In little more than a week there will be a festival in Oshkosh, Wisconsin that is wonderful to attend.  I've gone that past couple years, and always have a great time.  There haven't always been a lot of dancers, but I think the will change with the continued booking of some of the hottest talent out of SW Louisiana & SE Texas.  The setting is great, located in a huge park, next to one small, and one very large lake.  The LouWISiana Hot Sauce Fest is part of the larger Sawdust Days, and has the best location off to one end of the greater festival.  Unlike the other stages that are right on the street asphault, the Hot Sauce Stage is surrounded by green grass, plenty of trees, and the waters edge not too far away.  They bring in a large wood dance floor, that along with the stage and plenty of seating is under a great big tent.  I highly recommend this festival, music, dance, and good company.

Since I missed 2007, I plan to shoot for 2008.  See ya there...

I just chatted with a young Cajun woman, that happens to be living over in Russia right now.  I was doing a little chatting with Deb, my usual dance partner online while listening to KRVS in Lafayette, Louisiana.  KRVS.org is the University radio station that has a Saturday Morning program called "Zydeco Eh Pas Sale" all about Creole zydeco, music and dance.  I checked on my Myspace stuff, and decided to post an invite to chat this morning.  Sarah Savoy (yes, from the famed Mark & Ann Savoy family) happened to be online, and stopped by to chat.  The wild part was that she was nearing the end of her day, since she's living in Moscow Russia.  She has a Myspace site for her band "Sarah Savoy & the Francadians" check it out.  All of her bandmates happen to be French, so she travels to Paris in order to hook up with them.

Sarah was a delight to chat with.  I think it is so awesome to be able to chat, and get to know people from around the globe.  And the extra kick, is that sometimes it's with people that are from one's own backyard, or community.  Don't get me wrong, in this case, the only connection I have with Sarah Savoy is the knowledge, interest, pleasure, and passion for the music from Louisiana.  I've never met Sarah, but I'd certainly would like to, as well as the rest of her family and friends.  I'd like to keep in touch, if nothing more than to have the fun of chatting across the globe.  But, more than that, Sarah is very sweet.  Whoever is in the chatroom from anywhere in the world, can type something, and bam, there it is, for someone else to read. Wild, simply wild.  The internet certainly can be put to good use.  It's all about choice.  Let's give the good choices all sorts of good attention.

Thanks for chatting this morning, Deb Clark, Al Berard, and Sarah Savoy.  I had fun.

Today I happened to search in Myspace for any connections to Norway and Sami culture.  The reason being, I am 100% norweigian, and I've always wanted to feel that connection to my heritage, and know where I come from, even feel good about where I've come from.  My personal difficulty has been from the fact that I come from a very alcoholic family.  And, I guess I've been jaded about finding positive role models of the my same heritage.  I do believe they're out there, I guess I haven't been all that successful.

In searching Myspace, I came across Mari Boine, who I've actually seen in performance, and love her music.  Mari is actually Sami, the indigenous culture in scandinavia.  The Sami are very similar to the Native American (Indians) here in the US, having been, what's the word, 'conquered', run down and abused.  Their musical form or song style is called 'joiking' (and no, that's not joking) it's pronouced yo-eek, or yo-eeking, and starts at a low pitch and jumps up, and then back down, very similar to the Native Americans, but with a greater pitch difference.  There are some awesome joik performers, traditional and contemporary.

Right now I'm listening to Annebjorg Lien, a hardanger fiddler from Norway, very fun stuff, I really like it.  At the same time I'm realizing that at any given time I can get into very differant music, and am surprised at the variation, sometimes. 

I've spent so much time and energy getting into the music and dance of Louisiana that I'm actually surprised at how I've limited myself from so much.  Don't get me wrong, the fact that I love the music and dance from Louisiana, especially zydeco, will always be true.  It's just that I've missed out on some very big areas of my own self.

Gotta go, more later.