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Carpal Tunnel
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Because we had an appointment in Ithaca the next day and things to see and do on the way! Passing through Buffalo at all was actually the result of an earlier navigational accident anyway ... 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Passing through Buffalo at all was actually the result of an earlier navigational accident anyway ... Sounds like you may have a bit of trouble reading the posted signs? Or are you just highway challenged?  
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Carpal Tunnel
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There's a classic tap dancing step, a throwback to the Vaudeville days, that's called "the Shuffle Off to Buffalo" (or sometimes, "Shufflin' Off to Buffalo"). It's a sideway shuffle with the arms swinging in synch with a nautical motion, sort of like Popeye's. Studied tap a long while and always figured the "off to Buffalo" part had something to do with the old Vaudeville circuit, but I'm not really sure. Do you happen to have a local perspective or legend on this, Angel? Or does anyone have the coinage?
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Do you happen to have a local perspective or legend on this, Angel? Knowing nothing about this at all, I still felt it was my responsibility to find an answer! Here is what I have found: The dance: “Shuffle Off To Buffalo”, consisting of a brush, hop, shuffle, hop and flexion of the opposite knee. http://www.dancespirit.com/backissues/feb01/ontap.shtml[see "Litterally Speaking" in the middle of the page) It came from the 1933 Harry Warren/Al Dubin film-musical classic about a Broadway dancer who goes from chorus girl to star one fateful opening night. http://www.musicals101.com/1930film.htm (see 42nd Street at the bottom of the page) Does this answer your question? [very confused-e]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Great, Angel! Love the "dancespirit" site with the origins of dance-step names! Bookmarked for further study! (that could be a whole nother thread!) And it also had this to say about the origins of steps named after cities: Mark Knowles is an acknowledged authority on tap vocabulary, having authored the
Tap Dance Dictionary, released in 1998. According to Knowles, many steps are
named after the place where they were popularized or created. An example that
should be familiar to you is the Cincinnati (backward moving brush, hop, shuffle,
step). What you might not know (one of many arcane facts collected in his
dictionary), however, is that sometimes the Cincinnati was called Back To The Woods
because the city was covered in trees. Two other examples are the Buffalo (as in
“Shuffle Off To Buffalo”), consisting of a brush, hop, shuffle, hop and flexion of the
opposite knee, and the Charleston, named after the city in South Carolina, where
dock workers could be seen performing a version of this movement where the body
twists while the toes move inward and then outward. So it looks like the step was called "the Buffalo" before the popular song title added the "Shuffle Off." Now that you know the step originated in Buffalo, all you have to do is come up with a local urban legend about it's creation...it seems you have a blank page, Angel, so go for it! I got to researching the song at AllMusic.com and found the Dubin/Warren composition's earliest recording on a Boswell Sisters album (jazz) dated '31, which is a bit peculiar because the film wasn't released until '33. Here's a site with the complete lyrics and credits. There is actually, also, a British version where they changed two words, panties and scanties to clothesies and thosesies.  Panties and scanties a bit too risqué for you Brits back then? Hmmm, ya wouldn't know it now, would'ja? http://www.harrywarren.org/songs/0460.htm"Shuffle Off to Buffalo" was also the title of a Merrie Melodies cartoon released in '33. (taken from the song title) Now off to find the year and creator of the step...shufflin' off to, guess where?....who knows?....
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old hand
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Good Lord I'm frightened, Are none of you over thirty? Didn't you talk to grannie and grandpa? Once upon a time there was thing called vaudeville. The Vaudevillians went from town to town entertaining poor people. Sometimes the poor people would throw rotten vegetables if they thought the performance bad. The Vaudevillians had an exit dance they called 'Shuffling off to Buffalo'. In other words, getting off stage and out of Dodge and on to the next town.
Remember Children, If a tree falls and no one hears it, it doesn't make a sound. And if we can't document the hatching of an egg with an URL, no egg has ever been hatched.
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Carpal Tunnel
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buffalo, NY -- poor thing, suffers from a very bad reputation. Not all of it deserved.
Buffalo, in addition to the virtues you enumerated, Helen, is also where the modern grain elevator was invented and first put into operation, an invention which in the long term revolutionized the food industry and, with it, the American economy.
[cross-threading to "fungible", if I ever get around to the post I hope to make there]
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Kieva, you're a real estate lawyer..maybe real estate office are not quite as cut throat as some law offices.
the first place i saw fungible was in a very old NYer cartoon (that had been cut out and framed) in a white shoe law office.
a senior partner at a law firm (read an old fat cat) was explaining to a young turk..
"Associates are fungible, partners are not!"
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sounds like you may have a bit of trouble reading the posted signs? Or are you just highway challenged?Neither. The entrance to the roundabout which would have taken us onto the bridge at Niagara put us in the wrong lane on the roundabout. We had to change lanes to get to the bridge after we came on to the roundabout. No one would let in and there was the tailback to end all tailbacks forming behind us while we tried, so we decided then and there to go down the QEII highway to St Catherine's and cross over into Buffalo. This didn't require us to use ram-raid tactics to get off the starting blocks, so to speak. And I can read signs just fine. Provided there are any to read ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Helen, if anyone wants to start a thread of lawyer-jokes, I will participate with glee and gusto. Trust me on that: Having probably met more lawyers than you, I probably despise them more.
About two years ago I began conversing with an older gentleman in a check-out line with me and, when he mentioned his distaste for lawyers, I used that line.
Said he, "I'm sure I see more lawyers than you do."
"Are you a lawyer too?" I asked.
"Yes," he said, "but I don't practice the profession."
"Then how is it that you deal with numerous lawyers so often?"
"I'm Chief Justice of the Appellate Court."
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