These gallery images are of a May 2003 exhibition held at New Orleans’s highly revered Heriard-Cimino Gallery, a noteworthy survivor of Hurricane Katrina. The works belong to artists Rosario Marquardt and Roberto Behar. Please visit the Heriard-Cimino Gallery site for more details on these and many highly acclaimed artists.
Tango book signing at Book Passage
September 23, 2008 by
I am so pleased to announce that I will be dancing and reading from Tango, an Argentine Love Story at Book Passage, one of the San Francisco Bay Area literati’s favorite haunts. I have had the honor of presenting books at Book Passage over the past eight years, starting with my novel, The Last Cannoli. And there is nothing like it – that platform! It’s a Friday evening, so let’s make a night of it. Come see, feel, hear tango as never before (felt, seen, heard . . . ).
Mother Seton Class ’69 Reunion
September 12, 2008 by
Calling you if your name is on this list: Kathleen Barnes Raffaela (Rae) Cardone Leggett, Marjorie Connor, Theresa Cosmas, Mary Coyne Zena, Francine Esposito, Paula Fleno, Mary Fletcher Stancheck, Elizabeth Godfrey, Patricia Haney, Sheila Kenny Cuono, Pat Landis, Lorie Mac Dougall, Ellen McCarthy, Lynn Paskowitz, Jane Reed Eleanor Robinson, Mary Roemer, Mary Schopfer, Kathleen Walsh, Pat Varga Marzullo, Jeanette Ziobro Fitzpatrick
I’m in the Red Room
September 12, 2008 by
I’m proud to announce that I’ve been accepted as a Red Room Author at the Web site of that name. I’ll be in the same Room with such luminaries as Barak Obama, Maya Angelou, Salman Rushdie, and my much-esteemed former writing coach, Ericka Lutz, not to mention many writers like myself, who are not widely known. Yet. What an honor. The site’s hosts accepted me over night—waiving the usual two-week period of approval. How affirming is that!
LitQuake: tango, single moms, sex over 60
September 6, 2008 by
authors from Seal Press, Joan Price and Rachel Sarah, with our esteemed publicist Andie East, present our books at San Francisco’s pre-eminent Literary Festival, LITQUAKE. I’ll present Tango, an Argentine Love Story. Read my a review on Tango here.
Happiness is a Warm . . . Book Review
September 6, 2008 by
Cusumano, Camille. Tango: An Argentine Love Story. Seal, dist. by Publishers Group West. Oct. 2008. c.272p. ISBN 978-1-58005-250-4. pap. $15.95. DANCE Tango has been the subject of several recent books, from Marina Palmer’s Kiss and Tango to Irene D. Thomas and Larry M. Sawyer’s The Temptation To Tango to Robert Farris Thompson’s Tango: The Art History of Love. Cookbook author and novelist Cusumano, as her web site (www.camillecusumano.com) declares, “is a writer who dances tango,” and here she recounts her journey toward self-awareness set in the context of an extraordinary year spent in Buenos Aires.
Missing in Patagonia
September 2, 2008 by
A brief encounter with a fellow traveler turns into a wrenching “What if…?” scenario as a young man goes missing after setting off for a hike in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park.
Tango Links
August 11, 2008 by
No, it’s not a story about a sensual golf course . . . just a list of tango-related links I think are useful to any tango aficionado.
from Tango, an Argentine Love Story
August 9, 2008 by
I’m being eaten by mosquitoes on the terrace of La Pharmacie, a restaurant in a former old drugstore on Charcas. But I wouldn’t dream of wimping out and saying, “Let’s go inside.” My thick-skinned companions, photographer Alison Wright and writer Lynn Ferrin, live in San Francisco, where fog limits outdoor supping, and they want to eat al fresco. As uncomfortable as I feel, I realize I’d probably jump in the contaminated Río de la Plata if they asked me, so I sit tight.
Kent Island, Maryland, traffic escape
August 9, 2008 by
In light of a horrific tragedy, labeled a “historic wreck,” I offer the link to a short piece I wrote on Kent Island —the oldest settlement in the state and a well-kept secret in summer especially. Had these drivers read my article on Kent Island (above link and below), they might have suffered less.
It is a Sunday now as I write and the Highway 50/301 going over the Bay Bridge that spans the Chesapeake is a parking lot to say the least. A pall of silence fills the air. I only learned of the terrible accident as I rode my bike over the Cross Island Trail that parallels that road in part and I could see the cars were at a standstill. How maddening that must be.
My Kind Tanguero
August 6, 2008 by
The earth stood still and I lowered my gaze. The heavens opened up and angels’ trumpets backed up the bandoneons of the tango music playing. Behold, before me, a true bodhisattva—one of those enlightened beings who volunteer to stay behind and help others reach liberation before they will enter Nirvana.
His kindness and selflessness were rare in the milonga. Instead of scaring away newbies, which happens frequently, he was treating them with compassion. Not with the haughtiness of those jaded ones who think they have the steps down and you will make them look bad if you don’t match their level.
Recipes from La Cucina di Carmela Cookbook
July 29, 2008 by
That’s why I am so excited to finally present these recipes, old and new ones, to my ten children, their spouses and partners, my twenty-four grandchildren, my fifteen great-grandchildren, plus, at this writing, the seven great-grand-kids on the way (in the oven, so to speak) and to my many good friends. As we Sicilians say, a tavola, mangiamo!
At the Portland Tango Festival
July 29, 2008 by
Camille Cusumano will be in attendance of many events at the Portland Tango Festival and also among the vendors selling her book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story.
Get Lost Bookstore, Tango reading
July 29, 2008 by
Wednesday, October 22, 7 p.m. A reading from: Tango, an Argentine Love Story by Camille Cusumano. Check back to confirm time. GET LOST BOOKSTORE 1825 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 437-0529 Everything you wanted to know about tango and Buenos Aires. Praise for TangoPraise for Tango “Tango is a remarkable addition to contemporary […]
Tango-dancing Buddhist Falls from Grace
June 27, 2008 by
. . . and sees the Light It was fall in Buenos Aires, which is spring in the States. Late one morning, light poured through my two open terraces into my eighth-floor Recoleta apartment. It was the soft but vibrant autumnal light that always arouses such nostalgia in me. So, before setting to work at […]
Why Tango is Not Macho
June 24, 2008 by
Last century, in the early ’70s when I first went to college and began to learn about the inequalities between men and women, I had the audacity to come home and at gatherings of my traditional patriarchal family, share my raised consciousness.
The changes I thought the world needed went over like a lead pizza. I took a lot of ribbing for years. But what my brothers, uncles, and, most especially, my father, did not realize was that I was talking about men’s liberation, not women’s.
Why Tango is Yoga
June 23, 2008 by
“Lo que a muchos averguenza, a otros hacer gozar.” “What shames many, gives joy to others.” -Caption to a tiled mural that features tango dancers, Retiro subway station, Buenos Aires, Argentina Following is an excerpt from Chapter 8. Falling Down and Getting Back Up Again, in my travel memoir, Tango, an Argentine Love Story (Seal […]
Images: Buenos Aires, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile
June 19, 2008 by
Tree Creature in my Palermo Park, Buenos Aires, on a lazy Sunday. Side street in Historic Colonia, Uruguay. Gaucho Museum in San Antonio de Areco. M My sister, Grace, in front of El Balcon Colonial, San Antonio de Areco Interior of the little Recoleta church (Nuestra Senora de Pilar) where I take refuge when my Zen […]
Tango is Zen
June 19, 2008 by
Excerpt from Tango an Argentine Love Story (Seal Press). “Stay close and do nothing or you might miss it.” Tenshin Reb Anderson, Zen monk, speaking on enlightenment Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2006 . . . Tango’s spell for me was gradual, not sudden, but when it hit home, it moved into my life like a long […]
Tango at Candlestick Park, with Libertango
June 18, 2008 by
I’m standing left of Christy Cote (her right) or the fifth face from the left (if you don’t know Christy). We performed during halftime at a 49ers game in September, 2005, at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park (known by many ridiculous other names now–thanks to corporate brainwashing). It was in celebration of Hispanic culture and there […]