Home » Open thread 2/9/22

Comments

Open thread 2/9/22 — 25 Comments

  1. Looking at the dance reminds me, through several levels of free association, that we learned simple dance steps–foxtrot, maybe–in gym class maybe sixty five years ago.
    In retrospect, they seem more complex than this dance which seems to consist of the guy pivoting with the woman on the outside of the circle. I thought waltzes were a little more complicated…..

    Is this the school of “the stronger you lead, the wider she smiles” school of ballroom dancing?

    If somebody had asked, I’d have pictured couples sweeping across the floor. Of course, the camera probably couldn’t have been manipulated to follow…but still, spinning in place? Why bother?

  2. To my eye the man seems focused and concentrated.
    The lady looks radiant and enjoying but that left arm looks unnatural somehow … she’s not allowed to rest it on his shoulder?

  3. That was Sweet. And the colorization really added to the clip. Yes, I imagine the camera was limited to just the one location. She is enjoying herself. Thanks for the warm, nice start to the day. Helped to calmed me down from reading other blogs this morning.

  4. I first came across Muybridge as the photographer who was able to demonstrate that a running horse occasionally has all four hooves in the air. Muybridge had moved to California and worked with horses belonging to Leland Stanford, who was interested in improving the gait of racing horses. The photography was done at Stanford’s stock farm, which is presently the campus of Stanford University.

    Richard Aubrey– the waltz can indeed be complicated. Stanford was not only built on the site of a horse farm, it also has an annual Viennese Ball. According to the university’s website, “Viennese Ball is an exciting Stanford tradition with social dancing, live music, performances, and thrilling contests. It was started in 1978 by students returning from the Stanford-in-Austria program, who were inspired by the vibrant balls which took place in Vienna. These Viennese balls usually began with a lavish opening ceremony featuring honored dignitaries, costumed dancers, and handsomely-clad young couples.”

    Here’s a video of the opening waltz of the 2020 Viennese Ball; the music is from Act I of Swan Lake. And yes, the dancers are indeed sweeping across the floor:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQD-HyLxu2A&ab_channel=kulshrax

  5. Pretty sure that “clip” is really a loop, hence the spinning in place. Ballroom dances can be as complex as you want to make them. There’s the basic step, and then you layer in the spins, going backwards, forwards, etc.

  6. Apparently nearly all the Viennese who matter at Stanford are Chinese or Koreans.

    Also, spot the Lesbian in tails. It’s a Cabaret!

    This is the Stanford of Egon Schiele, as well as Paul Klee.

    The last time someone with time on his hands noticed that a significant chunk of the Viennese who Mattered weren’t Viennese, Bad Things happened.

  7. If they truly deserved to rule (and rule you they will), there’d be a Stanford Hunt. Balls without Riding to Hounds and risking your neck is No Balls — just LARPing.

  8. Went to Legal Insurrection today, and found out they’d “moved.” Their email and donation manager had decided at 5 pm last Friday that their custom was no longer wanted. It cost them over $10K to reconfigure. In the comments, someone pointed over that their host company, Salsa (about whom I know nothing) had been bought by a Washington, DC, firm Everyaction.

    Looked up Everyaction, and their “Leadership” page is a good example of how people in DC make their bread:

    https://www.everyaction.com/leadership/

    Do click on the bios. It’s nothing scandalous, just business as usual. Very like the Obama years.

  9. VDH is on grim fire in this interview with The Telegraph’s Steven Edgerton, posted on YT almost a week ago.

    He says he’s guardedly optimistic for America’s future. But everything he mentions in detail supports my guarded pessimism, I think. YMMV.
    https://youtu.be/jdkca09EHRI

  10. Really nice to watch. Surprised that the clothes looked as modern as they did-and the gal is showing some ankle-woo hoo!

  11. @TJ:

    Unguarded or even Guarded Pessimism would see VDH out of the Hoover on his posterior faster than you can say ‘Second Founding’ and back to competing with Mexican Illegals stealing irrigation lines and (Dot) Indian Latifundia Owning Water Rights Grifting Subsidy Rorting Family Mafia Nut Growers in the Central Valley.

    Reading between the lines of his Down Home Hesiod posts, it’s pretty rough out there these days. Doubtless he’s got a pension from having worked in the UC system… but how safe can that be in the current year? He’s not going to stray too far from the reservation.

    He’s one of the good guys. Worked extremely hard and been a survivor. No criticism implied.

  12. Dang. Loop or not, she’s being hauled around by the guy–apparently the Thing for this part of the dance–and is supposed to like it. Maybe she does. Strong man and all that.

  13. Zaphod:

    VDH seems to be someone you don’t know all that much about, either. For example, he’s been very pessimistic about the illegal immigration situation – especially in California – for many years. He wrote the book Mexifornia nearly 20 years ago, and it was an act of courage at the time.

  14. @Neo:

    Probably been reading VDH for as long as you have. Long enough to get a serious case of depression by proxy reading about the gradual whittling down of his acres, constant debt bondage, Mexicans in his driveway, irrigation equipment disappearing… all while some Punjabi neighbours mysteriously grow richer and buy up all the land. Goes on endlessly and is a real downer. You know… it’s almost like he’s the Last of the Mohicans.

    There’s bits he more than gets.

    And yet I don’t recall him nailing his colours to the mast and saying No More Forever Wars and naming names. And a guy who IIRC wrote at length about Epaminondas Knows.

  15. Z asserts that he knows more about VDH’s writing than Neo. Sorry, sonny, but we can’t check your library card or your book reports from 20 years ago. Fail.

  16. For those interested in the phenomenon of UFOs, here is an interesting academic essay by a University of Chicago Anthropologist about how researchers may have to approach their study of UFOs in new ways requiring a broadening of our “consensus reality.”

    This essay contains some interesting new information.

    Adding to hints that have started to appear elsewhere, it looks as if those people who have had encounters with UFOs not only have psychological effects from such encounters but do, indeed, suffer from changes in their health/physiology, and anatomy. Some of these changes are apparently inheritable, and run in families, and have been termed “lighthouse signals” making such family members also attract encounters with UFOs, and that such changes have been the subject of serious study.

    Second, that–since the very beginning of the space age–some scientists have very quietly been working on techniques that they believe have enabled them to communicate with “non-human intelligence,” and that the results of that communication have inspired advancements in their fields, and concrete results.

    See https://www.academia.edu/44720563/Secularity_Synchronicity_and_Uncanny_Science_Considerations_and_Challenges

  17. I don’t know about you but I ALWAYS rely on aged Rock ‘n Rollers for my medical, epidemiological needs and—especially—moral and spiritual insights.
    (Also for the latest dope on Global Warming—in all its magnificent incarnations)

    Fortunately, there are many of those aged, even decrepit, iconic halcyons entirely willing to oblige…
    Neil Young, for example:
    “Neil Young to Spotify staff: ‘Get out of that place before it eats up your soul’”—
    https://nypost.com/2022/02/08/neil-young-tells-spotify-staff-to-get-out-of-that-place/
    (…especially appreciate his awesome remark about spirituality and soulfulness. What a deep, caring guy! Yep, Forever Young!)

    And it’s truly touching to see how his fellow musicians and band members have gathered ’round, giving him their loyal support (I love loyalty!)—and all offering fealty to the heroic Anthony Fauci (and HIS loyal minions)…

    As Stephen Stills might have sung:
    “There’s something happenin’ here,
    An’ what it is is amazingly clear….”
    Simply prophetic… (Talk about SPIRITUAL!)
    “Dissent Begins To Snowball As Liberal MP’s Say No To Trudeau”
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/02/10/dissent-begins-to-snowball-as-liberal-mps-say-no-to-trudeau/

  18. Zaphod:

    Move the goalposts much?

    You wrote, “Unguarded or even Guarded Pessimism would see VDH out of the Hoover on his posterior faster than you can say ‘Second Founding’…l” and further indicated this:

    Doubtless he’s got a pension from having worked in the UC system… but how safe can that be in the current year? He’s not going to stray too far from the reservation.

    VDH was very pessimistic indeed in his book Mexifornia, published in 2003. So you are wrong. He was brave, very unwoke and un-PC, didn’t lose his job, and your accusation that he’s just sucking up to keep his job is false. It doesn’t really matter how much VDH you’ve read. You don’t seem to get it. Your cynicism overtakes you and you are unable to give credit where credit is due.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>