Author: Dorothy McLean
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Inducements to the Eastertide Dance
It is a truth universally acknowledged among dance organisers that most young people in possession of both free time and £20 buy their tickets at the last minute. The advice given to promoters is not to panic but to keep on advertising with increasing frenzy until the night is upon us and the band is…
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Finding the Lost Art of Dress
Not only have I enthusiastically endorsed Anna Kalinowska’s Clothed with Beauty: A Catholic Philosophy of Dress, I have begun to work through her Recommended Reading. The Lost Art of Dress :The Women Who Once Made America Stylish by Linda Przybyszewski is at the top of the list, and I finished it yesterday. Spoiler alert: the…
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Restoring the culture
I had many opportunities this week to think about Western Civilisation and its 20th century rupturing. First, I got down to writing my review of Anna Kalinowska’s Clothed with Beauty: A Catholic Philosophy of Dress, a book I recommend to everyone who has ever wondered why Edinburgh’s Princes Street teems with people in almost identical…
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The Joy of Dance Cards
I was thinking today that I first came across properTanzkarten at the May 2022 Order of Malta Ball in Edinburgh. However, I suddenly remembered that I had seen them as a child in my grandmother’s scrapbook. This particular grandmother came from money, and if the scrapbook is anything to go by, she had a lot…
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Friends with anyone who is friendly
The other day I was in the loft of a converted garage reading Chapter One of the newest Polish translation of C.S. Lewis’ The Horse and His Boy. I have read the Narnia stories umpteen times in English, so it wasn’t hard to understand. And I looked forward to the hero’s first sight of Narnians,…
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Looking forward to Easter
Carnival is over, as is the Vienna ball season and, indeed, the activities of Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party until Easter Sunday. I haven’t yet thought of a dancing event specific to Easter Sunday, but perhaps in the spirit of a friend who swigs spirits right after leaving Vigil Mass, I will cut a car park…
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Marriage, Merriment, Meaning
Our club is called Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party instead of Saint Teresa’s Terpsichoreans or Saint Michael’s Merrymakers because of a chance remark made by a small boy years ago when he was even smaller. It is the custom of wise parents to instil Respect for Elders into their children, and thus one parish couple have…
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Snowdrops and Carnival
Coming home from Poland on Saturday was like flying from winter into spring. It is as yet very early spring in Scotland, mind you. Only two snowdrops in our garden have made their first appearance. Elsewhere I know there are floods of them. Snowdrops are the joy of a Scottish February. Carnival, which is in…
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Things that are of edification
Back home in Canada my father has U.S. Civil War battlefield letters written or preserved by some American ancestor. One epistle is dated July 4, and the writer reminisces about their neighbour’s annual Fourth of July picnic. If I remember correctly, he goes into some detail about this good lady’s event, recalling the watermelons and…
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What I wish everyone knew about social dancing
I used to participate in a martial art. Many people have opinions about this practice, but the more they know about it, the more they respect it. And if such fans don’t actually practise it, they respect those who do. They respect our knowledge. Indeed, the people who know the sport best are those who…