On the realities of public dancing

Today I sat in Starbucks after my final and enjoyed a pumpkin spiced latte in an attempt to relax and empty my mind for a moment. During my time here I observed a few separate instances of toe tapping on the tile floor by customers waiting to receive their beverages of choice.

The first of these was a younger gentleman, I would place him in his early twenties, who proceeded to make his own little dance along with one of the swinging Christmas tunes playing over the speakers. His dance focused primarily around an idea of tap dancing with a little bit of head nodding thrown on for good measure. My initial reaction was to think he looked a little silly. Not too silly, he wasn’t being ridiculous. Just amusing. This followed with the recognition that he is simply having a good time and enjoying the music.

Fast forward about an hour. Yes, I’ve been here a while. This scene opens with quite a different cast. This time, it features a grey-haired woman in a, as Erin would say, sassy red pea coat. While waiting for her drink, our ears were serenaded with a delightful folk-blues inspired rendition of a Christmas song. This thumping tune resulted in her own dance which was a sort of heal and toe stomp in her clicky little black pumps.

The third and final dance that represents the direction all of this observation is pointing. Children are probably the most frequent dancers in our culture. It comes with being antsy while waiting for the parents.

Somewhere along the timeline of getting older, it became less acceptable for people to dance in public. Dancing is one of the ultimate outward expressions of joy. For many, it represents letting loose and forgetting your worries by getting lost in the music. This statement lends it self to the idea that dancing is therefore reserved for specific places and times in which music is the main feature. This statement becomes null and void when you go to many concerts where people feel content to cross their arms over their white v-neck and American apparel hoodie and maybe tap their heal a little bit without allowing themselves to feel free enough to truly let the music influence their movements, therefore eliminating true enjoyment of the music. As an aside, while I do realize that I did in some regard describe myself, minus the American apparel, while I do stick to the basics, I would like to point out that this is as much an introspective critique as it is cultural critique.

I would like to gain back the freedom to let go of my inhibitions and let the music take me away, as cliché as that sounds. I invite and encourage you to join me in my quest for freedom. One option is to take a moderate approach and allow yourself the freedom to dance in culturally acceptable dance appropriate situations such as concerts, dance parties, and library raves (that means you, all of you grumpy looking people who simply looked down from the second floor thinking you were too cool or too studious to have a good time). To those who feel more radical in their desire to see dance become an acceptable form of expression, I encourage you to embrace the spontaneous dance party or simple do a little dance when your song comes on in the grocery. I challenge you, yes, you. Crank up that music in the parking lot and get out and dance. Nod your head like yeah! Move your hips like yeah! Turn up that Empire State of Mind and cut loose on the sidewalk. Whatever the flavor, make it your own.

on modern architecture in charleston

As you may or may not know, I've been taking an architecture studio class. The main justification for doing so is to fulfill humanities credit. The second and more important reason is because I always wanted to be an architect. This class has given me the opportunity to be able to explore that a little. While I've enjoyed the class and doing the projects, it has always taken a back burner to the more 'important' classes that I'm taking, which makes it hard for me to really dive into the work.

All of that said, I did spend a decent amount of time working on our final project, which was to design a house on for one of four empty lots in downtown Charleston. In an attempt to expand my horizons and be a little bit different, I decided to use a design my house in a modern style, with the permission of my professor, despite the initial assignment, having done a classical style for my previous project. I was greatly influence by Louis Kahn (as seen above) and to some extent the paintings of Piet Mondrian. My stucco, wood, and glass house was to be located in an empty lot on the corner of Limehouse St. and Murray Blvd., right on the water. Largely cubic in form, it featured floor to ceiling windows in the second floor drawing studio along with floor to ceiling glass doors and windows in the third floor painting studio, providing gorgeous views of the Charleston harbor and sunsets over the Ashley river.

Before tackling this modern home, one must take into account the fact that Charleston is probably the best preserved historic cities in the U. S. This consistently classical city should, by nature be resistant to new modern homes. Another factor that effects home design is the incredible heat of the summers, which is the reason for south facing porches which decrease the amount of sunlight that hits the house directly. Considering these two major hinderances, I decided to proceed.

Another part of the class is the critique that happens on the due date of the project. Being the final project, this included bringing in local architects to contribute their thoughts and ideas. I realize that it is impractical to have walls of south facing glass in Charleston. I understand that the architect is supposed to design for the customer and for the location. I clarified that at upon introducing my work. Despite this disclaimer, one of the visiting architects proceeded to dwell on the flaw of the windows and the irrelevance of a modern home in Charleston, offering very little to any helpful critique given by the other architect and my professor. While I did expect some amount of resistance, I was unaware of how her disregard of my design would effect me. While I did respect her opinion as an architect, it would have been nice for her to respect what I had to say and help me improve upon my actual design rather than focussing on how I deviated from the initial assignment.

october, november, and beyond

Clearly it's been quite some time since my last post. Where have I been, you ask? I don't even know. Time has been flying by this semester. Week after week I remark at how quickly it's going by. The week days are so busy with school work I barely have time to breath until friday afternoon, at which point the full weekend begins and goes pretty much not-stop until sunday afternoon at which point I spend the rest of the day getting back into school mode and repeat ad nauseum.

That said, there have been high points in the weeks. Now the hard part is picking them out of my memory. There's so much bouncing around up there. In order to sort the events out in my mind, I looked back at my previous blog post to see where I left off. Ah yes, fall break. Fall break seems as though it were last weekend.

The first key event of the past month that I can remember would have been halloween, which also happened to be the big 22 for me. The day was beautiful and sunny. The last day of a later sunset before the fall back. After a morning and afternoon spent homeworking, cleaning, and even relaxing, the festivities began with a lovely outing to Jim n' Nicks with some of the friends. I must say I love that place every time.. mainly the cheesy biscuits. That night was the raucous event that is halloween in Charleston. After giving up the whole costume search, Chris came up with the idea that we could be Irish brothers. This involved various green clothing, including a kilt made from a flannel shirt, and various Irish tattoos drawn on our arms. Also, a superb Irish accent we worked on the whole way to the party. Halloween '09: success.

Moving on... The next weekend the parents came to visit. The weather was perfect and gave them a break from the dreary cold north. We had a great time exploring the town, seeing some of my favorite sights, and eating at some of my favorite restaurants. I love my parents. They're simply the best. Parental visit '09: success.

Those are the key events that I feel like sharing. At some point in the hopefully soon future I will write on a more interesting somewhat philosophical debate I've been having with myself on authenticity and the reality of individuals.

A Breath of Fresh Air

I deem fall break '09 a success. Best. Fall. Break. Ever.

The main theme of the weekend was the lack of an agenda other than spending time with each other and having a blast doing it. God's creation was abounding in beauty. Reds, greens, and golds of the leaves speckled the forest. Not only that but it was a great time to build deeper relationships with some great friends.

One by one

I'm going to start doing some quick short updates on what's been going on since I find I lack the time to fill in the whole story all of the time.

I photographed for the first time in forever this weekend. I'm in love again. My camera missed me and I missed it more than I realized (no, I don't have a name for my camera). Either way, it's back to shooting film for me. Right now I'm stuck tied into the color/paying for developing but hopefully soon I'll shoot some B&W and find time to sneak into the lab and develop it. I hope my photos I took this weekend turned out alright despite low light of the florescent variety in many of the shots. Time will tell. I'll try to get some scans whenever I finish off the roll and get them developed.

In other news, I'm proud of my friend Judah who I referred to the SartoriaList. Upon seeing him tonight, I know that he has been an attentive reader and felt that he would fit in on the List with his dark brown boat shoes, blue shorts, light blue oxford shirt with sleeves rolled up, well crafted royal blue rain coat, and dark brown leather bag to top it off. A lot of blue but it all went together well. Good for this first rainy day in a long time. Well done Judah.

New post... finally!

After almost two months of neglecting my blog, I am getting back to it.. but not quite yet. This is a teaser. I'm going to write tomorrow, well actually later today because it's way past my bedtime.