We went out dancing Friday night. There are lots of events the week before Halloween, so the lindy scene tends to be even more of a party than it usually is. Folks are dressed up in costumes that make them sweat half to death while they dance. Really good dancers turn out after months of no-showing. Late in the evening, two instructors with whom I am unfamiliar performed a Halloweeny number, and I later heard the female instructor chatting with a compatriot on the dance floor. She was smiling, her eyes were huge, she had her arms and hands flexed, palms up (how you’d look if you lifted a heavy bag of Halloween candy up in front of your face and shook it). She was saying:

I’m so used to teaching Ballroom! But this music!…It’s just…so…so…

I’m sure she loves ballroom dancing, but I’m also sure that, at that moment, she realized that ballrooming at its best is no lindy party.

Every month or so, a lindy buddy asks when I am going to try ____________________ (fill in the blank: salsa, blues dancing, tango, ballroom, west coast swing). Depending on my mood, I make a sour face and say either “Never” or “When pigs fly.” I bet they’re fun dances, but the thing they all have in common is the music. That is, none of them are danced to 30′s and 40′s big band swing jazz. It’s the happiest darn music I’ve ever met, and if I ever meet a happier, I’ll start doing its dance too.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 31st, 2010 at 1:47 pm and is filed under From the nation of Indig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.