(not) to do today

I'm sick.  With a cold.  I coughed on the sidewalk today and then cracked up laughing at myself, because when I cough I become a sad and pathetic being, and everyone looked at me like I was insane.  I've been coughing, laughing, coughing, sneezing, laughing all day.  I tried to put on make-up to go outside (at 3pm, to meet a professor) - I sneezed, my eyes started to water, and then I started laughing.  Repeat 4 times.  Qu'y faire??


As you can see, my "to do" list is pretty ambitious for someone in my state.  Take notes on the psychology of volcanoes (I have to psychoanalyze a volcano, like volcanoes were people, within 10 days, and make it seem like I know what I'm talking about - a note about this, I designed this project, yea, I got myself into this mess), learn the Coptic language, don't spill coffee everywhere (which I DID - EVERYWHERE, in the middle of a café, on my jeans, my face, my food, the table, my sweater), and update tango blog.  On something, yet again, that has nothing to do with tango.  Please bear with me.  Buy some tango shoes (nueva epoca, the ad on this blog below twitter, actually has AMAZING tango shoes), keep yourself occupied, and keep dancing!

j.a. 

is it true?

...  Is it true that there is a human being attached to these shoes?

...  Do you ever wonder...?

j.a.

two favourites

YES.

j.a.

stylish...

... but not tango.

Use your imagination and pretend this is me, standing on the street in NYC, outside of a dance studio in Manhattan on 8th Ave.  I've just come from a workshop and I'm furious.  Other tango dancers are standing around outside, talking to each other about getting a coffee (not wine??) before the milonga (it was 6.30pm, why not wine??).  They are speaking Spanish.  I just hung up the phone, speaking in French with my friend, because I was talking about how awful the workshop was.  I figured with French I was safe from being detected - this is probably a stupid thought in NYC and also among tango dancers, but whatever. 

Now before I alienate myself from the New York tango scene (not that anyone knows me anyway), let me explain.

It was boring.  Yes, boring!  Why??  Why was it boring??  I still can't wrap my head around it.  Two great tango instructors, a lot of good tango dancers (kind of obsessed with themselves), but the vibe was so low energy, and even though it was an advanced class there was nothing challenging about it, apart from controlling my neuroses and the raging ridiculousness I felt at having taken the train all the way down to 8th Ave. when I was about to take a nap.  But the scene was so familiar - tango workshop, studio, people putting on shoes, taking off shoes, talking to friends, using the same words, blah blah blah.  Half the time I wanted to scream, DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!  I was probably in a bad mood, yea ok I was in a bad mood, but why is tango putting me in a bad mood lately?

Then again, I DID come to NYC in part to get a feel for the "cosmopolitango"(can I copyright that? or do people already use this?) that a big city like New York might offer.  Instead, I left the workshop with the wrath of God inside of me, put on my sunglasses, turned up some Turkish dance remixes on my iPod, and what did I do?  I went shopping.  Because the night before someone had approached me and said, "Hey, are you a model?"  In NYC that's pretty impressive.  Or it was just a creepy guy hitting on me (but everyone needs self-esteem boosters, and often!).  So thanks, creepy guy.  

Didn't buy anything - whew.  Instead I drank wine and ate flourless chocolate cake with a friend at Wine & Roses.  Lots of wine, lots of chocolate.  Trying to forget that there are so many amazing tango shoes out there, if ever I am worthy of them...  And ultimately just deciding, "Hey, yea! I'm a model!" and pretending for awhile that I get paid to look fabulous and drink wine with my friends...  

j.a.

volcano, i love you

I follow the Global Volcanism Blog (and also follow them on Twitter!).  And these photos are infinitely more exciting than whatever I experienced at this tango workshop in NYC this weekend.  To tell you the truth the workshop left me a little cold, even though I took a great video of the performance at the Friday night milonga.  But the video looks like every other tango performance everywhere, and sometimes what is truly sublime occurs where we least expect it, on a lonely night in Iceland, on top of a volcano called "Eyafallajökul."

And although all of Europe has been shut down, and everyone's facebook updates say "stupid volcano, I'm stuck in Milano," (heaven forbid!), I saw these photos and nearly cried over their beauty.  They come from Stromboli Online, a Swiss channel.  "I want your love, and I want your revenge..."

j.a.  

new york!

I'm going to New York tomorrow, to take a workshop with Javier Antar and Kara Wenham!  I'm super excited, especially because my tango life has been dragging for way too long.  I'll let you know how it goes! xoxo.

j.a.

four poems: in paris

I wrote these for an assignment, which was first to write a love poem without any pronouns, and second to make a series in which only 25, 50, and 75% of the poem is represented. I'm not so sure about "experimental poetry," but because I decided to write a bit about Argentine tango (getting rid of pronouns by making people into shoes), and to some extent the cliché (oh, the very real cliché, what's with that?), you get to read it... Et voila.


IN PARIS
I.
In the Argentine tango one shoe longs for a partner,
Seeking always the displacement of a sole
In the slow brush of a leg, the grip of a thigh.
Separated by languages and nations –
-- hecho en Buenos Aires
fabriqué en France –
Leather, suede, gold becomes flesh and finds
As flesh never fails to find
A shadowed counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace…
…
…
… A milonguero is a lonely man,
A milonguera a troubled woman.
At the end of a dance
To remember a name is useless,
While like a panther the leather flesh senses across the room
A new lover: more stylish, younger,
Perhaps more experienced, burning eternally
To step in the space of a sole
On a night of champagne and violins.


II.
The Argentine longs for a partner,
Seeking always in the slow brush of the grip of a
Buenos Aires
France –
Leather, suede, gold
never fails to find
A counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace…
… A milonguero is
A milonguera is useless.
Like a panther the flesh senses across the
Lover, younger
Perhaps more
To step in the space of a night.


III.
Displacement
In the grip of languages and nations –


fabriqué en France
A shadow…
a lonely man,
a woman.
a dance
a name
a panther
A new lover
in the
night.


IV.
In the one shoe for a partner,
Seeking always the displacement of a…
…In the slow brush of a leg, the grip of a thigh.
Separated by languages and nations –
-- hecho en Buenos Aires
fabriqué en France –
Leather, suede, gold becomes flesh and finds
As flesh never fails to find
A shadowed counterpart in a heel, a strap, a lace
is a lonely man,
a troubled woman
At the end.
To remember is useless.
While a panther, the leather flesh, senses the room
A lover more stylish, younger,
Perhaps experienced eternally
To step in champagne.

-j.a.

new layout!

How do you like it?  It's not as cozy as the old layout, but I kinda like its chic-ness.  I've been playing around with this "Blogger-in-Draft" thing as a means for procrastination, and making up for the fact that my photos from Cairo keep getting rejected by my dying computer and won't upload.  I tried to upload photos from the Swiss Club Practica this morning, and was so depressed by the fact that my computer completely destroyed my new external hard drive (why??) that, what did I do?  I went to get my haircut.  Again.  Even though it's been 5 weeks, I'm in the clear, but I even had to check my blog posts to make sure that I didn't get my haircut an insanely short time ago.

I had so much to tell you...  So much to show you!  The amazing chocolate I bought in Switzerland, the very Swiss-like interior of the Swiss Club in Cairo (no, I'm not from Switzerland, I'm just developing a small obsession with this country that I have been in for a total of 3 hours)...  Have to wait until Tuesday, when I get a new computer (ISA).


Until then, here is a photo I took in Parma, Italy last July.  Life is sweet in Italy (for obvious reasons, Federico!).  Sometimes when I am sad I think about eating asparagus risotto outdoors with a great glass of wine, watching all the lovely people pass by, my only thought on what flavour(s) of gelato I am going to have at around midnight.  Things are better that way.