rescued by egyptians

Bad tango night = worse night, every time.


Do you ever get claustrophobic at a milonga?  I don't mean because of the crowds of people blocking you on the floor, maneuvering as best they can because the place is so packed with tango dancers...  Tonight, after about two hours, all I wanted to do was dance, but the last thing on earth I wanted was for someone to look at me, approach me, and ask me to dance.  I was almost panicked, and that doesn't make for good dancing.  Even the idea of having a pleasant conversation with someone at one of the tables was horrifying.  I wanted to dance, but I wanted to disappear even more (but no, not like that scene in Flashdance).


So, knowing nothing good could come out of this emotional state, I put on my street shoes and called a taxi.  My whole being put up a sign: don't approach, see?  I even put on my street shoes to keep you away from me while I wait for my taxi.  A Russian came up to me and said, "That's it?"  The milonga was supposed to go to 3am.  I tried to convince myself that I wasn't feeling well, that was why I was leaving, and I suppose I really wasn't feeling well.  God, if tango brings me a whole new set of neuroses, I won't know what to do...


I left, and when the taxi let me off I stopped into a local café (ha, starbucks) to drown my sorrows.  I thought about how I was too poor to buy a bottle of wine (it's the end of the month and my money flew away on tango classes, practicas, and milongas) and I felt worse.


Then, like a sign from heaven, I sit down with my hot chocolate (very self-destructive, I know, I need to stop drinking) and there are two men speaking Arabic on the couch behind me.  I know, like it's in my blood, that by the way they are talking, they are Egyptian.  Mish maA'oul, yani, ba'oulak eie, mafeesh wa'at; ah, yani, helwa kidda, and all of that.  I am suddenly at Pastroudis again.  Or Arabica.  Or Om Kolthoum.  Or Stiletto.  Or anywhere in that dusty, insane place that I call home.

I turn to them and say, "low samaHt, inta min misr?" to one of them ("excuse me, are you from Egypt?").  Ah, min misr! yes! inti misreya? ("yes, from egypt! are you egyptian?") -- no, I am not Egyptian, I explain, I just... am Egyptian.  They couldn't believe I wasn't born in Egypt, or had Egyptian parents, and I spoke with them for a half hour in Arabic about cairo, boston, molokheya, traffic, alexandria.  So I left starbucks feeling happy, a little cold in the winter weather, but still with a smile on my face.  


I tend to be continually pulled by two things in life: Egypt and tango.  When one "life" disappoints me, the other fulfills me.  When I was suffering in Egypt, tango reminded me that there was incredible beauty in the world.  Now it's Egypt's turn to pick me up, but I still have to live with the fact that I will be a foreigner in every country I go.  I will never be truly Egyptian, I will never be truly American, I will never be French even though I speak like a Parisian, never Russian nor Argentinian or... anything, really.  I'm a stateless emigrée.         


"We find a country in these words..." I once wrote.  But now I'm beginning to think we find a country in these embraces, these sad, lonely little bodies that search for a love that lasts 3 minutes.  Sometimes it's beautiful; sometimes it's just awful.  Who ever said any of this is easy...?  Anyhow, I'm sleeping in my AUC sweatshirt tonight.

j.a.

take care of your tango toes

I have great shoes.  They have wonderful support and feel light and lovely.  


That doesn't mean, however, that I don't develop blisters on my feet, and especially calluses on the inside part of my big toe.  At this point these calluses are unavoidable, because I dance all the time with my feet turned out and it's only natural that most of the resistance develops on the inside parts of the toes.  But it's gotten to the point where my toes are so sore that the pain keeps me from turning my feet out as much as I should.  Now this is a problem.


Apparently the best thing to do to these rotten calluses is use a pumice stone and DESTROY THEM.  And also to wrap your toes when you aren't dancing.  For the ballerinas out there (merkel) this is old news, but tomorrow I will give my feet the royal treatment with a long shower, pumice attack (!!), wrapping, and a nice, cushy (but stylish, mind you, who do you think I am?) shoe.

Just dance, gonna be ok... (I love this record baby).

j.a.

celebrate extreme colour

Do you ever have wonderful tango nights, but you barely dance at all?  The milonga on Friday night was fairly normal, not too many people, but something miraculous happened that makes me think the universe has its eye on me: give me a bottle of wine and I am the happiest girl on the planet.

When somebody opens a bottle of wine, I can't help but feel joyous even before I taste it.  The popping of the cork set against an old Gardel recording and soft, dim orange light is one of those beautiful images that isn't exactly rare at a milonga, but it still sends my romantic soul swooning.  I barely danced, just sat with the DJ/instructor and some friends watching the others dance; we got to know each other better under the truth-telling influence of a happy Malbec.  Vino veritas.  At the end of the night I shared a great dance to one of my favourite songs (Paris Texas, Gotan Project) and left, wined-up and feeling great.  Wine - don't ever forget it.  How can you?

Other news.  In the last few days I have purchased a few pairs of leg warmers (very practical for both dancing and the winter wind), one of them HOT PINK (definitely not my style but complements my style perfectly, since I wear usually black, grey, white, & beige), and I'm just obsessed with them.  Really.  I look at them all the time, sitting contentedly in my sock drawer as they talk casually to my other socks (yes, my socks have personalities, all of my other clothes do not), I put them on, I spin around, I laugh.  I'm wearing hot pink for the first time in years, and I'm loving it.  I must admit I found it a little strange that some of the people covering NY Fashion Week seemed to talk about leg warmers as the "new obsession" for spring - I thought people have always been wearing them?  And especially in the last 4 years, revived? etc?  

And another thing I'm doing that I haven't done in years -- I'm eating a packet of M&Ms!!  Seriously, it must be 3 years now since I've had an M&M - for a chocolate-lover, this is strange, non?  And I'm in loooove again...

LOOK AT ALL THE COLOURS!!!

j.a.  

eva and che dance a vals

There are two things Madonna can't do (yes, just two) - the first is, of course, act -- Madonna can't act.  The second is dance Argentine tango.  Look, Madonna can do practically everything better than I can (except act & dance tango), so let me make fun of her gancho/boleo combination at around second 59 of this video:

I'm also astounded at how unnatural she makes the most basic hand gestures look.  "Evita" is arguably the worst music video this woman ever made.  But all the others are just fantastic.

j.a.

nothing else matters

Can someone enlighten me on the subject of the TANGO OBSESSION with the song "Nothing Else Matters"??


Here is a video of Junior Carvalho and Mabel Rivero dancing to "Nothing Else Matters":

And here we have Daniela Pucci and Luis Bianchi dancing to... "Nothing Else Matters":

And my absolute favourite is the video of Ismael Ludman and Maria Mondino dancing to... Nothing Else Matters (Metallica).  I have this video on my computer, but it was given to me under strict confidence that I would NOT publish it... I searched all over the internet for it but alas, it doesn't appear to be published.  

Tonight in my class, which was a basic review of close embrace & ochos, the instructor played one song for us to practice to for an hour and a half.  Can you guess what it was??  NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!!  Has anyone else encountered this song over and over and over again in the exclusive and eccentric world that is the Argentine tango?  Please, someone enlighten me!

And because I robbed you of Ismael y Maria (who are my absolute favourite tango couple ever) dancing to this mysterious song, here is another video for you to enjoy.  I love watching them dance because they are so theatrical, their technique is practically perfect, they happily dance to electronic tango, and yet remain so faithful to the spirit of tango that it makes me want to cry (with joy).  Before I go on too long...

Well, I'm off to write a paper on the Hypostasis of the Archons... Gnosticism.  Wish me luck.  Maybe I can relate it to nothing else matters??  Oh wait, that's just tango...