Sunday, August 10, 2008

My Contra Dance

I've been doing a lot of contra dancing recently, and have tried my hand at writing some dances. I've also been experimenting with Google Docs as a way to publish them.
For example:

Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Contra Dancing

As I mention in my profile, I have a new obsession -- contra dancing with occasional forays into English Country Dancing. Obsessions come; obsessions go; sometimes they stick around. I'm hoping this one will stick. It s great fun, great exercise, and I've met some really wonderful people at dances.

Any good obsession should fit in with my previous obsessions. The connection to folk music and upright bass is obvious. Computers are a bit more of a stretch, but in my (ahem) spare time, I have started working on a program to help design dances and/or catalog existing dances. Then there's the weaving.

A contra dance is all about patterns fitting in a fairly constrained framework. Weaver's will feel right at home. The question is can there be cross-over. Could one weave a contra dance, or dance a weave structure. Hmmmm.....

If you're in the St. Louis area check the Childgrove site linked above, and come to a dance (usually Sunday night.) You'll be glad you did.

Oh, and the link to parrots? Well, Willow went to a flash dance recently. She was a big hit.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Artificial Inscrutability vs Human Pattern Recognition: A Challenge

I was messing with the automatic language translation sites on the Internet. I started with the lyrics of a song, translated them from English to French to German, back to French, then back to English, and came up with:

The scandal is currently sufficient
May with the sun them on you
that supplements expensive you;
And the pure light with you
to lead your house in the kind.


Anyone recognize the original song?

Hints:

  • The song came from an album released in 1968 so there's an age bias in this challenge.
  • The album has been reissued on CD -- I was pleased.
  • I believe the lyrics were actually borrowed from a traditional folk song.
  • Somewhere along the line the translation acquired an extra line (and some extra concepts!) The original verse was four lines long.
  • The original lyrics were comprehensible, although I've got to admit you could probably substitute the translated version into the song and few people would notice.