“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 […]