Last update for July, Community-Gone? or just harder to find? Promenade milonga and more
Moti Moses Buchboot
Hello Friends,
Here are the updates.
Today
Sunday the 26th, please help me support a new milonga organized by Michael and
Sara (scroll down for info).
Class
outing date has changed. We will be
going to “Club El Baron” on Wednesday the 5th of
August.
New
beginner series start on the 4th of August.
No
classes on the 18th of August.
See
you around
Moti
Community
- Gone? Or Just Harder to Find?
by: Susan M. Heathfield
Community is breaking down in America with serious implications for
volunteerism, charity-giving, religious practices, neighborhoods, friendships,
family, democracy, and society. In the compelling book, Bowling Alone: The
Collapse and Revival of American Community, Robert Putnam provides extensive
research that documents we are doing more alone. As an example, people are
bowling more, but league participation has fallen 40 percent. Voting is down 25
percent since 1960. Families are doing less together and people are having fewer
friends over for dinner.
Participating in community activities has become a challenge rather
than something that is taken for granted. I always think about my father when I
think about community. He had friends all over the neighborhood and they'd talk
together when they walked around the block. (When's the last time you did that?)
He had a favorite diner where he lunched with his community crowd almost every
day. He ran Bingo games and Ice-Cream Socials to raise money for the church and
attended services several times a week. He was part of the Men's Club, the
Parent-Teachers Organization, the Ushers and the Knights of Columbus. He sold
insurance, mostly so he got to spend long hours talking with people. He saw all
his friends from high school up until the day he died. And, all the people, from
all of the community activities over all the years, showed up for his funeral.
My life is so different. How about yours?
Why Less Community
Putman speculates that the rise in television viewing, two career
families, suburban sprawl, and time spent commuting to work all contribute to
this lessening sense of community. In her list of trends for 2002, Faith
Popcorn, the marketing maven, predicts that mandatory volunteering: volunteering
motivated by the need to have it on a resume versus truly altruistic motives,
will occur.
At the same time, when interviewed, many Americans cite "lack of
community" as one of their life concerns. So, the need and dream remain, but the
actual process of being part of communities has fallen on rough times. People
who participate in communities that they can successfully integrate in their
daily lives are more exceptional these days.
I was interviewed today by a reporter who is doing an article on
office romance and how it positively and negatively impacts the work place. I
told him that one of the reasons employers are more lenient these days about
fraternization policies is that people are working long hours on their careers.
So, in a society in which community is already falling by the wayside, the next
generation of workers finds much of their community at work. This is why
community activities through work are increasing. Dating and romance are also
increasing.
Just Thinking ...
I'm not going to offer any conclusions or recommendations as this
article supplies food for thought. Certainly, the implications of our need for
community versus our inability to satisfy this need in the larger community, has
implications for work. Dating, friendships, co-workers going out for a drink on
Fridays and work-sponsored events and activities have always existed. They just
seem to be becoming more common in today's workplace. The youngest generation of
workers may change all of this, too, as the group is more committed to
issues of work-life balance.
New Sunday Milonga
Do
you love to dance tango, but find that much of traditional music
leaves you flat?
Are
you tired of going to Milongas where they play a 'mix' of music and the 'mix' is
98% traditional and 2% modern?
Do you look forward to a night
of the possibility of passion, intimacy, surrender and rapture that dancing
to tango offers only to find you'd wished you'd save the $15 bucks and
stayed at home to watch CSI reruns?
Wouldn't
it be great to have a place that played music that stirred your imagination,
fired your passion, brought a smile to your lips and send you home glad you were
alive??
SO HAVE WE!! In fact we have driven
to San Diego on a Friday night just to find such a
dance.
And now we are bringing that dance
to West LA:
ANNOUNCING a Sunday
Milonga of Inspiring Tango Music!
When:
SUNDAY
JULY 26, 6-9pm
What:
- Beautiful Contemporary Tango Arrangements
-
- Danceable and Inspiring Golden Age Traditional Tango
music
-
- Sensual, seductive, intoxicating and beautiful
music
by DJ Joe Chepetsky
Cost:
$10
Where:
By
Your Side Productions & Dance Studio
12613 Washington Blvd.
Los
Angeles, CA (West Culver City) 90066
If
you love modern tango music, this is your event. See you there!
Michael
& Sara
12613 Washington Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA (West Culver City) 90066