“Music was like a placenta, conveying emotional and intellectual information.” From Marina de la Riva, a Cuban Brazilian singer Rio de Janeiro. I was there only five days, but enjoyed every minute of it. I had no idea how clean the place would be — granted, I was mainly in a 10 to 20-square mile […]
Three Cups of Tango = Peace
December 28, 2008 by
December 27, 2008 Today, ten days short of the official holiday, I had a little epiphany. It is a Saturday which has evolved into “church” day for me, the one day a week when my routine is actually predictable by the clock. I’m up and out by 8 a.m. (applause) to swim before attending the […]
Tango Dancers Unite
December 28, 2008 by
Neal Conan of Talk of the Nation asked listeners to share various ways they were getting to the inauguration this January 20, 2009.
Argentine tango has been my handle to inner peace. So I am arriving at the inauguration virtually by literally dancing. I am inviting my fellow tango dancers across the nation to unite and pass the torch for peace the same way, so that it will arrive in the form of a heart to heart embrace delivered to President-elect Barack Obama, in time for his inauguration day. Who will deliver that final embrace is yet to be known but we will get it there, rest assured Mr. President.
Tango book errata
December 27, 2008 by
This is why erasers have pencils . . . err . . . you know.
Please join me in commenting on any other mistakes you have found in Tango, an Argentine Love Story. Please do so soon, so we can get them all sent to the publisher’s before the book goes into its next printing. Which may be soon.
Tango 101 Reading List
December 17, 2008 by
When I first began to be swept up by tango and it became a metaphor for everything, I found few books available on the subject that expressed what I was feeling (so, naturally I wrote my own). Eventually I realized that no one book can capture tango’s essence—just as no one book captures what Zen […]
Tango for armchair observers
December 16, 2008 by
You are coming to Buenos Aires the birthplace of tango. Que barbaro!-that’s local slang for How far out! You can spend upwards of $100 to see show tango (also called fantasia tango), with its fancy tricks, costumes, and highly choreographed routines. Strolling around San Telmo, Recoleta, or La Boca barrios, you are sure to stumble upon street tango, also designed to impress tourists. But, best of all, for 10 to 15 pesos (about $3 to $5), you can also see the dance of lovers the way it has evolved in halls and salons in its true improvisational mode.
Left Coast Writers host Tango, an Argentine Love Story
December 16, 2008 by
I’ll talk about “place” in writing, and of course with lots of discussion around my new book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story.
Tango Mendocino – book signing
December 15, 2008 by
I am especially endeared to Mendocino’s tango community because they received me with such warmth and welcomes when I was budding (OK, I’m still budding. . . ). And, the dancers among them who would come to dance in San Francisco were among the most memorable partners. And, I was so grateful to find Frank Howard, the Mendo milonga host, available for a lesson when I was in that phase where I couldn’t breathe right if I didn’t dance tango every 24 hours.** I was up in Fort Bragg visiting my friend, Betty, when I dragged her off so I could get a fix.
Tango, perfect economic stimulus package
December 2, 2008 by
Dear President-elect Obama,
I am writing to promote Argentine tango as the perfect “stimulus package” for our great nation. Tango is definitely stimulating. It is affordable and minimalist (for us women: skimpy attire, one good pair of shoes, one good man, any wood floor, music). It’s organic—based on natural body movements, such as embracing, walking, flicking legs. It has strictly clean emissions—only occasional sighs, coos, warm breath. Best of all, it’s innately peaceable, a dance born, among immigrants, of the urge for intimacy. Thus tango dancing guarantees, in one fell swoop to stimulate the economy for the masses, spread love, and end the wars that are costing us billions per month, all this while restoring our planet to health.
Viva el tango!
One Novel November, she wrote
December 2, 2008 by
This Post is also at my Red Room site: It was purely synchronicity at the outset—four or five days before I heard about this novel-writing contest, I had penned a “character” in my journal who awoke in the middle of the night, oh no, not again, with the ennuis. I sensed there was more to […]
A book (on tango) is a perfect stimulus package
November 30, 2008 by
on tango, on writing, novels, toni morrison, jean shinoda, sylvia brownrigg
Book Signing & Tango videos
November 23, 2008 by
Following are clips from Tango, an Argentine Love Story’s debut party, October 12, 2008, at the Museo ItaloAmericano. Many thanks to Larry Biggs, Mila Salazar, Lina Khatib, James Stein, and Andre Levitt, my fellow tango dancers who made the event a most artful success. Thanks to all who braved the Blue Angels’ traffic congestion. Video footage is the handiwork of Tom Cusumano (aka my bro):
Tango Fashion Show
November 15, 2008 by
Gigi Jensen will host Camille Cusumano and her book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story, at her weekly milonga. Her Tango Fashion Show will highlight affordable tango fashions and promises to be a lot fun.
Tango, an Argentine Love Story media coverage
November 4, 2008 by
I’ve had the pleasure of being interviewed by two savvy women, Felicia Pride and Olivia Giovetta:
You can listen to the podcast of my interview with Felicia here, at Seal Press’s site.
And read Olivia’s indepth interview of me, Zen of Tango, here.
Tango on West Coast Live, 91.7FM (KALW)
November 4, 2008 by
West Coast Live hosts author Camille Cusumano (Tango, an Argentine Love Story) along with Broadway smash hit creator of Forever Tango, Luis Bravo
10 Hidden Facts of “Tango, an Argentine Love Story”
October 31, 2008 by
3. I didn’t love tango from the beginning (as I state in the book), but the Zen-Tango connection was strong for me from the start of my taking tango classes. Still, I had no inkling I’d write about it. The more I wrote about it, the stronger and clearer it became, and deeper its influence went. Stillness precedes wisdom and Writing precedes consciousness.
Tango Book Signing at the Belrose, San Rafael
October 27, 2008 by
I’ll read from and talk about my new book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story (Seal Press), which will be for sale there. I won’t talk long though, because there will be some serious dancers here, whose feet will be itching.
What better way to pass(celebrate or mourn, we shall see) the post-election “daze.” Let’s hope for a regime change that brings unity, not divisiveness, acceptance, not intolerance, connection, not fear or isolation, and love all around—all the things that tango engenders.
Elliott Bay Book Co., Seattle, Tango book signing
October 27, 2008 by
“Tango is a remarkable addition to contemporary dharma literature. It reads like a thriller, a romance, and above all it shows the redemptive potential of a sincere spiritual practice.”
—Sylvia Boorstein, PhD, author of Happiness Is an Inside Job
“Camille Cusumano has lived out many a mid-life woman’s fantasy: packing her bags, slit skirts, and tango shoes and spending a year in Argentina. The result is a memoir that is like the dance itself: smooth, absorbing, and erotically charged.”
—Laura Fraser, author of An Italian Affair
“The transformative power of the tango embrace beautifully captured. Bravo!”
—Marina Palmer, author of Kiss & Tango
Tango at Caffe Trieste
October 21, 2008 by
be presenting my book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story, at
Caffe Trieste, on Market Street near Gough.
This is Sonja Riket’s weekly milonga. She’ll teach a beginner class from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. I’ll chat and read til 8 p.m. and then you can dance until?
Come join the stimulating dialogue on tango, the dance that leads to inner and outer peace.
Dancing with a Star
October 16, 2008 by
I had my first television appearance for Tango, an Argentine Love Story this morning on AM Northwest in Portland (KATU/ABC), channel 2 there. It was a lot of fun. Dave Anderson is a stand-up comedian, so it was all very lighthearted. I gave him an on-the-spot lesson . . . .