Everyone's got something that they geek out over. Some of us get a voyeuristic thrill watching people geek out over things that we find only moderately interesting, but are not necessarily obsessions.
I enjoy dancing. I'm not especially gifted, educated, or trained in dance, yet I usually have a great time. I was one of the only kids in high school that liked our dance unit. Probably because I was the tallest person in class, so I kept having to partner with our dance instructor, one of the counselors who had been a competitive ballroom dancer while in college. Having a partner that knows what to do can make you think you know what to do. It's incredible. But digress... I'm good at digressing!
Susan, a Making Light regular, has started a fabulous blog Capering & Kickery. From the About page:
Welcome to Capering & Kickery, a blog for social dance historians, reconstructors, performers, social dancers, writers of historical fiction, and anyone else who wants solid, research-based information about historical social dance in Europe and America from the 15th through the early 20th centuries.
I like to read historical novels, and the few times I've had questions about interactions at a dance, or how dance is used to prod the plot along, she has been kind, generous, and remarkably thorough with her answers. I mention thorough because I asked a question that I figured would be a Yes/No and one sentence of why. Susan wrote up about 8 paragraphs explaining why the modern portrayal was wrong, but she didn't get all self-righteously obnoxious about it. It was great, and I felt honored that she took that much time to answer my little question about a dance in a regency novel.
So, if you like dance or just geekery in general, please cruise on by Capering & Kickery and check out some of Susan's writing. It's fascinating stuff.
