cowgirls and mandolin dreams

A very dear friend of mine, Ozge who is both a scholar and an artist and lives in the USA has been going to a lesbian western bar for the last one and a half years now. I believe she devotedly goes every Tuesday, which again if I am not mistaken is the lesbians only night whereas the rest of the time it is a lesbian gay mixed affair. Anyhow there is country music and good old cowgirl dancing. She tells me there is line dancing and two step dancing and some other dance that has the wonderfully poetic name ‘mandolin dreams’.
I envy Ozge and her cowboy bar on more than one count. First of all I am crazy about “cowgirls”, the costume, the mise-en-scene, the myth everything about it. My favourite film genre is the western so on and so forth. The very possibility of cowboy boots and hats is enough to go berserk as far as I’m concerned 2) I would have loved to be able to dance some formal dance not the shake it as you see fit free style that goes around in clubs but the type of dance you learn and master that has rules of engagement so to speak. 3) I wouldn’t mind a lesbian space to go to which we utterly lack in Istanbul. There are gay bars that lesbians go to as well but not a lesbian bar and certainly not a specialised lesbian bar like this one. 4) I picture the place filled with the Coyotes from the film “Coyote Ugly” which I know is not the case but still…
However I know nothing about country music and all that comes to mind when I hear the phrase “country music” is 1) the huge tits of Dolly Parton 2) Xander from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” drowning his sorrows through a night of country music. Therefore I am under the impression that this music is either very cheerful or extremely melodramatic and in any case cheesy. Although none of this matters as long as music is there to dance to. Anyhow Ozge of course not only has started to master the dances but also the music and she was kind enough to send me three songs as a kind of introduction to the world of the country western scene. The songs in question are 1) Carrie Underwood – Before He Cheats 2) LeAnn Rimes: Nothin Better To Do 3) Nickel Creek: When you come back down
I suspect none of these songs are pure country but are popish versions of country selected to ease me into the scene. I have to admit I only liked LeAnn Rimes but I will continue listening if she continues to send. But what I would really like is to do the line dance. I wish we could go to Atlanta to visit Ozge and see the bar for ourselves but it is too far away and too expensive.