I had a dream last night about one my favorite places, anywhere.

(Viewed in Microsoft VirtualEarth.)

Isn't it amazing what the subconsious mind can come up with?  There's an old swing song that goes, "Conjuction Junction, what's your function?" and last night as I slept, my subconscious attempted to answer exactly that question:  What was the function of the original swing scene, in the sense of social and economic significance?

Well, obviously, my mind began, swing dancing began in a time of deprivation.  The Lindy Hop was named after national hero Charles Lindbergh, who was the first person to fly solo across the atlantic in the 1920s -- the "Roaring 20s", of course, being a time of organized crime, tommy guns, The Great Prohibition, and speakeasys.  Swing clubs were mostly developed on coastal, port cities, notably Los Angeles and New York.  The reason for this, given the social context, becomes obvious: they were fronts for the shipping and receiving of illigimate goods by the Mafia.  They were deliberately designed with catchy music, high spirits, and pretty girls, in order to attract the attention of incoming sailors; these men, coming in from sea, would be desperate for some frivolity, especially in the company of the fairer sex, and would do anything to gain admission -- even arrange to help steal cargo from their ship, or allow themselves to be recruited in a grander scheme of smuggling.  The flashier the club was, the more exciting it was for prospective customers, and the more willing they would be to cooperate; this explains the progressively more daring moves as the dance developed, until it culminated in the flips and throws that swing became famous for.

All of it, you see, makes perfect sense.  Want to know what the real function was?