Just tripped upon this video… haven’t seen it since I was a kid. By far the most entertaining instructional dance video I’ve ever run across!

So I thought I would post a followup to my previous article about the new Indiana Jones movie. I admit, I saw the movie on opening weekend… I told you I was a sucker for an Indiana Jones movie… but I did avoid seeing it on the first opening nights so I guess I did win one battle. So after being a big skeptic of the concept of making a new Indiana Jones movie so many years after the last, what did I think? Well, let me first preface this with a warning… if you read on, there may be spoilers.

I guess most of the die hard fans have already seen the movie by now and formulated their opinions. If you are a fan and you haven’t seen the movie yet, let me first say that there is one spoiler that you may want to hear before going to see the movie… the story is about aliens. That’s right, it’s Indiana Jones meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As a fan, this is a tough pill to swallow. I knew this ahead of time and had time to warm up to the concept. However, that being said, the story handles this concept rather well for most of the movie and blends it well into typical Indiana Jones style archeology.

Harrison Ford returns to the role without missing a beat. Once again, the character lives up to the previous movies and Ford plays the role flawlessly. Was he too old? Not at all. In fact, the storyline handles the additional twenty years nicely and makes light of the additional years. He still pulls off all the action scenes with an additional sense of wisdom. Contrary to what many may say, Shia LaBeauf does an excellent job as the sidekick “Mutt” and Karen Allen has a nice return. All of the characters were handled quite well with the exception of Kate Blanchett’s villain role as Irina Spalko. Her character lacked depth and didn’t really give you the “fear the bad guy” impression the villains of previous movies did. However, this appears to be more the fault of the writing than any reflection on the actress.

This brings us to the story. Overall, the story was good… however, you expect “great” (or above) from an Indiana Jones movie. It wasn’t for lack of action. In fact the action was more over the top in the movie than any of the previous three. It’s suppose to be unbelievable, but not suppose to make you say “oh, come on!”. The real root of the problem seems to be the battle between Lucas and Spielberg over the storyline. There were many drafts of the script due to disagreements and the resulting work was a merge of them. To put it simply, it shows. Lucas has really lost his touch over the years. You could clearly see George’s influence on certain scenes in the movie; from the animated prairie dogs that hearken back to the silly cartoon-ish characters in the Star Wars prequels to the absolutely ridiculous monkey and vine swinging scene that should have been left on a cutting room floor. I think we have Spielberg to thank for not letting this movie go the way of Episodes 1-3. Sound harsh? It’s probably because certain scenes stick out like a sore thumb as clearly not belonging. However, as soon as you start to get annoyed, Indy belts out a classic one liner and you put it behind you and move on. The story starts out strong, has it’s choppy moments, and ends on the weaker side. In fact, I thought the ending was more of a tie-in for Close Encounters than the type of ending you’ve come to expect from the series. However, it does wrap up the characters rather well… in fact, it alludes to the possibility of passing the famed fedora on to a new generation… a concept that I’m sure leaves many of us long time fans saying “Oh, please God, NO!”.

Overall, it is a good movie, but not a great movie. It lives up to the name Indiana Jones, but at moments will make you wonder. While it is the weakest of the now four movies, it does rank up there with them and will find itself right next to the others on the DVD shelf.

Funny how life works. Almost two weeks after the Swingin’ the Decade dance, I run across this gem while searching through our old VHS collection looking for something completely different. This ran on channel 6 local news in the summer of 1998 when swing hit big in Orlando and across the country.

You might see some familiar faces flash across the screen. Dawn and I lurk in the background of one of the studio segments. The dance instructor dancing with the anchor was one of our first teachers. This was a real trip down memory lane!

The Memorial Day weekend dances are fast approaching (this weekend already) and I thought it might be helpful to provide links to some sites that cover fashion and hair for the periods being featured (20’s & 30’s Sat. night, 40’s on Sun. night in Tampa). Keep in mind that some or most fashions might look great, but not be very realistic for dancing.

No matter how you decide to dress up, when it comes to the hairdo for the ladies, I highly suggest you try doing it one night before the night of the dance. Doing it once before will give you an idea of how long it will take and what problems you might run into. With that said, below are links broken out by fashion and hair for the 20’s, 30’s , and 40’s eras:

20’s Fashion
http://www.fashion-era.com/flapper_fashion_1920s.htm
http://www.1920-30.com/fashion/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920s_in_fashion

20’s Hair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapper
There is much more information available for women’s 20’s styled hair, just do a search on “finger waves” in Google and take your pick

30’s Fashion
http://www.murrayonhawaii.com/nolan/fashionhistory_1930mens.html
http://www.angelfire.com/retro/lisawebworld/30sfashion.html
http://www.fashion-era.com/stylish_thirties.htm

30’s Hair
http://www.hairfinder.com/hairstyling/1930b.htm
http://www.fashion-era.com/hats-hair/hats_hair_8a_hairstyles_history_1930_1940.htm
http://www.revampvintage.com/30shairstyles.html

40’s Fashion and Hair
http://www.flyinfootwork.com/blog/2007/05/08/vintage-style-tips/
http://www.flyinfootwork.com/blog/2007/12/12/how-do-to-victory-rolls-in-5-min/

For men, you can find men’s vintage style wide leg pants at Adam’s Men’s Wear in the Seminole Town Center Mall. You can typically find wide leg pants in specialty menswear shops that carry more trendy/edgy men’s suits. You may have to sort through the bright colors to find the vintage look, but men’s dressy fashions haven’t changed that much over time. As for the 20’s/30’s style driving caps, fortunately those have made somewhat of  a comeback in recent years and you can find them at many stores like Burlington Coat Factory and occasionally even at Target.

We’ve been teaching Hal Whips in our intermediate Lindy series, so I thought I would post this clip for the class to see where the move originated. This is Hal and Betty Takier dancing a blend of Balboa (Bal-Swing) and Lindy in the 1943 short “Maharaja”. You can see Hal’s signature move at :47 and 2:24.

Saturday, May 24th: For the first time ever at Whirl & Twirl, we’ll be featuring a big band! Harlem Madness is a 9-10 piece band that focuses primarily on hot jazz of the Harlem Renaissance. The band draws their inspiration and material from greats like Duke Ellington, King Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Cab Calloway, Andy Kirk, Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Don Redman, Paul Howard, and the Casa Loma Orchestra just to name a few. From the up tempo to soulful swingin’ slower rhythms, there is something for everyone. Certainly a night not to miss! To complete the theme of the evening, everyone who shows up dressed from the era will get a ticket for a chance to win some great prizes (including an iPod Shuffle)! Click here for more info

I found this article  online this morning when I came into work and thought it was definitely worth sharing. It’s all about Django Reinhardt, his music, his origins, and how he lived his life. If you’ve never listened to or heard a Django song, you are really missing something. His music is quite upbeat and “plucky” as they reference in this article. I’m such a huge fan of 30’s hot jazz…..it literally inspires me to do things on the floor style wise that I wouldn’t otherwise do. And Django’s music falls smack dab in the middle of that category (30’s hot jazz) for me. So take a few minutes when you have time and check out some of his music  (iTunes link) to see what you’ve been missing!

I put together the following song selections as a practice playlist for those learning swing and Lindy Hop for the first time. I know it tends to be a rather eclectic mix, but the goal was to pick some songs (available on iTunes) that have solid rhythms that are good for beginners and those in the learning process. I sorted them on increasing beats per minute (BMP) so you can start slow and build up in tempos. Given that as you get better, you can go much faster… but if you are looking for a “pushin’-the-tempos” playlist… well, I’ll build that later.

Artist & Name (iTunes Link)	BPM
Fats Domino - Blue Monday	102
Robbie Williams - Do Nothing Till You Hear from Me	103
Squirrel Nut Zippers - Blue Angel	107
Indigo Swing - My Baby Just Cares for Me	111
Dion - The Wanderer	114
Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Williams - Smack Dab in the Middle	114
Amos Milburn - One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer	117
Wilbert Harrison - Kansas City	118
Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five - G.I. Jive	120
Jonathan Stout and his Campus Five - Comes Love	123
The Andrews Sisters - The Lady from 29 Palms	124
Cab Calloway - Hey Now, Hey Now	124
Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers - Big Fine Daddy	125
Indigo Swing - How Lucky Can One Guy Be?	129
Peggy Lee - The Boy from Ipanema	131
Kermit Ruffins - Can’t Take My Baby Nowhere	132
Roy Eldrige & Gene Krupa & His Orchestra featuring Anita O’Day - “Murder”, He Says	135
Indigo Swing - Red Light!	135
Peggy Lee - Fever	137
Count Basie - Shiny Stockings	141
Tommy Dorsey - Easy Does It	151
Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers - Honey Pie	155
Lionel Hampton - Beulah’s Boogie	157

So, Rob and I went flying recently on a Friday night with a fellow dancer/friend who has a pilot’s license. As the afternoon passed by, I got more and more nervous and excited about what was coming up that evening. You see, I don’t necessarily have a fear of flying so much as a healthy respect for heights and aviation. Before a year ago, I had never been in anything smaller than a 25 person prop commuter plane and that wasn’t bad at all. Last year Rob and I got to ride in a 1925 biplane that seated 4 passengers and that was excitedly “gripping” (referring to my white knuckles), but quite nice once I relaxed and remembered to breathe.

So I wasn’t sure what riding in a 4 person Cessna plane would be like. As we watched our friend do the pre-flight check that the FAA requires of licensed pilots, I kept thinking that I just wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into and should I go through with it. It’s not like I can just bail once we get up there and I don’t like it ya know. But I decided a long time ago that I wouldn’t let my fears stop me from enjoying life in different ways. And I’ve always had dreams of flying like a bird and how cool it would be. But even with my interest and bravado, I almost bailed like twice. But I persevered and got in, strapped in, and prepared myself for the experience.

It’s not like I’m afraid that we’ll fall out of the sky mind you, it’s more the feeling of fragility that comes with being in a small craft that is easily pushed around by winds. So it’s like driving in a truly 3D environment where you have the added element of physics affecting your stability from all angles, instead of just gravity as in a car. So we go and take off into the wind which caused us to have lift quite easily and quickly… and away we went. The wind did bump us around during the hour that we were in the sky flying all over Orlando and even Disney. But it’s not like we were hitting air pockets and falling 50ft or anything. Our friend Joshua did a GREAT job of keeping things smooth and easy going for me. He did do a few things that literally left my stomach in my throat. Like one maneuver called a parabola (the bell curve from statistics class… anyone… anyone?) where he points the nose up and then brings it down like going over a hill. Yikes that really got my stomach up in my throat (notice the look on my face).

After we got to “buzz” the Disney attractions at 3,000 feet, we proceeded back to the executive airport where the landing was really neat and we even saw a HUGE bald eagle at the edge of a pond on the way back to the tarmac. I survived and even had fun. And Rob even had the foresight to snap a few pictures of all of us (and me) while flying…so enjoy those.

Starting Sunday, June 15th: The summer series class schedule has been set! In the next rotation will be the ever popular Lindy Hop Series Class. This class will take you from scratch and show you all the ins and outs of Lindy Hop. In addition, we’ll be offering the Charleston Series Class. This will start out with 20’s style partner Charleston and move into side-by-side and front-back Charleston; all the while showing you how to integrate it into your swing dancing. Both classes are open to dancers of all levels. Classes tend to fill in advance, so be sure to reserve your spot soon!