social dance floor.

I feel inclined to both like people and not trust them.

Part of the reason why I had trouble committing to coming out to swing dancing weekly for a long time (aside from becoming busy with things) was that I didn't really feel like I fit in with the swing crowd. Still don't. I always feel like one of those misfits standing off to the side, unable to really socialize with anyone beyond the context of a single dance itself because I have trouble finding much to say to anyone. I can dance okay now and stuff- heck, it was even more difficult when I barely knew anything and always felt like I was letting the follow down from making so many mistakes and not being able to do much- but now I just feel like I can dance around for a bit with someone and then that's it. I can respond well enough if someone else hits up a conversation with me on the spot, but I find that most of the time people on the dance floor are focused on other things or are busy talking to other people they already know anyway.

And after months of that every week, it just started getting lonely, in a way, lonelier than I ever really felt when I was actually alone at home minding my own business. I felt more comfortable dancing with random strangers than I did with the people whose faces I recognized from seeing around every week, who by proxy already knew other people there as well. I may have talked to the folks in the latter category once or twice, but it'd only take another week and then it'd be like we'd never really interacted at all. And that's just awkward.

Maybe it's just my overall mood whenever I'm around people: I'm the kind of person who prefers to be reached out to than to do the reaching out by nature, and when no one interacts with me first I usually end up just standing there awkwardly. It pretty much defines my experience at IV for a good chunk of the time I was there, and a lot of other social experiences. It takes me a long time to warm up to most people in general (and when I actually think about it, it took me a rather long time to actually get closer to most of my existing friends; 5 years, 1 year, 1.5 semesters, and 1.5 years all come to mind).

What it comes down to largely is trust, and I've realized that I take a rather long time to get to a point of trusting people enough to even just talk to them like a normal friend. It's as if you'd need to pass some test or measure of trustworthiness in my head (apparent willingness to reciprocate in conversation; apparent friendliness; etc.) before I'd feel comfortable enough to open up to you, and with regards to the atmosphere of social dancing, it's really difficult to maintain a conversation where you'd get a good feel for those things with another person while the music's blaring and loads of other people are dancing and just running about and whatnot. And sometimes I feel like it's the same attitude that other people have towards me, considering that I'm generally quiet and not very openly sociable to begin with. To me it usually feels like the other person is just disinterested in continuing talking after a certain point, which I find normal anyway because I also do the same thing.

I found last night that none of this has really changed for me since the time I stopped coming out to the dances over a year ago; the only difference is that I'm not letting this stop me from wanting to continue learning new moves and techniques just for the sake of enjoying learning those things. Maybe if I got out of the mentality of worrying about socializing with people and just tried to enjoy the experience of dancing for what it is, I'd actually feel more comfortable socializing on the dance floor for once... ironically.

I don't blame folks who disappear after a couple of weeks or even a few months or so, because it honestly takes a real commitment and love of dance to keep coming out consistently, week after week. If you're just there to try and meet people or casually dance a little, you can only go so far.

Well, there's always next week.

addendum to the last post

Tonight was the most fun I've had from swing dancing in a loong time, literally. A reminder to not become subservient to my moods, especially when they discourage me from enjoying the good things in life.

Also to eat less spicy food before dancing because ow my intestines.

anti

In the midst of an anti-people mood.... which is not to say that I hate people right now, but rather, I don't feel particularly inclined to talk to or see anyone right now and would rather just sit at home and read books all day.

Which is why I'm going swing dancing tonight for the first time in a year and heading to SF this weekend to see people. Sigh.*  (*not an 'I don't want to' sigh, just more a sigh at my ongoing mood. I like people.)

It's like when you start to recognize patterns or extra voices in your thoughts contrary to... other present patterns or voices. One that speaks of the things that depress you, and another that speaks of how pumped and excited you are to do things, like you're reclaiming your life for the first time again.

It's also like the book I'm reading now, Ulysses. It's got an undertone of painful seriousness wrapped within a crazy nonsensical sense of humor that pokes fun at death and the oddities of the English language. And it's also incredibly difficult to make sense of at times... because stream of consciousness.

Waking up to the knowledge that nothing in your life is perfect, and the notion that it unlikely will be as idealistically great as you want it to be. So make of it what good you are able to while you still can.

lindy

If you've talked to me in the past 5 years you probably know that I'm into swing dancing- east coast swing, lindy hop, the charleston, and so on. I may not also have mentioned before, but even though I've effectively been dancing... the equivalent of about maybe a year plus a few months on and off over the past few years, I still find social dancing really intimidating. I've think I've gotten considerably better since college, thanks to a weekly venue being nearby and going through a few workshops, but I still very much would rather sit and watch other people on the dance floor than dance myself. (Unless it's a pre-choreographed dance or a jazz routine like the shim sham. I've been realizing more lately that I really like solo jazz, even though learning it is a lot more exhausting.)

I mean, social dancing can actually be pretty fun... once you know what you're doing. I realized pretty early on that, particularly for leads, there's a bit of a limitation based on the size of your repertoire, at first. You can only dance the same few moves so many times without each dance after the next becoming too repetitive, and also discovering how much you keep falling back to those "safe" moves you first learned a long time ago. Even after finally learning how to do something I saw once, being able to reproduce that motion in the spur of the moment while social dancing is really hard; I keep finding myself stumbling midway into trying to recall something and end up either doing a completely different but more common move or making a really obvious and embarrassing mistake in front of my follow- more often the latter. And it feels really intimidating to dance with a follow who you can tell is better than you; they sometimes will correct you in the middle of dancing. In a way, you have to repeat the move you want to do enough times outside of the lesson for it to finally settle into your muscle memory, that repertoire you can fall back on. And the hard part is finding practice, since social dancing isn't always the best time to try to work out the kinks in your muscle memory...

...which is why it's usually good to have someone to practice with. But like any other community, I find I have trouble (perhaps moreso than in other communities) actually befriending people in the swing community [which is to say I haven't much... exactly]. Something about the flurry of the social dance floor at whatever venue I go to... and I end up feeling even more reserved than I did at IV large groups, where it took me the better part of a year or two attending to actually get to know people. And it's kind of awkward to be in that phase where you recognize people after seeing their faces for a while without really knowing them... combined with my aversion to interrupting already existing cliques, it doesn't work out very well.

But anyway... after a six month hiatus from swing (the combination of a twisted ankle post-hiking + being out of town at random over the summer last year, after which I found it difficult to come back), I came back for a weekend long dance workshop hosted at the venue I used to go to. And it was really fun, even though I barely talked to people much as usual. It was nice dancing with follows that you could tell really enjoyed dancing (they tend to smile a lot in the middle of it), and I actually got complimented on my leading a couple of times... interesting since I hadn't danced in so long. In a way, it was like I was just picking up where I left off last year coming back from Camp Jitterbug, since I felt like I was dancing better now than I did back then, ironically. Or perhaps after taking that long of a break, I somehow have a fresher point of view of where I can improve and what to look out for and practice in my dancing.

[I also realize how out of shape I am and am suffering in muscle soreness right now... although it was practically about 10 hours of dancing in three days.]

I might start going back to the venue again, if I can get over the usual mid-week blues. I still find myself largely not wanting to go right before it's time to leave work, largely because of... well, work, or even the fact that I still have work the next day just makes me feel too out of it, or something else comes up. But I still really want to learn the Big Apple routine at some point, anyway. and maybe social dance once in a while.