This morning, I was reading the New York Times—like I do every morning—and I read this article on the Music Row Democrats. This is a group of songwriters and record co executives who are saying "Country Music isn't just by and for conservatives." They're giving out this long album of country songs in return for a $20 donation.
So, being a country music fan, who knows very well that not ALL fans of country music are re-state conservatives, I wandered over. They have a FREE web feed for the music and It's FANTASIC. This isn't just pathetic, political hack music. It's great country. "Two Paper Town" gave me chills! "I'm Takin' My Country Back" is a great honky tonk two-step. I'm not a donater—though I've given more money to political causes in the last 2 years than ever before— But I HAD to have this album. It's GREAT. "Thou Shall not Kill," is giving me chills again.
Tha sad thing? This music will NEVER see the light of day on country radio. More than one of these songs could be number ones. They're that good... not just as politcal speech, but as damn good country music. This incredible music. Chilling music. Music for the heartland. Music for the angry. Music for the principled. Blue or red, go listen.
Oh, and get this... Toby Keith, Mr. Angry American himself—he's a DEMOCRAT.
If you got $20 and you love country music, and you buy ONE album this year, go "buy" this one.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Indulging my quiz taking jones...
In answer to the eternal question, "Which Superhero am I?"
Your results:
You are Hulk
Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz
How DID they know I was that big?
Your results:
You are Hulk
| You are a wanderer with amazing strength.  |
How DID they know I was that big?
Heroic Deeds having nothing to do with figure skating...
Apparently, sending queries for Nobody's Hero wasn't so futile at all. Houghton Mifflin has had the manuscript for about a month. I don't expect to hear from them for anywhere from 2 to 5 months since they have a 3-6 month reply window. Of course, truly, I don't expect to hear from them at all. I have great confidence in the publishing industry, ya know.
No, no, must not be bitter when things are going my way.
Things ARE going my way, it seems. Yesterday, I got the most incredible email from someone with scholastic.com in their email address (they didn't otherwise ID their imprint, but it later turned out to be Arthur Levine, which IIRC has already sent me a GFY/rejection). I nearly went through the roof. Here it is:
Dear Ms. Tyler,
Thank you for your query letter. If Nobody's Hero is not currently under consideration by another publisher, I invite you to send us the entire manuscript. Please remember that it can take up to six months for us to review and respond to submissions.
Best,
>name removed<
Editorial Assistant
Note the catch, though... "If Nobody's Hero is not currently under consideration by another publisher". So, of course, I panicked. That's relatively normal for me. After carefully considering the advice of some of my published author friends, I sent the following reply:
Dear >name removed<,
Nobody's Hero was requested by one other publisher, Houghton Mifflin.
However, they did not ask for an exclusive. If this is okay with you,
I'd be delighted to have Scholastic consider the manuscript too.
Sincerely,
Mary E Tyler
And Levine still wants to see it!!
Whooo hooo!
Okay, five minute celebration over. I need to get the packet out to Levine and then settle down to forget all about it. After all, it's going to be 6 months before I get an answer.
No, no, must not be bitter when things are going my way.
Things ARE going my way, it seems. Yesterday, I got the most incredible email from someone with scholastic.com in their email address (they didn't otherwise ID their imprint, but it later turned out to be Arthur Levine, which IIRC has already sent me a GFY/rejection). I nearly went through the roof. Here it is:
Dear Ms. Tyler,
Thank you for your query letter. If Nobody's Hero is not currently under consideration by another publisher, I invite you to send us the entire manuscript. Please remember that it can take up to six months for us to review and respond to submissions.
Best,
>name removed<
Editorial Assistant
Note the catch, though... "If Nobody's Hero is not currently under consideration by another publisher". So, of course, I panicked. That's relatively normal for me. After carefully considering the advice of some of my published author friends, I sent the following reply:
Dear >name removed<,
Nobody's Hero was requested by one other publisher, Houghton Mifflin.
However, they did not ask for an exclusive. If this is okay with you,
I'd be delighted to have Scholastic consider the manuscript too.
Sincerely,
Mary E Tyler
And Levine still wants to see it!!
Whooo hooo!
Okay, five minute celebration over. I need to get the packet out to Levine and then settle down to forget all about it. After all, it's going to be 6 months before I get an answer.
Sunday, June 25, 2006
Figure Skating Coffeebreak
Just to prove that we rabid figure skating fans have actual lives, here are some picures of my gardens. I got them in early this year and as such, they are flourishing even as it starts to get quite hot out. The flower garden is looking a bit weedy, but oh well, you can't have everything. The vegatable garden, however, is looking HUGE. Tomatoes are about to take over everything. You can't even walk between the plants!
I planted blackberries 2 years ago and they've finally begun bearing (on 2 year wood of course)
Here's my front flower garden, taken from the shade. Most of the early season things have bloomed and the late season things have not begun to bloom yet. But it's still verdant, if a bit wild and out-at-the-heels.
The centerpiece of our front flower garden is a specimin lace-leaf Japanese maple. It's such a tiny thing that we call him, very affectionately, Charlie Brown Tree after the tiny Christmas tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
My petunias are growing like nobodys business. In early spring, the whole garden is dominated by wild, invasive, and exceptionally lovely pink shamrocks. In mid-summer, it's the petunias that rule. This year, we had such a mild winter that one petunia (back left) overwintered. It grew from a short 18" clump to a HUGE FOUR FOOT clump. We call it Petunia-zilla, of course. This year, like last year, I got a nice little clump of volunteer pumpkins (bottom right). I expect they are the little johnny style ones, but we'll see. That's the neat things about volunteers, never know what you're gonna get.
Around the side, my only southern exposure (and not even for the full day), is my vegi garden. This year, I only grew a few kinds of tomatoes and some slicing cucumbers. Of course, the watermelons from last year had different ideas! The tomatoes are frontmost with the cukes and melons low about 2/3 back. In the very back is a verdant mishmash of kitchen herbs and horseradish. Unfortunately, while the horseradish puts out HUGE foliage, the ground is too wet to make the roots grow. Fardles!
We are about to be inundated with tomatoes. I think that's JUST about my favorite time of year. Most of our maters don't even make it into the house. We eat them standing right in the garden. We've had a deluge of rain in the last few days, so the maters are cracking. Hope we don't get any blight in the cracks. Last year, they rotted before they ripened.
Here's a ripening cucumber, waiting for my middlest to pick it. She's been mad at me for days because littlest has picked and biggest has, but she has always been inside when it was picking time. Fresh cuke for supper salad! YUM!
And finally, here's a tiny new watermelon from the volunteer vine. It's only about as big as two fists of a man's hands. We didn't get any good melons last year. Grew bunches, but they never got sweet. Maybe this year I'll let em ripen longer.
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled program...
I planted blackberries 2 years ago and they've finally begun bearing (on 2 year wood of course)
Here's my front flower garden, taken from the shade. Most of the early season things have bloomed and the late season things have not begun to bloom yet. But it's still verdant, if a bit wild and out-at-the-heels.
The centerpiece of our front flower garden is a specimin lace-leaf Japanese maple. It's such a tiny thing that we call him, very affectionately, Charlie Brown Tree after the tiny Christmas tree in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.
My petunias are growing like nobodys business. In early spring, the whole garden is dominated by wild, invasive, and exceptionally lovely pink shamrocks. In mid-summer, it's the petunias that rule. This year, we had such a mild winter that one petunia (back left) overwintered. It grew from a short 18" clump to a HUGE FOUR FOOT clump. We call it Petunia-zilla, of course. This year, like last year, I got a nice little clump of volunteer pumpkins (bottom right). I expect they are the little johnny style ones, but we'll see. That's the neat things about volunteers, never know what you're gonna get.
Around the side, my only southern exposure (and not even for the full day), is my vegi garden. This year, I only grew a few kinds of tomatoes and some slicing cucumbers. Of course, the watermelons from last year had different ideas! The tomatoes are frontmost with the cukes and melons low about 2/3 back. In the very back is a verdant mishmash of kitchen herbs and horseradish. Unfortunately, while the horseradish puts out HUGE foliage, the ground is too wet to make the roots grow. Fardles!
We are about to be inundated with tomatoes. I think that's JUST about my favorite time of year. Most of our maters don't even make it into the house. We eat them standing right in the garden. We've had a deluge of rain in the last few days, so the maters are cracking. Hope we don't get any blight in the cracks. Last year, they rotted before they ripened.
Here's a ripening cucumber, waiting for my middlest to pick it. She's been mad at me for days because littlest has picked and biggest has, but she has always been inside when it was picking time. Fresh cuke for supper salad! YUM!
And finally, here's a tiny new watermelon from the volunteer vine. It's only about as big as two fists of a man's hands. We didn't get any good melons last year. Grew bunches, but they never got sweet. Maybe this year I'll let em ripen longer.
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled program...
Yippee! New Toy, Better Gas Mileage.
Gas prices stink, don't they?
Ya, I figured you thought so too. For the last few years, we've owned a Honda Odyssey (a mini-van) and much as it's a nice mini-van, I hated the whole idea of driving a mini-van. It was just TOO soccer-momish—and I am NO soccer mom. I'm not even, truth be told, a skatemom. But, it was practical, so I thought, if we were going to have kids over (other than mine).
Except it never really turned out that way. I never seemed to drive anyone but my own family... occasionally with my mom or brother in tow. In the three years we had the van, there were a handful of times we actually NEEDED a vehicle that big. Okay, so it was roomy... it was also silver—I've had silver and gold cars pretty much every vehicle I've ever owned. I am SO sick of silver. It was nondescript. There were a zillion other silver Odysseys of that year. And the kids, despite my best efforts, had trashed it. It smelled more than a little from things they spilled. I think the worst part was that I couldn't easily reach into it to clean it, so it seldom got cleaned and when it did, it was always a huge production.
The killer was, it got a WHOPPING 18 mpg on average (city and hwy). Now, don't get me wrong. The year I bought it, the Odyssey had the highest mpg rating of any mini-van. These days, the ratings're only up to 26 mpg city for the best rated van. For what it was, it got pretty good mileage.
But, when I bought it, gas was also a LOT cheaper. It cost me $25 for the first fill up. During the school year, I tend to fill up about once per week, usually about 3/4 tank. Well, now, that tank of gas costs me $45 or more. My gas tab went from less than $100/mo to more like $180/mo. And that's if I only did the VERY basics of errands and such—if I NEVER went anywhere else but home, school, music lessons, and the bi-weekly trip to the commissary (military grocery store).
It got to where I was putting off trips for things I really needed. "Let me not go buy this OTC medicine I need really bad right now. I'll go buy it 4 days from now because I'll be going to the store anyway." Now, I sure that is exactly what the pundits have in mind when conserving gas, but when you need something, you NEED IT. You suffer without it sometimes. And I got to where I didn't really like the feeling that I simply COULDN'T make an incidental trip, even if I really needed it. More than the gas, I couldn't afford the extra $$ to buy that gas.
And then, there is the whole efficiency thing. I'm pretty strong on environmentalism, conservation, back to the land and what not. I always said that I would buy a high mileage car if they made one to fit my lifestyle. Well, this year, Toyota is making a hybrid Camry that gets 40 mpg (or so) city and hwy. Camry is a sedan, but not a small one like the Prius. You can actually get 5 people into a Camry.
I decided, "It will be a bit of a change for us... but we can change." And after a few months of waffling and thinking and agonizing, I traded my Odyssey in on a brandy, spanking, new 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid. AND...
It's RED!
Yes, I am tickled with it being red. I am terribly tickled.
It's nice having a new car, and VERY neat having a hybrid. It handles well. It makes the Odyssey feel like a pregnant whale in the turns. I love the regenerative braking gear (kind of like braking by downshifting a manual trany). I love how the gas motor turns OFF at stop lights, using ZERO gas. I love how RED it is!
I love feeling like I can go to the store if I need something.
Ya, I figured you thought so too. For the last few years, we've owned a Honda Odyssey (a mini-van) and much as it's a nice mini-van, I hated the whole idea of driving a mini-van. It was just TOO soccer-momish—and I am NO soccer mom. I'm not even, truth be told, a skatemom. But, it was practical, so I thought, if we were going to have kids over (other than mine).
Except it never really turned out that way. I never seemed to drive anyone but my own family... occasionally with my mom or brother in tow. In the three years we had the van, there were a handful of times we actually NEEDED a vehicle that big. Okay, so it was roomy... it was also silver—I've had silver and gold cars pretty much every vehicle I've ever owned. I am SO sick of silver. It was nondescript. There were a zillion other silver Odysseys of that year. And the kids, despite my best efforts, had trashed it. It smelled more than a little from things they spilled. I think the worst part was that I couldn't easily reach into it to clean it, so it seldom got cleaned and when it did, it was always a huge production.
The killer was, it got a WHOPPING 18 mpg on average (city and hwy). Now, don't get me wrong. The year I bought it, the Odyssey had the highest mpg rating of any mini-van. These days, the ratings're only up to 26 mpg city for the best rated van. For what it was, it got pretty good mileage.
But, when I bought it, gas was also a LOT cheaper. It cost me $25 for the first fill up. During the school year, I tend to fill up about once per week, usually about 3/4 tank. Well, now, that tank of gas costs me $45 or more. My gas tab went from less than $100/mo to more like $180/mo. And that's if I only did the VERY basics of errands and such—if I NEVER went anywhere else but home, school, music lessons, and the bi-weekly trip to the commissary (military grocery store).
It got to where I was putting off trips for things I really needed. "Let me not go buy this OTC medicine I need really bad right now. I'll go buy it 4 days from now because I'll be going to the store anyway." Now, I sure that is exactly what the pundits have in mind when conserving gas, but when you need something, you NEED IT. You suffer without it sometimes. And I got to where I didn't really like the feeling that I simply COULDN'T make an incidental trip, even if I really needed it. More than the gas, I couldn't afford the extra $$ to buy that gas.
And then, there is the whole efficiency thing. I'm pretty strong on environmentalism, conservation, back to the land and what not. I always said that I would buy a high mileage car if they made one to fit my lifestyle. Well, this year, Toyota is making a hybrid Camry that gets 40 mpg (or so) city and hwy. Camry is a sedan, but not a small one like the Prius. You can actually get 5 people into a Camry.
I decided, "It will be a bit of a change for us... but we can change." And after a few months of waffling and thinking and agonizing, I traded my Odyssey in on a brandy, spanking, new 2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid. AND...
It's RED!
Yes, I am tickled with it being red. I am terribly tickled.
It's nice having a new car, and VERY neat having a hybrid. It handles well. It makes the Odyssey feel like a pregnant whale in the turns. I love the regenerative braking gear (kind of like braking by downshifting a manual trany). I love how the gas motor turns OFF at stop lights, using ZERO gas. I love how RED it is!
I love feeling like I can go to the store if I need something.
Friday, June 23, 2006
What a Storm!
Here at my house, we are required to have flood insurance. And today is another perfect example WHY. The water at the curb is now 18" deep (give or take some). Luckily, it never seems to get any worse. I took this NIFTY video (1M) of a car trying to navigate the puddle (lake!) a little too fast. There's also the following pic of the waterline—that picket fence on the left is EIGHT feet in from the curb and several inches above it.
Now THAT's deep.
Now THAT's deep.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Figure Skating Foundations: Foxtrot
On SkateFans a few weeks ago, someone made a comment that they didn't know much about the dances that underlie ice dance. Even our resident dance maven (Hi Ben!) didn't really seem to know. Apparently, not as many ice dancers as you might think venture into the ballroom to learn the actual dances. This probably explains why most ice dancers have such poor dance character. Very few, even at the highest levels, seem to have a clue how a rhumba ought to feel different than a waltz.
At the time the person asked this question, I started two or three times to try to explain. I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer in college— I know my stuff to a point. It was just too hard to try to explain without being able to show it.
Then, this evening, while trying to explain to my brother how to do the Bus Stop, I had a brain storm—look on YouTube! You won't BELIEVE the number of idiots who dance at bus stops! It's simply amazing. However, lots of ballroom dancers, of various levels also, post videos of their performances.
So, this evening, I', going to start with Foxtrot. Foxtrot is not all that common in elite ice dancing, but there are some dances as you move through the ranks based on the Foxtrot. Foxtrot is one of the very first dances that you usually learn when taking ballroom classes, along with waltz, cha-cha and rhumba.
In ballroom dancing, there are two dance styles of Foxtrot: American and International. The levels are Bronze, Silver, and Gold (or at least they were when I danced. DanceSport has changed a lot of things). Bronze American Foxtrot has a simpler step pattern—called the "basic"—than Silver and Gold and there is no rise and fall in Bronze American. It's a very flat-footed dance—not ungraceful—but with a movement style of its own. American Silver and Gold American are greatly similar to International in that they have generally the same "basic" pattern and unlike Bronze, they have rise and fall.
What is rise and fall?
When passing through specific beats of the pattern, the dancers will smoothly rise onto the ball of the foot and then fall through the beat to a more flat-footed position. Depending on the character of the particular dance, it can be a very smooth wave, or it can be quite jouncey. Rise and fall is part of what makes "the character" of each dance.
The Music
Choose a Frank Sinatra tune, and chances are, it's a Foxtrot. "New York, New York," is a classic. It's kind of bouncy, but not too fast and it's counted in two 1-2, 1-2, 1-2. Good Bronze Foxtrot music can be quite deliberate.
Foxtrot is a SLOW dance. It's often called "Slow Foxtrot." And it's a "smooth" dance (as opposed to a Latin dance), which means that it should flow. There's no wag-your-arse hip motion in Foxtrot. It's not a flirtacious dance—it's all about the flow.
The Basic
Bronze American Foxtrot has a pretty simple pattern: two slow steps and two quick ones. Country Western dancers may recognize this as the same counting pattern as the Texas twostep. Quite so. Unlike Twostep, Foxtrot has a dogleg in the pattern. So the first two slow steps go forward and then the two quick steps go to the side, making an L. The dance progresses zig-zaggily in a generally straight line with the man and woman alternating who goes backwards (if they're in a closed dance position). No, don't ask me HOW you're supposed to do this on skates. I don't know.
This video is a delightful little exhibition done by a little boy and his (much taller!!) dance partner—possibly his instructor. I chose it because they don't try anything really fancy... nothing obscures the fundamentals of the dance. The timing is good and the steps are crisp. Note that there's no rise and fall to the dance. The steps are pretty flat-footed. You can see several repetitions of the basic as well as a few highlight moves. The actual dancing begins 40 seconds into the video. It's easy (and worthwhile) to count out (or say slow-slow-quick-quick) as they are dancing the basic.
Now, on to Silver (and International).
This is where it gets difficult for me. It's been a good 15 years since I've done a Silver Foxtrot. I never learned it explicitly, nor did I compete it. My partner led. I followed. We danced.
Lead is a very important aspect of ballroom dance, which is nearly absent in ice dance. In ballroom, the male (or dominant) partner is supposed to lead the woman (or the non-dominant) partner through the dance (I'm just going to use the male/female convention, no offense intended, similar couples often compete because of the lack of men in the sport). There are variances of weight, pressure in the arms and balance that let the girl know what the guy expects her to do.
If you can follow and you know the basic, you can do almost any dance, just by following. Especially if you have a good partner. I was, so I was told, "a natural follow." So if I happened to attract a good partner in the social dance, I could do things I had no idea what I was doing. So fair warning: my experience with Silver and International Foxtrot is strictly from social dancing. My understanding of it is far less nuanced than American Bronze.
This video is from Season 1 of Dancing with the Stars. The first 50 seconds is Brian McKnight(?) singing Fields of Gold. The camera work makes it tough to see the whole dance (we don't WANT to see their FACES, DAMNIT!). These are professional dancers, so they also do a whole lot of highlight moves. Their dance is one continuous highlight move, actually, and it's very difficult to see the basic.
Not that this is bad, but it's more "cabaret" dancing than ballroom. Competitive ballroom dance draws a firm line between what is ballroom and what is the more flamboyant cabaret. It's kind of like what happened at the end of the first season (I think) of Dancing with the Stars. The white haired guy and his professional partner did a very classic ballroomy type dance (iirc, it was a quickstep). The male pro dancer and his starlet partner—because of HIS skill and ability to lead through more difficult routine— were able to do a more crowd-pleasing and cabaret-like routine. Thus, I was crying foul when she won, because despite how bad she was when she started out, she had an advantage the whole time. She had a partner who could—and was SUPPOSED—to do more then just follow.
Anyway, the basic in Silver and Gold American and in International Foxtrot is slow-quick-quick-slow. There is also a variant slow-quick-quick-slow-quick-quick, which you'll see mixed in. Instead of taking a side-step on the quick-quick, the step pattern is a straight line. S&G Amer and Int'l Foxtrot has rise and fall. You rise though the quick-quick step and fall into the second slow step. You can see this rise at about 1:00 in the video. The rest of the dance is highlight, so it's hard to see.
Here's another video of a young couple at nationals. They're not so smooth (a little stiff, if you ask me) and she has a visible bobble at one point, but since they are doing more strict ballroom, and since they aren't doing such difficult steps, it's easier to see the dance itself.
I hope this has been helpful to people who want to learn more about ballroom dancing to be better able to understand ice dance. I'll probably cover the waltz next, but it may be a while.
At the time the person asked this question, I started two or three times to try to explain. I used to be a competitive ballroom dancer in college— I know my stuff to a point. It was just too hard to try to explain without being able to show it.
Then, this evening, while trying to explain to my brother how to do the Bus Stop, I had a brain storm—look on YouTube! You won't BELIEVE the number of idiots who dance at bus stops! It's simply amazing. However, lots of ballroom dancers, of various levels also, post videos of their performances.
So, this evening, I', going to start with Foxtrot. Foxtrot is not all that common in elite ice dancing, but there are some dances as you move through the ranks based on the Foxtrot. Foxtrot is one of the very first dances that you usually learn when taking ballroom classes, along with waltz, cha-cha and rhumba.
In ballroom dancing, there are two dance styles of Foxtrot: American and International. The levels are Bronze, Silver, and Gold (or at least they were when I danced. DanceSport has changed a lot of things). Bronze American Foxtrot has a simpler step pattern—called the "basic"—than Silver and Gold and there is no rise and fall in Bronze American. It's a very flat-footed dance—not ungraceful—but with a movement style of its own. American Silver and Gold American are greatly similar to International in that they have generally the same "basic" pattern and unlike Bronze, they have rise and fall.
What is rise and fall?
When passing through specific beats of the pattern, the dancers will smoothly rise onto the ball of the foot and then fall through the beat to a more flat-footed position. Depending on the character of the particular dance, it can be a very smooth wave, or it can be quite jouncey. Rise and fall is part of what makes "the character" of each dance.
The Music
Choose a Frank Sinatra tune, and chances are, it's a Foxtrot. "New York, New York," is a classic. It's kind of bouncy, but not too fast and it's counted in two 1-2, 1-2, 1-2. Good Bronze Foxtrot music can be quite deliberate.
Foxtrot is a SLOW dance. It's often called "Slow Foxtrot." And it's a "smooth" dance (as opposed to a Latin dance), which means that it should flow. There's no wag-your-arse hip motion in Foxtrot. It's not a flirtacious dance—it's all about the flow.
The Basic
Bronze American Foxtrot has a pretty simple pattern: two slow steps and two quick ones. Country Western dancers may recognize this as the same counting pattern as the Texas twostep. Quite so. Unlike Twostep, Foxtrot has a dogleg in the pattern. So the first two slow steps go forward and then the two quick steps go to the side, making an L. The dance progresses zig-zaggily in a generally straight line with the man and woman alternating who goes backwards (if they're in a closed dance position). No, don't ask me HOW you're supposed to do this on skates. I don't know.
This video is a delightful little exhibition done by a little boy and his (much taller!!) dance partner—possibly his instructor. I chose it because they don't try anything really fancy... nothing obscures the fundamentals of the dance. The timing is good and the steps are crisp. Note that there's no rise and fall to the dance. The steps are pretty flat-footed. You can see several repetitions of the basic as well as a few highlight moves. The actual dancing begins 40 seconds into the video. It's easy (and worthwhile) to count out (or say slow-slow-quick-quick) as they are dancing the basic.
Now, on to Silver (and International).
This is where it gets difficult for me. It's been a good 15 years since I've done a Silver Foxtrot. I never learned it explicitly, nor did I compete it. My partner led. I followed. We danced.
Lead is a very important aspect of ballroom dance, which is nearly absent in ice dance. In ballroom, the male (or dominant) partner is supposed to lead the woman (or the non-dominant) partner through the dance (I'm just going to use the male/female convention, no offense intended, similar couples often compete because of the lack of men in the sport). There are variances of weight, pressure in the arms and balance that let the girl know what the guy expects her to do.
If you can follow and you know the basic, you can do almost any dance, just by following. Especially if you have a good partner. I was, so I was told, "a natural follow." So if I happened to attract a good partner in the social dance, I could do things I had no idea what I was doing. So fair warning: my experience with Silver and International Foxtrot is strictly from social dancing. My understanding of it is far less nuanced than American Bronze.
This video is from Season 1 of Dancing with the Stars. The first 50 seconds is Brian McKnight(?) singing Fields of Gold. The camera work makes it tough to see the whole dance (we don't WANT to see their FACES, DAMNIT!). These are professional dancers, so they also do a whole lot of highlight moves. Their dance is one continuous highlight move, actually, and it's very difficult to see the basic.
Not that this is bad, but it's more "cabaret" dancing than ballroom. Competitive ballroom dance draws a firm line between what is ballroom and what is the more flamboyant cabaret. It's kind of like what happened at the end of the first season (I think) of Dancing with the Stars. The white haired guy and his professional partner did a very classic ballroomy type dance (iirc, it was a quickstep). The male pro dancer and his starlet partner—because of HIS skill and ability to lead through more difficult routine— were able to do a more crowd-pleasing and cabaret-like routine. Thus, I was crying foul when she won, because despite how bad she was when she started out, she had an advantage the whole time. She had a partner who could—and was SUPPOSED—to do more then just follow.
Anyway, the basic in Silver and Gold American and in International Foxtrot is slow-quick-quick-slow. There is also a variant slow-quick-quick-slow-quick-quick, which you'll see mixed in. Instead of taking a side-step on the quick-quick, the step pattern is a straight line. S&G Amer and Int'l Foxtrot has rise and fall. You rise though the quick-quick step and fall into the second slow step. You can see this rise at about 1:00 in the video. The rest of the dance is highlight, so it's hard to see.
Here's another video of a young couple at nationals. They're not so smooth (a little stiff, if you ask me) and she has a visible bobble at one point, but since they are doing more strict ballroom, and since they aren't doing such difficult steps, it's easier to see the dance itself.
I hope this has been helpful to people who want to learn more about ballroom dancing to be better able to understand ice dance. I'll probably cover the waltz next, but it may be a while.
Saturday, May 27, 2006
New Additions and New News
I reported recently that, with a great sense of futility, I had sent queries out for a picture book I wrote called Nobody’s Hero based on the true story about a dog who saved a little boy during the Dec 26, 2004 tsunami in India. I sent over 60 queries and so far, I got back about 10 form rejections.
Form letters are just that, forms, printed in the thousands and sent to everyone who dares to apply. Not even so much as a personal rejection to note that one made it out of the dreaded slush pile. One publisher went so far as to return my query UNOPENED and stamped “Submissions only accepted in November.” Well thanks, thanks a lot. So I was bummed last week.
One day last week, Thursday, I think, I got THREE form rejections the same day. That was just the whipped shit on top of what had been a completely crappy day. And subsequent to that, I’ve had worse days. Friday we were supposed to take K and K, two boys about GG’s age to pick strawberries with us. After driving about 25 miles, we find that the strawberry field is now a development--houses as far as the eye can see! So we went back to the boy’s house where the kids played and their mother and I gabbed... and horror of horrors! Their 120 lb. Akita bit Jonah on the face!
It wasn’t a bad bite, but off we rushed to the hospital where they glued and taped (literally) her back together. Likely, she will carry a small scar on her cheek. All in all, it was NOT a successful week.
But today was a good day.
Today, I went to Pets-Mart to get some PetZyme. It’s an odor remover that I use in our laundry. Works like a charm. GG was at tutoring and I had only the little girls with me. And they HAD to look at the kitties that were for adoption. There were about 7 kittens there and 3 were out in the cage room for some exercise. So the girls played with them while I petted the adult cats in the cages. I was there that I met Dune.
Dune is a 1 to 2 year old male cat, peach and sand tabby. He was delightfully affectionate, rubbing my fingers through the bars. When i stopped petting him, he laid down in the cage and reached through the bars all the way to the shoulder(!) and put his paw on my forearm, velvet soft and tugged on my arm. Then he switched paws and did it again!
I was charmed.
Dune’s story to this point is not a happy one. He was taken from an abusive home where he apparently suffered fairly serious injuries. He has scars on his neck and he’s blind in one eye where his eyeball was ruptured. His head there is slightly misshapen. Blunt force trauma will do that.
I wanted him then and there. But we have four cats already. I knew my husband would never go for a fifth. So I left PetsMart knowing that it was unlikely that poor injured Dune would find a home. Everyone wanted the kittens. No one wanted an adult cat no matter how nice he was.
After I finished my errands, I met my husband at Home Depot where we were buying picket fence panels for the yard--that’s so domestic, isn’t it? I pretty much begged for us to take Dune home. And he was not happy about it. But he agreed to meet me at PetsMart and meet the kittie.
It took two minutes.
But the lady who was there was from another shelter. There were four phone numbers on Dune’s cage tag and I got answering machine after answering machine. Finally, the last number was a person and the lady said we would have to come back the next day when someone would be there. We were so disappointed! But the lady from the other shelter said she would do the paperwork if Dune’s shelter lady said it was okay. And it was! Dune’s difficult days are done and there is no gas chamber in his future.
Welcome home, Dune. Welcome home.
Yes, today IS a good day. Today, I got a post card from Houghton Mifflin (a big 5 publisher) asking to see a manuscript for Nobody’s Hero.
Form letters are just that, forms, printed in the thousands and sent to everyone who dares to apply. Not even so much as a personal rejection to note that one made it out of the dreaded slush pile. One publisher went so far as to return my query UNOPENED and stamped “Submissions only accepted in November.” Well thanks, thanks a lot. So I was bummed last week.
One day last week, Thursday, I think, I got THREE form rejections the same day. That was just the whipped shit on top of what had been a completely crappy day. And subsequent to that, I’ve had worse days. Friday we were supposed to take K and K, two boys about GG’s age to pick strawberries with us. After driving about 25 miles, we find that the strawberry field is now a development--houses as far as the eye can see! So we went back to the boy’s house where the kids played and their mother and I gabbed... and horror of horrors! Their 120 lb. Akita bit Jonah on the face!
It wasn’t a bad bite, but off we rushed to the hospital where they glued and taped (literally) her back together. Likely, she will carry a small scar on her cheek. All in all, it was NOT a successful week.
But today was a good day.
Today, I went to Pets-Mart to get some PetZyme. It’s an odor remover that I use in our laundry. Works like a charm. GG was at tutoring and I had only the little girls with me. And they HAD to look at the kitties that were for adoption. There were about 7 kittens there and 3 were out in the cage room for some exercise. So the girls played with them while I petted the adult cats in the cages. I was there that I met Dune.
Dune is a 1 to 2 year old male cat, peach and sand tabby. He was delightfully affectionate, rubbing my fingers through the bars. When i stopped petting him, he laid down in the cage and reached through the bars all the way to the shoulder(!) and put his paw on my forearm, velvet soft and tugged on my arm. Then he switched paws and did it again!
I was charmed.
Dune’s story to this point is not a happy one. He was taken from an abusive home where he apparently suffered fairly serious injuries. He has scars on his neck and he’s blind in one eye where his eyeball was ruptured. His head there is slightly misshapen. Blunt force trauma will do that.
I wanted him then and there. But we have four cats already. I knew my husband would never go for a fifth. So I left PetsMart knowing that it was unlikely that poor injured Dune would find a home. Everyone wanted the kittens. No one wanted an adult cat no matter how nice he was.
After I finished my errands, I met my husband at Home Depot where we were buying picket fence panels for the yard--that’s so domestic, isn’t it? I pretty much begged for us to take Dune home. And he was not happy about it. But he agreed to meet me at PetsMart and meet the kittie.
It took two minutes.
But the lady who was there was from another shelter. There were four phone numbers on Dune’s cage tag and I got answering machine after answering machine. Finally, the last number was a person and the lady said we would have to come back the next day when someone would be there. We were so disappointed! But the lady from the other shelter said she would do the paperwork if Dune’s shelter lady said it was okay. And it was! Dune’s difficult days are done and there is no gas chamber in his future.
Welcome home, Dune. Welcome home.
Yes, today IS a good day. Today, I got a post card from Houghton Mifflin (a big 5 publisher) asking to see a manuscript for Nobody’s Hero.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
I've been sorted!
Indulging my well established weakness for silly online surveys, I’ve been sorted into a Hogwartz house. I find it kind of amusing, because really, I thought I’d be a Ravenclaw. Apparently, bravery and valuing friends makes you not a Ravenclaw despite however smart you think you are. But then, i guess that’s the point. Anyway...
I’m in Gryffindor!
be sorted @ nimbo.net
Who’d a thunk?
I’m in Gryffindor!
be sorted @ nimbo.net
Who’d a thunk?
Saturday, April 22, 2006
A Profound Sense of Futility
THAT'S THE WORD!
Futility.
I have been racking my brains all day, searching for the word "futility." Since my bad experience with my erstwhile agent, I have had a massively bad attitude about the whole book publishing industry and the Sisyphean task of trying to get a book published. On the one hand, I feel a huge sense of futility in even sending queries to agents and publishers. On the other hand, I know very well that the only guaranteed failure is not trying.
No, I'm not trying to market On the Edge any more. I have given that up as impossible. I will be putting the books out under the Private Ice imprint when I get around to it—in the fall, perhaps. I do think that I can sell the book to readers, even if publishers couldn't be bothered with it. But we'll see.
I did, however, send a bunch of queries this week for Nobody's Hero, a picture book I wrote about a boy who was saved by a dog during the Indian Tsunami on December 26, 2004. I sent 12 via email last week... one single response came back saying the agent was too busy to take anyone else on. Not that I believe him, but it's one of the kind fictions perpetrated by agents so they don't have to tell people that they just didn't care as much about the story as the writer does.
Anyway, I put another 50 queries into the mail box today. I don't expect to hear back from anyone, really. Picture books are insanely hard to sell... maybe worse than skating fiction. But at least I'm trying. Even if it is with a vast sense of futility.
Futility.
I have been racking my brains all day, searching for the word "futility." Since my bad experience with my erstwhile agent, I have had a massively bad attitude about the whole book publishing industry and the Sisyphean task of trying to get a book published. On the one hand, I feel a huge sense of futility in even sending queries to agents and publishers. On the other hand, I know very well that the only guaranteed failure is not trying.
No, I'm not trying to market On the Edge any more. I have given that up as impossible. I will be putting the books out under the Private Ice imprint when I get around to it—in the fall, perhaps. I do think that I can sell the book to readers, even if publishers couldn't be bothered with it. But we'll see.
I did, however, send a bunch of queries this week for Nobody's Hero, a picture book I wrote about a boy who was saved by a dog during the Indian Tsunami on December 26, 2004. I sent 12 via email last week... one single response came back saying the agent was too busy to take anyone else on. Not that I believe him, but it's one of the kind fictions perpetrated by agents so they don't have to tell people that they just didn't care as much about the story as the writer does.
Anyway, I put another 50 queries into the mail box today. I don't expect to hear back from anyone, really. Picture books are insanely hard to sell... maybe worse than skating fiction. But at least I'm trying. Even if it is with a vast sense of futility.
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