Milongas, advertising and Facebook

Having no Facebook event for a milonga is no bad thing. The milonga in Pant had no Facebook event and is in the middle of nowhere yet thirty people appeared. Facebook is notoriously unreliable for showing true numbers yet if not enough people show they are going it can occasionally put off those not savvy to this, though losing those swayed by such unreliable things is probably no great loss. 

Still, I wonder if the few organisers who do not use Facebook for their events do so because they expect numbers to be so low they think it might do more harm than good to advertise this way. This would not necessarily put me off. I don’t mind small milongas and have had a very nice time with a few good dancers or just nice people.

The other problem with Facebook events is that they are frequently not in synch with the organisers’ calendars.  One doesn't know then whether an event is on or cancelled.  I have seen this with Viva tango (empty calendar but an event on Facebook) and Northern Tango Academy (NTA) only last week. I have a feeling there may have been until recently a calendar on the website.  In any case there was enough ambiguity around the events that I had to ask whether their Una noche de garufa milonga was on in November or not.  But it is almost unfair to name names because it is so very common. I notice the NTA's Tango in Liverpool and Tango in Manchester groups on Facebook are closing to merge with the main NTA group, perhaps to minimise such maintenance.

The problem is less with milongas like the Manchester Popup (review) which because it doesn’t advertise classes, worskhops or shows only has a Facebook group and events, not a website. This approach is lower maintenance too.

For advertising I would rather organisers either just used their own site plus a national site like TangoTimetable or TangoCentral or a Facebook event; not, incidentally, a Facebook group cluttered up with adverts from other organisers.  That is just a pain.  All that cross-advertising can be avoided if organisers and dances used the same national site.  I mean what's not to like?  And besides - those not local can easily find what’s on for a weekend away and can check accuracy in one place: the organiser’s own website or Facebook event (but please not all three). 

I say please advertise using a national site, like the Dutch do, with tangokalendar.nl and torito.nl. Honestly it's easier to know what milongas are on in the Netherlands than it is in the UK.  While I can hold quite a lot of tango group names in my head I can't hold them all and for weekends away I really want to know what is on in certain regions without trawling Facebook or bothering all my acquaintance.  Please suggest it to your local organisers.  You will surely get more visitors in general that way (assuming you want them!).  Or the Dutch will. 

I'm so sorry.  I gave in to bold for non-linked text.  I'll try not to do it again.

The only reason I may put down “interested/going” to events on Facebook is to remind myself what’s on and usually I do that more for non-tango events when there may end up being several things to choose from at a weekend. Otherwise, the only purpose would be to tell others one is going to a milonga and I don’t expect whether I go or not to sway anybody. 

When a friend, travelling, got in touch privately to ask if I was coming out to dance the compliment was lasting and the effect disproportionate to that small act. So if there is someone I would really like to dance with I hope I have learnt from that and will do the same.

The effect of selection

A: Not caring about the music tends to make for poor dancers and has knock on effects: poor male dancers tend to be those who prey on women by walking up to invite them, putting them on the spot and making women feel rude if they don’t accept.

B: It is useful to recognise that's the effect of selection.

In a Buenos Aires milonga, poor male dancers aren't dancers. They are men sitting hoping to dance.

In a UK milonga, the only way a poor male dancer gets to dance is by demanding.... and being accepted.

Too much of one thing

When similar orchestras, or eras or more accurately tandas too similar in musical feel are adjacent it suggests the DJ thinks that everybody present likes the same thing and will dance to more or less everything. If you have a certain style of Canaro tanda, then of Lomuto, then of OTV all adjacent as in fact I think there was at the milonga in Pant, (and there may even have been a fourth similar) then you are very likely going to bore and upset the people who like other things and those who like variety.  Rather, play a mix. 

At some milongas, the juxtaposition of tandas similar in musical feel or all of the same era seems to be deliberate so as not to “break the flow”. This is especially dire when the tandas are pre-1935, but to be fair Pant does advertise they play pre Golden Age "We are still mostly Traditional tango, both early and Golden Age".

It is interesting -  that traditional tango is thought here to include both music from the Golden Era and earlier.  This is why use of the term "traditional" can be so ambiguous.  Unless,  as Sharon does, there is further specification of what they mean by that, it can make for expectations mismatched with what the organiser intended.

It seemed to me that by hopping off and on the floor often randomly with regards to the music the dancers in Pant did nothing but break the flow - of music, as opposed to of - presumably - partnering. For me, the music has primacy, because almost invariably no good connections happens without great music, respected.

Conversations about cortinas in Pant

At a festival milonga in Edinburgh last year I had a conversation with a visitor about "tango in Pant" and about silent cortinas. I went to the Pant milonga in Shropshire recently and there met Leander and Mike, ex-students of Sharon Koch who runs that milonga. The conversation in Edinburgh had been with Leander. She and Mike took over TangoCheshire some time ago and teach in Wilmslow, with milongas on the first Thursday of the month. Mike, Leander and Sharon seem to share a philosophy about musical organisation and milongas. All are connected to Eric Jorgeson's El Corte in Nijmegen which is well known for playing no cortinas.

I found no cortinas probably more frustrating than I had anticipated. Since all the tables were at one end people staying on the floor between tandas did not block invitation by look. Actually though, my impression was that since most people know each other they just ask one other to dance. People in Glasgow tend to know each other too but these days most men with respect for themselves and the women they want to partner tend to invite by look.

Since Tango Cheshire also has silent cortinas but, apparently, seating is not all at one end I asked Leander how seated dancers manage to see across the floor if people are standing on it during a cortina blocking the line of sight for invitation. “They put on their glasses” she said. I laughed but she had implied that it is a non-issue for them - or had just dodged it.

Still, I do not want to dance half a tanda of one orchestra and half of another. I want to dance a full tanda of the same orchestra with the same person. In Pant, some people did clear the floor after one “tanda” but by no means all. They hopped on and off the floor like random rabbits just as the whim took them and indeed this is what at least some of them do seem to like and prefer. For me this is not at all about respecting the music. I find it makes for a disjointed and broken evening and it become hard to find partners at the time that one wants them.

Most of all I felt no natural sense of the tanda here. Last year I had asked Leander how people learn to hear the differences in the orchestras if there are no cortinas. "Precisely because there are no cortinas, we hope they listen more carefully" was the reply - but I did not see that in much evidence. Besides, people seemed to dance to great and to very poor tracks more or less indiscriminately - though as everywhere, never totally because the floor was usually busier to good tracks.  

Leander and Sharon had similar views about silent cortinas. This seemed to be that the people, not the music have primacy: Why break a flow of dance with someone when you need not or when you are having a good time? But I think you have nothing, really, without respect first for the music. When I asked Sharon she indeed turned the question back to me: “Why have them? What is the point of a cortina? If you are having a nice time why break it up? But I felt I was talking to someone who sees black where I see white and did not feel that would be a productive discussion so let it go without debate.

What happens when there are no cortinas

Despite the title, this piece was as much about practicas as it was about cortinas. Here's a summary then of the points about cortinas:

• Cortinas signify to a partner a natural end point, making parting clear and easy 
• Places that don't have cortinas or play silent cortinas I find tend to play poor to abysmal music
• They tend to put off good dancers
• They remove choice from those who like to dance in tandas.
• DJs/Organisers who propose no/silent cortinas often mistakenly think that people will dance more without cortinas because they won’t have to wait for the end of a tanda. Yet tandas do not in any way prevent people from dancing one, two or three of the tracks which can be positively useful - though also insulting if not handled carefully.
• They can cause a two-speed community, where the better dancers avoid the milongas that don’t have cortinas.
• No cortinas result in a stop-start disjointed experience.
• Practicas without cortinas are no practice for the real conditions of a milonga.

I have also heard “no cortinas” used as an excuse by a teacher-organiser who wanted to give private lessons in the middle of the room during a practica as “disruptive” to people who wanted to work on dance - and to the not-so-private lesson no doubt.

Those who might say they do care about the music but who stay on the floor expecting to dance it must just trust the DJ implicitly. Blind faith though is usually misplaced and I have never met a DJ I trust quite that much.

No/silent cortinas suit DJs who try to use it as a trick to make people stay up. These are the same sorts who tend to play loudly from the patronising stance and in the crass and mistaken belief that loud = ”makes people dance”.  When I was brand new to DJing an organiser once told me to play loudly because: "it will make people dance more".  Last time that happened in a milonga, I left, deafened. 

. In addition, I have found no cortinas or silent cortinas cause people to:

• hop off and on the floor, making finding a partner at a tanda start or when you want one, difficult 
• stay on the floor, even at tanda end, blocking the line of sight of seated dancers wanting to invite by look
• not really care much or listen much to the music, which almost never makes for good dancers

Without cortinas, a milonga is at a stroke a limping, broken, frustrating disaster, except of course for those perpetuating the no cortina idea. I suspect - from where I have seen individuals controlling things - they are strong individualists who believe more in “me and my partner” and apparently less in respecting “all of us and the music”.

Professional DJs vs hired hands

Further to this, a few Europeans advertise as professional DJs. Some try to evade that point about “compromising what they believe” with the equivocating retort that they play what they think the market wants. It was pointed out to me that such European professionals do know their market: “And that market is organisers not dancers.”

Still, going by what they would like you to understand: they will play what (they believe) the (dancing) market wants. Bearing in mind that many of these DJs believe in “educating” dancers it still sounds to me like an evasion of the question “What will you compromise on when it comes to getting paid”? These DJs are always in my experience also dancers, unlike the professional DJs with regular milonga routines in Buenos Aires, some of the most respected of whom do not dance yet who truly know their market. In Europe it strikes me that the market, unlike the many men I met and asked in Buenos Aires, generally don’t know the orchestras, the tracks the words, what music is for dancing or sometimes, even really what they like. That said such not-for-dancing tracks are nearly always less popular than traditional, mainstream music and the only one who doesn't seem to notice that is the DJ, the very person who ought. So, the status of professional DJs here is not it strikes me, at all the same as in Buenos Aires. Also, they do not seem to play the same music as the music I heard the professionals play there.

Protectionism and power

(Three track tandas VII)

Perhaps the milonga organiser who favours for instance, three track tango tandas wants to deter good dancers who are not the organiser's own class students.  Indeed, such dancers may not support a teacher-organiser's exploitative class model. I know of of one outfit so “closed” to social dancing it does not have a milonga, nor even an open practica.  The practica it has is limited to their own students.

It is telling that their contact details are: Mister and Doctor. I have always found it curious when people make use of their titles in ways or contexts that are unusual - like the man who introduced himself to my mother at school sports day as Councillor <forgettable>.

Speaking generally, where people like or need to exert a lot of control I notice that the crutches for insecurity to self-inflation are used more widely. So, teacher demos will go on for a long time because they emphasise how important the teacher is. The teacher will talk a lot instead of letting people dance and try things out. The amount of teacher-focused time is likely to be disproportionate to the amount of time students have to practice/work. I have seen efforts to protect the teacher even extend to the sinister demanding of “loyalty” (which of course, is not, but blind, unthinking devotion) from students. I think that is relatively rare though. More commonly there are self-promoting blurbs or acolytes extoll the virtues of a teacher for them. None of this is real power though. Real power doesn’t need to do any of these things. Real power - or perhaps rather strength - doesn’t need to advertise itself and is respected without coercion, without even a word.

I know another outfit which used to run a milonga attended only by their own students or ex-students and now seems to run none at all.  It is easier to just run classes than not to have to deal with the hassle of running a milonga (or to outsource it to students) when you are not actually that interested in students dancing socially and especially when you might have to deal with non-students showing up.

If you are used to a liberal environment and to milongas that are attended by a cross-section of people not at all “belonging” to the same teacher then suspicion and hostility from the teacher towards people who are not that teacher’s students turning up to a largely or wholly class-group milonga will likely - happily -  be a strange and alien concept to you.  I think you have to have seen and experienced it for yourself.

Perhaps though the organiser does want to attract good dancers but just doesn't realise the sorts of things that put them off. Having good dancers attend a milonga though is less critical for teacher-organisers than having profitable class dancers who don't question what they are told and moreover who do as they are told: dancing to three track tandas without a murmur and obediently changing partner.  Besides, good milonga-dancing dancers turning up at a kindergarten milonga show up bad class dancers who complain about not getting invited. How much easier if good dancers are put off and if new dancers stay within a teacher’s class clutches and the local teacher-controlled milonga. Then they would never get to hear about four tango tracks to a tanda and start to get ideas above their (class) station.

“Wolves” and sheep

A:  I don't know that I have nerve like that. Going where I knew I wouldn't be wanted. They couldn't want you for your dancing without the worry about what you might say to their students. It would be against instincts of self-preservation. It would be like letting in the wolf, without the sheep's clothing.

B:  It depends whether the area has a competitive market, how insular it is, how defensive the teachers. In some places the balance of cost/benefit is more likely to be in favour of just getting people who can dance. Class-teacher organisers in competitive markets like e.g. London are really sensitive to the effect of people who can actually dance going only to the competitor's milonga. Some teacher-run milongas would rather have their own classeros dance with classeros of another teacher rather than have non-classeros coming in.

A:  So which is it - they welcome people who can dance or they try to keep them out because it makes class people look bad?

B:  They want people who can dance - who may or may not be classeros - provided those people a) don't show up their class students (and ideally can be mistaken as class students of theirs), and b) do dance with their class students.

A:  So are you saying now that classeros can dance?

B:  No. But I'd say a few can. 

A:  I'd agree with that. But more girls than guys. And that's mostly because they just pick it up not because they learn it in class. Whereas more guys "think dance" than girls, which is a class legacy.

Festivals vs milongas

Three track tango tandas are usually orchestrated by DJs and milonga organisers who think they know better than the dancers themselves what such dancers like.  Unsurprisingly, this tends to manifest in other heavy-handed ways of which perhaps more another time.

 Adrian Costa played three track tandas when he DJd for the Edinburgh festivalito recently: 

"I asked why the tangos were in threes and whether they were going to stay in threes - thinking perhaps he was waiting for more people to arrive. He said they would stay in threes because he didn't know the people and wanted them to dance with more partners, or, I think he corrected himself, to have the opportunity to dance with more partners."

This “I know what’s best for you” attitude happens in (usually) teacher-led or teacher-inspired milongas.

A festival milonga is a very different creature to regular milonga, hardly warranting the same name:

A: “Festivals are a significantly different case [compared to a milonga], wherein probably more attendees are indeed looking to dance with many different people.

A key difference is that at a festival, few know each other, so might hope to find a good partner amongst many, so want to try many. At a milonga few don't know each other, so want to dance with those they prefer, being necessarily few.

Herein lies the fundamental reason that, other variables being equal, festival dancing is generally of lower standard than milonga dancing, and I believe satisfaction amongst good dancers is much lower... unless they treat the festival as a milonga and dance with few.

Festivals are better for bad dancers; milongas for good.

Teachers wanting people to dance with many is actually them wanting their class students to dance with many, since customer satisfaction leads to sales. They do not favour non-classeros dancing only amongst themselves. Threes v. fours [tango tracks to a tanda] is basically bad dancing business v. good dancing socially.”

B: I think part of it is that the pressure is on on DJs at festivals: they want people up and dancing all the time so they, the DJ looks good (even more so for those with a performer mentality). They think that playing three [tango] tracks [as opposed to four tango tracks to a tanda] will increase the energy and the hype and keep people up. I think it’s the same logic that is behind why I often hear too much strong/rhythmic music and vocal drama at festivals and music that is too loud. But it’s true it just leads to poor dancing, a sense of broken music and a messy floor. But then, I generally like milongas and dancing low-key and by definition a festival nor even a festivalito is intended to be a low-key affair.

No pressure

I remember dancing with a delightful family about eighteen months ago.  There was a mother, her university age daughter, the daughter's boyfriend who was a musician new to dance and the daughter's younger teenage brother who was taller than me and had never danced before.  Mother and daughter had been to Buenos Aires, the mother often. This was before I went there myself. I asked her daughter what the dancing was like there. She said it is calmer, especially in the first tanda, when it is just walking and getting to know you. 

That is partly I think why you need four tracks,  this time to get to know someone. In the traditional milongas there they are not as rushed.  The milongas are longer, they are busier than regular milongas here, people come and go more than they do here. People take a long view:  local women (and a long-visiting expat) told me some men didn't dance with them for years, or had stopped inviting them and then suddenly they invited them again.  I was struck by how little women seemed to question this, as though there is no point trying to work out the logic to it - which is probably true.  It reminded me of a novelist I stayed with in Brighton who had been to Buenos Aires as a non-dancer.  This was shortly before I went myself.  She had insightful things to say of the people, particularly of the men.  A born raconteur she kept me laughing in her kitchen as I made tea or snatched salads between dances that December.  "But didn't you wonder why they were like that?"  I asked of her impressions.  "No!" she said breezily, drawing out the vowel. "I don't go in for analysis.  It just is what it is"  

The daughter also said the men in Buenos Aires don't feel the same need to put in figures as Europeans. I like guys who are restrained that way.  They don't show you everything at once.  They surprise you even while you think you know them.  I remember dancing with a man quite regularly for months and realising he was very slowly introducing new things. It is a patient man who takes the long view.  In my experience they tend to be older guys.

Short changed

(Three track tandas VI)

Not being one who likes people I don't know or trust to know best for me I generally prefer to stay clear of places that play tango tandas in threes. It isn't just about the "less choice" that was the subject last time.

Harried

At the Edinburgh Festivalito that night, when Adrian Costa played tango tandas were in threes, every time the tanda finished I felt as though my partner and I had been drawn up short. I felt the missing track as a surprise each time and as the lack it was, like being repeatedly short-changed. I feel a bit harried, a bit rushed at such milongas, whereas I prefer them relaxing, which four track tandas, if they are good, tend to create. I suppose if you like being pulled up short in things before they complete, or don't notice then three tango tracks are for you. I find they tend to get played in beginner or milongas based on dance class ideas.  

Getting to know you

 Many feel four tracks is the amount of time you need to get to know some new partners well enough to start getting over things and to start dancing with them. In busy conditions especially, these things can take time.  You need time to find out who you are with, to get - literally - a feel for them, to establish security, to sense what is likely possible and what not, to start to form a connection, then to maybe try things and then to dance. Of course, it happens differently with different people.  With some people it takes seconds.  For me as a new dancer it took months to feel established with some guys.  But three tango tracks is usually just too short for things to...balance out.  Four tango tracks can be enough time for a nervous dancer to get past nerves, where three tracks isn't always enough. 

"Rightness"

The other reason, I like four tracks is because once you have danced well to four tracks there is a sense of rightness about it that three track tandas just don't have.

Quantity over quality

There is one advantage to three track tango tandas: people who tell you they like them because you can get round more people are performing a useful service. They are advertising that they choose quantity over quality.  In dance, as in life. 

Kindergarten milongas (three track tandas)

(Three track tandas IV)

A: But surely organisers have done the math and would say of shorter tandas: “No, of course we don’t expect people necessarily to dance with so many but we provide more opportunity for them to dance.”

B: Except that more tandas for a given duration means fewer tracks per tanda and hence LESS choice for anyone who wants the opportunity to dance more tracks per tanda.

"We serve wine in smaller glasses so people get to drink more glasses of wine."

A: Yes, if you don't want to dance four tracks, you can dance three of them - both options are retained yet that possibility is removed from people who like four tracks if you play only three.

Note the controlling trait among such DJs/organisers of knowing what's best for others and its bedfellow "encouraging" dancers to do that "best".  People pay them so of course they must be right.

Three tack tandas obstructs deep connection and tend to attract dancers who only move and never really connect.  That deters good dancers.  

New dances may feel four tracks is a lot - but they need only dance two and because where there are four track tandas there are better dancers, those beginners have a wider and better choice of partners.

Of course, people who like tango tandas in fours can choose to go somewhere else - if there is anywhere else. And it isn't a choice if you've never had the opportunity to experience  in a tanda four tracks over three tracks.  

The key point though: four track tandas allow people to dance three as well.  Three track tandas don't let you dance four! 

Kindergarten milongas: “Do the math!”

(Three track tandas III)

A: Don't some organisers who ask for three tango tracks to a tanda just want to accommodate the many (paying) singles who go to meet and dance with others? I mean I think it's normal for people to want to do that.

B: Many milongas do that fine without shortening tandas. Shortening tandas does nothing to accommodate singles.

A: Except that they get to meet more people. I thought that was the point.

B: Wrong. Do the math.

A: Do you not get about another four or five tandas if you do them in threes over say 4 hours assuming 12 minutes for a tango tanda and 9 for a vals or milonga tanda with a minute's cortina each time?

B: You do. But that doesn't say you "get to meet more people".

A: Well then, if you do, in the organiser's mind I'd imagine they think an extra four or five changes is worthwhile. 

B: Do more math! :)

A: I don't follow! What's math got to do with that?

B: "more" is about arithmetic. If you work out how many different people you'd already have to have danced with before five changes could increase the quantity, you'll see why it is nonsense.

A: Oh, I see. Four hours with three tango tandas - of four tracks each - to an hour plus a vals and milonga tanda, gives about twenty tandas in four hours, compared to twenty four tandas if you play tango tandas with three tracks each. If you danced all tandas (of four tango tracks) and the vals and milonga you'd dance with twenty people. Even assuming you sat out say six of those you'd still dance with fourteen people: More than enough for most. So you hardly need the few extra tandas. I see why you think it's spurious.

Kindergarten milongas: Custom versus imposition

(Three track tandas II)

“A good custom is surer than law”

Four tracks to a tango tanda I think just emerged in the traditional milongas of Buenos Aires as being the thing that worked best for people who like to dance traditional tango music in the environment best suited for it. That is the difference between the traditional four track tango tanda which came about through custom and the non-traditional three track tandas which are imposed on dancers in kindergarten milongas, whether the dancers like it or no.

There are connections between coercion, control, imposition, "knowing what's best" for the dancers and these sorts of milongas.

Kindergarten milongas: The hired hand

(Three track tandas I)

“Say a DJ told you, as they will: “I always play tango tandas in fours except if the organiser requests threes”. That is another way of saying "I always play tango tandas in fours except when I don't", which is a fairly useless statement. It also tells me: "I let the organiser mess up DJing".

It is the same with DJs who say:

- You know I would play 100% traditional music if it were up to me.

- Indeed yes. So why then this single tanda of alternative music?

- I was asked to play it.

This shows, interestingly, that a DJ who might prefer to play in fours (or would prefer to play only traditional music) and who may even play good tandas and have good soundcraft is nevertheless a mere hand for hire who will not only compromise what they believe to do as they are told but will do so presumably just in exchange for the pittance most get paid or if not, then for the the supposed status of DJing or to "get known".  What else makes sense?  

Someone commented that such DJs are like women who accept invitations from guys who can’t really dance.

Kindergarten milongas: Three track tango tandas

A: Why 4 tracks not 3 by the way?

B: What "4 tracks"??

A:  Some DJs play 4 tango tracks to a tanda, some play 3.

B:  “Some play 3” - only in Kindergarten.

A:  It's not really an intrinsically good reason though is it: "playing 4 tracks instead of 3 means you're a DJ proper."?

B:  That's not any kind of reason I have heard. The intrinsic reason is that dancers prefer it. To find the reason behind that, you'd have to ask dancers, not DJs.

A: I think you mean "some" dancers prefer it.

B: Overall, dancers prefer it.

Cats and poems

School pick up is the high point of my day.  It is a bit over a mile to walk with my children back from school.  A little warm hand holds mine while on the other side my nine year old's skinny arms sometimes snake round my waist as his legs walk obligingly  in synch with mine.  Unsurprisingly in this connected contortion we are, if practised, not fast and we cover a lot of chat in that time. Unaware that today is National Poetry Day yesterday I had brought Ted Hughes’ The Iron Wolf to read together.  

I find reading distracts my younger son from objections about walking and having insufficient (or insufficiently unhealthy) after-school snacks.  I laughed yesterday when the leader of our singing group, a mother of three boys told how when her children come in from school, the first thing they say is not "Hi mum!" or "How are you?" but "What can I have?!". A woman I didn't know well recently confessed her children run out of school, hang their school bags upon her, burrow about for a snack and disappear to play for a while.  Again my laughter was of recognition.  We agreed that if you strip away the veneers that separate parents waiting in the school playground there might not be so much difference in our experiences.   

The Iron Wolf is a collection of animal poems which are refreshingly unpatronising towards children.  

Years ago, long before it was probably appropriate they knew the appropriately seasonal Who Killed The Leaves by heart because it was on this cd which we played in the car. I can recommend it.  Now they're humming the choruses to the Osiligi Masai warriors' songs who tour Britain annually, often in church halls and schools.  We loved it, found it affecting and would go again. 

This is another good poetry cd for children, especially Browning’s superb The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Its strength is its great variety. My seven year old prefers Framed in a First-Story Winder (Anonymous) for which he swaps his Scottish accent for an uncannily imitative London one, to tell the gruesome story with disconcerting relish.  Hilaire Belloc, aware of chidlren's delight in sticky endings,  was onto something.

Today they chose which poem they wanted me to read from Chris Riddel’s evocative illustrations. I am unsurprised to discover he is the current Children’s Laureate.  One poem Cat reminded me of “cat-dancers” from the last post in the other place. Another Hughes poem about planting, trees in particular, is the dark My Own True Family.  If it is a mistake to write about music, it is even more so true about poetry.  Poems are the subtlest form of writing.  Like literary cats they evade being pinned down by trite, pedestrian interpretation.  Poems belong to themselves. 

I chose Cat to share here is because I agree it is wearing to be in artificial places, to be told and controlled and to have individuality  eliminated and standardised. We go to town (or dance class) of our own choosing thinking we are doing ourselves good yet it tires us out. They are not natural places. It is those who are their own selves and who are in harmony with what is around them who have a kind of transmittable, energising, restorative power. Why is it so hard sometimes, for us to see the difference?