I would like to expand a little on what I meant by my third tango precept, Accept what’s offered. In my book, Tango, an Argentine Love Story, I describe how I distilled four guiding precepts for attending the many milongas (where tango is danced) here in Buenos Aires. I distilled the four pithy adages from […]
Chapter 5. Even Gauchos Dance Tango
February 27, 2009 by
From Tango, an Argentine Love Story By Camille Cusumano It’s a Friday night in late September when I decide to go to the milonga at Salon Canning. Every time I sit down after dancing, I feel something like a loving jolt, so intense is the tap on the back I keep getting from a woman […]
How not to reek of the stinking rose
February 26, 2009 by
I will not give up eating garlic, not even for tango dancing. I will modify my habitual need. If I know I’m dancing within the next 12 hours, I would avoid garlic in its raw form. Cooked garlic seems to run through the system more inconspicuously and more quickly. The best way to rid your […]
Eating Argentina
February 26, 2009 by
First law of tango-thermodynamics:
A tango dancer has to carry her weight.
• How to eat garlic and not reek
• Maple Walnut Pancakes (recipe, below)
• Fagioli Toscana (recipe, below)
I love the food here in Argentina. It doesn’t reflect the abundance and diversity of the food in my home, San Francisco Bay Area, but no other place does. Still, fresh ingredients are plentiful, the wine is getting better all the time (and still cheap). You can compose your own fresh salad in most restaurants from a long list of ingredients that usually include radichetta (a chicory), arugula (rucula), romaine, tomatoes, sugar beets (remolacha), grated carrots (zanahoria), peas (arveja), corn (choclo), and more. Naturally, there is a huge Spanish influence, but also the food culture is very Italian.
Embarrassing Tango Moments
February 20, 2009 by
the two of us were living, both passionate about this Argentine dance often called “a vertical position for horizontal desire.” He had eyes set deeply, like currants in a scone, but also thick chestnut hair and a seductive close embrace and torso sway. I loved to watch his bum as he danced.
Tango, my patriotic duty
February 20, 2009 by
When President Barack Obama called our nation to a day of service, I looked no farther than my two arms and feet. I would bring tango, the dance of love, to elderly residents at the Redwoods, a senior community in Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco.
Why Argentines aren’t so hot on Valentine’s Day
February 20, 2009 by
Buenos Aires, the birthplace of the most sensual dance on earth . . . you would expect Valentine’s Day to offer a major opportunity for commercial exploitation of eros.
Recoleta Apartment for rent in Buenos Aires
February 20, 2009 by
I lived and worked as a writer here for more than a year, through all four seasons – and I can vouch that the place, though not fancy, has “mucha buen onda” – lotsa good vibes.
Shape Magazine calls Tango “moving memoir”
January 14, 2009 by
Shape Magazine calls Tango “moving memoir”
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.
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, 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.
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.