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.
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 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
Tango Art, Heriard Cimino Gallery
October 15, 2008 by
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
Alaska in winter
February 24, 2008 by
Los Angeles Times – Alaska in winter Winter fun warms up visitors A spirited bachelor auction — combined with sublime scenery — helps December travelers chill out during a sojourn to the 49th state. By Camille Cusumano, Special to The Times Anchorage – Last December I stood on the deck of a lodge in Talkeetna, […]