July 2008

<lj-cut text=”That was a 2 shirt evening”>

Paul pp Clive

B rumba

Forward L, replace, side L,
Top (behind, side, close)
Forward L leading lady to step back and open out, replace, back L leading lady to close up and rotate further into cuddle hold.
Release hold with right hand taking it over lady’s head and out in front of you, rock forward onto R, replace, side R.
Forward and across L, replace R, side L (she ends up on your left)
Forward and across R, replace L, side R (she ends up on your right)
Somehow she ends up in front of you, forward L, replace R, side L leading alamana (I think, can’t see how else the feet for the next bit work)
Rock R, L, R.
close, side, close, L, R, L
Rock R, L, R
Forward L to start again.

B waltz

Start facing diag wall of short side near corner.
Spin turn, usual reverse turn ending, back, side, close, forward, side close.
Check: back R with upper body rotating to L, recover to L, side R to face toward centre.
Weave ending: side L under body keeping as square to her as you can, back R begining turn to L, side L to face wall.
Curving walk to right, R, L, R.
Back lock 1 2 & 3
Outside spin (back R with toe slightly in, pivot L to step outside her, forward R continuing to turn to end backing diag wall).
Reverse turn (I always do a turning lock instead cos my brain is programmed to follow outside spins with it).

Cha, can’t remember which lession

cha-cha right
New York to R
New York to L
Fast New Yorks R, L,
Spot turn to R
Taking a firm hold with both hands, step diagonally outside partner with RF, forward side back turning R.
Back side forward continuing to turn,
Forward side back contuning to turn,
Back side forward (on last forward L, take small step and gather her up)
Top (RF behind) ending closed
Thing like cuban break but stepping to side with LF and closing, twice: 2&3 4&1
Side R, replace, back R, close L, forward R 2 3 4 & 1


C foxtrot

Starting diag centre on long side
Feather,
Fallaway, QQQ
Slip RF back, pivot LF to diag wall, cross RF behind LF QQQ
Continuing to turn L, step forward left, side R, side L under body (another fallaway) QQQ
RF back, LF side, RF forward (feather finish) QQQ into corner.
Forward L turning so diag to new wall with RF closed to L without weight S
Extend RF to side S
Put weight to RF and lower into knee S
Stretch up left side S
Recover and rotate left shoulder foward. S (that’s 5 slows, count ’em)
Recover on to LF, slip RF back to face new LoD QQ
Forward L, side close side backing wall S Q&Q
Weave ending: side L under body, back R, side L, forward R to corner, outside partner QQQQ
Reverse turn (that’s the one turning L), L, R, L, SQQ to end facing diag centre of new long side
Back check: back R with rotation to L
Weave again, forward L, QQQ QQQ


There was a rumba but my brain melted.


For the rest of you: I recently re-read Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, so I’ll post about that soon.

<lj-cut text=”Contains explicit steps”>
Bruce’s B waltz

Starts across a short side:
Natural turn,
Spin turn, (if you weren’t on a short side, you could over turn this)
Turning lock ending diag to centre on new LoD (sway to R on both natural and turning lock, but straight for spin turn)
Running weave: forward R, across lady L, back R, back L, 1 2 & 3, finishing with lady outside on man’s RHS, man backing diag centre. I’ve forgotten the sway 🙁
Tumble turn: back R (woman back in line) pivoting to diag wall, tightly curve steps to left, L, R, L for 1 2 & 3, to finish backing LoD. Sway starts to right and switches to left to assist the final step of the turn.
Oversway: back R, side L to point foot to wall, rotate foot and lower into left knee, right leg straight out to side, 1, 2, 3. Stretch up left hand side of body, allow right arm to give her some more space (one bar). Close R to L maintaining sway, rise and straighten into promenade position, take left foot to side in PP and we’re off again, 1, 2, 3

Clive’s C quickstep

Natural turn,
Open impetus to end in PP diag to centre.
Chasse to left,
Wing (SQQ for woman, only two steps for man obviously)
Chasse to right,
Back L, back R, lock L, SQQ
Two runs back R, L, QQ,
Back R, lock L, back R, QQS,
Back L, tipple to right with sway to right, SQ&Q
Swivel to left shoulder lead, LF forward into lock diag to wall on new LoD, QQS.

Clive also had a waltz which had the overturned spin turn/turning lock ending closed rather than PP and talking a toe pivot on the final step (L) to end backing LoD, but I’ve forgotten what happened after that, so traumatised was I about not ending in PP. Anyone?

I recently happened across lumpley‘s Mormon gunslingers game Dogs in the Vineyard. This description from the author and this review give a flavour of the thing, and some details of the poker-like conflict resolution rules. It looks fun, very different from the mechanics-heavy stuff (D&D and friends) and focused on helping the group create a compelling story by pitching the characters into conflicts with no easy answers. Playing the eponymous dogs, you’re in a game world where the religion really is true and your job is to defend it, bringing the towns you visit back onto the straight and narrow, using words, ritual and, when all else fails, a six-shooter.

scribb1e found a bunch of alternate settings for it, all based on the playing characters sworn to defend an ideology the players probably disagree with. My favourite is Fashion Experts on a Reality TV Show, mainly for the fashion version of the game’s “Something’s wrong”, X leads to Y progression.

Following scribb1e‘s further suggestion that there should be a CICCU version, I’ve come up with Staff Workers in the UCCF, in which our intrepid players are running characters who are the paid staff sent to help university Christian Unions. In the game, they’d deal with CUs who’ve strayed from the Doctrinal Basis, so the equivalent to a town in Dogs is a university CU (or possibly a college CU in the Reps in the CICCU variant). The Desert People are the liberal Christians, maybe the SCM (they might also be the other religions evangelising on campus, if there are any). Actually, it might make sense for the Desert People to be Fusion and the SCM represent the corrupt religion of the Territorial Authority, I suppose.

I’ve not quite worked out what the CU equivalent of shooting someone is, any ideas?

Here’s the Something’s Wrong progression:

Pride (manifests as self-righteousness)
-leads to->
Sin (manifests as demons outside, e.g. the Student Union refuses to let you book rooms, the student newspaper writes nasty things about you)
-leads to->
False Doctrine (manifests as corrupt religious practices and heresy, e.g. charismatic stuff like speaking in tongues and falling over; rejection of Biblical inerrancy; rejection of penal substitutionary atonement; acceptance of homosexuality)
-leads to->
False Priesthood (manifests as demons inside, like like CU members going out with non-Christians, sleeping with their boy/girlfriends (esp. if they’re the same sex, obviously), getting drunk)
-leads to->
Hate (manifests as apostasy (defection to Fusion, the SCM or to atheism), schism)

I probably will pay up for the PDF of the Dogs rules, so I’ll have to see how far I can go with this, but it might actually be a fun variant of the game.

I mentioned Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus in my response to nlj21‘s complaint that Karen Armstrong does not provide a source for her claim that the Apostle Paul didn’t write the Pastoral Epistles.

I re-read the book while we were on holiday recently. I’d recommend it, despite the rather sensationalist cover advertising (“OMG the King James Version’s text is bollox, sorry, ‘corrupted and inferior'”: we all knew that, right?), as a lucid introduction to New Testament textual criticism. Luckily, if you’re too cheap to buy it, there’s a video of a lecture covering the book’s key points, available from Google. Ehrman’s an engaging speaker. His responses to questions at the end are particularly good (especially the one from the bloke who’s clearly read Elvis Shot Kennedy: Freemasonry’s Hidden Agenda and therefore “knows” that Jesus spent a lot of time travelling round India before marrying Mary Magdalene).

Ehrman’s another ex-evangelical, who now describes himself as an agnostic. The Washington Post article on him attributes his loss of faith to textual problems (Erhman started out as an inerrantist, a position he found untenable as he studied the NT texts) and the problem of suffering.

On suffering, if, like me, you’re a fan of Bishop Tom (N.T.) Wright and of Ehrman, you’ll probably enjoy their blog debate on the Problem of Evil.

On the Biblical text, people can and do dispute Ehrman’s claims. This review on Ben Witherington’s blog has some good comments from both sides of the debate (if anyone does speak Greek, I’d be interested in whether the grammar of Matthew 28:19 does imply that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one person as Ben says). Some of the Bible’s defenders are at pains to point out that one can still believe even knowing that the Bible is a very human document which records religious experiences (some of them wouldn’t say that, of course, and defend something like inerrancy). But Dan Barker’s comment evokes the sort of feeling I can imagine Ehrman having as his inerrantist beliefs collapsed, that is, the feeling that he’d been lied to by his evangelical teachers.

There are other good reasons for thinking evangelicalism is probably incorrect, namely that it’s an extra-biblical tradition despite claiming not to be and that it commits you to interpretations which do violence to the Biblical text in an attempt to maintain its inerrancy. Ehrman’s reason seems to strike at the heart of the thing, though: study the history of the text enough and it becomes impossible to take the attitude to it that evangelicals do.