I started dancing back when I was in LA, but I didn't get into the vintage dance scene until I got to the Bay Area. I can't remember how I happened upon Gaskells. It must have been a flyer seen at a contra dance (I discovered contra dancing in LA. I continued doing it in SF but eventually dropped it because I found the community here a bit frostier than that in LA, oddly enough.) Gaskells led to PEERS which led to all sorts of other types of social and couples dancing. I haven't been out dancing in a couple years now. At first it was because I was so ashamed of regaining weight I had lost. Now it's also because my health has been so bad that I wouldn't be able to dance more than a couple dances per night. And $20 admission to dance only 2 or 3 dances is a bit rich for my blood. However, I'll want to try easing myself back into dancing and would like to tap into that community in LA.

So here's a list of SF Bay Area dance/costume coolnesses and very rough equivalents in LA:

PEERS, Gaskells = LAHA

Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild =  Costumers Guild West

Stonemountain & Daughter, Piedmont Fabric, Silk Road Fabric = The Garment District

Lacis = Farthingale's LA

Bay Area Country Dance Society = California Dance Cooperative

The California Dance Cooperative used to hold Cajun dances. In fact, their cajun dances are what introduced me to contra. It looks like they don't have them anymore. So if anyone knows of Cajun/Zydeco dances in LA, please let me know.

While I'm glad there are more equivalents than I thought there would be, most of these resources are within a couple miles of my house. That will NOT be the case in LA. And as I sold my car last year, I expect the greatest shock of all will be how hard it is to get around. Even though I'll likely be able to borrow a car when I need one, I don't want to have to. I like things being close by.

Haven't written anything here in  yonks. I do plenty of writing on the interwubs but never became a regular blogger. It's kinda hard to write into a vacuum. There are so many damned bloggers out there that I'm a plankton in a very large ocean. However, I know that I'm going to want to track what's likely to be happening in my life in the coming year.

My disability has progressed to the point where I can no longer hold a regular job. That and the economic depression have conspired to push me out of my home in Berkeley. Disability doesn't pay enough for me to stay in the San Francisco Bay Area in the conditions I'd like so it's likely I'm moving back to my hometown. So after 20 years of living in the East Bay, I'll be moving back to the Los Angeles area. I have no friends remaining there so it will be nearly like starting from scratch as far as social networking. While a lot has changed there in 20 years, LA is still far behind the Bay Area when it comes to walkability, public transit, recycling, gardening, quality produce, cycling, and cheap cool freaksome activities.

For a couple weeks now I've been asking people as well as Googling to see what equivalent activities there are in LA so that I can take the sting out of the culture shock I know is coming. And I thought I should start blogging the whole process of rediscovering my hometown. So here goes.

More on the Lagaan obsession - I just read in Entertainment Weekly that this film will be distributed in the U.S. So see it! (What? You don't have 4 hours to spare?)

God damn it. I can't believe I just watched the last episode of Once and Again that there'll ever be. This is a constant hazard of being an intelligent watcher of TV - your shows get cancelled. Freaks and Geeks, Cupid, Sports Night, Homicide, etc. etc. This is the first Zwick & Herskovitz show I've ever seen. I never watched Thirtysomething, but based on O&A, I'm interested in tracking it down. This show dealt with issues that you don't see all that often on TV. How do you date when you're a divorced parent with custody? What issues arise? Lesbian love dealt with in a non-sensationalistic manner. Excellent acting every single episode. Man, I loved this show. ABC is really a wasteland now. I don't think there's a single ABC show I watch.

If you've got episodes on tape, I'd be interested in working out a deal. I don't have the whole series and couldn't afford the space of keeping both seasons on VHS, but there's a couple key episodes I'd love to get, esp. the 2nd episode.

And Billy Campbell has the taste to be a Krazy Kat fan, too.

I'm having a good time singing along to "Ghanan, Ghanan", at least the words I know. Hindi is one of those languages where the transliterated Roman letter words don't bear enough resemblance to how things are really pronounced. So sometimes getting the lyrics of a song off the net can actually screw me up compared to just listening to the song and transcribing it phonetically.

I'm also listening to "The Best of Asha Bhosle" for the second or third time. I was very disappointed when I first listened to it because it pales in comparison with "Golden Voices from the Silver Screen", but it's growing on me.

I'm kinda bouncing between blogspot.com and my speakeasy webspace because I'm trying to implement comments and I'm under the impression that I can't do that on blogspot. So I'm trying to upload and troubleshoot SnorComments to my webspace. If this blog gets a little stale, check http://www.speakeasy.org/~spidra/spidra.html because that's where I've moved it to.

Still troubleshooting like crazy and alternating between posting here and on blogspot.com. I used a UNIX shell account for the first time in nearly a year while trying to upload cgi scripts for commenting. Even though I don't know the first thing about cgi scripts.

I'm trying to figure out how to implement comments. To me, that's the main advantage of blogging.

Wow. I'm finally going where every man has gone before. Following the footsteps of Meg Cotner, peterme, and many others, I decided to make a blog. The majority of my web usage seems to be either pontificating about something or reading others' pontifications, so blogging should be my cup of boiled leaves.

Current causes for excitement are finding the lyrics to "Lagaan" online at Bollywoodlyrics.com. I found out about "Lagaan" by watching this year's Oscars. I was surprised that a Bollywood musical was up for Best Foreign Film. I love classic filmi music (although I'm not as turned on by the modern filmi I hear) and knew I had to see this film. I organized an outing of friends to see it at the Naz 8 Cinema. Although the film was too epic a length for some (3 hours!), I enjoyed the hell out of it. I didn't really notice the length (though my nalgas did) because the pacing was very good. I came out of the theater vowing to buy the CD. A couple days later at Shrimati's, I did. What a deal! $10.95 for a double CD. Way cheaper than Amazon! Support your local Indian-American merchant, sez I!

I've been listening to the CD a fair amount since then and even spent the better part of an hour trying to transcribe "Ghanan Ghanan". It occurred to me tonight that I should look for a site for Hindi-impaired filmi fanatics. While attempting to find such a site, I stumbled upon the aforementioned Bollywoodlyrics site and was pleased to find all the "Lagaan" lyrics there. Unfortunately, it didn't have lyrics to something older but well-known like "Mera Naam Chin Chin Chu". I plan to bone up on the "Lagaan" lyrics and happily sing songs I don't understand.

I wonder if I'll have the same sort of naive charm for South Asians that people singing phonetically-learned songs in English have for me (e.g. Daisige Samejima's "Blue Night")? I feel a bit guilty because I could be considered guilty of fetishizing exoticism. Japanese singers who speak better English aren't as fascinating to me to listen to as Shonen Knife are. Am interested just for sideshow qualities? I dunno.

Another bit of excitement is that Fantagraphics Books is taking over where Eclipse/Turtle Island left off in printing the entire run of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. I was lucky enough to run across Krazy Kat in one of Maurice Horn's books. I've been snatching up KK info where I could ever since. It's hard for me to explain to someone new why they should be reading Krazy Kat. As an artist, Herriman's slashy line style appeals to me, as does his use of abstract Southwestern themes (before most anyone ever incorporated such things in popular art). Herriman has a love for the language that wafts from every panel and he uses it creatively and crookedly. I find that I often have to read Krazy's speech balloons aloud to be able to understand what he/she is saying. He/she has the oddest accent, larded heavily with Yiddish, among other things. I can see how some folks might be bored by the comic. The eternal love triangle of Officer Pupp, Krazy Kat & Ignatz Mouse, its boundaries delineated by the path of a brickbat, might not be dynamic enough for a generation raised on MTV's quick cut editing style. But I urge folks to give Krazy Kat a gander if they haven't already.