Tango is different from other types of dancing for reasons that are definable and some that are not. You’ll hear about the pauses, the silence, the partners not speaking, not thinking, not looking at each other. The embrace is soft and sliding and so intimate, it’s as if the two partners are undergoing cell-fusion. The music has no fixed rhythmic pattern. The dance has a simple structure but is open to infinite improvisation (think of how few elements there are in the universe relative to the infinite ways they differentiate matter).
Writing as Refuge – Workshop Aug 1
June 30, 2010 by
Writing as Refuge – Confronting and Transforming Loss Sunday, August 1 10 am – 5 pm Anyone who writes, professionally or informally, experiences how it taps a different brain from the everyday one. Invariably, the writing space, entered as in meditation, allows loss and submerged pain to float to surface. Writers often face these feelings, […]
Writing as Refuge – San Francisco Zen Center
June 30, 2010 by
Writing as Refuge – Confronting and Transforming Loss Sunday, August 1 10 am – 5 pm Anyone who writes, professionally or informally, experiences how it taps a different brain from the everyday one. Invariably, the writing space, entered as in meditation, allows loss and submerged pain to float to surface. Writers often face these feelings, […]
Publish or Perish?
May 21, 2010 by
That is a question . . . which for academics has long been an imperative, and which may explain in part why academic writing is widely considered off the scales on the Fog Index. Forced to write is like being force to eat or read.
Double or nothing – kayaking San Juans
May 2, 2010 by
From VIA Magazine – 2002 or so Double or nothing by Camille Cusumano I wanted to gaze at the forest-clad shoreline of San Juan, the second largest island in Washington’s archipelago, the San Juans, from a single kayak. But no local outfit would take me out in a single. They’re less stable than double kayaks […]
BIG SUR – A HIKE WITH SARAH & ARNIE
May 2, 2010 by
From VIA Magazine – 1999 or so I watched Sarah take the cure along Big Sur’s Pine Ridge Trail.For several years, her husband Arnie—my cousin—and I have backpacked into the mountains of California. For a week my cousin drops his corporate persona and becomes a regular backwoods guy. Sarah lives each trip through the opportunistic […]
VIA Magazine archived stories
May 2, 2010 by
These are links to some of the many travel stories I wrote for VIA Magazine from 1988 through 2006. Some info may not have aged gracefully – do check all contact info. MENDOCINO, CALIFORNIA http://www.viamagazine.com/weekenders/mendocino97.asp BIG SUR, DRIVING THE BIG SOUTH http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/bigsouth97.asp – JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/jackson98.asp HAWAII’S ALOHA FESTIVALS http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/aloha97.asp PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA http://www.viamagazine.com/top_stories/articles/desertwilds98.asp […]
Karaoke in Las Vegas, Ol’ Blue Eyes style
May 2, 2010 by
This was part of a big roundup on Vegas researched with the whole VIA Magazine staff – great trip. March/April 2005 – VIA Magazine – check into below for updates Downtown strip of Vegas at night How To Bring Down The House By Camille Cusumano 2 A.M. I could have sung “New York, New York” […]
“The crack is in me,” I said heroically
May 1, 2010 by
“The crack is in me,” I said heroically. Fitzgerald
The sign of first-rate intelligence
May 1, 2010 by
I have quoted from this essay for three decades – long before I embraced Zen paradox or understood about negative capability. I still subscribe to it – see boldfaced The Crack-Up By F. Scott Fitzgerald February, 1936 Of course all life is a process of breaking down, but the blows that do the dramatic side […]
Tango, still green, clean, never mean
May 1, 2010 by
A favorite old post send to Obama when he was still green (meaning new). No offshore drilling I am writing to promote Argentine tango as the perfect “stimulus package” for our entire nation. Tango is definitely stimulating. It is affordable and minimalist (for us women: skimpy attire, one good pair of shoes, one good man, […]
Tim Cahill—Hold his enlightenment
May 1, 2010 by
Cahill’s first story broke my heart—Hold the Enlightenment. It poked fun at a sacred cow – – – wanting enlightenment and writing occasionally about it. Apparently, says Tim, all these guys are self-published and take themselves too seriously, even when they can write, and well, therefore, enlightenment is anathema to real writers like he—who don’t have to self-publish. I don’t exactly want to be enlightened, I decided. I like the old saw that I just be enlightened about my delusions—and not deluded about my enlightenment.But I guess that’s not funny. So forget I said it. For now.
Writing Hands Dancing Feet
May 1, 2010 by
I break the rule of milongas that says not to change your shoes at the table all the time. It’s because usually I enter the milonga in the middle of a tanda of music I love and can’t wait. Here I am strapping on shoes to dance with a performer in La Boca who invites […]
Small Presses are Bigger
April 29, 2010 by
Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of lunching with Lindy Hough, co-founder, editorial director of North Atlantic Books, Berekely, California
We talked all too briefly but urgently on books, writing, publishing, creativity . . . all the good stuff of life. North Atlantic is like my publisher—Seal Press—whom I’ve worked with for the past five years: dedicated to a certain type of book that wouldn’t get the treatment it deserves from the Big Fish.
Lindy knows a lot about shaping a manuscript and making a book coherent and easy to read. She’s worked with many authors over the many years North Atlantic has been publishing.
Trip #2 Todo Buenos Aires, Argentina
April 28, 2010 by
Trips #2, November 16 to 24, 2010 includes: • Eight nights in Dandi Royal, an exquisite tango-themed mansion in San Telmo barrio – near to everything. • Welcome luncheon (on Monday, November 16) at Dandi. • Eight breakfasts. • Three scrumptious dinners featuring typical Argentine cuisine (which, despite what you’ve heard is NOT all grass-fed […]
Buenos Aires, Tango, Gauchos
April 28, 2010 by
Here’s what’s included: • Five nights in Dandi Royal, an exquisite tango-themed mansion in San Telmo barrio – near to everything. • Three nights in an elegant “posada,” a country inn, in San Antonio d’Areco (less than 2 hours’ drive from Buenos Aires through the famous pampas). • Welcome luncheon (on Friday, November 5) at […]
Buenos Aires, Tango, Gauchos
April 26, 2010 by
2 great trips to Argentina – culture, tango, gauchos, writing, yoga, great feasts, November is spring in Buenos Aires. The broad-canopied jacaranda trees burst into magnificent bloom, carpeting streets, parks, and plazas, in glowing lavender blossoms. The city called “Paris of South America,” for its European culture and spectacular French & Italian Renaissance architecture, never looks finer. The weather is warm and lovely then. Choose from one of two nine-day trips—one includes a fun side trip to nearby gaucho country and the other is “todo Buenos Aires,” for city lovers who can’t get enough of the city that never sleeps.
Writing Workshops on demand
April 11, 2010 by
Whether you are just getting started and want to take the plunge (into the inkwell) or need encouragement and confidence, I offer workshops to suit your and your writing group’s needs. Here is a list of several workshops I teach. Contact me for details and rates – [email protected] or [email protected]: WHAT PARTICIPANTS SAY 1. A […]
Your writing instructor
April 8, 2010 by
About me . . . I bring to my workshops more than thirty years of experience in publishing as researcher, writer, editor, and instructor in a vast array of subject areas including essay, memoir, food, travel, fitness, health, mind/body/spirit, creative non-fiction, fiction, and more. My latest book, a travel memoir, TANGO, AN ARGENTINE LOVE STORY, […]
Writing Workshop Goals
April 8, 2010 by
HERE ARE YOUR FOUR GOALS WE’LL ACCOMPLISH IN THIS INTENSIVE: 1. Understand and embrace your writing setpoint. Just as with body weight, we all have a writing setpoint—a natural length that suits our message and determines our ideal genre. 1,000 words is the mean, from which you assess your need to unpack and flesh out or […]