“If you tango every night for a year, and you blog about it, you will get a book deal,” Carleen said.
We were having coffee in my office. That's how the whole thing started: a couple of editors shooting the breeze.
I already have both, I told her. I started the blog the morning after my first tango lesson. I add to it every day.
No, you can’t read it, I told her. It’s not an actual blog-blog. I mean, it’s not published. I don’t need an audience to complete me.
“If you don’t publish, it’s not a blog. It’s a journal.”
Grrr. She’s right. Here’s why:
The presence of the observer influences the outcome of the experiment. Every scientist knows that. The same is true of writing: the presence of the reader influences the story—both the manner of telling and the content. And not only that: Upon receiving and interpreting the story, the reader completes it.
How would that play out if the story I am telling is my own story, as it happens? Memoir in the moment. How much would awareness of the presence of readers influence my story? Even more intriguing: How does the presence of the self-aware observer (that would be me) influence the story (that would be my life) – as it happens?
Would I do things differently, just to create experiences to report in the blog? Would I pull my punches to avoid too much honesty, too much exposure?
Last year at this very time (6:30 p.m. as I write this), Melinda was plying me with food and liquor.
Let’s do it! she said. She created the template. I cut and pasted my text into the boxes.
“Hit Publish,” she prompted.
Then urged.
Then urged again.
How could I say? I had exactly the same free-falling feel in my stomach that I had the day I moved in with Keith. This is a Threshold.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Melinda, the ABD in religion and pop culture, said, and leaned across and punched Publish.
I squealed.
First thing the next day, I took down the post. Replaced it with something less honest.
How the reader influences the story.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Highlights of My Tango Year: The Man on the Wall
A few weeks after I started tango, I took out a pencil and drew my practice partner, The Man on the Wall.
He was a smiley face. A very nice one. But I couldn’t say that in the blog. The first lesson you learn as a writer is “show, don’t tell.” In other words, paint a picture. So I wrote this:
The Man on the Wall has features in common with my practice buddy Glenlivet. A roundness of cheek, a beautiful smile. Perfect posture, a certain self-contained air.
The Man on the Wall was not a person in his own right. Glenlivet was the real deal. The Man on the Wall was Glenlivet’s moon, reflecting his light.
Glenlivet and I were litter-mates. At first, we danced lots and lots. As we got better, and as we adopted different styles and teachers, we danced less and less. I missed him.
In his absence, though, I began to see The Man on the Wall in his own right. He was dumb as drywall, sure enough, but very, very sweet. Loyal. He always looked happy to see me. I liked having him around.
My writer’s game was this: I could not anthropomorphize him. So, he never felt happy to see me, but always looked happy. If I ever said he was patient or sweet or amazed or benign, I wrote it in such a way as to make it clear that was only my perception of his unchanging countenance. For example:
The Man on the Wall waits. If patience is a virtue, he must be a saint. A happy one. Though he’s bald. And emaciated. And frankly, his grin seems more clueless than cute right this minute….
The Man on the Wall sustained me in tango. With him I could concentrate on technique, without the distraction of a stranger intruding in my space. He never rushed me. He never disappeared. He never bruised my ego. And he cheered me up when all manner of things were going badly. As it turns out, a smile is contagious, even if it is just drawn on the wall.
Maybe this happens to all beginning followers: I went through a streak when the leads wanted to coach me. Whether it was some clueless guy dragging me off-axis and then scolding me for lack of balance or a classmate gently offering advice, it seemed that every single person had something to say about all the ways I was getting it wrong. Then I began to dance with Stan and Tom and—happy day!—they told me what I did well.
In contrast:
Glenlivet says nothing, which is A-OK, because he never criticized, either. He is the closest thing going to The Man on the Wall.
a-HA! Who’s the real deal now, and who is the moon?
Of every discovery and delight this year of tango has brought me, this tops the list. This shell game of person and literary construct, the give-and-take between life as I live it and write it, the sleight-of-hand--which I myself never saw coming until I read the words after they appeared on the page--is the highlight of My Tango Year.
He was a smiley face. A very nice one. But I couldn’t say that in the blog. The first lesson you learn as a writer is “show, don’t tell.” In other words, paint a picture. So I wrote this:
The Man on the Wall has features in common with my practice buddy Glenlivet. A roundness of cheek, a beautiful smile. Perfect posture, a certain self-contained air.
The Man on the Wall was not a person in his own right. Glenlivet was the real deal. The Man on the Wall was Glenlivet’s moon, reflecting his light.
Glenlivet and I were litter-mates. At first, we danced lots and lots. As we got better, and as we adopted different styles and teachers, we danced less and less. I missed him.
In his absence, though, I began to see The Man on the Wall in his own right. He was dumb as drywall, sure enough, but very, very sweet. Loyal. He always looked happy to see me. I liked having him around.
My writer’s game was this: I could not anthropomorphize him. So, he never felt happy to see me, but always looked happy. If I ever said he was patient or sweet or amazed or benign, I wrote it in such a way as to make it clear that was only my perception of his unchanging countenance. For example:
The Man on the Wall waits. If patience is a virtue, he must be a saint. A happy one. Though he’s bald. And emaciated. And frankly, his grin seems more clueless than cute right this minute….
The Man on the Wall sustained me in tango. With him I could concentrate on technique, without the distraction of a stranger intruding in my space. He never rushed me. He never disappeared. He never bruised my ego. And he cheered me up when all manner of things were going badly. As it turns out, a smile is contagious, even if it is just drawn on the wall.
Maybe this happens to all beginning followers: I went through a streak when the leads wanted to coach me. Whether it was some clueless guy dragging me off-axis and then scolding me for lack of balance or a classmate gently offering advice, it seemed that every single person had something to say about all the ways I was getting it wrong. Then I began to dance with Stan and Tom and—happy day!—they told me what I did well.
In contrast:
Glenlivet says nothing, which is A-OK, because he never criticized, either. He is the closest thing going to The Man on the Wall.
a-HA! Who’s the real deal now, and who is the moon?
Of every discovery and delight this year of tango has brought me, this tops the list. This shell game of person and literary construct, the give-and-take between life as I live it and write it, the sleight-of-hand--which I myself never saw coming until I read the words after they appeared on the page--is the highlight of My Tango Year.
Note to Self Standing on the Toilet
Notwithstanding your aversion to the corporeal, sharing your aversion to accumulating possessions, accepting your aversion to vanity, which prevents you from studying yourself in any mirror larger than the postage stamp above the bathroom sink ...
... if you insist on practicing cool new tango moves in front of a mirror, perhaps you should buy a full-length one.
... if you insist on practicing cool new tango moves in front of a mirror, perhaps you should buy a full-length one.
The Santa Claus Blog
Extend your warm holiday feelings with this intelligent, kind-hearted and very funny blog! The Claus Chronicles
Sunday, December 30, 2007
The Case for Whining
I’ve learned something important about myself in this year of tango-blogging.
I am not a crybaby. I am a whiner.
I spent almost seven hours on Saturday writing a four-page whine. Here’s how it starts:
Howl
This is it. Four days left to go in My Tango Year. Then I’m done. I am so out of here. Good riddance.
I especially liked this little image:
My legs are not of a piece; ... My body is the Tower of Babel.
And so on. In seven hours of writing, you can work up quite a head of steam. There was a fantasia sequence featuring a marionette and a magician, some rather peevish comments regarding my littermates (beginners cohort), who have left me in the dust, and a whole lot of good, solid whining. Like this:
I am tired of being ravenous. I am tired of racing into bathrooms to collect myself or puke or cry or b-r-e-a-t-h-e. I am tired of standing on the threshold of the Turn or the Merc, looking into the ballroom for a friend’s face. (If I find even one, I have to go in. That’s the deal. Sometimes I don’t look very hard.) I am tired of being shy. I am tired of apologizing for my lack of balance and coordination and skill; I am tired of lacking balance and coordination and skill. I am tired of screwing up the lead’s dance. I am tired of wearing my game face: hug-hug, chat-chat, flirt-flirt, laying my arm across the lead’s shoulders when I enter the embrace in a way that is very smooth, very false.
Sometimes, when I’m riding a big writing wave, I hypnotize myself. Then I make comments so cosmic even I don’t understand them:
I have no corporeal axis. My center does not hold. I will accept your fiction that there are feet at the foot of my body, else why would we call it the foot?
An axis is only a concept. So is center. So is feet. So is terra firma.
None of this is real. I cannot put my finger on any of it.
All of this only preamble, winding up to the four-alarm howl, the complaint under which all others are subsumed:
David Hodgson says you must dance who you are.
Nina says, soft knees. Grisha says, move your center. Tara says, sink into your hip.
I can do these things, but not by technique, only by imagination. Every time I don a smoky, womanly, oppositional frame of mind, Nina shouts You’ve got it!” Grisha says, “Yes, that’s right.”
But I do not want to be smoky. I do not want to be a strong, grounded presence in opposition to the lead.
I do not want to be smoky, I want to be smoke. I want to float like a fragrance in the embrace, I want to be that elusive thing of beauty, which can’t be caged. That is what tango says to me in its music and lyrics. Ethereality. That is the nature of my strength, what I authentically bring to the dance. I want to be delicate and light, elegant and gorgeous.
I want be the Audrey Hepburn of tango.
???!!!
Can you imagine Audrey Hepburn dancing the tango?
Me neither.
Grrr.
What is it about a whine? Whenever I can’t do anything right, when I finally, absolutely positively hit rock bottom and give up … I whine. I rail against the things that prevent me from getting everything I want on my terms. I howl. I document my every complaint.
And then I give it up. I acknowledge defeat. Grudgingly, but cleanly. There’s no sense beating a dead horse.
I can’t do it.
I can’t do tango.
Well, that’s it then.
Good riddance.
I flop on the couch. Good. I have a lot of books to read, and a couple to write. I love my job, and I wouldn’t mind putting in a lot of overtime before spring. I have been doing nothing but tango and blog and fast for a year. This will give me a chance to catch up on things. Organize the closets. Eat. Tidy up.
For example, I could pick up my shoes from the corner where I shoved them on Thursday.
Gosh, they’re gorgeous. Maroon suede, t-strap, peek-a-boo hole at the toe. Three and a half inch heels.
Fifteen months ago, these shoes would have been ugly to me. I don’t like t-straps. I don’t wear peek-a-boo anything. And the height of the heels is laughable.
Thirteen months ago, I couldn’t even stand up in these shoes. My impossible dream was to take 11 steps down the length of the room without falling over.
Six months ago, I made it.
Now I am not concerned with staying upright, but with axis and center and counterbody motion and not screwing up the lead by turning my leg excessively out and giving each step some oomph.
Well now.
Now that I’ve given it up, I wouldn’t mind having a go at that walking business Grisha was trying to teach me.
Now that it’s just for fun. Just to see what will happen.
Bing!
I am walking, I am doing the step Grisha wants. You could see that coming, couldn’t you? But wait! There's more:
I have no center. Having complained vociferously about that in the whine, I DON’T HAVE ONE! I am no longer obligated to go seeking it.
My attention, sprung from the prison of my pelvis, roams freely. Soon I notice this: a bubble floats somewhere behind my sternum, in the neighborhood of the third rib. It is not stable; it floats hither and yon.
I can push it deep down into my pelvis, where my center is supposed to live. I can hold it there. I can let it float up to my belly button and push it back down. I can let it float up to its home perch and push it back down. Down is grounded and strong. Up is light and strong. For this step, I like down. It feels delicate-strong, not smoky.
Now, when teachers tell me to find my center deep in my pelvis, I will know what to do: Go looking for wherever it may be floating at the moment—a shoulder blade, the palm of my hand, its home behind the third rib--and push it down.
How about that?
But wait, there’s even more! (Yes, a full set of steak knives!)
To keep track of my center’s comings and goings, I put one hand on its lower home, one hand on its upper. Then I notice something: As I am using counterbody motion, when I step with my left foot, the back of both palms point to the left. When I step with my right, both palms point right. My hands are moving in concert. They are showing me two points on my axis.
Wow!
Who would have guessed it? Saturday at 5 p.m. I had nothing but a bellyful of whining. By 10 p.m., I had not only found my axis and center (wait, there's even even more...!) I found my feet!
None of this would have happened, none of it would have come to my attention, if were it not for the whine and its catalog of complaints.
Whining plucks my most bothersome complaints out of the miasma of undifferentiated frustration. Now they are prioritized and defined. Unequivocally. Now I can go to work on them.
I never knew this before. I thought whining was weak, like a crybaby. But a crybaby, at the end of its jag, has nothing to show for it but soiled hankies.
What a difference a day makes!
How can I quit tango now? Saturday’s long howl has given me another year’s worth of material to work with!
Well, OK then.
I am not a crybaby. I am a whiner.
I spent almost seven hours on Saturday writing a four-page whine. Here’s how it starts:
Howl
This is it. Four days left to go in My Tango Year. Then I’m done. I am so out of here. Good riddance.
I especially liked this little image:
My legs are not of a piece; ... My body is the Tower of Babel.
And so on. In seven hours of writing, you can work up quite a head of steam. There was a fantasia sequence featuring a marionette and a magician, some rather peevish comments regarding my littermates (beginners cohort), who have left me in the dust, and a whole lot of good, solid whining. Like this:
I am tired of being ravenous. I am tired of racing into bathrooms to collect myself or puke or cry or b-r-e-a-t-h-e. I am tired of standing on the threshold of the Turn or the Merc, looking into the ballroom for a friend’s face. (If I find even one, I have to go in. That’s the deal. Sometimes I don’t look very hard.) I am tired of being shy. I am tired of apologizing for my lack of balance and coordination and skill; I am tired of lacking balance and coordination and skill. I am tired of screwing up the lead’s dance. I am tired of wearing my game face: hug-hug, chat-chat, flirt-flirt, laying my arm across the lead’s shoulders when I enter the embrace in a way that is very smooth, very false.
Sometimes, when I’m riding a big writing wave, I hypnotize myself. Then I make comments so cosmic even I don’t understand them:
I have no corporeal axis. My center does not hold. I will accept your fiction that there are feet at the foot of my body, else why would we call it the foot?
An axis is only a concept. So is center. So is feet. So is terra firma.
None of this is real. I cannot put my finger on any of it.
All of this only preamble, winding up to the four-alarm howl, the complaint under which all others are subsumed:
David Hodgson says you must dance who you are.
Nina says, soft knees. Grisha says, move your center. Tara says, sink into your hip.
I can do these things, but not by technique, only by imagination. Every time I don a smoky, womanly, oppositional frame of mind, Nina shouts You’ve got it!” Grisha says, “Yes, that’s right.”
But I do not want to be smoky. I do not want to be a strong, grounded presence in opposition to the lead.
I do not want to be smoky, I want to be smoke. I want to float like a fragrance in the embrace, I want to be that elusive thing of beauty, which can’t be caged. That is what tango says to me in its music and lyrics. Ethereality. That is the nature of my strength, what I authentically bring to the dance. I want to be delicate and light, elegant and gorgeous.
I want be the Audrey Hepburn of tango.
???!!!
Can you imagine Audrey Hepburn dancing the tango?
Me neither.
Grrr.
* * *
What is it about a whine? Whenever I can’t do anything right, when I finally, absolutely positively hit rock bottom and give up … I whine. I rail against the things that prevent me from getting everything I want on my terms. I howl. I document my every complaint.
And then I give it up. I acknowledge defeat. Grudgingly, but cleanly. There’s no sense beating a dead horse.
I can’t do it.
I can’t do tango.
Well, that’s it then.
Good riddance.
I flop on the couch. Good. I have a lot of books to read, and a couple to write. I love my job, and I wouldn’t mind putting in a lot of overtime before spring. I have been doing nothing but tango and blog and fast for a year. This will give me a chance to catch up on things. Organize the closets. Eat. Tidy up.
For example, I could pick up my shoes from the corner where I shoved them on Thursday.
Gosh, they’re gorgeous. Maroon suede, t-strap, peek-a-boo hole at the toe. Three and a half inch heels.
Fifteen months ago, these shoes would have been ugly to me. I don’t like t-straps. I don’t wear peek-a-boo anything. And the height of the heels is laughable.
Thirteen months ago, I couldn’t even stand up in these shoes. My impossible dream was to take 11 steps down the length of the room without falling over.
Six months ago, I made it.
Now I am not concerned with staying upright, but with axis and center and counterbody motion and not screwing up the lead by turning my leg excessively out and giving each step some oomph.
Well now.
Now that I’ve given it up, I wouldn’t mind having a go at that walking business Grisha was trying to teach me.
Now that it’s just for fun. Just to see what will happen.
Bing!
I am walking, I am doing the step Grisha wants. You could see that coming, couldn’t you? But wait! There's more:
I have no center. Having complained vociferously about that in the whine, I DON’T HAVE ONE! I am no longer obligated to go seeking it.
My attention, sprung from the prison of my pelvis, roams freely. Soon I notice this: a bubble floats somewhere behind my sternum, in the neighborhood of the third rib. It is not stable; it floats hither and yon.
I can push it deep down into my pelvis, where my center is supposed to live. I can hold it there. I can let it float up to my belly button and push it back down. I can let it float up to its home perch and push it back down. Down is grounded and strong. Up is light and strong. For this step, I like down. It feels delicate-strong, not smoky.
Now, when teachers tell me to find my center deep in my pelvis, I will know what to do: Go looking for wherever it may be floating at the moment—a shoulder blade, the palm of my hand, its home behind the third rib--and push it down.
How about that?
But wait, there’s even more! (Yes, a full set of steak knives!)
To keep track of my center’s comings and goings, I put one hand on its lower home, one hand on its upper. Then I notice something: As I am using counterbody motion, when I step with my left foot, the back of both palms point to the left. When I step with my right, both palms point right. My hands are moving in concert. They are showing me two points on my axis.
Wow!
Who would have guessed it? Saturday at 5 p.m. I had nothing but a bellyful of whining. By 10 p.m., I had not only found my axis and center (wait, there's even even more...!) I found my feet!
None of this would have happened, none of it would have come to my attention, if were it not for the whine and its catalog of complaints.
Whining plucks my most bothersome complaints out of the miasma of undifferentiated frustration. Now they are prioritized and defined. Unequivocally. Now I can go to work on them.
I never knew this before. I thought whining was weak, like a crybaby. But a crybaby, at the end of its jag, has nothing to show for it but soiled hankies.
What a difference a day makes!
How can I quit tango now? Saturday’s long howl has given me another year’s worth of material to work with!
Well, OK then.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
In Memory, Benazir Bhutto
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost
A song:
Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now
With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow
To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally
Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Robert Frost
A song:
Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now
With every step I take, let this be my solemn vow
To take each moment and live each moment in peace eternally
Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.
One Heart Uses Tools
I have a toolbox. A Stanley.
It contains: Screwdrivers with tips shaped like math symbols: plus and minus. Many wrenches of various sizes with ends shaped like c's and o's. Also wrenches that pinch, with wheels you turn to make them pinch smaller. Pliers. A hammer. Nuts and bolts. And the prize:
A heavy metal tape measure that pulls out and locks in place, so you can walk through the world defending the precise dimensions of your personal space.
Or herd peacocks. Really. Works better than a stick, Keith says.
There is no Swiss Army Knife in my toolbox. This is Keith playing Dad. I won the knife in a contest and gave it away. His refusal to replace it says: “You made your bed, now lie in it.”
I muss the beds and lie as I please. I’ll buy my own Leatherman, thank you.
You might think that because I don’t know the names of things that I don’t know how to use them.
I do. For example, I can:
Air up a tire, and change one.
Tighten belts using a crowbar and screwdriver.
Replace hoses, air filter and spark plugs.
Change the oil in a 1969 Mustang. Including the oil filter. And the stripped-out drain plug, doped up with bright blue insta-gasket goop.
Shoot the zerks. (Imagine swimming the butterfly stroke on your back under a car. This is how you scoot from wheel to wheel. In your hand the grease gun. At each wheel, a couple of fittings, called zerks. Fit the gun’s nozzle into each zerk, pull the trigger. Emerge swaggering like John Wayne, t-shirt torn, hair matted with gunk and gravel. Growl to the guy under the hood, “I got the little bastards.” That’s how you talk in the garage. It’s the code. There is much more to working on cars than knowing which tool to use.)
Rebuild a carburetor. A dad-and-daughter project, unsuccessful. The mechanic said the kit we used had a broken float. Never mind that. We did our part.
Change the valve cover gasket in a 1967 Dodge Dart Swinger. Stop laughing! It was my first car; it cost $200. The job took eight hours. Michigan could have done it in 20 minutes, but I’m glad he didn’t. I like trying things until they come right. Michigan showed me what to do. He gave me all the time I needed. Then he made dinner, and taught me how to cook rice.
My toolbox is bright orange. There is nothing girly about it. All of the tools are Champion or Craftsman or Stanley. No cushy grips. No hot pink.
Which is not to say I’ve given up using my high heels for a hammer. That’s just plain fun.
And ingenious.
If we used tools only for their intended purposes, we would miss many opportunities. Such as building a better peacock-herding stick. Or dancing tango moves to alternative music. Or (discovering too late that the corkscrew did not survive the summer’s multiple moves) using a plus-sign screwdriver and a hammer to open a bottle of wine.
Caveat emptor. In some cases, the results may be disastrous.
Which results? In which cases?
I leave that to you to decide.
It contains: Screwdrivers with tips shaped like math symbols: plus and minus. Many wrenches of various sizes with ends shaped like c's and o's. Also wrenches that pinch, with wheels you turn to make them pinch smaller. Pliers. A hammer. Nuts and bolts. And the prize:
A heavy metal tape measure that pulls out and locks in place, so you can walk through the world defending the precise dimensions of your personal space.
Or herd peacocks. Really. Works better than a stick, Keith says.
There is no Swiss Army Knife in my toolbox. This is Keith playing Dad. I won the knife in a contest and gave it away. His refusal to replace it says: “You made your bed, now lie in it.”
I muss the beds and lie as I please. I’ll buy my own Leatherman, thank you.
* * *
You might think that because I don’t know the names of things that I don’t know how to use them.
I do. For example, I can:
Air up a tire, and change one.
Tighten belts using a crowbar and screwdriver.
Replace hoses, air filter and spark plugs.
Change the oil in a 1969 Mustang. Including the oil filter. And the stripped-out drain plug, doped up with bright blue insta-gasket goop.
Shoot the zerks. (Imagine swimming the butterfly stroke on your back under a car. This is how you scoot from wheel to wheel. In your hand the grease gun. At each wheel, a couple of fittings, called zerks. Fit the gun’s nozzle into each zerk, pull the trigger. Emerge swaggering like John Wayne, t-shirt torn, hair matted with gunk and gravel. Growl to the guy under the hood, “I got the little bastards.” That’s how you talk in the garage. It’s the code. There is much more to working on cars than knowing which tool to use.)
Rebuild a carburetor. A dad-and-daughter project, unsuccessful. The mechanic said the kit we used had a broken float. Never mind that. We did our part.
Change the valve cover gasket in a 1967 Dodge Dart Swinger. Stop laughing! It was my first car; it cost $200. The job took eight hours. Michigan could have done it in 20 minutes, but I’m glad he didn’t. I like trying things until they come right. Michigan showed me what to do. He gave me all the time I needed. Then he made dinner, and taught me how to cook rice.
* * *
My toolbox is bright orange. There is nothing girly about it. All of the tools are Champion or Craftsman or Stanley. No cushy grips. No hot pink.
Which is not to say I’ve given up using my high heels for a hammer. That’s just plain fun.
And ingenious.
If we used tools only for their intended purposes, we would miss many opportunities. Such as building a better peacock-herding stick. Or dancing tango moves to alternative music. Or (discovering too late that the corkscrew did not survive the summer’s multiple moves) using a plus-sign screwdriver and a hammer to open a bottle of wine.
Caveat emptor. In some cases, the results may be disastrous.
Which results? In which cases?
I leave that to you to decide.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Great Moments in Tango Teaching: Tom Stermitz
I have been saving this story all year, waiting for the right time to tell it…
Today is Boxing Day, when we redirect unappreciated gifts to someone who will truly value them.
This is a good day to tell the story of Tom’s gift. The woman who received it had no use for it, but that doesn’t mean it was wasted. In my book, it ranks as the first among a year’s worth of Great Moments in Tango Teaching.
It happened last fall or winter. It was Tom’s turn to teach the public introductory classes at the Mercury Cafe. Shane invited a new housemate, Amy, to come with us.
Amy is short and round, with a cap of dark hair and a sweet child’s features. She is outspoken and opinionated and has recently come off a stint in the Peace Corps. She is an out-and-out lesbian, and she is only going to take the class if she can lead.
I tell her she can, that there are never enough men and if by odd chance the class is gender-balanced tonight, I’ll let her led me for the whole class.
This is how the class works: The teacher demonstrates a step, then the students practice for a minute or two. At the end of the practice interval, the partners separate. The men stand still while the women walk to the next man along the line of dance. Then the whole rotation begins again.
Amy stands still in the man’s spot as the women rotate. You can imagine the routine: Some women helpfully try to move her along, some bypass her, some gamely agree to follow her lead. Some men try to claim her. Some insist. Amy insists right back. Some take it personally. Some good-naturedly back off.
The distaste on some faces, both female and male, is obvious. Perhaps I am only seeing what I expect. It is not fair to assume these dancers are bigots; perhaps they merely object to Amy’s insistence on flaunting the rules.
This is none of my business, and that’s a good thing because I would not handle it nearly as well as Amy. She negotiates this double-black-diamond course as deftly as if she skied it every day.
At the end of the class, Tom introduces cabeceo and makes us give it a try. Four of us are left on the sidelines: the most gorgeous woman in the room, Amy, I and a man who would rather sit it out than look at any of us.
From across the room, Amy catches my eye. I shrug, head for my chair. She keeps looking. Oh! I get it! We dance.
The class ends. Tom makes his move. He approaches the table where I sit with Amy.
I know what is coming. He’s done it to me already.
After teaching introductory classes like these, Tom likes to circulate among the beginners, recruiting them for his own series of classes.
He says something like this: “I saw you dance. You’re ready for my advanced beginner class.”
After only one lesson, it seems premature to invite Amy to join an advanced beginner class, but Tom didn’t get to be a full-time tango teacher by being shy.
So I watch him approach and I wait for it...
He homes in on Amy. His eyes are right into hers. His voice is offhand, as usual.
“If you want to take my class as a lead, I’ll make it safe for you to do that,” he says.
Amy makes a polite answer. It’s clear she’s had enough. Tom walks away, his demeanor unchanged.
This is just Tom being Tom. He made his pitch. Take it or leave it, he’s not going to burn the house down.
This attitude of Tom’s rubs me the wrong way. I sometimes get the sense that Tom deliberately makes people feel decidedly ordinary. As a person who builds her life around doing exactly the opposite, I am annoyed. Offended on behalf of whomever is the object of his disinterest.
But in this moment, that very disinterest endears him to me as nothing else could.
So you’re a lesbian who only wants to lead, he says. That works for me, come to my class.
And at the same time: I’ll be your champion. To get at you, they’ll have to go through me. No big deal.
And at the same time: I’d do the same for your monkey’s uncle. Take it or leave it.
Most of us live, at some time or other, on some kind of margin. And so we know this: Sometimes there is no greater gift than someone who offhandedly says, “I see you. Come as you are, come join the crowd. We’ll make room for you. No big deal.”
If Tom and I didn’t annoy each other so, I would chase him down right this minute and hug him. I would hold him up as a man of the highest order. And say: This is life as it shoud be, each person recognized in their own right, without fuss and bother.
Everything that has happened is happening still.
Kudos to you, Tom Stermitz, forever.
Today is Boxing Day, when we redirect unappreciated gifts to someone who will truly value them.
This is a good day to tell the story of Tom’s gift. The woman who received it had no use for it, but that doesn’t mean it was wasted. In my book, it ranks as the first among a year’s worth of Great Moments in Tango Teaching.
It happened last fall or winter. It was Tom’s turn to teach the public introductory classes at the Mercury Cafe. Shane invited a new housemate, Amy, to come with us.
Amy is short and round, with a cap of dark hair and a sweet child’s features. She is outspoken and opinionated and has recently come off a stint in the Peace Corps. She is an out-and-out lesbian, and she is only going to take the class if she can lead.
I tell her she can, that there are never enough men and if by odd chance the class is gender-balanced tonight, I’ll let her led me for the whole class.
This is how the class works: The teacher demonstrates a step, then the students practice for a minute or two. At the end of the practice interval, the partners separate. The men stand still while the women walk to the next man along the line of dance. Then the whole rotation begins again.
Amy stands still in the man’s spot as the women rotate. You can imagine the routine: Some women helpfully try to move her along, some bypass her, some gamely agree to follow her lead. Some men try to claim her. Some insist. Amy insists right back. Some take it personally. Some good-naturedly back off.
The distaste on some faces, both female and male, is obvious. Perhaps I am only seeing what I expect. It is not fair to assume these dancers are bigots; perhaps they merely object to Amy’s insistence on flaunting the rules.
This is none of my business, and that’s a good thing because I would not handle it nearly as well as Amy. She negotiates this double-black-diamond course as deftly as if she skied it every day.
At the end of the class, Tom introduces cabeceo and makes us give it a try. Four of us are left on the sidelines: the most gorgeous woman in the room, Amy, I and a man who would rather sit it out than look at any of us.
From across the room, Amy catches my eye. I shrug, head for my chair. She keeps looking. Oh! I get it! We dance.
The class ends. Tom makes his move. He approaches the table where I sit with Amy.
I know what is coming. He’s done it to me already.
After teaching introductory classes like these, Tom likes to circulate among the beginners, recruiting them for his own series of classes.
He says something like this: “I saw you dance. You’re ready for my advanced beginner class.”
After only one lesson, it seems premature to invite Amy to join an advanced beginner class, but Tom didn’t get to be a full-time tango teacher by being shy.
So I watch him approach and I wait for it...
He homes in on Amy. His eyes are right into hers. His voice is offhand, as usual.
“If you want to take my class as a lead, I’ll make it safe for you to do that,” he says.
Amy makes a polite answer. It’s clear she’s had enough. Tom walks away, his demeanor unchanged.
This is just Tom being Tom. He made his pitch. Take it or leave it, he’s not going to burn the house down.
This attitude of Tom’s rubs me the wrong way. I sometimes get the sense that Tom deliberately makes people feel decidedly ordinary. As a person who builds her life around doing exactly the opposite, I am annoyed. Offended on behalf of whomever is the object of his disinterest.
But in this moment, that very disinterest endears him to me as nothing else could.
So you’re a lesbian who only wants to lead, he says. That works for me, come to my class.
And at the same time: I’ll be your champion. To get at you, they’ll have to go through me. No big deal.
And at the same time: I’d do the same for your monkey’s uncle. Take it or leave it.
Most of us live, at some time or other, on some kind of margin. And so we know this: Sometimes there is no greater gift than someone who offhandedly says, “I see you. Come as you are, come join the crowd. We’ll make room for you. No big deal.”
If Tom and I didn’t annoy each other so, I would chase him down right this minute and hug him. I would hold him up as a man of the highest order. And say: This is life as it shoud be, each person recognized in their own right, without fuss and bother.
Everything that has happened is happening still.
Kudos to you, Tom Stermitz, forever.
And the Winner (of the Christmas Tacky Gift Contest) Is...
Check back to this space tomorrow. I am trying to make a movie and post it.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Christmas Cabeceo
His name is Darrell or Daryl, though I don’t know that yet, and he’s standing at the bus stop next to the convenience store/gas station where I am cleaning off the last bits of snow from my car.
As I finish up, I hear a voice: Are you OK? Then again, Are you OK? I look to see who needs help. He is talking to me.
He’s a big boy: 6 foot, 3 inches, maybe more, maybe as tall as Keith. He’s built like a football player, the kind that knocks the other guys over.
“I’m good,” I call back.
He is not dressed for the snowstorm. His pants droop and drag in the slush. His jacket is unzipped, and under it he is not wearing a sweater. His hair is wet, his face is patchy red. His nose is running. He is holding a coffee cup in a chapped, dirty hand, the plastic thermal kind with a lid.
This is not fair! He is only 16, maybe 17.
Before he asks, before he knows for sure he is going to ask, my answer is yes.
I look him in the eye.
Are you going that way? He points.
Sure, I say. Tell me where.
It is not far. Only to the 7-11 up the street. To get coffee. He speaks slowly, as if his lips are frozen. But they are not. It is not that cold today, only windy with snow.
He moves my Christmas presents from the front seat to the back, climbs in. We introduce ourselves and shake hands.
Why don’t you get your coffee right here, at this convenience store? I ask.
I can’t go in there any more.
Why not?
He shrugs. The way I dress.
I doubt that.
And that one? I point to the convenience store on the opposite corner.
He shrugs.
We drive to 7-11. It is only one mile. Along the way, we learn these things about each other:
There are six kids in my family, seven in his. Five boys in his, five girls in mine. One boy in mine, two girls in his.
As I pull into the 7-11 parking lot, we discover we are both number 4 in the birth order.
“Wow!” he says happily. “We have something in common!”
He says thanks and we say Merry Christmas over and over while he heaves himself out of the car.
I head back the way I came. My car stinks. A mess of gray sludge has dropped from his boots onto the floor mat and carpet.
Now, hours later, prevented by the storm from going to tango, I’m grinning about this: Here’s a kid who got out of the wind-driven snow, saved enough money in bus fare to buy a nice snack, got to his coffee a half hour sooner than he would have on the bus … and here is the thing that delighted him, the thing that made him say happily “Wow!”: We are both number 4.
Cabeceo.
As I finish up, I hear a voice: Are you OK? Then again, Are you OK? I look to see who needs help. He is talking to me.
He’s a big boy: 6 foot, 3 inches, maybe more, maybe as tall as Keith. He’s built like a football player, the kind that knocks the other guys over.
“I’m good,” I call back.
He is not dressed for the snowstorm. His pants droop and drag in the slush. His jacket is unzipped, and under it he is not wearing a sweater. His hair is wet, his face is patchy red. His nose is running. He is holding a coffee cup in a chapped, dirty hand, the plastic thermal kind with a lid.
This is not fair! He is only 16, maybe 17.
Before he asks, before he knows for sure he is going to ask, my answer is yes.
I look him in the eye.
Are you going that way? He points.
Sure, I say. Tell me where.
It is not far. Only to the 7-11 up the street. To get coffee. He speaks slowly, as if his lips are frozen. But they are not. It is not that cold today, only windy with snow.
He moves my Christmas presents from the front seat to the back, climbs in. We introduce ourselves and shake hands.
Why don’t you get your coffee right here, at this convenience store? I ask.
I can’t go in there any more.
Why not?
He shrugs. The way I dress.
I doubt that.
And that one? I point to the convenience store on the opposite corner.
He shrugs.
We drive to 7-11. It is only one mile. Along the way, we learn these things about each other:
There are six kids in my family, seven in his. Five boys in his, five girls in mine. One boy in mine, two girls in his.
As I pull into the 7-11 parking lot, we discover we are both number 4 in the birth order.
“Wow!” he says happily. “We have something in common!”
He says thanks and we say Merry Christmas over and over while he heaves himself out of the car.
I head back the way I came. My car stinks. A mess of gray sludge has dropped from his boots onto the floor mat and carpet.
Now, hours later, prevented by the storm from going to tango, I’m grinning about this: Here’s a kid who got out of the wind-driven snow, saved enough money in bus fare to buy a nice snack, got to his coffee a half hour sooner than he would have on the bus … and here is the thing that delighted him, the thing that made him say happily “Wow!”: We are both number 4.
Cabeceo.
Christmas
Christmas roars in like a lion. It is snowing. A lot.
It’s a long drive to Castle Rock south of Denver, where the family is already gathering. I am dithering. Can I get out of it?
If I were sociable or weather-savvy, I would have gone down on Christmas Eve night, joined the family pajama party. It’s one of our family traditions.
My family is rich with traditions. When we get tired of the old ones, we make up new ones. Some new traditions spring up: I instigated the Tacky Gift Contest when traditional gift-giving became boring. Other traditions morph. For example:
Sibling Five-of-Six and her little boy always spend the night at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve. He is 2, 3, 4, 5… 24. Now my parents have moved into an apartment. Now Six-of-Six and his partner have bought a house made for entertaining. Now Sibling Five-of-Six and Son--and my parents--all spend the night at Six-of-Six’s house. Last month the Son got married. Last night, his New Bride joined the pajama party.
Here’s another:
Sibling Two-of-Six also spends Christmas Eve with her two daughters. Like mother, like daughter: they would rather clean toilets than cook. I imagine they have pizza or fun snacks. They watch movies, they laugh as much as they talk. At midnight they open their presents.
A few years ago, Daughter One brought a man along. He liked to cook. Two-of-Six knew at once he was The One. He spent the night. She bought him a stockpot. Not being a cook, she was nervous about this. Being The One, he knew just what to do.
“Ah,” he said, turning the pot in his hands. “This is not just a stockpot. This is the Quintessential Stockpot.”
We love big words. We all say it now. It is part of our family lexicon, our ritual language.
Since joining the family, The One has taken Thanksgiving dinner in hand. Every year he uses the Quintessential Stockpot to make his Italian grandmother’s chicken soup. His mother died young, his grandmother raised him. Every year we tell him it is the Quintessential chicken soup. Welcome to the family, The One. Welcome to the family, His Granny.
We like to fold people in. On her first Christmas in Denver, 1982, my mother told my father that she was going to cook as if she were back home in Michigan with the whole clan. She cooked for 30, as usual. A blizzard hit--the snow was up to the eaves of the house. None of the neighbors could get out of their driveways. They all walked to my mom's for dinner. She still glows.
This year at Thanksgiving, the New Bride brought five family friends with her—surprise! Family emergency, stranded in town, etc. Nephew, never one to plan ahead, called from the car: We’re on our way! We worried over the food, the number of chairs. They arrived with a feast of their own, put their food alongside ours on the table. We stuffed ourselves and afterward took bags of food home: turkey and tamales, potatoes and gravy and rice and green chile.
My family gets together frequently. Every holiday is a command appearance. That goes for all the official holidays and all the birthdays too. The more people that come into the family, the more often we gather.
I am not a sociable person. I crave solitude the way others crave love. Family gatherings are a joy in theory and memory, a trial in the moment. They are huge pandemonium. Everyone talks at once, and they play rowdy party games, like Pictionary.
I do not want to go today. It is snowing, and I would rather be writing.
But I am the one bringing the vegetables. “You are the only one bringing the vegetables,” Six-of-Six’s partner told me yesterday on the phone. I heard what she meant: Make it good. She is a veggie lover, and she counts on me.
Duty calls.
Soon I will get dressed. I will get in my car. I will take the veggies I promised to make. I will grab a dozen tamales out of the freezer, to fold New Bride’s traditions into ours.
It will be pandemonium. Also great fun! We will laugh more than talk. We will catch up. I will sit on the sidelines, and join in, and then sit on the sidelines again. I will refuse to play Pictionary, but I will guess the answers in my head as they play. My family is used to me now; antisocial One Heart is part of the family tradition.
It will be exhausting. We will grow tired of one another, particularly those who have been pajama partying. Some of us will snipe at each other; some will get bossy; some will turn studiously to the TV. Someone's feelings will be hurt. Sooner or later, there might be someone crying in the bathroom and someone soothing the teary-eyed one. There will be a period of uncomfortable quiet. There will be a gradual loosening, then an offer of coffee. This is how we do it.
I will resolve to eat nothing so I can tango tonight. I will eat too much anyway.
(I will go to tango after the family party. This is a new tradition, starting this year.)
Passing the Baby will be the Quintessential party game.
When we name the winner of Tacky Gift Contest, someone will say: That is the Quintessential tacky gift!
People will fight over the tamales. We will have to cut them in half.
I will refuse the after-dinner coffee in solidarity with my dad, who has had to give it up. Instead I will have port, a tradition Six-of-Six introduced.
When my parents open their gift from me, they will find only a note. In response to their annual request for gifts to charity, I have written my annual big, fat check to the Salvation Army, because they took Barbara in when her parents would not. This isn’t grief, this is gratitude--and maintaining a tendril of attachment.
My mother insists on these gatherings. She had a lousy childhood. She decided early on that when she had a chance, she would do family right. This is what she learned along the way: Family doesn't happen, we make it so. So she issues these marching orders: Show up. Yes, it's a pain in the ass, yes we get sick of each other. Do it anyway.
So… off I go into the snow, to join the pandemonium, serve up the veggies, stuff myself, beg to hold the baby, greet the New Bride, and get my hands on that Tacky Gift trophy!
It’s a long drive to Castle Rock south of Denver, where the family is already gathering. I am dithering. Can I get out of it?
If I were sociable or weather-savvy, I would have gone down on Christmas Eve night, joined the family pajama party. It’s one of our family traditions.
My family is rich with traditions. When we get tired of the old ones, we make up new ones. Some new traditions spring up: I instigated the Tacky Gift Contest when traditional gift-giving became boring. Other traditions morph. For example:
Sibling Five-of-Six and her little boy always spend the night at my parents’ house on Christmas Eve. He is 2, 3, 4, 5… 24. Now my parents have moved into an apartment. Now Six-of-Six and his partner have bought a house made for entertaining. Now Sibling Five-of-Six and Son--and my parents--all spend the night at Six-of-Six’s house. Last month the Son got married. Last night, his New Bride joined the pajama party.
Here’s another:
Sibling Two-of-Six also spends Christmas Eve with her two daughters. Like mother, like daughter: they would rather clean toilets than cook. I imagine they have pizza or fun snacks. They watch movies, they laugh as much as they talk. At midnight they open their presents.
A few years ago, Daughter One brought a man along. He liked to cook. Two-of-Six knew at once he was The One. He spent the night. She bought him a stockpot. Not being a cook, she was nervous about this. Being The One, he knew just what to do.
“Ah,” he said, turning the pot in his hands. “This is not just a stockpot. This is the Quintessential Stockpot.”
We love big words. We all say it now. It is part of our family lexicon, our ritual language.
Since joining the family, The One has taken Thanksgiving dinner in hand. Every year he uses the Quintessential Stockpot to make his Italian grandmother’s chicken soup. His mother died young, his grandmother raised him. Every year we tell him it is the Quintessential chicken soup. Welcome to the family, The One. Welcome to the family, His Granny.
We like to fold people in. On her first Christmas in Denver, 1982, my mother told my father that she was going to cook as if she were back home in Michigan with the whole clan. She cooked for 30, as usual. A blizzard hit--the snow was up to the eaves of the house. None of the neighbors could get out of their driveways. They all walked to my mom's for dinner. She still glows.
This year at Thanksgiving, the New Bride brought five family friends with her—surprise! Family emergency, stranded in town, etc. Nephew, never one to plan ahead, called from the car: We’re on our way! We worried over the food, the number of chairs. They arrived with a feast of their own, put their food alongside ours on the table. We stuffed ourselves and afterward took bags of food home: turkey and tamales, potatoes and gravy and rice and green chile.
My family gets together frequently. Every holiday is a command appearance. That goes for all the official holidays and all the birthdays too. The more people that come into the family, the more often we gather.
I am not a sociable person. I crave solitude the way others crave love. Family gatherings are a joy in theory and memory, a trial in the moment. They are huge pandemonium. Everyone talks at once, and they play rowdy party games, like Pictionary.
I do not want to go today. It is snowing, and I would rather be writing.
But I am the one bringing the vegetables. “You are the only one bringing the vegetables,” Six-of-Six’s partner told me yesterday on the phone. I heard what she meant: Make it good. She is a veggie lover, and she counts on me.
Duty calls.
Soon I will get dressed. I will get in my car. I will take the veggies I promised to make. I will grab a dozen tamales out of the freezer, to fold New Bride’s traditions into ours.
It will be pandemonium. Also great fun! We will laugh more than talk. We will catch up. I will sit on the sidelines, and join in, and then sit on the sidelines again. I will refuse to play Pictionary, but I will guess the answers in my head as they play. My family is used to me now; antisocial One Heart is part of the family tradition.
It will be exhausting. We will grow tired of one another, particularly those who have been pajama partying. Some of us will snipe at each other; some will get bossy; some will turn studiously to the TV. Someone's feelings will be hurt. Sooner or later, there might be someone crying in the bathroom and someone soothing the teary-eyed one. There will be a period of uncomfortable quiet. There will be a gradual loosening, then an offer of coffee. This is how we do it.
I will resolve to eat nothing so I can tango tonight. I will eat too much anyway.
(I will go to tango after the family party. This is a new tradition, starting this year.)
Passing the Baby will be the Quintessential party game.
When we name the winner of Tacky Gift Contest, someone will say: That is the Quintessential tacky gift!
People will fight over the tamales. We will have to cut them in half.
I will refuse the after-dinner coffee in solidarity with my dad, who has had to give it up. Instead I will have port, a tradition Six-of-Six introduced.
When my parents open their gift from me, they will find only a note. In response to their annual request for gifts to charity, I have written my annual big, fat check to the Salvation Army, because they took Barbara in when her parents would not. This isn’t grief, this is gratitude--and maintaining a tendril of attachment.
My mother insists on these gatherings. She had a lousy childhood. She decided early on that when she had a chance, she would do family right. This is what she learned along the way: Family doesn't happen, we make it so. So she issues these marching orders: Show up. Yes, it's a pain in the ass, yes we get sick of each other. Do it anyway.
So… off I go into the snow, to join the pandemonium, serve up the veggies, stuff myself, beg to hold the baby, greet the New Bride, and get my hands on that Tacky Gift trophy!
Saturday, December 22, 2007
After the Solstice
The saga of Winnie the Pooh ends with the story of Christopher Robin outgrowing his bear.
It begins like this:
Christopher Robin was going away. Nobody knew why he was going; nobody knew where he was going; indeed, nobody even knew why he knew Christopher Robin was going away. But somehow or other everybody in the Forest felt it was happening at last.
It ends:
In that enchanted place at the top of the Forest, a boy and his Bear will always be playing.
Enough.
I don’t want to live in that story any more. Barbara is history, and in a certain sense even the grief is old news.
Persephone is setting down her pomegranate. I can feel it.
This afternoon I am going to make my hair pretty. I am going to buy presents for people I love. I am going to call my mother and cajole her into letting me come over and bake cookies with her. In the living room, my father will be watching football. I’ll yell from the kitchen: Did we score? Which team are we for? Tell me again, what’s a tailback?
Tonight I have plans to see Granny Dances to the Beat of a Different Drum, the annual Christmas show of the Cleo Parker Robinson modern ballet troupe. This year, Cleo worked a tango into the show. I would like to see that!
But I won’t. I can feel it. I will be here. Fingers on keys, feet in shoes. Absorbed. Fumbling. Cobbling together bits of beauty first one way, then another...
...
PS As it turned out:
Because I took too much time finessing the final paragraph, I was late to my hair appointment and had to rebook. My mother has gone to bed with a headache. The parking lots are so crowded I am not shopping. And I missed the turn to get on the highway to go home. Melinda called to say Hi and I invited myself over for the early part of the evening. I'm dithering over whether afterward I should make an appearance at the Tango House to demonstrate that I'm not taking sides in the latest TC battle, or if showing up there would be interpreted as taking sides. And there's still the appendix of my book to finish, which I promised the publisher a month ago. And dinking around with the proposal for the next one, which I don't really want to write, but it just keeps rearing its head. Good grief.
Tonight, wherever I end up, I dance!
It begins like this:
Christopher Robin was going away. Nobody knew why he was going; nobody knew where he was going; indeed, nobody even knew why he knew Christopher Robin was going away. But somehow or other everybody in the Forest felt it was happening at last.
It ends:
In that enchanted place at the top of the Forest, a boy and his Bear will always be playing.
Enough.
I don’t want to live in that story any more. Barbara is history, and in a certain sense even the grief is old news.
Persephone is setting down her pomegranate. I can feel it.
This afternoon I am going to make my hair pretty. I am going to buy presents for people I love. I am going to call my mother and cajole her into letting me come over and bake cookies with her. In the living room, my father will be watching football. I’ll yell from the kitchen: Did we score? Which team are we for? Tell me again, what’s a tailback?
Tonight I have plans to see Granny Dances to the Beat of a Different Drum, the annual Christmas show of the Cleo Parker Robinson modern ballet troupe. This year, Cleo worked a tango into the show. I would like to see that!
But I won’t. I can feel it. I will be here. Fingers on keys, feet in shoes. Absorbed. Fumbling. Cobbling together bits of beauty first one way, then another...
...
PS As it turned out:
Because I took too much time finessing the final paragraph, I was late to my hair appointment and had to rebook. My mother has gone to bed with a headache. The parking lots are so crowded I am not shopping. And I missed the turn to get on the highway to go home. Melinda called to say Hi and I invited myself over for the early part of the evening. I'm dithering over whether afterward I should make an appearance at the Tango House to demonstrate that I'm not taking sides in the latest TC battle, or if showing up there would be interpreted as taking sides. And there's still the appendix of my book to finish, which I promised the publisher a month ago. And dinking around with the proposal for the next one, which I don't really want to write, but it just keeps rearing its head. Good grief.
Tonight, wherever I end up, I dance!
Friday, December 21, 2007
The Bean Counter
There is a man. His hands are full of beans. He is in a room, and the room is full of beans. As a matter of fact, the room is made of beans. The table he sits at is made of beans. The chair he sits on is made of beans. The art that hangs on the wall is mosaics made of beans.
The beans are two colors: golden yellow and lively green. They drip from his hair, spill out of his ears, tumble from his pockets. He is knee deep in beans. When he walks, they click-and-shhh, click-and-shhh. When he bends over, digs his hands in deep, they press against his palms firmly. When he moves, they slide into the places where his feet were, leaving footprints like gentle hills and valleys.
The man is counting the beans. This is his job. He chooses one, examines it and counts it--just so. Then he tucks it behind his ear, in his pocket, under his tongue. Some of the beans are his and some he has dreamed into being. He has plans, and he has planned for an abundance of beans.
Now and then the man’s work is interrupted by an odd bean. It is fat and red. It is round as a drop. The man walks to a corner cupboard, opens the door. He takes out a scale, the old fashioned kind, the kind that Lady Justice holds on the steps of the courthouse. He places the round, red bean on one tray of the scale. With the gold and yellow beans he brings it to balance. One by one, he chooses, examines, counts them just so, and places the beans on the scale.
When the balance is made, he pours the bright beans into an envelope. They tumble over themselves with a click-and-shhh. The man writes a note, seals the envelope, pushes it into the mail chute.
He takes the round, red bean in his fist, bends over and thrusts his arm deep, buries that bean under mountains and fields of beans. Then he walks back to his table, click-and-shhh, click-and-shhh, and resumes counting.
This is why my friend Barbara died: In the 1970s, the Chrysler company was under the gun to reduce both vehicle weight (for better gas mileage and less pollution) and the costs of production. Aluminum and plastic were lightweight and cheap. The engineers went to work, replacing what metal parts they could. The wiper arms and fan blades became aluminum, and the radio knobs and bumpers and trunk liners became plastic.
But plastic and aluminum are fragile. They break. Engineers and risk managers took this into account, but there were other factors to weigh in the balance. Chrysler was deeply in debt, gas was sky-high, environmentalists were up in arms, Japanese economy cars were flooding the market.
And over all, Chrysler had payroll to meet. Things were grim in Detroit. You cannot imagine. Thousands of workers had been laid off. In the blue-collar suburb of Pontiac, Michigan, unemployment was as high as it had been during the Great Depression: 30 percent. There was no hope in sight. There were no jobs, no government or personal surplus for charity.
And the ripples were spreading. Imagine what happens to a city, to a people. Bumper stickers said, “Will the last one to leave Michigan please turn out the lights.” Had Chrysler failed, families would have been homeless, children and adults frozen or starved. Chrysler owed it to its workers to succeed.
This is how my friend Barbara died: She was living in South Carolina with her husband. They were driving their wedding present: his parents’ old Chrysler. It was election day. They stopped to vote.
The car had been making a noise. As long as they were out, they thought, they may as well take care of it. They pulled into a service station.
Outside it was raining. Barbara went into the service bay to stay out of the rain. She wandered, looking at posters and tools hung on the walls.
This is how my friend Barbara died: She lay on the floor, her throat cut. Above her, wedged in the concrete wall, a shiny bit of metal.
Her husband and the mechanic were bent over the engine. At first they didn’t notice that a tiny, bright bit had broken off the fan blade, shot past them both and homed in on Barbara across the room as if she were a magnet and it were steel.
The human body is a pressure vessel, and arteries are high-pressure hoses. Barbara’s heart pumped her blood out the nick in her neck. It leaped and showered until the pressure subsided. Then it burbled gently, like a spring in a well house. At the end it quietly welled, slow and steady, like a seep. But long before that she was dead.
One of Barbara’s friends notified the Chrysler company. Chrysler sent a check with a note, “Enclosed is the standard payment for this type of injury.”
The man in the room made of beans takes out the scale. He brings it to balance as best he can. He pours the beans into an envelope, click-and-shhh. He writes the note, mails it off. He buries the odd bean under hillocks of green and gold. In the aftermath he weeps, but he is weeping tears of beans.
The beans are two colors: golden yellow and lively green. They drip from his hair, spill out of his ears, tumble from his pockets. He is knee deep in beans. When he walks, they click-and-shhh, click-and-shhh. When he bends over, digs his hands in deep, they press against his palms firmly. When he moves, they slide into the places where his feet were, leaving footprints like gentle hills and valleys.
The man is counting the beans. This is his job. He chooses one, examines it and counts it--just so. Then he tucks it behind his ear, in his pocket, under his tongue. Some of the beans are his and some he has dreamed into being. He has plans, and he has planned for an abundance of beans.
Now and then the man’s work is interrupted by an odd bean. It is fat and red. It is round as a drop. The man walks to a corner cupboard, opens the door. He takes out a scale, the old fashioned kind, the kind that Lady Justice holds on the steps of the courthouse. He places the round, red bean on one tray of the scale. With the gold and yellow beans he brings it to balance. One by one, he chooses, examines, counts them just so, and places the beans on the scale.
When the balance is made, he pours the bright beans into an envelope. They tumble over themselves with a click-and-shhh. The man writes a note, seals the envelope, pushes it into the mail chute.
He takes the round, red bean in his fist, bends over and thrusts his arm deep, buries that bean under mountains and fields of beans. Then he walks back to his table, click-and-shhh, click-and-shhh, and resumes counting.
This is why my friend Barbara died: In the 1970s, the Chrysler company was under the gun to reduce both vehicle weight (for better gas mileage and less pollution) and the costs of production. Aluminum and plastic were lightweight and cheap. The engineers went to work, replacing what metal parts they could. The wiper arms and fan blades became aluminum, and the radio knobs and bumpers and trunk liners became plastic.
But plastic and aluminum are fragile. They break. Engineers and risk managers took this into account, but there were other factors to weigh in the balance. Chrysler was deeply in debt, gas was sky-high, environmentalists were up in arms, Japanese economy cars were flooding the market.
And over all, Chrysler had payroll to meet. Things were grim in Detroit. You cannot imagine. Thousands of workers had been laid off. In the blue-collar suburb of Pontiac, Michigan, unemployment was as high as it had been during the Great Depression: 30 percent. There was no hope in sight. There were no jobs, no government or personal surplus for charity.
And the ripples were spreading. Imagine what happens to a city, to a people. Bumper stickers said, “Will the last one to leave Michigan please turn out the lights.” Had Chrysler failed, families would have been homeless, children and adults frozen or starved. Chrysler owed it to its workers to succeed.
This is how my friend Barbara died: She was living in South Carolina with her husband. They were driving their wedding present: his parents’ old Chrysler. It was election day. They stopped to vote.
The car had been making a noise. As long as they were out, they thought, they may as well take care of it. They pulled into a service station.
Outside it was raining. Barbara went into the service bay to stay out of the rain. She wandered, looking at posters and tools hung on the walls.
This is how my friend Barbara died: She lay on the floor, her throat cut. Above her, wedged in the concrete wall, a shiny bit of metal.
Her husband and the mechanic were bent over the engine. At first they didn’t notice that a tiny, bright bit had broken off the fan blade, shot past them both and homed in on Barbara across the room as if she were a magnet and it were steel.
The human body is a pressure vessel, and arteries are high-pressure hoses. Barbara’s heart pumped her blood out the nick in her neck. It leaped and showered until the pressure subsided. Then it burbled gently, like a spring in a well house. At the end it quietly welled, slow and steady, like a seep. But long before that she was dead.
One of Barbara’s friends notified the Chrysler company. Chrysler sent a check with a note, “Enclosed is the standard payment for this type of injury.”
The man in the room made of beans takes out the scale. He brings it to balance as best he can. He pours the beans into an envelope, click-and-shhh. He writes the note, mails it off. He buries the odd bean under hillocks of green and gold. In the aftermath he weeps, but he is weeping tears of beans.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Meditation on a Christmas Tree Ornament
The bird has a blue eye. It has a red breast and crest. It has red tailfeathers. It has four feathers just above the tail. One is purple, the other three red. Its wings are red. Its beak is orange and so are its legs and feet. But its eye is blue.
The bird is silent. It does not sing. It does not squawk. It does not call to its mate. It does not speak to you. Its silence is neither cold nor hot nor indifferent. It is silent.
The bird’s orange feet grip a branch. It does not need to see the branch. The branch is there, else he would fall. It is a he-bird. He does not need to see the branch.
The bird is red. It rests on its perch. Leaves grip the branch all around. The leaves are green and they are waxy. Nestled in the leaves are berries. They are waxy and red.
The bird’s blue eye unwavering. Its stillness ever-still. The berries ever-fresh, the holly evergreen.
Jesus is blind. He is fully exposed. He hangs on the cross, dripping blood and vinegar.
Blood must be shed. The goddess bled, and the fields flowered. Jesus bled. His mother stood below him and caught his blood in her hands. While God hid from his own son’s eye.
The prophets hid from God’s eyes. At Calvary God hid from his own son’s eye.
Pines are evergreen. Their needles turn brown. They die, and the tree sheds them. A thick pad of them circles each tree. Resin drips onto this pad.
Jesus’ blood once belonged to his mother. At the hour of his death it returned to her hands. While God hid from his own son’s eye, Mary caught the blood that Jesus shed.
Holly is evergreen. That means nothing. Eventually its leaves shrivel and die. To prolong its color, plant it in shade, away from the unwavering eye of the sun. This will prolong the leaves’ green, but the red berries will suffer.
Once, a boy caught a bird in his hands. The bird bit him. It tore a hunk of flesh from his hand. The wound was a perfect triangle. It was deep, like a well. But it was triangular.
I looked into the well, down, down, down. It was dry and red. And then the blood began to gather. It took its time. It was bright red. It gathered and welled up. It was quiet, it was still. It took its time. Bright red, it filled the well and spilled over. It spattered on the dirt. The bird flew away.
An angel comes to a woman. It is filthy. It stinks. It has no wings. It has no heaven. It is starving. The woman feeds it. The angel bites her hand. She feeds it again. The angel bites her. She feeds it again. It flees. The woman’s pantry is empty now. But there is a little flour in the bin. Tomorrow there is a little flour still. Every day there is a little flour still. The angel cannot be tamed, but it cannot forget. The woman understands. She begins to bleed.
Jesus went to a wedding. He said, Let there be wine. He went to a hillside. He said, Let them eat fish. Five loaves, five fish, five thousand starving. When the fishing was poor, he filled the nets. Everyone ate. In his heart, Jesus was a woman.
Here is a myth: In the land of Odin, there stands a mountain. Once every million years a little bird comes winging, sharpens its beak and then quickly disappears. When that mountain is worn away, into eternity shall be one single day.
The bird is red. It has a red breast and a crest. It has red tailfeathers. But its eye is blue. When the bird bites, blood gathers and spills. Where blood spatters on holly, berries form.
The bird is silent. It does not sing. It does not squawk. It does not call to its mate. It does not speak to you. Its silence is neither cold nor hot nor indifferent. It is silent. Whatever you hear, you bring.
The bird’s blue eye unwavering. Its stillness ever-still. The berries ever-fresh, the holly evergreen.
The bird is silent. It does not sing. It does not squawk. It does not call to its mate. It does not speak to you. Its silence is neither cold nor hot nor indifferent. It is silent.
The bird’s orange feet grip a branch. It does not need to see the branch. The branch is there, else he would fall. It is a he-bird. He does not need to see the branch.
The bird is red. It rests on its perch. Leaves grip the branch all around. The leaves are green and they are waxy. Nestled in the leaves are berries. They are waxy and red.
The bird’s blue eye unwavering. Its stillness ever-still. The berries ever-fresh, the holly evergreen.
* * *
Jesus is blind. He is fully exposed. He hangs on the cross, dripping blood and vinegar.
Blood must be shed. The goddess bled, and the fields flowered. Jesus bled. His mother stood below him and caught his blood in her hands. While God hid from his own son’s eye.
The prophets hid from God’s eyes. At Calvary God hid from his own son’s eye.
* * *
Pines are evergreen. Their needles turn brown. They die, and the tree sheds them. A thick pad of them circles each tree. Resin drips onto this pad.
* * *
Jesus’ blood once belonged to his mother. At the hour of his death it returned to her hands. While God hid from his own son’s eye, Mary caught the blood that Jesus shed.
* * *
Holly is evergreen. That means nothing. Eventually its leaves shrivel and die. To prolong its color, plant it in shade, away from the unwavering eye of the sun. This will prolong the leaves’ green, but the red berries will suffer.
* * *
Once, a boy caught a bird in his hands. The bird bit him. It tore a hunk of flesh from his hand. The wound was a perfect triangle. It was deep, like a well. But it was triangular.
I looked into the well, down, down, down. It was dry and red. And then the blood began to gather. It took its time. It was bright red. It gathered and welled up. It was quiet, it was still. It took its time. Bright red, it filled the well and spilled over. It spattered on the dirt. The bird flew away.
* * *
An angel comes to a woman. It is filthy. It stinks. It has no wings. It has no heaven. It is starving. The woman feeds it. The angel bites her hand. She feeds it again. The angel bites her. She feeds it again. It flees. The woman’s pantry is empty now. But there is a little flour in the bin. Tomorrow there is a little flour still. Every day there is a little flour still. The angel cannot be tamed, but it cannot forget. The woman understands. She begins to bleed.
Jesus went to a wedding. He said, Let there be wine. He went to a hillside. He said, Let them eat fish. Five loaves, five fish, five thousand starving. When the fishing was poor, he filled the nets. Everyone ate. In his heart, Jesus was a woman.
* * *
Here is a myth: In the land of Odin, there stands a mountain. Once every million years a little bird comes winging, sharpens its beak and then quickly disappears. When that mountain is worn away, into eternity shall be one single day.
The bird is red. It has a red breast and a crest. It has red tailfeathers. But its eye is blue. When the bird bites, blood gathers and spills. Where blood spatters on holly, berries form.
The bird is silent. It does not sing. It does not squawk. It does not call to its mate. It does not speak to you. Its silence is neither cold nor hot nor indifferent. It is silent. Whatever you hear, you bring.
The bird’s blue eye unwavering. Its stillness ever-still. The berries ever-fresh, the holly evergreen.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
6. My Favorite Things, Revisited
I was hasty. More in love with being a smart-aleck than being nice to one of my favorite childhood singers.
So, I apologize:
Maria is allowed to love little kitty whiskers and warm woolen mittens. She was a young nun fresh out of the convent in The Sound of Music.
Julie can like them, too. Anyone who can sing like she can, and be so elegant besides, can do anything she likes.
And I was wrong about:
Grown women who prefer mittens and schnitzel to love and chocolate.
They are not exactly Stephen King creepy. When I said that, I was being a lazy writer: I gave up on the idea I was chasing down before I caught it. I was thinking Stephen King + Stepford wives. Here's what I really meant:
That Yul Brenner guy in Westworld.
So, I apologize:
Maria is allowed to love little kitty whiskers and warm woolen mittens. She was a young nun fresh out of the convent in The Sound of Music.
Julie can like them, too. Anyone who can sing like she can, and be so elegant besides, can do anything she likes.
And I was wrong about:
Grown women who prefer mittens and schnitzel to love and chocolate.
They are not exactly Stephen King creepy. When I said that, I was being a lazy writer: I gave up on the idea I was chasing down before I caught it. I was thinking Stephen King + Stepford wives. Here's what I really meant:
That Yul Brenner guy in Westworld.
And Another Thing...
5
After six months, the day is here! I get in to see a foot surgeon at Kaiser. He's not the one I wanted to see, but the first available.
What's the problem? he says.
"Tango..." I say.
He grabs my foot, starts tweaking.
"I don't want to make you jealous, but I just came back from a month in Buenos Aires," he says.
He recommends Club Armenia.
After six months, the day is here! I get in to see a foot surgeon at Kaiser. He's not the one I wanted to see, but the first available.
What's the problem? he says.
"Tango..." I say.
He grabs my foot, starts tweaking.
"I don't want to make you jealous, but I just came back from a month in Buenos Aires," he says.
He recommends Club Armenia.
Four Weird Things
1.
Last night on the milonga side of the Turn a guy thrust his leg hard in between mine. He said it was part of a move. I told him I don’t do that one. He said, “Most women like it.”
2.
Last night on the practica side of the Turn, a lead I like led a gancho. I dislike the move and I don’t do it well, so I skipped it.
Do you know gancho? he asked.
I don’t do it.
Are you conservative?
Yes.
Are you … Catholic?
3.
I have web tracking software that lets me see how people have come into my site. Today I see that someone came in through the Google search:
spun duckie woo woo
I don’t want to know. (Yes, I do!) (Maybe.) (If it’s not nasty.) (BTW, woo-woo is David Hodgson talk for the esoteric aspects of tango. I bet that whoever came to this site looking for ducks left enlightened.)
4.
Ohmigod, did I tell someone I am a conservative? Is this how it starts? The lie of panic, then of convenience? Am I going to become compulsive about this? Am I already sliding the slippery slope? I am a heathen socialist! I do not watch Fox News, I love Al Gore and that Chavez guy in Venezuela except for his dictatorial tendencies, I believe global warming is real, I rarely laugh at Rush Limbaugh’s jokes--only the one about the Clintons’ health care plan but it was really, really funny and did nothing to shake my support for their plan--I haven’t worked for the Republican party since I was a fat kid in the tenth grade and they promised me cake if I’d stuff their stupid envelopes and then there wasn’t even any cake and that was my Watergate, the first crack in the veneer of my trust … but I don’t do gancho and if in this world of tango that makes me a conserv … ohmigod I can’t say it, so bring it on boys and I’ll kick your butts!
Last night on the milonga side of the Turn a guy thrust his leg hard in between mine. He said it was part of a move. I told him I don’t do that one. He said, “Most women like it.”
2.
Last night on the practica side of the Turn, a lead I like led a gancho. I dislike the move and I don’t do it well, so I skipped it.
Do you know gancho? he asked.
I don’t do it.
Are you conservative?
Yes.
Are you … Catholic?
3.
I have web tracking software that lets me see how people have come into my site. Today I see that someone came in through the Google search:
spun duckie woo woo
I don’t want to know. (Yes, I do!) (Maybe.) (If it’s not nasty.) (BTW, woo-woo is David Hodgson talk for the esoteric aspects of tango. I bet that whoever came to this site looking for ducks left enlightened.)
4.
Ohmigod, did I tell someone I am a conservative? Is this how it starts? The lie of panic, then of convenience? Am I going to become compulsive about this? Am I already sliding the slippery slope? I am a heathen socialist! I do not watch Fox News, I love Al Gore and that Chavez guy in Venezuela except for his dictatorial tendencies, I believe global warming is real, I rarely laugh at Rush Limbaugh’s jokes--only the one about the Clintons’ health care plan but it was really, really funny and did nothing to shake my support for their plan--I haven’t worked for the Republican party since I was a fat kid in the tenth grade and they promised me cake if I’d stuff their stupid envelopes and then there wasn’t even any cake and that was my Watergate, the first crack in the veneer of my trust … but I don’t do gancho and if in this world of tango that makes me a conserv … ohmigod I can’t say it, so bring it on boys and I’ll kick your butts!
Fear and Loathing in Cabaceoland
From a post on Tango Colorado:
In Buenos Aires, every dance, except for this one, was invited by cabaceo. The verb is "cabacear"...it's an action verb....
We women are awaiting action...the "look" from afar, the nod of acceptance, the approach, the embrace, the breathing together, moving (internally) to the music,the music, the music....and finally, the taking of the first step.
Blech! Hackhackhack. Spit. Yech!
What is this? Why do I hate cabaceo?
I hate the way a teenage girl hates her mother, the way the Incredible Hulk hates the bad guys. My loathing is a fat, lazy slob; it finds almost nothing is worth lifting its head over, so what is this?
What the heck is it about cabaceo?
Spare me your psychobabbbbble. It's not sex.
Is it the inauthenticity? Fraudulence raises my hackles. And this seems like a fraud: I mean, really, except for girls on street corners looking for johns, who acts this way?
But we are not frauds. We are not pretending cabaceo is our game; we are very self-consciously putting it on. This is vamping, not lying. Why a whole dance culture would want to model its invitation on this ... well, look where tango comes from. Why we would want to propagate that relation for our daughters and sons is another question, but one that prompts intellectual curiosity, not instinctive revulsion.
Is it the cheap romanticism? The Kodak-moment sentimentality? Getting warmer, I think.
Is it all the whining lately on TC Discuss, that has me in the mood to rant?
The stricture. Cabaceo is a rule. I don't like rules.
Hmmm.. That was all way too easy.
There's something else going on here, and I am going to figure it out...
In Buenos Aires, every dance, except for this one, was invited by cabaceo. The verb is "cabacear"...it's an action verb....
We women are awaiting action...the "look" from afar, the nod of acceptance, the approach, the embrace, the breathing together, moving (internally) to the music,the music, the music....and finally, the taking of the first step.
Blech! Hackhackhack. Spit. Yech!
What is this? Why do I hate cabaceo?
I hate the way a teenage girl hates her mother, the way the Incredible Hulk hates the bad guys. My loathing is a fat, lazy slob; it finds almost nothing is worth lifting its head over, so what is this?
What the heck is it about cabaceo?
Spare me your psychobabbbbble. It's not sex.
Is it the inauthenticity? Fraudulence raises my hackles. And this seems like a fraud: I mean, really, except for girls on street corners looking for johns, who acts this way?
But we are not frauds. We are not pretending cabaceo is our game; we are very self-consciously putting it on. This is vamping, not lying. Why a whole dance culture would want to model its invitation on this ... well, look where tango comes from. Why we would want to propagate that relation for our daughters and sons is another question, but one that prompts intellectual curiosity, not instinctive revulsion.
Is it the cheap romanticism? The Kodak-moment sentimentality? Getting warmer, I think.
Is it all the whining lately on TC Discuss, that has me in the mood to rant?
The stricture. Cabaceo is a rule. I don't like rules.
Hmmm.. That was all way too easy.
There's something else going on here, and I am going to figure it out...
Monday, December 17, 2007
A Few of My Favorite Christmas Books
I go on a hunt every year for the new Christmas books. My criteria: Not schmaltzy. I usually find one a year. Here are the last few years' worth:
A Christmas Journey, by Anne Perry.
In Victorian England, a snide comment ends in suicide. The lesson is expiation, restorative justice and tough-love forgiveness. What makes this book interesting is the undercurrent of the author's own story: she spent time in prison for her involvement in a murder prompted by youthful passion.
In the Land of Winter, by Richard Grant. A fable of magic and motherhood, complete with evil witch. Sweet and clueless wins the day. The writing is magic, too--not just the wordplay but the way the author sees and relates to things. Welcome to my world.
Whale Season, by NM Kelby. South Florida: kooks, trailer parks, cheap women, heartbreak, and no whales. By a former student of Carl Hiassen. Hilarity + heart.
My favorite scene:
On Christmas Eve, the down-and-out owner of a trailer park and a nut job who thinks he is Jesus play poker. The trailer park owner has lost everything. Riffling through his desk drawer he comes up with paper clips, pens, and...
"Raise," he says, inspired, and holds up a snack cake, its cellophane wrapper still intact. Two twin rolls of dark chocolate filled with white icing--and dusty.
Jesus looks at him with what Leon imagines to be a "moneylenders at the temple" kind of frown. "You're betting cake?" he says, incredulous.
Leon feels a bead of sweat roll down his spine.
Sell it, baby. Sell it, he thinks. "It's not just cake," he says and holds it in the palm of his hand oike one of those models he's seen on the home shopping channels, "it's devil's food."
The words hiss like a snake looking for a girl named Eve. I'm going directly to hell, Leon thinks...
Should you read these books?
I gave Michigan In the Land of Winter. I wouldn't say he hated it, but something like that. Sibling Two-of-Six read the poker scene, shrugged, handed the book back to me. She tells her kids: Half of what One Heart gives me I love, the other half makes no sense at all.
This year I am giving Two-of-Six The Uncommon Reader. From the jacket:
Queen Elizabeth II chases her runaway corgis into a mobile library and into the reflective, observant life of an avid reader. Guided by Norman, a former kitchen boy and enthusiast of gay authors, the queen gradually loses interest in her endless succession of official duties and learns the pleasure of such a common activity. ... Ultimately, it is her own growing self-awareness that leads her away from reading and toward writing, with astonishing results.
A Christmas Journey, by Anne Perry.
In Victorian England, a snide comment ends in suicide. The lesson is expiation, restorative justice and tough-love forgiveness. What makes this book interesting is the undercurrent of the author's own story: she spent time in prison for her involvement in a murder prompted by youthful passion.
In the Land of Winter, by Richard Grant. A fable of magic and motherhood, complete with evil witch. Sweet and clueless wins the day. The writing is magic, too--not just the wordplay but the way the author sees and relates to things. Welcome to my world.
Whale Season, by NM Kelby. South Florida: kooks, trailer parks, cheap women, heartbreak, and no whales. By a former student of Carl Hiassen. Hilarity + heart.
My favorite scene:
On Christmas Eve, the down-and-out owner of a trailer park and a nut job who thinks he is Jesus play poker. The trailer park owner has lost everything. Riffling through his desk drawer he comes up with paper clips, pens, and...
"Raise," he says, inspired, and holds up a snack cake, its cellophane wrapper still intact. Two twin rolls of dark chocolate filled with white icing--and dusty.
Jesus looks at him with what Leon imagines to be a "moneylenders at the temple" kind of frown. "You're betting cake?" he says, incredulous.
Leon feels a bead of sweat roll down his spine.
Sell it, baby. Sell it, he thinks. "It's not just cake," he says and holds it in the palm of his hand oike one of those models he's seen on the home shopping channels, "it's devil's food."
The words hiss like a snake looking for a girl named Eve. I'm going directly to hell, Leon thinks...
Should you read these books?
I gave Michigan In the Land of Winter. I wouldn't say he hated it, but something like that. Sibling Two-of-Six read the poker scene, shrugged, handed the book back to me. She tells her kids: Half of what One Heart gives me I love, the other half makes no sense at all.
This year I am giving Two-of-Six The Uncommon Reader. From the jacket:
Queen Elizabeth II chases her runaway corgis into a mobile library and into the reflective, observant life of an avid reader. Guided by Norman, a former kitchen boy and enthusiast of gay authors, the queen gradually loses interest in her endless succession of official duties and learns the pleasure of such a common activity. ... Ultimately, it is her own growing self-awareness that leads her away from reading and toward writing, with astonishing results.
A Few of My Favorite Things
Before the books, the song.
"A Few of My Favorite Things" is not a Christmas song! It wasn't a Christmas song in The Sound of Music, and playing it ad nauseum during the season doesn't make it so!
Besides that, it's creepy. Any grown woman whose favorite things include crisp apple strudle and schnitzel with noodles but not chocolate, wine or a goodnight kiss is ... well ... creepy.
If this were a theme song for a novel, the author would have to be Stephen King.
"A Few of My Favorite Things" is not a Christmas song! It wasn't a Christmas song in The Sound of Music, and playing it ad nauseum during the season doesn't make it so!
Besides that, it's creepy. Any grown woman whose favorite things include crisp apple strudle and schnitzel with noodles but not chocolate, wine or a goodnight kiss is ... well ... creepy.
If this were a theme song for a novel, the author would have to be Stephen King.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Father, Time and the Ice Queen
I am standing in front of my father, twirling in my gown. It is sparkly silver and shining white taffeta.
When I volunteered to work the Tango Colorado’s Christmas Party, the Snowball, they told me to wear silver and white.
Janice asked if I wanted to be a sexy, personable elf. Then I could wear a silly hat, too.
I am not sexy and I don’t like people, I told her.
Elizabeth offered me the role of elegant ice princess.
Hence the dress.
My father and I do not acknowledge the linearity of time. Everything that ever happened is happening now. All that was, is still. George Washington and his men at Valley Forge, Mother Teresa, Zeus. All present, all now.
How else that I can come home from tango, collapse on the couch, and still be dancing with a favorite lead? How else that I can feel the movement in my lungs and throat, feel my heart giddy, as I’m singing with Barbara? How else that I can be at rest in Lost Park with Keith, or at the beach on the brink of midnight with Michigan?
Keith likes to camp. He likes it because it is fun while it lasts and because he can relive the moments when his job gets boring. That’s what he calls it—reliving—because he is caught in the corporeal-temporal continuum.
My father and I are not saying corporeal time doesn’t exist. Night wears on. We are only saying that the linearity of time is a construct.
This is hard to explain. Back up and try again. Like rocking a car on ice.
Time and spirit exist in the ether. When they come to Earth, they must be “made flesh.” That is, they must be organized into corporeal units. Spirit is organized into people, time into moments. But while on Earth they take these forms, on the ethereal plane they continue to exist in their original state.
We experience time and people in the corporeal way. But the limits of our experience do not negate the ethereal existence of time and spirit.
What are creation stories but accounts of how the ethereal is reorganized into the material? One popular story describes how time was made sequential: He called the day day and the night night, and there was morning and evening on the first day.
Yes, this is becoming much more clear!
I would back up and try again, but at some point you have to admit the car is stuck.
Now my dad is old. Now my dad is sitting with me and my sisters as we read the parts of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I am so young I have to sound out the words; sibling Five-of-Six is so young she’s left out. (Six-of-Six has not been organized into a human unit yet.) We are all doing all that right this minute. Barbara right this minute is banging on her car with a stick because it won’t start. She is laughing maniacally. She is telling me I have fallen in love with Michigan before I actually have. Now I am in love with Michigan, now I love him dearly, now we are dear old friends. Right this minute is the night I discovered Walt Whitman. I am reading aloud, reading to the ethereal Walt, until the corporeal restakes its claim and dawn breaks:
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
I am twirling before my father, showing off my gown before I hem it up.
It would not be wise for me to dance in a floor-length gown. I would catch my heel in the hem. Best case, I would tear it. Worst case, I would take us down, the lead and I and possibly a passer-by, too. I am that much a clutz.
It’s a beautiful gown, but it will also be beautiful at cocktail length. I must hem it up, or I won’t be able to dance at the Snowball.
He is looking at me as a father might look at a daughter going to the prom. A little wonder, a little surprise, at this glimpse of a part of me he has suspected but never seen. Also, he loves the gown.
“That’s one of the few floor-length dresses I’ve seen that I like,” he says.
“Thanks a lot,” my mother says. “What about my gowns?”
My father is getting on in years. I spend lots of time with him now.
Why? If it’s all the ethereal Big Now, why bother?
My father and I do not acknowledge the linearity of time. Everything that has happened is happening still.
The key word is happened. My father and I don’t argue with the idea that, for experience to exist, it has to have happened. We only deny that it stops. Everything that has happened is happening still.
Whatever happens now, will keep on happening. I want lots of experiences to happen with my dad and me, so when our paths part we will always have that.
I know this for a fact: Earth is a corporeal game. The spirit, when it’s on Earth, has to play by corporeal rules. When spirits leave Earth, they exit the corporeal. The opportunity to create new experiences with them comes to a dead end.
My father is sitting under a blanket, shivering. He had chemo today.
He is admiring my gown. He is admiring my gown forever.
There is no way I am hemming this dress.
.
When I volunteered to work the Tango Colorado’s Christmas Party, the Snowball, they told me to wear silver and white.
Janice asked if I wanted to be a sexy, personable elf. Then I could wear a silly hat, too.
I am not sexy and I don’t like people, I told her.
Elizabeth offered me the role of elegant ice princess.
Hence the dress.
* * *
My father and I do not acknowledge the linearity of time. Everything that ever happened is happening now. All that was, is still. George Washington and his men at Valley Forge, Mother Teresa, Zeus. All present, all now.
How else that I can come home from tango, collapse on the couch, and still be dancing with a favorite lead? How else that I can feel the movement in my lungs and throat, feel my heart giddy, as I’m singing with Barbara? How else that I can be at rest in Lost Park with Keith, or at the beach on the brink of midnight with Michigan?
Keith likes to camp. He likes it because it is fun while it lasts and because he can relive the moments when his job gets boring. That’s what he calls it—reliving—because he is caught in the corporeal-temporal continuum.
My father and I are not saying corporeal time doesn’t exist. Night wears on. We are only saying that the linearity of time is a construct.
This is hard to explain. Back up and try again. Like rocking a car on ice.
Time and spirit exist in the ether. When they come to Earth, they must be “made flesh.” That is, they must be organized into corporeal units. Spirit is organized into people, time into moments. But while on Earth they take these forms, on the ethereal plane they continue to exist in their original state.
We experience time and people in the corporeal way. But the limits of our experience do not negate the ethereal existence of time and spirit.
What are creation stories but accounts of how the ethereal is reorganized into the material? One popular story describes how time was made sequential: He called the day day and the night night, and there was morning and evening on the first day.
Yes, this is becoming much more clear!
I would back up and try again, but at some point you have to admit the car is stuck.
* * *
Now my dad is old. Now my dad is sitting with me and my sisters as we read the parts of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I am so young I have to sound out the words; sibling Five-of-Six is so young she’s left out. (Six-of-Six has not been organized into a human unit yet.) We are all doing all that right this minute. Barbara right this minute is banging on her car with a stick because it won’t start. She is laughing maniacally. She is telling me I have fallen in love with Michigan before I actually have. Now I am in love with Michigan, now I love him dearly, now we are dear old friends. Right this minute is the night I discovered Walt Whitman. I am reading aloud, reading to the ethereal Walt, until the corporeal restakes its claim and dawn breaks:
There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.
* * *
I am twirling before my father, showing off my gown before I hem it up.
It would not be wise for me to dance in a floor-length gown. I would catch my heel in the hem. Best case, I would tear it. Worst case, I would take us down, the lead and I and possibly a passer-by, too. I am that much a clutz.
It’s a beautiful gown, but it will also be beautiful at cocktail length. I must hem it up, or I won’t be able to dance at the Snowball.
He is looking at me as a father might look at a daughter going to the prom. A little wonder, a little surprise, at this glimpse of a part of me he has suspected but never seen. Also, he loves the gown.
“That’s one of the few floor-length dresses I’ve seen that I like,” he says.
“Thanks a lot,” my mother says. “What about my gowns?”
* * *
My father is getting on in years. I spend lots of time with him now.
Why? If it’s all the ethereal Big Now, why bother?
My father and I do not acknowledge the linearity of time. Everything that has happened is happening still.
The key word is happened. My father and I don’t argue with the idea that, for experience to exist, it has to have happened. We only deny that it stops. Everything that has happened is happening still.
Whatever happens now, will keep on happening. I want lots of experiences to happen with my dad and me, so when our paths part we will always have that.
I know this for a fact: Earth is a corporeal game. The spirit, when it’s on Earth, has to play by corporeal rules. When spirits leave Earth, they exit the corporeal. The opportunity to create new experiences with them comes to a dead end.
* * *
My father is sitting under a blanket, shivering. He had chemo today.
He is admiring my gown. He is admiring my gown forever.
There is no way I am hemming this dress.
.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Cabaceo Practice: Chicago
Nina encourages us to cabaceo outside of tango, just for the practice…
In the Chicago airport, leaning against a wall, waiting for my flight. A woman walks by. She is old and short, with mussed hair. Four hundred flights were canceled yesterday, it’s possible she slept here last night.
She crosses through my line of vision, catches my eye, looks straight at me and keeps looking. She smiles big, says Hi! in the wide-open Midwestern way. Then she veers toward me.
This is what happens. My family calls me the Nut Magnet. Often these encounters prove interesting; often they don’t end well.
When you meet a nutjob, you have to open up all of your borders, but keep an eye out. They can’t meet you halfway. You have to go deep into their territory to meet them, because they can’t leave their own turf. Often they don’t know how to navigate even within their own territory, so you have to wander with them at will, bending sticks and leaving signs to mark the way out.
(Or: They can navigate perfectly well, but their lead is so idiosyncratic you can’t read it.)
I like marginal nutjobs. I am comfy on their turf, I find it easy to follow their lead. Their inner landscape is certainly interesting. But today I don’t have the energy for it. I have been very social for five days. I need isolation. I want to get on the plane and into my seat and close my eyes on the world.
She is veering toward me. I am trapped against the wall. There is nowhere to turn, and even if there were, I wouldn’t do it. You don’t turn away from a person who looks into your eyes, says Hi! in the wide-open Midwestern way. You don’t hurt the feelings of a person like that.
I let her veer toward me. I let her continue to look into my eyes. I smile back.
Happy and friendly, she approaches. Then her trajectory tilts a few degrees. She turns her head, not looking where she is going, to keep her eyes locked on mine, even as she steps past me, through the door of the ladies’ room, which I have failed to notice on my immediate right.
"Our flight is on time," offers a man who has come to stand beside me.
He is wearing a striped shirt wrinkled and untucked. His brown hair is mussed, hanging over his forehead. He lounges against the newstand, one arm propped on the NYT box.
Again with the Midwestern way: breezy and mussed, unself-conscious. Brimming with the confidence to strike up a friendly conversation.
When people say Americans flaunt rules, they are wrong. This guy is not flaunting the rules of etiquette. His rules are different, his etiquette is based on the assumption that people like people.
"Look at the boards," he says, gesturing with the straw sticking out of a cold drink cup. "We’re one of the only flights that’s on time."
He likes people. He thinks I like people, too.
Shit.
This woman’s hair is a mane, rich brown and dark gold, sliding down her back like rain.
She wears dark clothes, fitted pants, tall boots with high heels. Her bag is huge, but she carries no luggage. I can’t see them, but I bet her earrings are hoops. I bet her makeup is detailed and subtle.
It’s a dated look, but it speaks.
The flight attendant calls our group to board. Chicago must be the only airport where people actually wait their turn.
I move toward the line, behind a man in an exceptional coat. We wait.
The woman rises from her chair, peruses the line, chooses her place. She steps into the space between the coat and I. At first this is really annoying: am I invisible? And then I see something cool:
This woman has just demonstrated the first step of cabaceo, as David Hodgson explains it: She is putting herself in position to be noticed. Standing in line, she is using her body language. Restrained, very classy—but wasted. The coat wants nothing but to get onto the plane.
We walk down the jetway. There is a cargoman near the end of it, packing up strollers. He says hello to her. The captain greets her. She did not get a nod from the man in the coat, but she gets plenty of others.
But wait. When the coat steps into his row in first class, she passes by. Looks. He says hello.
Yes!
I like this woman. She is clear and subtle. Her appearance makes an obvious statement, but only her eyes deliver the message. She is not asking for anything, she is only making herself visible, inviting.
This woman is the killer app of cabaceo.
Gracias, I say to the busboy.
I say it softly because I am not confident of my pronunciation. Also I don’t want to appear precious in front of my friends. The Hispanic culture is less integrated in Chicago than in Denver.
The busboy glances my way. Nods.
Cabaceo.
There are two little girls in a stroller on the tram at DIA. One is one year old, the other is three.
It is a back-to-back stroller. The one-year-old is facing forward, into the door of the tram. The older girl faces me. She is only a few feet away. The mother is there, but it is the end of a long flight and on this tram ride she is taking a little time for herself.
The older child is looking around, mostly at people’s shoes and their bags. Sometimes she tilts her head to look at her mother, or at various hands where they rest on suitcases or purses, or hold onto the tram’s bars and poles.
I wiggle my fingers. Hello. She glances at me and away. She looks at her mother’s knees, then back at me and away. She does not look again. It is impossible to tell whether the trip has made her restless and dissatisfied, or people don’t interest her, or she is shy.
The baby cranes her neck to look at all the people around her. When her eye catches mine, she looks a long time, as if she doesn’t quite know what to make of it. I smile, but she doesn’t. She turns back to the door.
Mulling over the trip and what comes next, I stare at the floor, at the shoes, at people’s bags and their hands where they rest or hold on.
In the Chicago airport, leaning against a wall, waiting for my flight. A woman walks by. She is old and short, with mussed hair. Four hundred flights were canceled yesterday, it’s possible she slept here last night.
She crosses through my line of vision, catches my eye, looks straight at me and keeps looking. She smiles big, says Hi! in the wide-open Midwestern way. Then she veers toward me.
This is what happens. My family calls me the Nut Magnet. Often these encounters prove interesting; often they don’t end well.
When you meet a nutjob, you have to open up all of your borders, but keep an eye out. They can’t meet you halfway. You have to go deep into their territory to meet them, because they can’t leave their own turf. Often they don’t know how to navigate even within their own territory, so you have to wander with them at will, bending sticks and leaving signs to mark the way out.
(Or: They can navigate perfectly well, but their lead is so idiosyncratic you can’t read it.)
I like marginal nutjobs. I am comfy on their turf, I find it easy to follow their lead. Their inner landscape is certainly interesting. But today I don’t have the energy for it. I have been very social for five days. I need isolation. I want to get on the plane and into my seat and close my eyes on the world.
She is veering toward me. I am trapped against the wall. There is nowhere to turn, and even if there were, I wouldn’t do it. You don’t turn away from a person who looks into your eyes, says Hi! in the wide-open Midwestern way. You don’t hurt the feelings of a person like that.
I let her veer toward me. I let her continue to look into my eyes. I smile back.
Happy and friendly, she approaches. Then her trajectory tilts a few degrees. She turns her head, not looking where she is going, to keep her eyes locked on mine, even as she steps past me, through the door of the ladies’ room, which I have failed to notice on my immediate right.
* * *
"Our flight is on time," offers a man who has come to stand beside me.
He is wearing a striped shirt wrinkled and untucked. His brown hair is mussed, hanging over his forehead. He lounges against the newstand, one arm propped on the NYT box.
Again with the Midwestern way: breezy and mussed, unself-conscious. Brimming with the confidence to strike up a friendly conversation.
When people say Americans flaunt rules, they are wrong. This guy is not flaunting the rules of etiquette. His rules are different, his etiquette is based on the assumption that people like people.
"Look at the boards," he says, gesturing with the straw sticking out of a cold drink cup. "We’re one of the only flights that’s on time."
He likes people. He thinks I like people, too.
Shit.
* * *
This woman’s hair is a mane, rich brown and dark gold, sliding down her back like rain.
She wears dark clothes, fitted pants, tall boots with high heels. Her bag is huge, but she carries no luggage. I can’t see them, but I bet her earrings are hoops. I bet her makeup is detailed and subtle.
It’s a dated look, but it speaks.
The flight attendant calls our group to board. Chicago must be the only airport where people actually wait their turn.
I move toward the line, behind a man in an exceptional coat. We wait.
The woman rises from her chair, peruses the line, chooses her place. She steps into the space between the coat and I. At first this is really annoying: am I invisible? And then I see something cool:
This woman has just demonstrated the first step of cabaceo, as David Hodgson explains it: She is putting herself in position to be noticed. Standing in line, she is using her body language. Restrained, very classy—but wasted. The coat wants nothing but to get onto the plane.
We walk down the jetway. There is a cargoman near the end of it, packing up strollers. He says hello to her. The captain greets her. She did not get a nod from the man in the coat, but she gets plenty of others.
But wait. When the coat steps into his row in first class, she passes by. Looks. He says hello.
Yes!
I like this woman. She is clear and subtle. Her appearance makes an obvious statement, but only her eyes deliver the message. She is not asking for anything, she is only making herself visible, inviting.
This woman is the killer app of cabaceo.
* * *
Gracias, I say to the busboy.
I say it softly because I am not confident of my pronunciation. Also I don’t want to appear precious in front of my friends. The Hispanic culture is less integrated in Chicago than in Denver.
The busboy glances my way. Nods.
Cabaceo.
* * *
There are two little girls in a stroller on the tram at DIA. One is one year old, the other is three.
It is a back-to-back stroller. The one-year-old is facing forward, into the door of the tram. The older girl faces me. She is only a few feet away. The mother is there, but it is the end of a long flight and on this tram ride she is taking a little time for herself.
The older child is looking around, mostly at people’s shoes and their bags. Sometimes she tilts her head to look at her mother, or at various hands where they rest on suitcases or purses, or hold onto the tram’s bars and poles.
I wiggle my fingers. Hello. She glances at me and away. She looks at her mother’s knees, then back at me and away. She does not look again. It is impossible to tell whether the trip has made her restless and dissatisfied, or people don’t interest her, or she is shy.
The baby cranes her neck to look at all the people around her. When her eye catches mine, she looks a long time, as if she doesn’t quite know what to make of it. I smile, but she doesn’t. She turns back to the door.
Mulling over the trip and what comes next, I stare at the floor, at the shoes, at people’s bags and their hands where they rest or hold on.
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